Mary Baker Eddy

“ Thine, ever thine.
"Bearest thou no tidings from our loved on earth,
The toiler tireless for Truth's new birth
All-unbeguiled?
Our joy is gathered from her parting sigh:
This hour looks on her heart with pitying eye,—
What of my child?"
"When, severed by death's dream, I woke to Life,
She deemed I died, and could not know the strife
At first to fill
That waking with a love that steady turns [Pg 50]
To God; a hope that ever upward yearns,
Bowed to His will. ”

“ When higher he soareth to compass his rest,
What vision so bright as the dream in his breast!
God's eye is upon him. He penciled his path
Whose omniscient notice the frail fledgling hath.
Though lightnings be lurid and earthquakes may shock,
He rides on the whirlwind or rests on the rock. ”

“ The cypress may mourn with her evergreen tears,
And, like the blue hyacinth, change not with years;
Yea, flowers of feeling may blossom above,
To yield earth the fragrance of goodness and love; [Pg 68]
So one heart is left me—she breathes in my ear,
"I'm living to bless thee; for this are we here." ”

“ Deep loneness, tear-filled tones of distant joy,
Depart! Glad Easter glows with gratitude—
Love's verdure veils the leaflet's wondrous birth—
Rich rays, rare footprints on the dust of earth.
Not life, the vassal of the changeful hour,
Nor burdened bliss, but Truth and Love attest
The solemn splendor of immortal power,—
The ever Christ, and glorified behest,
Poured on the sense which deems no suffering vain
That wipes away the sting of death—sin, pain. ”

“ Laus Deo, it is done!
Rolled away from loving heart
Is a stone.
Lifted higher, we depart,
Having one.
Laus Deo,—on this rock
(Heaven chiseled squarely good)
Stands His church,—
God is Love, and understood
By His flock.
Laus Deo, night star-lit
Slumbers not in God's embrace;
Be awake;
Like this stone, be in thy place:
Stand, not sit.
Grave, silent, steadfast stone,
Dirge and song and shoutings low
In thy heart
Dwell serene,—and sorrow? No,
It has none,
Laus Deo!
[Pg 77]
OUR NATIONAL THANKSGIVING HYMN
God of the rolling year! ”

“ Loving God and one another,
You in Him abide.
Ours through Him who gave you to us,—
Gentle as the dove,
Fondling e'en the lion furious,
Leading kine with love.
Father, in Thy great heart hold them
Ever thus as Thine!
Shield and guide and guard them ”

“ A bow of promise on the cloud.
Thou to whose power our hope we give,
Free us from human strife.
Fed by Thy love divine we live,
For Love alone is Life;
And life most sweet, as heart to heart
Speaks kindly when we meet and part.
[Pg 8]
I'M SITTING ALONE
I'm sitting alone where the shadows fall
In somber groups at the vesper-call,
Where tear-dews of night seek the loving rose,
Her bosom to fill with mortal woes. ”

“ My heart unbidden joins rehearse,
I hope it's better made,
When mingling with the universe,
Beneath the maple's shade.
Written in girlhood, in a maple grove.
[Pg 60]
ALPHABET AND BAYONET
If fancy plumes aerial flight,
Go fix thy restless mind
On learning's lore and wisdom's might,
And live to bless mankind.
The sword is sheathed, 'tis freedom's hour,
No despot bears misrule,
Where knowledge plants the foot of power
In our God-blessed free school. ”

“ Lynn, Mass., May 6, 1876.
[Pg 22]
THE NEW CENTURY
Thou God-crowned, patient century,
Thine hour hath come! Eternity
Draws nigh—and, beckoning from above,
One hundred years, aflame with Love,
Again shall bid old earth good-by—
And, lo, the light! far heaven is nigh!
New themes seraphic, Life divine,
And bliss that wipes the tears of time
Away, will enter, when they may,
And bask in one eternal day.
'Tis writ on earth, on leaf and flower:
Love hath one race, one realm, one power.
Dear God! how great, how good Thou art
To heal humanity's sore heart ”

“ You've traveled long, and far from mortal joys,
To Soul's diviner sense, that spurns such toys,
Brave wrestler, lone.
Now see thy ever-self; Life never fled;
Man is not mortal, never of the dead:
The dark unknown. ”

“ Lynn, Mass., August 4, 1866.
[Pg 41]
LINES
Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer.—Moore.
Was that fold for the lambkin soft virtue's repose,
Where the weary and earth-stricken lay down their woes,—
When the fountain and leaflet are frozen and sere,
And the mountains more friendless,—their home is not here? ”

“ The poems garnered up in this little volume were written at different periods in the life of the author, dating from her early girlhood up to recent years. They were not written with a view of making a book, each poem being the spontaneous outpouring of a deeply poetic nature and called forth by some experience that claimed her attention.
The "Old Man of the Mountain," for instance, was written while the author was contemplating this lofty New Hampshire crag, whose rugged outlines resemble the profile of a human face. ”