That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth:
Noiselessly as the daylight
Comes back when night is done,
And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun.
Noiselessly as the spring-time
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves;
So without sound of music
Or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain's crown
The great procession swept.
But when the warrior dieth,
His comrades in the war,
With arms reversed and muffled drum,
Follow his funeral car;
They show the banners taken,
They tell his battles won,
And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute-gun.
Amid the noblest of the land,
We lay the sage to rest,
And give the bard an honored place
With costly marble drest,
In the great minster transept
Where lights like glories fall,
And the organ rings and the sweet choir
sings
Along the emblazoned wall.
Perchance the bald old eagle
On gray Beth-Peor's height,
Out of his lonely eyrie
Looked on the wondrous sight;
Perchance the lion, stalking,
Still shuns that hallowed spot,
For beast and bird have seen and heard Ways that we cannot tell;
That which man knoweth not.
This was the truest warrior
That ever buckled sword,
This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen,
On the deathless page, truths half so
And had he not high honor,
The hillside for a pall
To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall,
And the dark rock-pines like tossing
plumes
Over his bier to wave,
And God's own hand, in that lonely land,
To lay him in the grave?
sage As he wrote down for men.
And speak of the strife that won our life
With the Incarnate Son of God.
O lonely grave in Moab's land!
O dark Beth-Peor's hill!
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath his mysteries of grace,
He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep
Of him he loved so well.
THE WILL OF GOD.
I WORSHIP thee, sweet Will of God!
And all thy ways adore,
And every day I live I seem
To love thee more and more.
When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison-walls to be,
I have no cares, O blessed Will!
For all my cares are thine;
I live in triumph, Lord! for thou
Hast made thy triumphs mine.
And when it seems no chance or change
From grief can set me free,
Hope finds its strength in helplessness,
And gayly waits on thee.
Man's weakness waiting upon God
Its end can never miss,
For men on earth no work can do
More angel-like than this.
He always wins who sides with God,
To him no chance is lost;
God's will is sweetest to him when
It triumphs at his cost.
Ill that he blesses is our good,
And unblest good is ill;
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be his sweet Will!
THE RIGHT MUST WIN.
O, IT is hard to work for God,
To rise and take his part
Upon this battle-field of earth,
And not sometimes lose heart!
He hides himself so wondrously,
As though there were no God;
He is least seen when all the
Of ill are most abroad.
Or he deserts us at the hour
The fight is all but lost;
FREDERIC WILLIAM FABER. And seems to leave us to ourselves
Just when we need him most.
[1815-1863.]
ALL'S WELL.
SWEET-VOICED Hope, thy fine discourse
Foretold not half life's good to me:
Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force
To show how sweet it is to Be!
Thy witching dream
And pictured scheme
To match the fact still want the power;
Thy promise brave
From birth to grave
Life's boon may beggar in an hour.
Ask and receive, 't is sweetly said;
Yet what to plead for know I not;
For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped,
And aye to thanks returns my thought. Life's gift outruns my fancies far,
If I would pray,
I've naught to say
And drowns the dream
But this, that God may be God still;
For Him to live
Is still to give,
And sweeter than my wish His will.
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Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow
For him who lives above all years,
Who all-immortal makes the Now,
And is not ta'en in Time's arrears:
His life's a hymn
The seraphim
Might hark to hear or help to sing,
And to his soul
The boundless whole
Its bounty all doth daily bring.
"All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith:
"The wealth I am, must thou become:
Richer and richer, breath by breath, -
Immortal gain, immortal room!”
And since all his
Mine also is,
In larger stream,
As morning drinks the morning star.
ROYALTY.
THAT regal soul I reverence, in whose
eyes
Suffices not all worth the city knows
To pay that debt which his own heart
he owes;
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