A lamb without a sheltering fold,
A vine with no supporting tree,
A blossom blighted by the cold,--
The warmth of kindly atmospheres
Gave to my life no quickened start;
Love’s sunshine melted not to tears
The drifted sorrows of my heart.
Fresh from the innocence of youth,
I entered on the rude world’s strife,
But evermore this venomed tooth
Was gnawing at the root of life.
O, I was but a thing of dust!
And what should save me from my fall?
The tempter whispered, “Lawless lust
Is better than no love at all!”
Then with a flinty face I turned,
Defiant of the social ban,
For my poor, famished nature yearned
For e’en such sympathy from man.
But no! I heard, as from above,
This truth that many learn too late,
That man’s unhallowed, selfish love,
Is far more cruel than his hate.
I shrank from Passion’s burning breath,
Those sensuous lips and eyes of flame,
And from that furnace fire of death
My outraged heart unblemished came.
But darker, deeper grew the night
That closed around my suffering soul,
And Fate’s black billows, flecked with white,
O’er all my being seemed to roll.
At length, within a maniac’s cell,
I moaned and muttered day by day,
Till, like a loathsome thing, I fell
From human consciousness away.
That nightmare dream of life was brief,
For horror choked my struggling breath,
And my poor heart, with love and grief,
Was famished even unto death.
Unconscious of my spirit’s change,
Long did I linger near the earth,
Until a being, kind, though strange,
Recalled me to my conscious worth.
From thence I seemed to be transformed,
Renewed as by redeeming grace,
And then my soul the purpose formed--
To seek “the Saviour of the race.”
My aspirations served to bear
My earnest spirit swift away,
Until a heaven, serene and fair,
My onward progress seemed to stay.
I came where two immortals trod,
In friendly converse, side by side;
“O, lead me to the Son of God,
That I may worship him!” I cried.
One turned--and from his aspect mild
A benison of love was shed--
“O, say, whom do you seek, dear child?
We all are sons of God,” he said.
“Nay, nay!” I cried, “not such I mean!
But him who died on Calvary--
The humble-hearted Nazarene!”
He meekly answered, “_I am he!_”
“O, then, as sinful Mary knelt,
In tearful sorrow, at thy feet,
So does my icy nature melt,
And her sweet reverence I repeat.
O God! O Christ! O Living All!
‘Thou art the Life, the Truth, the Way’;
Lo! at thy feet I humbly fall--
Cast not my sinful soul away!”
“Poor bleeding heart! poor wounded dove!”
In tones of gentleness, he said:
“How hast thou famished for that love
Which is indeed ‘the living bread.’
Kneel not to me; the Power Divine,
Than I, is greater, mightier far;
His glories lesser lights outshine,
As noonday hides the brightest star.”
“You died for all the world!” I cried,
“And therefore do I bend the knee.”
“My friend,”[3] he answered, “at my side,
Long ere I suffered, died for me.
He drained for man the poisoned cup,
I gave my body to the cross,
But when the sum is counted up,
Great is our gain, and small our loss.
“Not thus would I be deified,
Or claim the homage that men pay;
But he who takes me for his guide,
Makes me his Life, his Truth, his Way.
O, heaven shall not descend to man,
Nor man ascend to heaven above,
Till he shall see Salvation’s plan
Is written in the law of love.
“Dear sister! let your fears depart--
I have no power to bid you live,
But I can feed your famished heart
Upon the love I freely give.
Mine are the hearts that men condemn,
Or crush in their ambitious strife,
And through my love I am to them
‘The Resurrection and the Life.’”
He raised me gently from his feet,
And laid my head upon his breast.
O God! how calm, how pure and sweet,
How more than peaceful was that rest!
I feel that blesséd presence yet--
It fills me with a joy serene--
Nor have I hungered since I met
The gentle-hearted Nazarene.
THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.
The following poem, given under the inspiration of Mrs. Hemans, is
a reversion of the ideas contained in a poem composed by her in
earth life, entitled “The Hour of Death.”
“Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath,
And stars to set--but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!”
LEAVES have their glad recall,
And blossoms open to the South wind’s breath,
And stars that set shall rise again, for all,
All things shall triumph o’er the Spoiler--Death.
Day was not made for care--
Eve brings bright angels to the joyous hearth--
Night comes with dreams of peace, and visions fair
Of those whom Death could conquer not on earth.
When, in the festive hour,
Death mingles poison with the ruby wine,
Life also comes with overwhelming power,
Changing the deadly draught to life divine.
Youth and the opening rose
May vanish from the outward sight away,
But Life their inward beauty shall disclose,
And rob the haughty Spoiler of his prey.
