A BEACON FACE
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To-day a passing throng with anxious pace
Brought me a glimpse of one sweet, noble face Transfigured by the tenderness and grace Of seasoned sorrow and a hard-lost race. It shamed me that I looked so sullen, sad, When I, full richly blessed and amply clad Should live in smiles and making others glad, And keep within whatever spite I had. This face, whose smile was built on grief lived through, Both lifted up my own, yet warned me too, For as the shining beacon, born of barren rocks And reared on reefs that hide their rending shocks Would not be there dispensing its warm light Were there not dangers lodged in wily night; Just so, this passing, patient face Could ne'er have touched me at my hurried pace But for the courage of its tender grace That came with sorrow and a hard-lost race. |
THE VOICE FROM THE FIELD
[Dedicated to the National burying ground at Gettysburg on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of that Battle.]
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Across the field in silent files they sleep,
With none to rout their ranks while Death doth keep His watch relentless o'er the nameless heap Of unknown men beneath the numbered stones. More orderly are they than when they marched In broken regiments the sun had parched And powder torn, across the fields, fire-arched. And from their silence now rise up loud tones Which speak to all that breathe, a new command, Whose voice shall ring through all the peaceful land: “Be strong! Keep brave thy heart and clean, thy hand, To right with promptness all the wrongs that rise To hide the God-head's face from brothers' eyes. Rear up in love the Nation's life we bore! Be strong, be strong, till wrong shall be no more!” |
THE BURNING OF CHAMBERSBURG
[July 30, 1864]