Ah me! beyond all power to name, the worthies tried
and true,
Grave men, fair women, youth and maid, pass by in
hushed review.
Of varying faiths, a common cause fused all their
hearts in one.
God give them now, whate’er their names, the
peace of duty done!
How gladly would I tread again the old-remembered
places,
Sit down beside your hearth once more and look in
the dear old faces!
And thank you for the lessons your fifty years are
teaching,
For honest lives that louder speak than half our noisy
preaching;
For your steady faith and courage in that dark and
evil time,
When the Golden Rule was treason, and to feed the
hungry, crime;
For the poor slave’s house of refuge when the
hounds were on his track,
And saint and sinner, church and state, joined hands
to send him back.
Blessings upon you!—What you did for each
sad, suffering one,
So homeless, faint, and naked, unto our Lord was done!
Fair fall on Kennett’s pleasant vales and Longwood’s
bowery ways
The mellow sunset of your lives, friends of my early
days.
May many more of quiet years be added to your sum,
And, late at last, in tenderest love, the beckoning
angel come.
Dear hearts are here, dear hearts are there, alike
below, above; Our friends are now in either world,
and love is sure of love. 1874.
For the opening of Plymouth
church, st. Paul, Minnesota.
All things are Thine: no gift have we,
Lord of all gifts, to offer Thee;
And hence with grateful hearts to-day,
Thy own before Thy feet we lay.
Thy will was in the builders’ thought;
Thy hand unseen amidst us wrought;
Through mortal motive, scheme and plan,
Thy wise eternal purpose ran.
No lack Thy perfect fulness knew;
For human needs and longings grew
This house of prayer, this home of rest,
In the fair garden of the West.
In weakness and in want we call
On Thee for whom the heavens are small;
Thy glory is Thy children’s good,
Thy joy Thy tender Fatherhood.
O Father! deign these walls to bless,
Fill with Thy love their emptiness,
And let their door a gateway be
To lead us from ourselves to Thee!
1872.
1775.
No Berserk thirst of blood had they,
No battle-joy was theirs, who set
Against the alien bayonet
Their homespun breasts in that old day.
Their feet had trodden peaceful, ways;
They loved not strife, they dreaded pain;
They saw not, what to us is plain,
That God would make man’s wrath his praise.
No seers were they, but simple men;
Its vast results the future hid
The meaning of the work they did
Was strange and dark and doubtful then.