Leaves have their glad recall,
And blossoms open to the South wind’s breath,
And stars that set shall rise again, for all,
All things shall triumph o’er the Spoiler--Death.
We know that yet again
Our loved and lost shall cross the Summer sea,
Bearing with them the sheaves of golden grain,
Which they have harvested, O Life! with thee.
Thy breath is in the gale
Whose kiss unseals the violet’s azure eye;
And though the roses in our path grow pale,
We know that all things change, they do not die.
Wherever man may roam,
Thy presence, viewless as the Summer air,
Meets him abroad, or in his peaceful home,
And when Death calls him forth, thou, too, art there.
Thou art where soul meets soul,
Or where earth’s noblest fall in battle strife;
But Death, the Spoiler, yields to thy control;
Forevermore thou art the conqueror, Life.
Leaves have their glad recall,
And blossoms open to the South wind’s breath,
And stars that set shall rise again, for all,
All things shall triumph o’er the Spoiler--Death.
REFORMERS.
WHERE have the world’s great heroes gone,
The champions of the Right,
Who, with their armor girded on,
Have passed beyond our sight?
Are they where palms immortal wave,
And laurels crown the brow?
Or was the victory thine, O Grave?
Where are they? Answer thou.
We shudder at the silence dread,
That renders no reply--
O, dust! from whence the soul hath fled,
Thou canst not hear our cry.
The violet, o’er their mouldering clay,
Looks meekly from the sod,
But tells not of the hidden way
Their angel feet have trod.
Where are they, Death? thou mighty one!
To some far land unknown,
Beyond the stars, beyond the sun,
Have their bright spirits flown?
Their hearts were strong through Truth and Right,
Life’s stormy tide to stem.
O Death! thou conqueror of might!
What need hadst thou of them?
The earth is green with martyrs’ graves,
On hill, and plain, and shore,
And the great ocean’s sounding waves
Sweep over thousands more.
For us they drained life’s bitter cup,
And dared the battle strife;
Where are they, Death? O, render up
The secret of their life!
We listen--to our earnest cries
No answer is made known,
Save the “Resurgam”--I _shall_ rise!
Carved on the burial stone.
O Grave! O Death! thou canst not keep
The spark of Life Divine;
They have no need of rest or sleep;
Nay, Death, they are not thine!
Where are they? O Creative Soul!
To whom no name is given,
Whose presence fills the boundless whole,
Whose love alone is heaven,
Through all the long, eternal hours
What toils do they pursue?
Are their great souls still linked with ours,
To suffer and to do?
Lo! how the viewless air around
With quickening life is stirred,
And from the silences profound
Leaps forth the answering word,
“We live--not in some distant sphere
Life’s mission to fulfill;
But, joined with faithful spirits here,
We love and labor still.
No laurel wreath, no waving palm,
No royal robes are ours,
But evermore, serene and calm,
We use life’s noblest powers.
Toil on in hope, and bravely bear
The burdens of your lot;
Great, earnest souls your labors share;
They will forsake you not.”
MR. DE SPLAE.
IT may seem a strange question, good people, but say,
Did you never hear tell of one Mr. De Splae?
A man who made up for the lack of good sense
By a wondrous amount of mere show and pretense;
Puffed up with conceit like an airy balloon,
He was hard to approach as the “man in the moon,”
Save when for some _purpose_ it came in his way,
And then, O how gracious was Mr. De Splae!
A sly politician, a popular man,
When all things went smoothly he marshaled the van;
But when there was aught like a failure to fear,
He quickly deserted or fell to the rear.
His speech for the people went “gayly and glib,”
While he drew his support from the National crib;
But when an assessment or tax was to pay,
O, how outraged and angry was Mr. De Splae!
He smoked, and he chewed, and he drank, and he swore;
But then every man whom the ladies adore,
Is prone to these failings--some more and some less,
Which are all overlooked in a man of address.
It also was whispered that he had betrayed
The too trusting faith of an innocent maid;
But the ladies all blamed _her_ for going astray,
While they pardoned and petted--“dear Mr. De Splae.”
There was good Mr. Honest, who lived but next door,
He was true, and substantial, and sound to the core;
He had made it the rule of his life, from his youth,
To shun all evasions and speak the plain truth;
But _the ladies_--who always are judges, you know,
Declared him to be a detestable beau--
Not worthy of mention within the same day,
With that _pink of perfection_--“dear Mr. De Splae.”
Withal he was pious--perhaps you will smile,
And ask how he happened the church to beguile;
Why, the churches accept men for better or worse,
If there’s only a plenty of cash in the purse.
