Duty and Memory, companions holy,
Shared thy bleak solitude.
Cold touch of Memory, strong chill hand of Duty,
These held thee fast and ruled thee to the end,
Until, with smile mysterious in its beauty,
Came Death, rewarding friend.
Earth gave thee scanty cheer, but earth is ended,
Finished the years of thwarted sacrifice.
We see thee walking forward, well attended,
Led into Paradise!
Heaven is twice Heaven to one who, hungry-hearted,
Goes thither knowing no satisfaction here;
And when we thank the Lord for those departed
In this sure faith and fear,
We think of thee, lonely no more forever,
And tasting, while the eternal years unroll,
That joy of Heaven, which like a flowing river
Satisfies every soul.
END AND MEANS.
WE spend our strength in labor day by day,
We find new strength replacing old alway;
And still we cheat ourselves, and still we say:
“No man would work except to win some prize;
We work to turn our hopes to certainties—
For gold, or gear, or favor in men’s eyes.”
And all the while the goal toward which we strain—
Up hill and down, in sunshine and in rain,
Heedless of toil, if so we may attain—
Is but a lure, a heavenly-set decoy
To exercised endeavor, full employ
Of every power, which is man’s highest joy.
And work becomes the end, reward the means,
To woo us from our idleness and dreams;
And each is truly what the other seems.
So, Lord, with such poor service as we do,
Thy full salvation is our prize in view,
For which we long, and which we press unto.
Like a great star on which we fix our eyes,
It dazzles from the high, blue distances,
And seems to beckon and to say, “Arise!”
And we arise and follow the hard way,
Winning a little nearer day by day,
Our hearts going faster than our footsteps may;
And never guess the secret sweet device
Which lures us on and upward to the skies,
And makes each toil its own reward and prize.
To give our little selves to thee, to blend
Our weakness with thy strength, O Lord our Friend,
This is life’s truest privilege and end.
COMFORTED.
THE last sweet flowers are dying,
The last green leaves are red;
The wild geese southward flying,
By law mysterious led,
Scream noisily o’erhead;
The honey-bees have hived them,
The butterflies have shrived them;
All hushed the song and twitter
And flutter of glad wing;—
How could we bear the autumn
If t’were not for the spring?
To see the summer banished,
Nor dare to bid her stay;
To mourn o’er beauty vanished
And joyance driven away;
To mark the shortening day;
To note the sad winds plaining,
The storm cloud and the raining;
To see the frost lance stabbing
Each faint and wounded thing;—
Oh, we should hate the autumn
Excepting for the spring!
To know that life is failing
And pulses beating slow;
To catch the unavailing
Sad monotones of woe
All the earth over go;
To know that snows must cover
The grave of friend and lover,
To hide them from the eyes and hands
That still caress and cling;—
The heart would break in autumn
If there were not a spring!
For every sleep a waking,
For every shade a sun,
A balm for each heart breaking,
A rest for labor done,
A life by death begun;
And so in wintry weather,
With smile and sigh together,
We look beyond the present pain,
The daily loss and sting,
And welcome in the autumn
For the sure hope of spring.
WORDS.
A LITTLE, tender word,
Wrapped in a little rhyme,
Sent out upon the passing air,
As seeds are scattered everywhere
In the sweet summer-time.
A little, idle word,
Breathed in an idle hour;
Between two laughs that word was said,
Forgotten as soon as uttered,
And yet the word had power.
Away they sped, the words:
One, like a wingèd seed,
Lit on a soul which gave it room,
And straight began to bud and bloom