In War Time, and Other Poems/Anniversary Poem
ANNIVERSARY POEM.
[Read before the Alumni of the Friends' Yearly Meeting School, at the Annual Meeting at Newport, R. I., 15th 6th Mo., 1863.]
Once more, dear friends, you meet beneathA clouded sky:Not yet the sword has found its sheath,And on the sweet spring airs the breathOf war floats by
Yet trouble springs not from the ground,Nor pain from chance;The Eternal order circles round,And wave and storm find mete and boundIn Providence.
Full long our feet the flowery waysOf peace have trod,Content with creed and garb and phrase:A harder path in earlier daysLed up to God.
Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear,Are made our own;Too long the world has smiled to hearOur boast of full corn in the earBy others sown;
To see us stir the martyr firesOf long ago,And wrap our satisfied desiresIn the singed mantles that our siresHave dropped below.
But now the cross our worthies boreOn us is laid; Profession's quiet sleep is o'er,And in the scale of truth once moreOur faith is weighed.
The cry of innocent blood at lastIs calling downAn answer in the whirlwind-blast,The thunder and the shadow castFrom Heaven's dark frown.
The land is red with judgments. WhoStands guiltless forth?Have we been faithful as we knew,To God and to our brother true,To Heaven and Earth?
How faint, through din of merchandiseAnd count of gain,Have seemed to us the captive's cries!How far away the tears and sighsOf souls in pain!
This day the fearful reckoning comesTo each and all;We hear amidst our peaceful homesThe summons of the conscript drums,The bugle's call.
Our path is plain; the war-net drawsRound us in vain.While, faithful to the higher Cause,We keep our fealty to the lawsThrough patient pain.
The levelled gun, the battle brand,We may not take;But, calmly loyal, we can standAnd suffer with our suffering landFor conscience' sake.
Why ask for ease where all is pain?Shall we alone Be left to add our gain to gain,When over Armageddon's plainThe trump is blown?
To suffer well is well to serve;Safe in our LordThe rigid lines of law shall curveTo spare us; from our heads shall swerveIts smiting sword.
And light is mingled with the gloom,And joy with grief;Divinest compensations come,Through thorns of judgment mercies bloomIn sweet relief.
Thanks for our privilege to bless,By word and deed,The widow in her keen distress,The childless and the fatherless,The hearts that bleed!
For fields of duty, opening wide,Where all our powersAre tasked the eager steps to guideOf millions on a path untried:The slave is ours!
Ours by traditions dear and old,Which make the raceOur wards to cherish and uphold,And cast their freedom in the mouldOf Christian grace.
And we may tread the sick-bed floorsWhere strong men pine,And, down the groaning corridors,Pour freely from our liberal storesThe oil and wine.
Who murmurs that in these dark daysHis lot is cast? God's hand within the shadow laysThe stones whereon His gates of praiseShall rise at last.
Turn and o'erturn, O outstretched Hand!Nor stint, nor stay;The years have never dropped their sandOn mortal issue vast and grandAs ours to-day.
Already, on the sable groundOf man's despairIs Freedom's glorious picture foundWith all its dusky hands unboundUpraised in prayer.
O, small shall seem all sacrificeAnd pain and loss,When God shall wipe the weeping eyes,For suffering give the victor's prize,The crown for cross!