Gold still buys remission as freely and fast,
As it did in the Catholic Church in the past.
’Tis the same thing right over, and that was the way,
That the church swallowed smoothly “_good_ Mr. De Splae.”
O, you ought to have heard him when leading in prayer!
How he flattered the Father of All for his care,
And confessed he was sinful a thousand times o’er,
Which ’twas morally certain the Lord knew before.
The ladies responded in sweet little sighs,
With their elegant handkerchiefs pressed to their eyes,
But the pure, unseen spirits turned sadly away
From the loud-mouthed devotions of Mr. De Splae.
O, short-sighted mortal! Poor Mr. De Splae!
His mask of deception was molded in clay,
And when his external in death was let fall,
What he was, without seeming, was known unto all.
His garment of patches--his flimsy disguise--
Which had won him distinction in other men’s eyes,
Was “changed in a twinkling”--ay, vanished away,
Leaving nothing to boast of to Mr. De Splae.
Ah, a great reputation, a title, or name,
Oft brings its possessor to sorrow and shame;
But a _character_, founded in goodness and worth,
Outlasts all the perishing glories of earth.
O’er the frailties of nature, and changes of time,
It rises majestic, in beauty sublime,
Till the weak and faint-hearted are cheered by its ray,
Far above all mere seeming and empty display.
WILL IT PAY?
Men may say what they will
Of the Author of Ill,
And the wiles of the Devil that tempt them astray,
But there’s something far worse--
A more terrible curse--
It is selling the Truth for the sake of the pay.
Like Judas of old,
For silver or gold,
Man often has bartered his conscience away,
Has walked in disguise,
And has trafficked in lies,
If the prospect was good that the business would pay.
If a fortune is made
By cheating in trade,
It is seldom, if ever, men question the way;
But they make it a rule
That a man is a fool
Who strives to make justice and honesty pay.
An instance more clear
Could never appear,
Than was seen in the life of old Nicholas Gray,
Who ne’er made a move,
In religion or love,
Unless he was sure that the venture would pay.
He built him a house
That would scarce hold a mouse,
Where he managed to live in a miserly way,
Till he said, “On my life,
I will take me a wife;
It is running a risk--but I think it will pay.”
Then he opened a store,
Whose fair, tempting door,
Led sure and direct to destruction’s broad way.
For liquor he sold,
To the young and the old,
To the poor and the wretched, and all who could pay.
A woman once came,
And in God’s holy name,
She prayed him his terrible traffic to stay,
That her husband might not
Be a poor drunken sot,
And spend all his wages for what would not pay.
Old Nicholas laughed,
As his whisky he quaffed,
And he said, “If your husband comes hither to-day,
I will sell him his dram,
And I don’t care a--clam
How _you_ are supported if _I_ get my pay.”
So he prospered in sin,
And continued to win
The wages of death in this terrible way,
Till a Constable’s raid
Put an end to his trade,
And closed up his business as well as the pay.
To church he then went,
With a pious intent
Of “getting religion”--as some people say--
For he said, “It comes cheap,
And costs nothing to keep,
And from close observation I think it will pay.”
But the tax and the tithe
Made old Nicholas writhe,
And he thought that “the plate” came too often his way;
So he soon fell from grace,
And made vacant his place,
For he said, “I perceive that religion don’t pay.”
Still striving to thrive,
And thriving to strive,
His attention was turned a political way;
But he could not decide
Which party or side
Would be the most likely to prosper or pay.
He was puzzled, and hence
He sat on the fence,
Prepared in an instant to jump either way;
But it fell to his fate
To jump just too late,
And he said in disgust, “This of _all_ things don’t pay.”
Year passed after year,
And there did not appear
A spark of improvement in Nicholas Gray,
For his morals grew worse
With the weight of his purse,
As he managed to make his rascality pay.
At length he fell ill;
So he drew up his will,
Just in time to depart from his mansion of clay,
And he said to old Death,
With his last gasp of breath,
“Don’t hunt for my soul, for I know it won’t pay.”
O, ’tis sad to rehearse,
In prose or in verse,
The faults and the follies that lead men astray.
For gold is but dross,
And a terrible loss,
When conscience and manhood are given in pay.
Then be not deceived,
Though men have believed
That ’tis lawful to sin in a general way,
But stick to the right
With all of your might,
For Truth is eternal, and always will pay.
THE LIVING WORD.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God.”
“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt _in men_.”
ETERNAL, Self-existent Soul!
From whom Life’s issues take their start,
Thou art the undivided Whole,
Of whom each creature forms a part.
Thy boundless being’s distant reach,
Our finite vision may not see,
But this we know, that each with each,
We live and move alone in Thee.
