Benjamin Copeland

“ Indifferent to life and death,
She heedeth not our hopes or fears;
Our days seem bounded by a breath;—
Why should she note our smiles or tears.
From depths of sorrow manifold
We call, and, weeping, wait reply;—
No answer comes from wood or wold,
And silent are the sea and sky.
86O pitying Christ, to Thee we turn,
In loneliest grief uncomforted;
For Thee and Thy sure love we yearn,
Light of the living and the dead!
Thou healest, Lord, the heart’s sore strife;—
With Thee, with Thee our dearest dwell—
Crowned, in Thy grace, O Prince of life,
With peace and joy ineffable. ”

“ For the light that once gladdened the garden’s deep gloom,
At last shall transfigure all blight into bloom.
For over and under the soul’s sore strife
Is the blessed law of an endless life;
From the sod to the stars, and the stars to the sod,
Sways the everlasting love of God. ”

“ This truth,—for all souls given,—
That heaven does not make holiness,
But holiness makes heaven.
Thy rightful dower Earth cannot give;
Far other, thou, than sun and sod;—
The soul of man can only live
By living in the life of God. ”

“ Our loss, it grows not less;
Time’s balm is vain to heal the pain
Of such a loneliness.
84O little grave, that darkened so
The path by Sorrow trod,
Sometimes the sunset’s golden glow
Rests on thy daisied sod;—
And then we feel that God is good,
And we take heart again,—
Assured 'twill all be understood
Where there is no more pain.
Where there is no more pain—’tis there,
’Tis there we long to be! ”

“ To move the unrelenting gloom,
For short surcease of pain.
The font, the altar, and the tomb!
Accept frail nature’s dower;—
To thee, to all, an equal doom,—
The inevitable hour!
106The font, the altar, and the tomb!
Faint not at “Dust to Dust;”—
The love of God leaves ample room
For deathless hope and trust. ”

“ In sod and firmament.
The earth below, the sky above,
With flowers and stars are sprent;—
The child to cheer, the saint, the seer,
Their love and light are lent.
For Strength and Beauty equal are,
In Nature’s kind intent,—
The hawthorn hedge, and granite ledge
That binds the continent. ”

“ Heaven serves the Sword unsheath’d for human good.
Clear, now, the purpose of the Highest,—plain His plan:—
To mould the Nation after His own mind,
And give, in common emprise with the Son of Man,
The moral leadership of all mankind. ”

“ And sod and soul are blent
In blest enfranchisement,—
Prefiguring the end for all things made.
For life and love, supreme
Beyond the poet’s dream,
Shall bear all being to its blissful goal;
The wondrous word is true—
"Lo! I make all things new;"
The universe is ransomed with the soul! ”

“ As sacred as the stars, the sod,—
As near to Heaven, as close to God.
Call nothing common or unclean,—
Nor deem thou any service mean;
Forevermore this faith be thine,—
All days, all duties, are divine. ”

“ Our hearts would own with saints above;
All life is larger for Thy law,—
All service sweeter for Thy love.
Thy life our code! in letters clear
We read our duty, day by day,—
Thy footsteps tracing eagerly,
Who art the Truth, the Life, the Way. ”

“ Awed by the deepening mystery,
The stoutest heart for comfort yearns.
Fear not;—we are not left alone;
To wiser hands the helm is given;—
A guidance better than our own
Directs our way from earth to heaven. ”

“ From hearts of stone to heart of stone,
The soul appeals, as to her own;—
The stainless granite, stately, strong,
Shall chant my failure’s deathless song;
Severe as Truth, this shaft shall shame
The poor world’s pitiable blame. ”

“ Thou comest, Saviour, to Thine own:
Thy cross is now Thy glorious throne!
The Earth her richest gains shall bring,
To crown Thee Conqueror and King;
And the abundance of the sea
Shall be converted unto Thee.
Kings at Thy feet their scepters lay;
The Ages own Thy widening sway ”

