Part 2

The sermon glimmers in his mind, Its truths half understood, And yet from prayer and hymn he gains A shadowy dream of good

That sanctifies the offering His bare life daily makes-- His tender love for wife and child, And toil borne for their sakes.

Thus through the bleakness and the bloom, O’er snows and freshening grass, Devout, profane, grief-worn or gay, The thronged church-goers pass,

Till, one by one, they each and all, Their earthly journeyings o’er, Move silent down that well-known road Which they shall walk no more.

THE PATCHWORK QUILT

In an ancient window seat, Where the breeze of morning beat ’Gainst her face, demure and sweet, Sat a girl of long ago, With her sunny head bent low Where her fingers flitted white Through a maze of patchwork bright.

Wondrous hues the rare quilt bears! All the clothes the household wears By their fragments may be traced In that bright mosaic placed; Pieces given by friend and neighbor, Blended by her curious labor With the grandame’s gown of gray, And the silken bonnet gay That the baby’s head hath crowned, In the quaint design are found.

Did she aught suspect or dream, As she sewed each dainty seam, That a haunted thing she wrought? That each linsey scrap was fraught With some tender memory, Which, in distant years to be, Would lost hopes and loves recall, When her eyes should on it fall?

Years have passed, and with their grace Gentler made her gentle face; Brilliant still the fabrics shine Of the quilt’s antique design, As she folds it, soft and warm, Round a fair child’s sleeping form. Lustrous is her lifted gaze As with half-voiced words she prays That the bright head on that quilt May not bow in shame or guilt, And the little feet below Darksome paths may never know.

Yet again the morning shines On the patch-work’s squares and lines; Dull and dim its colors show, But more dim the eyes that glow, Wandering with a dreamy glance O’er the ancient quilt’s expanse; Worn its textures are and frayed, But the hands upon them laid, Creased with toils of many a year, Still more worn and old appear.

But what hands, long-loved and dead, Do those faded fingers, spread O’er those faded fabrics, meet In reunion fond and sweet!

What past scenes of tenderness And of joy that none may guess, Called back by the patchwork old, Do those darkening eyes behold! Lo, the deathless past comes near! From the silence whisper clear Long-hushed tones, and, changing not, Forms and faces unforgot In their old-time grace and bloom Shine from out the deepening gloom.

MY BROTHER

(1882-1903)

Dead! and he has died so young. Silent lips, with song unsung, Still hands, with the field untilled, Lofty purpose unfulfilled.

Was that life so incomplete? Strong heart, that no more shall beat, Ardent brain and glorious eye, That seemed meant for tasks so high, But now moulder back to earth, Were you all then nothing worth?

Could the death-dew and the dark Quench that soul’s unflickering spark? Are its aims, so high and just, All entombed here in the dust?

O, we trust God shall unfold More than earthly eyes behold, And that they whose years were fleet Find life’s promises complete, Where, in lands no gaze hath met, Those we grieve for love us yet!

IN FULLER MEASURE

“Dying so young, how much he missed!” they said, While his unbreathing sleep they wept around; “If he had lived, Fame surely would have crowned With wreath of fadeless green his kingly head; The clear glance of his burning eyes had read Wisdom’s dim secrets, hoary and profound; While his life’s path would have been holy ground, Made thus by all men’s love upon it shed.”

Doubtless could he have spoken for whom that rain Of teardrops fell, “How strange your sad words are!” He would have said; “In fuller measure far All that life gave to me I still retain; Love have I now which no dark longings mar, Fame void of strife, and wisdom free from pain.”

OCTOBER

O sweetest month, that pourest from full hands The golden bounty of rich harvest lands! O saddest month, that bearest with thy breath The crimson leaves to drifts of glowing death!

In fields and lives, the fall of withered leaves Darkens the glorious season of ripe sheaves, For Life’s fruition comes with loss and pain, And Death alone can bring the richest gain.

BENIGNANT DEATH

Thanking God for life and light, Strength and joyous breath, Should we not, with reverent lips, Thank Him, too, for death?

When would man’s injustice cease, Did not stern Death bring Those who cheated and oppressed To their reckoning?

Would not life’s long sordidness On our spirits pall, If our years should last forever, And the earth were all?

On us, withered with life’s heat, Falls death’s cooling dew, And our parched souls’ dusty leaves Their lost green renew.

