AN EASTER SONG.
WE bore to see the summer go;
We bore to see the ruthless wind
Beat all the golden leaves and red
In drifting masses to and fro,
Till not a leaf remained behind;
We faced the winter’s frown, and said,
“There comes reward for all our pain,
For every loss there comes a gain;
And spring, which never failed us yet,
Out of the snow-drift and the ice
Shall some day bring the violet.”
We bore—what could we do but bear?—
To see youth perish in its prime,
And hope grow faint, and joyance grieved,
And dreams all vanish in thin air,
And beauty, at the touch of time,
Become a memory, half believed;
Still we could smile, and still we said,
“Hope, joy, and beauty are not dead;
God’s angel guards them all and sees—
Close by the grave he sits and waits—
There comes a spring for even these.”
We bore to see dear faces pale,
Dear voices falter, smiles grow wan,
And life ebb like a tide at sea,
Till underneath the misty veil
Our best belovèd, one by one,
Vanished and parted silently.
We stayed without, but still could say,
“Grief’s winter dureth not alway;
Who sleep in Christ with Christ shall rise.
We wait our Easter morn in tears,
They in the smile of Paradise.”
O thought of healing, word of strength!
O light to lighten darkest way!
O saving help and balm of ill!
For all our dead shall dawn at length
A slowly broadening Easter Day,
A Resurrection calm and still.
The little sleep will not seem long,
The silence shall break out in song,
The sealèd eyes shall ope,—and then
We who have waited patiently
Shall live and have our own again.
CONCORD.
MAY 31, 1882.
“FARTHER horizons every year!”
Oh, tossing pines which surge and wave
Above the poet’s just made grave,
And waken for his sleeping ear
The music that he loved to hear,
Through summer’s sun and winter’s chill,
With purpose stanch and dauntless will,
Sped by a noble discontent,
You climb toward the blue firmament,—
Climb as the winds climb, mounting high
The viewless ladders of the sky;
Spurning our lower atmosphere,
Heavy with sighs and dense with night,
And urging upward year by year
To ampler air, diviner light.
“Farther horizons every year!”
Beneath you pass the tribes of men,
Your gracious boughs o’ershadow them;
You hear, but do not seem to heed
Their jarring speech, their faulty creed.
Your roots are firmly set in soil
Won from their humming paths of toil;
Content their lives to watch and share,
To serve them, shelter, and upbear,
Yet bent to win an upward way
And larger gift of heaven than they,
Benignant view and attitude,
Close knowledge of celestial sign,
Still working for all earthly good
While pressing on to the Divine.
“Farther horizons every year!”
So he, by reverent hands just laid
Beneath your boughs of wavering shade,
Climbed as you climb the upward way,
Knowing not boundary or stay.
His eyes surcharged with heavenly lights,
His senses steeped in heavenly sights,
His soul attuned to heavenly keys,
How should he pause for rest and ease,
Or turn his wingèd feet again,
To share the common feasts of men?
He blessed them with his word and smile,
But still, above their fickle moods,
Wooing, constraining him awhile,
Beckoned the shining altitudes.
“Farther horizons every year!”
To what immeasurable height,
What clear irradiance of light,
What far and all-transcendent goal
Hast thou now risen, O steadfast soul!
We may not follow with our eyes
To where thy farther pathway lies,
Nor guess what vision vast and free
God keeps in store for souls like thee.
But still the pines that bend and wave
Their boughs above thy honored grave
Shall be thy emblem brave and fit,
Firm-rooted in the stalwart sod,
Blessing the earth while spurning it,
Content with nothing short of God.