“Wherefore, O ye sons of Sorrow!
Do ye idly sit and borrow
Care and trouble for the morrow—
Filling up your cup with woe?
Leave, O, leave your visions dreary!
Hush your doleful miserére!
See the lilies how they grow—
“Bending down their heads so lowly,
As though heaven were far too holy,
Growing patiently and slowly
To the end that God designed.
In their fragrance and their beauty,
Filling up their sphere of duty—
Each is perfect in its kind.
“Deeper than all sense of seeing
Lies the secret source of being,
And the soul with Truth agreeing,
Learns to live in thoughts and deeds.
‘For the life is more than raiment,’
And the Earth is pledged for payment
Unto man, for all his needs.
“Nature is your common mother,
Every living man your brother;
Therefore love and serve each other;
Not to meet the law’s behest,
But because through cheerful giving,
You will learn the art of living,
And to love and serve is best.
“Life is more than what man fancies—
Not a game of idle chances,
But it steadily advances
Up the rugged steeps of Time,
Till man’s complex web of trouble—
Every sad hope’s broken bubble,
Hath a meaning most sublime.
“More of practice, less profession,
More of firmness, less concession,
More of freedom, less oppression
In your Church and in your State;
More of life, and less of fashion,
More of love, and less of passion—
That will make you good and great.
“When true hearts, divinely gifted,
From the chaff of Error sifted,
On their crosses are uplifted,
Shall your souls most clearly see
That earth’s greatest time of trial
Calls for holy self-denial—
Calls on men to do and be.
“But, forever and forever,
Let it be your soul’s endeavor,
Love from hatred to dissever;
And in whatsoe’er ye do—
Won by Truth’s eternal beauty—
To your highest sense of duty
Evermore be firm and true.
“Heavenly messengers descending,
With a patience never ending,
Evermore their strength are lending,
And will aid you lest you fall.
Truth is an eternal mountain—
Love, a never-failing fountain,
Which will cleanse and save you all.”
List to her, ye worn and weary—
Hush your heart-throbs, hold the breath,
Lest ye lose one word of wisdom,
Which the answering spirit saith;
Hear her, O ye blood-stained nations,
In your holocaust of death!
Lo! your oracles have failed you,
In the dust your idols fall,
And a mighty hand is writing
Words of judgment on the wall:
“Ye are weighed within the balance,
And found wanting”—one and all.