Easter
Our graves lie closed this Easter day,
But from their rugged sod
The sweet spring grass comes softly up
With messages from God.
'But ah!' men wail, in dreary doubt,
'In autumn this will die;
All nature has no type to tell
Of immortality!'
Peace! she has types for ever fresh,
For griefs for ever new.
A type which lived from age to age,
Could be no type for you.
And, haply, in this rise and fall,
Which still in beauty grow,
There lurks a truth that men may guess,
And endless life may show.
We do not fear when winter comes,
We know the spring will wake;
We gladly rest when night draws on,
We know the dawn will break.
And what if in those cycles vast,
Whose limits none may scan,
Even death may hold a happy place,
Part of the life of man?
And still, as we sit sad and lone,
In Time's too narrow prison,
The angels' song goes ringing on,
Which says that Christ is risen.
Dumb mother nature makes her signs,
But from our Father's love
Comes forth the word of Him who died,
And lives again above.
Times Of Revealing
There's a tramp of feet in the silent street,
A cry on the midnight air;
And men wake from sleep as the dread flames creep,
And strange steps are on the stair;
And the miser old grasps his store of gold,
The maiden her lover's scroll;
And the mother flies where her baby lies,
Though the flames around her roll.
And the loves men mean on their brows are seen
In that sudden, awful light,
All written plain out, without blot or doubt,
As they are in God's searching sight.
And does not life bring on its wondrous wing
To each soul some wild surprise,
When the lurking fact beneath thought and act
Walks out to our shrinking eyes?
And the shame or pride, which the truth would hide,
Are startled off from their post;
And what each holds best is made manifest,
Whether angel, fiend, or ghost.
T'is in such surprise that God's furnace tries
The dross that is in the gold;
And the loss or gain that in years have lain
In one hour is manifold.
And the only way to stand fast that day,
Is to tread firm, hour by hour
(T'is the winter snow, and the springtide glow,
That ripen the summer flower).
God's heroes must march through the lowly
Of duty, reared sure and strong;
Let us build to-day, and swift as we may,
For our trial shall come ere long.
Shadows Of The Past
I'm sitting in a shady room,
A dainty scent pervades its gloom,
The perfume from a withered flower
Gathered—who knows in what sweet hour?
Or pressed by what fair lips which must
Have mingled long ere this with dust?
The relic of a grandsire's love
Stored with a letter and a glove!
And all about the room are spread
The handiworks of ladies dead:
A great aunt's miracles in lace,
A Dian coming from the chase
Worked by great-grandmothers of mine
While great-grandfathers sipped their wine;
And here's a valentine so torn
I think it was received in scorn.
And from the wall the pictured face
Of one, the glory of our race,
Looks down at me with earnest gaze,
As if he wondered at the ways
By which the old world rumbles on,
Though all he counted best is gone,
And that old fealty is dead
For which he bravely fought and bled.
And in yon ancient chest there hide
Charters of farms and acres wide,
Traces of what we once possessed.
Well, perchance poverty is best,
And we can still afford to keep
(Since harmless pride is always cheap)
Our boast that those lost lands were due
For packs of wolves our forbears slew.
And have they left no more behind,
These soldiers brave, those ladies kind?
Of beings vanished like a dream
How little do such relics seem!
And what of those who strayed and fell,
Records of sad defeat to swell?
Or those who only loved and prayed,
'Mid homely duties on them laid?
There seems a whisper in the air,
'We're there, and here, and everywhere!
Why need you wish that you had more
Of these poor shadows which you store,
When all the life in which you move
Is outgrowth of our life and love?
The very thoughts you call your own,
But flowers from seeds which we have sown!
'And none have left a stronger trace
Than some who lived in silent grace;
The maid who faded in her bloom
Brightened the pathway to the tomb,
With hopes from soul to soul which flow
Like streams whose sources none may know,
And he who perished at his post
Inspired the leader of a host!
'The dead are nearer than some say
(Stars shine on through the sunshine day!),
Nor must we chain the Present fast
About the ankles of the Past,
For both are living, and most move
In step to God's great march of Love.
We need not fear that any soul
Can leave but rose leaves in a bowl!'
