Religious Poems

And thou his sole adorer, his best love,
Trusting, revering, waited for his hour.

Blest in that hour, when called by opening heaven
With cloud and voice, and the baptizing flame,
Up from the Jordan walked th' acknowledged stranger,
And awe-struck crowds grew silent as he came.

Blessed, when full of grace, with glory crowned,
He from both hands almighty favors poured,
And, though He had not where to lay his head,
Brought to his feet alike the slave and lord.

Crowds followed; thousands shouted, "Lo, our King!"
Fast beat thy heart. Now, now the hour draws nigh:
Behold the crown, the throne, the nations bend!
Ah, no! fond mother, no! behold him die!

Now by that cross thou tak'st thy final station,
And shar'st the last dark trial of thy Son;
Not with weak tears or woman's lamentation,
But with high, silent anguish, like his own.

Hail! highly favored, even in this deep passion;
Hail! in this bitter anguish thou art blest, —
Blest in the holy power with Him to suffer
Those deep death-pangs that lead to higher rest.

All now is darkness; and in that deep stillness
The God-man wrestles with that mighty woe;
Hark to that cry, the rock of ages rending, —
"'Tis finished!" Mother, all is glory now!

By sufferings mighty as his mighty soul
Hath the Redeemer risen forever blest;
And through all ages must his heart-beloved
Through the same baptism enter the same rest.

THE INNER VOICE

"Come ye yourselves into a desert place and rest awhile; for there were many coming and going, so that they had no time so much as to eat."

'MID the mad whirl of life, its dim confusion,
Its jarring discords and poor vanity,
Breathing like music over troubled waters,
What gentle voice, O Christian, speaks to thee?

It is a stranger, – not of earth or earthly;
By the serene, deep fulness of that eye, —
By the calm, pitying smile, the gesture lowly, —
It is thy Saviour as he passeth by.

"Come, come," he saith, "O soul oppressed and weary,
Come to the shadows of my desert rest,
Come walk with me far from life's babbling discords,
And peace shall breathe like music in thy breast.

"Art thou bewildered by contesting voices, —
Sick to thy soul of party noise and strife?
Come, leave it all, and seek that solitude
Where thou shalt learn of me a purer life.

"When far behind the world's great tumult dieth,
Thou shalt look back and wonder at its roar;
But its far voice shall seem to thee a dream,
Its power to vex thy holier life be o'er.

"There shalt thou learn the secret of a power,
Mine to bestow, which heals the ills of living;
To overcome by love, to live by prayer,
To conquer man's worst evils by forgiving."

ABIDE IN ME, AND I IN YOU

THE SOUL'S ANSWER

THAT mystic word of thine, O sovereign Lord,
Is all too pure, too high, too deep for me;
Weary of striving, and with longing faint,
I breathe it back again in prayer to thee.

Abide in me, I pray, and I in thee;
From this good hour, O, leave me nevermore;
Then shall the discord cease, the wound be healed,
The lifelong bleeding of the soul be o'er.

Abide in me; o'ershadow by thy love
Each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin;
Quench, e'er it rise, each selfish, low desire,
And keep my soul as thine, calm and divine.

As some rare perfume in a vase of clay
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own,
So, when thou dwellest in a mortal soul,
All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown.

Abide in me: there have been moments blest
When I have heard thy voice and felt thy power;
Then evil lost its grasp, and passion, hushed,
Owned the divine enchantment of the hour.