The heart that feels a father's love
And swells with love's return,
Will kindly bear this overflow
Toward my only son.
Yes, Sidney's love so blent with mine,
A poem shall employ--
A token left to coming time
That father loved his boy.
One gentle vine--thy tendrils sweet
Around my soul entwine;
A comfort left in sorrows deep,
One heart to beat with mine.
Thy life has dawned in peril's day.
Mid wars that heaven shake;
Thy summers five, eventful, they
Like surges o'er thee break.
Thy little soul has felt the shock
Of burning Babel's fall,
When hell recoiled in fury black
And stood in dread appal.
But wreaking out his vengeance now,
Like ocean's terror dark,
Hell's monster came athwart the bow
Of our domestic bark.
Thy guardian angel wept to see
This brunt of fury sweep
The girdings of maternity
From underneath thy feet.
But pity still her garland weaves
Around thy gentle brow,
And angels on thee softly breathe
Their benedictions now.
They soothe and bless thy manly heart,
And wipe away thy tears;
So tempered to thy bitter lot,
The bitter sweet appears.
An exile now is each to each,
As banished far at sea;
A martyr on his island beach,
I daily think of thee.
And stronger love has seldom spanned
The mocking billows wild,
Than are the chords that ever bind
To my beloved child.
Though sundered not by angry main,
Compelled from thine embrace,
We flee abroad in Jesus' name
To publish Heaven's grace.
Thy little heart can not divine
Why Papa stays away,
But coming years will tell, if thine,
The great necessity.
When sickness crushed thy little form,
I knew my boy was ill;
I heard thee in my visions call,
But duty kept me still.
A trial deep, to feel thy pain,
And yet debarred from thee,
To show that sinners lost are in
A greater misery.
Oh, may this lesson speak to thee
When Father's work is done!
And highest may thy glory be,
A soul for God is won.
And now, my son, attentive hear
My benediction-prayer,
And ever tune thy heart and ear
To heaven's music rare;
For ere the light of day had shone
In thy unfolding eyes,
We gave thee up to God alone,
A living sacrifice;
And oft repeated when a babe,
To God our child was given;
And Jesus heard the vow we made,
And wrote it down in heaven.
So, like a little Samuel, you
Must answer, "Here am I";
Give all your heart to Jesus, too,
For him to live and die.
Like Samuel, serve the living God,
His temple be thy home;
In love obey his holy Word,
Thy gentle heart his throne.
The Lord is good, my darling boy;
He made thy body well,
And he will bless thee evermore,
If in his love you dwell.
A new edition may you be
Of Father's love and zeal,
But yet enlarged so wondrously
That earth thy tread may feel.
The poem Throwing Ink at the Devil, refers to the printing and
publishing of the Gospel Trumpet. The place "where two lightning
tracks lie crossing" is Grand Junction, Mich., where the publishing
office was then located.
At Wartburg Castle sat a son of thunder
Dealing heaven's dynamite,
When, lo! before him 'peared an apparition,
Fury-threatening demon sight.
The piercing words of truth, so long besmothered
Flashed the burning wrath upon
The devil's patent monk and pope religion,
Which confronts the dread reform.
* * * * *
Before the dauntless, lion-hearted Luther
Forth the hellish monster stood,
Drawn from his prison by the scattering theses
'Gainst the Romish viper brood.
He lifted up his eyebrows knit with thunder,
To the hellish specter said,
With stern address, "Du bist der wahre Teufel!"--
Hurls an inkstand at his head.
The doctor's splattering missile, proving potent,
Drove old Satan from his door;
But ink he threw on paper at the devil
Battered down his kingdom more.
* * * * *
Not now, as did the sturdy Wittenberger
Fling an inkstand at the foe,
But by the mighty force of steam, much faster
We the battle-ink can throw.
Just at a point where lightning tracks lie crossing,
Northward, southward, east, and west,
The Lord has planted his revolving cannon,
Firing ink at Satan's crest.
* * * * *
Not only toward the main forewinds of heaven
Sin-consuming ink is shot,
But right and left in force, 'tis outward given,
Striking sin in every spot.
When round "Mansoul" Immanuel plants his army,
To retake the famous town,
On "eye-gate" hill he plants this mighty engine,
Till surrendered to his crown.
If chance a pilgrim's shield of faith is drooping,
And his heart with fear oppressed,
Then comes the ink-winged angel, trumpet sounding,
And his soul anew is blessed.