“In the beginning was the Word”--
The Word, as present now, as then,
Which, in the heart of Nature, stirred
“The Life which was the light of men.”
Through Chaos and Confusion’s night
Streamed forth the light of Love divine,
And lit along Creation’s hight,
Unnumbered fires in glittering line.
Earth’s fiery heart, with battle shocks,
Beat fiercely in her granite breast,
Leaving on scarred and blackened rocks
The record of her wild unrest.
Rich ores in molten currents swept--
Like fire within her veins they ran--
While in the womb of Nature slept
The embryo prophecy of man.
Down deep, the elements, like gnomes,
Beside their flaming forges wrought,
To fashion shapes, and future homes
For the embodiment of Thought.
The wild winds roared--the raging floods
Tossed their defiant waves on high,
While from the old, primeval woods,
The chorus thundered to the sky.
The broadcast, wondrous Encrinites
Opened their breathing lily bells,
While Ammonites and Trilobites
Paved pathless spaces with their shells.
The coral Polyp, ’neath the wave,
Wrought in the great progressive plan,
By which the lesser creature’s grave
Built up the future home of man.
The slumbering Iguanodon[4]
Lay reeking in mephitic damp--
The Mylodon and Mastodon
Startled the forests with their tramp.
Gigantic ferns, like feathery palms,
Nodded in silence to the trees,
Whose royal crests and stalwart arms
Tossed like the waves of stormy seas.
Thus on, still on the current rolled--
The light of countless mornings shone;
And radiant sunsets robed in gold,
Swept down the gulfs of years unknown.
At length, with beasts, and birds, and flowers,
Creation seemed a perfect whole;
Then God and Nature joined their powers,
And man became a living soul.
O Mother Nature! Father God!
How wondrous is the work we trace!
Man fashioned from the senseless clod,
Yet filled with life’s divinest grace.
Nor is that form of earthly mold
The limit of his life to be;
Forth from the mortal will unfold
The germ of immortality.
For even as through countless throes,
And travail pains, the mighty plan
Of God in Nature slowly rose,
To consummate its aims in man,
Thus onward still the current rolls,
The spirit with the flesh at strife,
Until, at length, all living souls
Are quickened from the inmost life.
Across the broad, unfathomed sea,
That breaks upon the shores of time,
The promise of the _yet to be_
Comes like a prophecy sublime.
The purple gloom, that like a veil
Rests on that ever swelling tide,
Full oft reveals a friendly sail,
With tidings from the further side.
O soul of man! to conscious power
From elements of death outwrought,
The Living Word forecast thine hour,
And found the dwelling-place it sought.
High in the heavens forevermore,
The stars of truth eternal shine;
Sail on, O man, from shore to shore;
The power that guides thee is divine.
In the beginning was the Word--
The Word as present now as then--
And by its quickening power is stirred
New life within the souls of men.
Thus on, still on, the current rolls,
Through daisies blooming on the sod,
Through creeping things, though living souls,
Through “quickened spirits” up to God.
HYMN TO THE SUN.
O FOUNTAIN of beauty, of gladness and light,
Whose pathway is set in the infinite hight,
Whose light hath no shadow, whose day hath no night!
We know not thy birthplace, O wonderful one!
We count not the ages through which thou hast run,
But we render thee praises, O life-giving Sun.
All day the glad Earth in thy loving embrace,
Arrayed by thy bounty in garments of grace,
Lifts up to thy glances her beautiful face.
And at night, when her children need silence and rest,
With the light of her starry-eyed sisterhood blest,
She sleeps like a bride on thy cherishing breast.
When the skylark springs up at the coming of morn,
When the golden fringed curtains of night are withdrawn,
Then blushing with beauty the day is new born.
And the pulses of Nature in harmony bound,
To the waves of thy glory which move without sound,
And sweep unimpeded through spaces profound.
Ay, the life-tide that leaps in the bird or the flower--
The rainbow that gleams through the drops of the shower--
O wonderful artist! are born of thy power.
And the rush of the whirlwind, the roar of the deep,
The cataract’s thunder, the avalanche-sweep,
Are thy forces majestic, aroused from their sleep.
Shall we wonder, that filled with devotion untold,
The awe-stricken Parsee adored thee of old,
Nor dreamed that One greater thy glory controlled?
And He, the Eternal, the Ancient of Days--
Whose splendors are veiled by inscrutable ways--
Did he frown on such blindness, or envy thee praise?
O Sun! in the light of whose presence we see,
We ask,--canst thou tell us?--what caused us to be?
And how are we linked to creation and thee?
