Occasional Poems | Page 8

backward on my times,
This credit I am taking;
I kept
each sectary's dish apart,
No spiritual chowder making.
"Where now the blending signs of sect
Would puzzle their assorter,

The dry-shod Quaker kept the land,
The Baptist held the water.
"A common coat now serves for both,
The hat's no more a fixture;

And which was wet and which was dry,
Who knows in such a
mixture?
"Well! He who fashioned Peter's dream
To bless them all is able;

And bird and beast and creeping thing
Make clean upon His table!
"I walked by my own light; but when
The ways of faith divided,

Was I to force unwilling feet
To tread the path that I did?

"I touched the garment-hem of truth,
Yet saw not all its splendor;
I
knew enough of doubt to feel
For every conscience tender.
"God left men free of choice, as when
His Eden-trees were planted;

Because they chose amiss, should I
Deny the gift He granted?
"So, with a common sense of need,
Our common weakness feeling,

I left them with myself to God
And His all-gracious dealing!
"I kept His plan whose rain and sun
To tare and wheat are given;

And if the ways to hell were free,
I left then free to heaven!"
Take heart with us, O man of old,
Soul-freedom's brave confessor,

So love of God and man wax strong,
Let sect and creed be lesser.
The jarring discords of thy day
In ours one hymn are swelling;
The
wandering feet, the severed paths,
All seek our Father's dwelling.
And slowly learns the world the truth
That makes us all thy debtor,--

That holy life is more than rite,
And spirit more than letter;
That they who differ pole-wide serve
Perchance the common Master,

And other sheep He hath than they
Who graze one narrow pasture!
For truth's worst foe is he who claims
To act as God's avenger,
And
deems, beyond his sentry-beat,
The crystal walls in danger!
Who sets for heresy his traps
Of verbal quirk and quibble,
And
weeds the garden of the Lord
With Satan's borrowed dibble.
To-day our hearts like organ keys
One Master's touch are feeling;

The branches of a common Vine
Have only leaves of healing.
Co-workers, yet from varied fields,
We share this restful nooning;

The Quaker with the Baptist here
Believes in close communing.

Forgive, dear saint, the playful tone,
Too light for thy deserving;

Thanks for thy generous faith in man,
Thy trust in God unswerving.
Still echo in the hearts of men
The words that thou hast spoken;
No
forge of hell can weld again
The fetters thou hast broken.
The pilgrim needs a pass no more
From Roman or Genevan;

Thought-free, no ghostly tollman keeps
Henceforth the road to
Heaven!
CHICAGO
The great fire at Chicago was on 8-10 October, 1871.
Men said at vespers: "All is well!"
In one wild night the city fell;

Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain
Before the fiery hurricane.
On threescore spires had sunset shone,
Where ghastly sunrise looked
on none.
Men clasped each other's hands, and said
"The City of the
West is dead!"
Brave hearts who fought, in slow retreat,
The fiends of fire from
street to street,
Turned, powerless, to the blinding glare,
The dumb
defiance of despair.
A sudden impulse thrilled each wire
That signalled round that sea of
fire;
Swift words of cheer, warm heart-throbs came;
In tears of pity
died the flame!
From East, from West, from South and North,
The messages of hope
shot forth,
And, underneath the severing wave,
The world,
full-handed, reached to save.
Fair seemed the old; but fairer still
The new, the dreary void shall fill

With dearer homes than those o'erthrown,
For love shall lay each
corner-stone.

Rise, stricken city! from thee throw
The ashen sackcloth of thy woe;

And build, as to Amphion's strain,
To songs of cheer thy walls
again!
How shrivelled in thy hot distress
The primal sin of selfishness!

How instant rose, to take thy part,
The angel in the human heart!
Ah! not in vain the flames that tossed
Above thy dreadful holocaust;

The Christ again has preached through thee
The Gospel of
Humanity!
Then lift once more thy towers on high,
And fret with spires the
western sky,
To tell that God is yet with us,
And love is still
miraculous!
1871.
KINSMAN.
Died at the Island of Panay (Philippine group),
aged nineteen years.
Where ceaseless Spring her garland twines,
As sweetly shall the
loved one rest,
As if beneath the whispering pines
And maple
shadows of the West.
Ye mourn, O hearts of home! for him,
But, haply, mourn ye not alone;

For him shall far-off eyes be dim,
And pity speak in tongues
unknown.
There needs no graven line to give
The story of his blameless youth;

All hearts shall throb intuitive,
And nature guess the simple truth.
The very meaning of his name
Shall many a tender tribute win;
The
stranger own his sacred claim,
And all the world shall be his kin.
And there, as here, on main and isle,
The dews of holy peace shall
fall,
The same sweet heavens above him smile,
And God's dear love
be over all
1874.

THE GOLDEN WEDDING OF LONGWOOD.
Longwood, not far from Bayard Taylor's birthplace in Kennett
Square, Pennsylvania, was the home of my esteemed friends John and
Hannah Cox, whose golden wedding was celebrated in 1874.
With