Poems (Henderson)/Comfort in the Dark
COMFORT IN THE DARK.
Once when my weary heart grew weary of all restless life,I sat me down in solitude to brood, upon the world and all her wrongs.My soul with pity overflowed, that I had not a hand so broad,That I might gather unto peaceful rest, all hearts that suffer with sore pain."Ah! me, I cried, if I might break all bars of prisons, heal all wrongs,If I might fill all hearts with song, and teach the poet's pen sweet lays,Sweet melodies of praise, and bid him sing of all things beautiful in thought,Eschewing all things sorrowful and sad."
"If I might cast aside all creeds, all sects, all doctrines, all beliefs,Of hells, and sins, and vices black, and bring man from his selfish bondage back, and found one creed of love." Unfurl one banner, all embossed in crimson and in white, and this its motto."A new commandment I give unto you that ye love one another."Then should I depart in peace, but now my life,Sore-tested, with the weight of its own infirmities doth grieve,That all so slow must this great rendering be."
"Centuries begin and end, and still shall man his brother slay,And knaves in high authority shall mock, and jeer at humble christian folk.That Science all too slow should trace, the secrets of the heaven's expanse,For with the grand discovery of peopled worlds of Heaven,There cometh signs of peace."Then thought I wandering in a valley deep, I saw one sitting at a loom of great proportion.He, slowly weaving threads of gold and black, of light and darkness, spake.
"Behold the tapestry of Time, behold the warp and woof of Life.For as the darkness and the light, do go together making day and night,Else, all too soon thou would'st weary of the day, and sigh for silence and for dark,So do the threads of sorrow and of pain, Blend into warp of blessed deeds, that interwoven with God's grace do form,A boundless breadth, that foldeth all eternity."
"Thy mind the secrets of the heaven shall not rend,Nor shall thy hand with bounty feed all earth, nor banish crime forth from her wide domain.For this done by thee, then wert thou God.His hand his earthly purposes doth guide,His eye its watchful guard doth keep,O'er all his creatures locked in sleep.His hand doth lead each fateful being unto his wiser will,For there shall be a glory shadowing all earth,When white-winged Peace shall have her birth."
"And thy world is but one of many, those burning orbs above,Are peopled by unnumbered hosts, who think, and breath, and move.Thou art, Oh! man, a speck upon humanity's great flood.Yet not the least His eye escape, be faithful to thyself. espousing good.The glory of the Apocalypse, unto the writer of that mystery, to him were not revealed,If casting down his eyes to earth, he wandered, sighing at all human woes."
"Lift up thine eyes, and thou shalt see the light,That circling all the soul shall bring, the glory of the Unseen One.Go cast thy mite of charity and love, into the treasure chest of all good works.Then shall his grace sufficient for all things,Fulfil thy human, and thy spiritual need."
