What worth had virtue, if life were reckoned,
With matter's glimmering spark as checked?
Thou first Gustavus! Thou Great, the second!
Thou free and valiant Engelbrekt!
And all ye sage,
And ye tender hearted,
Extolled an age—
Or forgot departed!
What worth had wisdom and heart and fame,
If but the graveyard had been your aim?
What worth had honor, whose voice imposes:
For love of duty your life to spend,—
If on the favors, foul mob disposes
By fouler leaders, she did depend?
Now beam her features
With peace depicted,
Though time's mere creatures
A sigh inflicted;
For dust of time cannot soil that street
Of starry splendor, where move her feet.
What worth had happiness, joy and gladness,
Those links of love in its purest scope,
If, when they sever, in gloomy sadness,
You could not join them by rays of hope?
What then were life?
But a mental stigma,
An empty strife,
An unsolved enigma!
A heartless, cruel, Uriah note,
Which God, in anger, for mankind wrote.
A hoary Jacob his Joseph loses,
And Jonathan from his David parts,
And woe-filled bosom a grief discloses,
To which no solace the world imparts!
And Rachel, weeping,
Her children mourneth;
Her sorrow keeping
She comfort scorneth!
For, gone forever is all she prized
Which mother's heart could have idolized.
But, God is love—so, with hope, look thither,
Ye hearts despondent, and take relief!
The grain, you laid in the ground to wither,
Shall rise to harvests of golden sheaf.
O! what was born
For your hearts to cherish—
And left forlorn
In the grave to perish,
It is not gone; though it is not there—
The One Eternal of it takes care.
In Him there liveth all life; He proveth
All force, and kindleth so clear all light.
His love embraceth, too, what He moveth
To other homes in His house, so bright.
Let fogs not blind thee,
Thou spirit childly!
Once shall find thee
That hour, when mildly
The Father calls thee. But, in the mean,
Endure and labor, with faith serene!
Like Mary, linger, with holy feeling,
And pray and listen, at Jesu feet!
Like Magdalene, at the cross appealing,
See looks of mercy repentance meet!
Like John, so cling thee
To friend ne'er failing!
His love shall bring thee,
From stress and ailing,
To bliss and freedom, forever nigh,
Within His heavenly realm on high.
Well those, who, noble in will, prevailing,
Have sought the right, and the kindly felt,
Who much have loved, spite of all their failing!
Them much forgiveness shall too be dealt.
They were not rated
The best desired;
But angels stated,
With love untired,
What, in the smallest degree, through them,
Had cheered that world from which they came.
They did adhere to their foremost duty,
To fear the Lord, with a fervent heart;
They cleansed their garments, to stainless beauty,
In blood, that innocence doth impart.
All grief is banished,
All sin remitted,
All anguish vanished,
All weeping quitted—
Their names are kept in their Father's grace,
And weary sink they in His embrace.
They go so peaceful in God to slumber,
They greet so joyful the final day:
No tribulations their rest encumber,
No visitations of fortune's sway.
No longer thwarted,
As earth compels us,
They have departed,
The spirit tells us,
Exchanging thralldom for freedom's gem,
And their achievements shall follow them.