Oh, would’st thou join the blood-washed throng
On that immortal shore?
Oh, would’st thou swell the Conqueror’s
song
And greet thy child once more?
Then turn to Him who died for thee
A death of woe and pain;
And at the resurrection morn
Embrace thy child again!
[The following lines were addressed to her brother
on receiving a locket containing his daguerreotype.]
I touch the spring—and lo, a face
Which for these many years
Within my heart has had a place,
A tender place—appears.
The large dark eyes look up to mine,
So like thyself!—the cheek,
The brow, the features, all are thine:
Speak to me, brother, speak!
And tell me of each grief and care:
For be they great or small,
A sister’s heart would take a share—
And, if it could, take all!
And tell me of each hopeful plan,
And how the future seems,—
Oh, may that future to the man
Be all the boy now dreams.
I’ve heard thee say thou wouldst be great,
And with the gifted shine;
’T is well; but there’s a nobler fate,
I pray it may be thine:
It is to be an honest man,—
To elevate thy race,
And like the good Samaritan
Do good in every place;
To struggle bravely for the right,
Though kings defend the wrong;
To live as in thy Maker’s sight,
And in his strength be strong;
To put the spotless garment on,
To keep it pure and white,
And when the endless day shall dawn
Receive a crown of light.
Dear brother, fame is but a breath,
So I implore for thee
A holy life, a happy death,
A blest eternity.
Beneath the snow and frost of winter there are living
seeds which shall produce abundant harvests:
so beneath a cold exterior there may be a heart full
of high resolves and glorious impulses, which at the
right season shall burst into blossom and bear precious
fruit.
How often the sun rises in a cloudless sky, to be
obscured before noonday! Human life is like our
fickle clime: to-day all sunshine, and to-morrow
clouds. The sun is the same by day and night,
but the earth comes betwixt his light and us:
so when the Sun of righteousness seems to have left
our horizon and we turn in vain to the right and the
left to find him, may it not be that the dark, dense
earth has come betwixt us and his life-giving beams,
while He remains “the same yesterday, to-day
and forever”?
The thistle has a fragrant smell, and the thorn a
pleasant fruit. It is a disease in the shell-fish
that makes the pearl: so your sickness, my friend,
may be the means of your winning the Pearl of great
price.
What plant would thrive if the sun shone forever?
and what should we be if the sun of prosperity always
shone upon our pathway? Along life’s dusty
thoroughfare I see the world, but not as I saw it once:
sickness and sorrow have given me another pair of eyes.
