In the great minster transept Where lights like glories fall, And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings This was the bravest warrior On the deathless page truths half so sage As he wrote down for men. And had he not high honor?—— The hillside for a pall! To lie in state, while angels wait, With stars for tapers tall! And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave, And God's own hand, in that lonely land, To lay him in the grave! In that strange grave without a name, Whence his uncoffined clay Shall break again-O wondrous thought! Before the judgment-day, And stand, with glory wrapped around, On the hills he never trod And speak of the strife that won our life With the incarnate Son of God. O lonely tomb in Moab's land! O dark Beth-peor's hill! Speak to these curious hearts of ours, And teach them to be still: God hath His mysteries of grace, Ways that we cannot tell; He hides them deep, like the secret sleep Of him He loved so well. Cecil Frances Alexander [1818-1895] The Crooked Footpath 3493 THE CROOKED FOOTPATH From "The Professor at the Breakfast Table" Ан, here it is! the sliding rail That marks the old remembered spot,The gap that struck our schoolboy trail,The crooked path across the lot. It left the road by school and church, And ended at the farm-house door. No line or compass traced its plan; The gabled porch, with woodbine green,— No rocks across the pathway lie,- Perhaps some lover trod the way With shaking knees and leaping heart,— And so it often runs astray With sinuous sweep or sudden start. Or one, perchance, with clouded brain His track across the trodden field. Nay, deem not thus,-no earthborn will Truants from love, we dream of wrath;- Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894] ALLAH'S TENT WITH fore-cloth smoothed by careful hands The night's serene pavilion stands, And many cressets hang on high Against its arching canopy. Peace to His children God hath sent, We are at peace within His tent. Who knows without these guarded doors What wind across the desert roars? Arthur Colton [1868 ST. JOHN BAPTIST I THINK he had not heard of the far towns; Of one first noon, upon the desert's rim, He numbered not the changes of the year, Of death: each day he thought there should have been A shining ladder set for him to climb Athwart some opening in the heavens, e'en To God's eternity, and see, sublime— His face whose shadow passing fills all time. "The Spring is Late" But he walked through the ancient wilderness. Had lit upon; where Jacob too had lain 3495 The place seemed fresh,-and, bright and lately trod, And often, while the sacred darkness trailed By rending lightnings, over all the noise Of thunders and the earth that quaked and bowed To Him whose face was covered by a cloud. Arthur O'Shaughnessy [1844-1881] FOR THE BAPTIST THE last and greatest Herald of Heaven's King, William Drummond [1585-1649] "THE SPRING IS LATE" SHE stood alone amidst the April fields, Brown, sodden fields, all desolate and bare,— "The spring is late," she said, "the faithless spring, That should have come to make the meadows fair. "Their sweet South left too soon, among the trees "From 'neath a sheltering pine some tender buds When spring is cold, how can the blossoms blow?" She watched the homeless birds, the slow, sad spring, The barren fields, and shivering, naked trees: "Thus God has dealt with me, his child," she said,"I wait my spring-time, and am cold like these. "To them will come the fulness of their time; Their spring, though late, will make the meadows fair; Shall I, who wait like them, like them be blest? I am His own,—doth not my Father care?" Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908] EASTER I GOT me flowers to straw Thy way, I got me boughs off many a tree; But Thou wast up by break of day, And brought'st Thy sweets along with Thee. Yet though my flowers be lost, they say Teach it to sing Thy praise this day, Unknown A DIVINE RAPTURE E'EN like two little bank-dividing brooks, That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams, And having ranged and searched a thousand nooks, Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames, Where in a greater current they conjoin: So I my Best-belovèd's am; so He is mine. |