Ah, though deep the grave-dust hide Love and courage high, Life a paltrier thing would be If we could not die!

THE UNRETURNING

If our dead could come back to us, Who so desire it, And be as they were before, Would we require it?

Would we bid them share again Our weakness, foregoing All their higher blessedness Of being and knowing?

For them the triumph is won, The fight completed; Do we wish that the doubtful strife Should be repeated?

Would we call them from the calm Of all assurance To the perils that might prove Past their endurance?

God is kind, since He will not heed Our bitter yearning, And the gates of heaven are shut ’Gainst all returning.

WHEN A HUNDRED YEARS HAVE PASSED

When a hundred years have passed, What shall then be left at last Of us and the deeds we wrought? Shall there be remaining aught Save green graves in churchyards old, Names o’ergrown with moss and mold, From the worn stones half effaced, And from human hearts erased?

When a hundred years have fled, Will it matter how we sped In the conflicts of to-day, Which side took we in the fray, If we dared or if we quailed, If we nobly won or failed? It will matter! If, too weak For the right to strike or speak, We in virtue’s cause are dumb, Some soul in far years to come Shall have darker strife with vice, Weakened by our cowardice. Every struggle that we make, Every valiant stand we take In a righteous cause forlorn, Shall give strength to hearts unborn.

When a hundred years have gone, Darkness and oblivion Shall our ended lives obscure, But their influence shall endure. Other eyes shall be upraised To the hills on which we gazed, And the paths o’er which we plod Shall by other feet be trod, While our names shall be forgot; Yet, although they know it not, Those who live then, none the less, We shall sadden or shall bless. They shall bear our boon or curse, They shall better be or worse, As we who shall then lie still, Have lived nobly or lived ill.

FALLEN LEAVES

Beneath the frost-stripped forest boughs, the drifted leaves are spread, Vanished all summer’s green delight, all autumn’s glory fled.

Yet, gathering strength from that dead host, the tree in some far spring Shall toward the skies a denser growth, a darker foliage fling.

Ah, if some power from us, long dead, should strengthen life to be, We need not grieve to lie forgot, like sere leaves ’neath the tree!

DECEMBER SNOW

The falling snow a stainless veil doth cast Upon the relics of the dying year-- Dead leaves and withered flowers and stubble sere-- As if it would erase the faded past; So on our lives does death descend at last, Hiding youth’s hopes and manhood’s purpose clear, And memories faint, to dreaming age most dear, Beneath its silence, blank and white and vast.

The sun shines out, and lo! the meadows lone Flash into sudden splendor, strangely bright, More fair than summer landscape ever shone; Thus, gleaming through the storm clouds, faith’s clear light Transforms death’s endless waste of silence white To beauty passing all that life has known.

TRUST

I came, I go, at His behest, So, fearing not and not distressed, I pass unto that life unguessed.

Little the babe, at its first cry, Knows of the scenes that near it lie; Less still of that dim life know I.

But Love receives the babe to earth, Soft hands give welcome at its birth; And so I think, when I go forth,

There too shall wait, to cheer and bless, Love, warm as mother’s first caress, Strong as a father’s tenderness.

TOWARD SUNRISE

When, in old days, our fathers came To bury low their dead, Unto the far-off eastern sky They turned the narrow bed.

They laid the sleeper on his couch With firm and simple faith That cloudless morn would surely come To end the night of death;

And thus they sought to place him where, When life’s clear sun should rise, Its earliest rays might wakening fall Across his close-sealed eyes.

Like a faint fragrance lingering on Throughout unnumbered years, Still in our country burial-grounds The custom sweet appears;

Still, when the light of life from eyes Beloved is withdrawn, The sleepers’ dreamless beds are made Facing the looked-for dawn.

There, as the seasons pass, they seem Serenely to await The certain radiance of that Morn That cometh soon or late.

GOOD NIGHT

Dear earth, I am going away to-night From your long-loved hills and your meadows bright; I know I should miss you when I am dead If a better world came not in your stead.

For the sweet, long days in your woodlands spent, And your starry dusks, I shall not lament; For greater than all the wonders you show, O earth, is the secret I soon shall know.

Good night! And now as I fall asleep I give you the garment I wore to keep; You will hold it safely till morning dawn And I rise from my slumber to put it on.