We must perish--but thou, by thy wonderful powers,
Wilt rescue from darkness these bodies of ours,
And fashion them over to verdure and flowers.
But the jewel of beauty in life’s golden bowl--
O, answer us--say--dost thou also control
That Infinite Essence, the life of the soul?
There is doubt, there is darkness and fear in our cry:
Dost thou drink up the pearl of our lives when we die?
We listen--but silence alone makes reply.
It is well--for our spirits may know by the sign,
That a might hath evoked thee far greater than thine,
And we must seek Truth at life’s innermost shrine.
That Centre of Being, transcending all thought,
Whose might hath perfection of beauty outwrought,
Returns the great answer of peace which we sought.
And we know, when the race of the planets is run,
And the day shall no longer behold thee, O Sun!
Our souls shall find light with that Infinite One.
O Source of all Being! whose name everywhere
Is sung in hosannas, or murmured in prayer,
We trust, unreserving, our souls to thy care.
GREATHEART AND GIANT DESPAIR.
“Then said Mr. Greatheart, ‘I have a commandment to resist sin, to
overcome evil, to fight the good fight of faith; and I pray, with
whom should I fight this good fight, if not with Giant Despair?’
“Now Giant Despair, because he was a giant, thought no man could
overcome him; and again thought he, ‘Since heretofore I have made a
conquest of angels, shall Greatheart make me afraid?’ So he
harnessed himself and went out. Then they fought for their lives,
and Giant Despair was brought to the ground, but was loth to die.
He struggled hard, and had, as they say, as many lives as a cat;
but Greatheart was his death, for he left him not till he had
severed his head from his shoulders.”
BUNYAN’S PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.
HAVE you heard of that marvelous story,
That wonderful romance of old,
The story of Christian, the pilgrim,
So quaintly and earnestly told?
’Tis a curious dream, with a beautiful gleam
Of light through its mystery thrown;
’Tis a picture of life, where the Soul in its strife
With the demons of darkness is shown.
Nor yet have the indolent ages
Its mystical meaning outgrown.
Dark threads from the loom of old Error
Are shot through its fabric of light,
Yet its blendings of Beauty and Terror
Are wrought with a masterly might.
The gleam and the glare of Destruction are there,
With demons the soul to appall;
And the pitfalls of Death, with their sulphurous breath,
Where the weak and unwary must fall.
But, ah! shall we call these mere fancies?
Life yet hath a meaning for all.
And there in that wonderful region,
With battlements blackened and bare,
To the sorrow of Hopeful and Christian,
Stood the Castle of Giant Despair;
For they ventured to stray in a perilous way,
Where the Giant was searching about,
Who seized on these men, and into a den,
’Neath his gloomy old Castle of Doubt,
He thrust the poor sorrowful pilgrims,
’Neath that dismal old Castle of Doubt.
It was said that he came “with a cudgel,”
And he beat them from day to day,
Till they chanced on “The Key of Promise,”
When they fled from his wrath away.
Then with friendly design they made ready a sign,
And they placed it with pious care
O’er the perilous way where they went astray,
That pilgrims might ever beware
Of the dangers of Doubting Castle,
And the wrath of old Giant Despair.
Thereafter came Greatheart the valiant,
Unrivaled in courage and might,
The friend of the weak and defenseless,
Who had pledged his good sword to the Right.
There, boldly defiant, he challenged the Giant
From his stronghold of Death to come out;
And Giant Despair, with an insolent air,
Looked down from the Castle of Doubt,
And cried, “I will slay thee, vile braggart,
And put all thy forces to rout.”
Then in haste he came down from his Castle,
With his terrible breastplate of fire,
And straight upon Greatheart the valiant,
He rushed with impetuous ire.
But nothing dismayed, with his keen, trusty blade
Greatheart smote the old Giant amain,
Firm, fearless, and fast, until vanquished at last,
He struggled and died on the plain.
Yet ’tis said, that far down in the ages,
He came to existence again.
Do you deem this an idle old story,
Dragged out from the dust of the Past?
Alas! though so time-worn and hoary,
Its truths in the Present stand fast.
High up in the air, all blackened and bare,
Still rises the Castle of Doubt,
And the Giant, I trow, should you seek for him now,
You would find him still prowling about;
And the souls who go in to his Castle,
Are more than the souls who come out.
With the cudgel of Old Tradition,
Does he beat them from day to day,
And he carefully hides from their vision
The Light of the Present away.
The angels above, with compassionate love,
A plan for their rescue devise;
But the Giant cries out from his Castle of Doubt,
“Beware of delusion and lies!”
So they shrink back again to their prison,
And fear through the Truth to grow wise.