“ I cannot feel that she is gone
So far, so far away;
Her little heart close to my own
Is beating day by day.
Ah! tender are these human ties;—
May heaven at last reveal
Why on her eyes a slumber lies
E’en tears cannot unseal. ”

“ Faint not because so far away
Seems, still, the world’s redemption day;
Though deepest night the sky o’ercast,
The glorious morn shall break at last.
For strife shall close in fadeless peace,
And wrong and woe forever cease,—
And end, in rapturous notes sublime,
The whole long requiem of Time.
FORGIVE US, LORD!
Forgive us, Lord, our foolish fears;
For, to Thy patient sway,
A day is as a thousand years,
And a thousand years as a day. ”

“ And through the gloom, until the day-star beam,
To us Heaven grants the vision and the dream.
67 SONSHIP.
Adapted to infinity,
Our souls, O God, aspire to Thee;—
Created in Thy likeness blest,
In Thee alone our hearts find rest.
REALITY.
Truth is the soul’s eternal quest,—
Reality its only rest;—
Shadow for substance ne’er sufficed,—
Symbol nor sacrament,—but Christ! ”

“ A nameless sorrow haunts the lonely shore;
The frosts have fallen on the hearts of men;
The little children seek the woods no more.
For Nature holds us surely as her own,
In sleet and snow, or under skies of blue ”

“ The ages own Thy sway;—
All kings shall bow before Thee,
And to Thy service bring
Their honor, power and glory,
All that Thy grace bestowed,
The world shall yet restore Thee,—
Enshrining in its heart
The bitter cross that bore Thee. ”

“ Naught is new beneath the sun:
Ages since the deed was done;—
Ay! a thousand wrought like one,—
And a thousand thought like one.
Greatest souls are first to own
None is wise or strong alone.
ENTREATY.
O Lord of life and death! ”

“ What power shall check the downward trend
Of wilful hearts of men,
If in eternal nothing end
Their three score years and ten?
That Virtue is its own reward—
Think you sufficient cause
To move men to the due regard
Of Heaven’s holiest laws? ”

“ The fatal spell of the betrayer’s art.
Deceived, despised, despoiled!
The blight has fallen on thy peerless bloom;
To bless thy bridal eager ages toiled;—
A moment’s glamour leaves thee endless gloom. ”

“ For her little heart close to my own
Keeps beating day by day.
81 LITTLE THEODORE.
Lay them in his little hand;—
He will know,—and understand.
Darling, shall we meet again,
In a world that knows no sorrow? ”

“ Own his majestic will;—
Like voice of many waters,
His name is potent still.
In loftiest communion
With seer and sage of yore,
For Liberty and Union
He pleads for evermore!
40 LINCOLN.
Like monarch of the forest
He looms out of the Past:—
Our strength when need was sorest,—
Our pride while Time shall last. ”

“ Holds the keys of life and death.
Ah, that secret, sullen sign!
Call it not decree divine;
For a letter, more, or less,
Measures not God’s tenderness.
“Other sheep I have,” said One
Who was more than Mary’s son;—
Eyes as blind as thine shall see
His amazing charity.
56When it claims the judgment-throne,
What is creed but craft and cant?
God will surely know His own:—
Pagan, Papist, Protestant.
57 BY MANY PATHS.
By many names the one true God is known ”

“ Is inspiration from on high;
The finite needs the Infinite,
As flower and forest need the sky.
71 UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE.
Faint not, though fruitless still the labor seems
Wherewith love serves the Master dear, divine ”

“ Pledge of an age whose light shall never cease,—
The boundless empire of the Prince of Peace! The above lines were written September 3, 1901, and printed the following afternoon in the Buffalo Commercial, an hour or two before President McKinley’s arrival in the city the evening before “President’s Day” at the Pan-American Exposition. ”

“ A. Josephine Kipling—eldest child of Rudyard Kipling.
59 DARK, AND DAYS.
The same old problems vex mankind;
In meager beams the light is given;
Nor may the race e’er hope to find
The rest for which each age has striven.
The same old problems vex mankind ”