Personal Poems I, vol 4, part 1 | Page 8

but yesterday?Since at his side I stood.
The slopes lay green with summer rains,?The western wind blew fresh and free,?And glimmered down the orchard lanes?The white surf of the sea.
With us was one, who, calm and true,?Life's highest purpose understood,?And, like his blessed Master, knew?The joy of doing good.
Unlearned, unknown to lettered fame,?Yet on the lips of England's poor?And toiling millions dwelt his name,?With blessings evermore.
Unknown to power or place, yet where?The sun looks o'er the Carib sea,?It blended with the freeman's prayer?And song of jubilee.
He told of England's sin and wrong,?The ills her suffering children know,?The squalor of the city's throng,?The green field's want and woe.
O'er Channing's face the tenderness?Of sympathetic sorrow stole,?Like a still shadow, passionless,?The sorrow of the soul.
But when the generous Briton told?How hearts were answering to his own,?And Freedom's rising murmur rolled?Up to the dull-eared throne,
I saw, methought, a glad surprise?Thrill through that frail and pain-worn frame,?And, kindling in those deep, calm eyes,?A still and earnest flame.
His few, brief words were such as move?The human heart,--the Faith-sown seeds?Which ripen in the soil of love?To high heroic deeds.
No bars of sect or clime were felt,?The Babel strife of tongues had ceased,?And at one common altar knelt?The Quaker and the priest.
And not in vain: with strength renewed,?And zeal refreshed, and hope less dim,?For that brief meeting, each pursued?The path allotted him.
How echoes yet each Western hill?And vale with Channing's dying word!?How are the hearts of freemen still?By that great warning stirred.
The stranger treads his native soil,?And pleads, with zeal unfelt before,?The honest right of British toil,?The claim of England's poor.
Before him time-wrought barriers fall,?Old fears subside, old hatreds melt,?And, stretching o'er the sea's blue wall,?The Saxon greets the Celt.
The yeoman on the Scottish lines,?The Sheffield grinder, worn and grim,?The delver in the Cornwall mines,?Look up with hope to him.
Swart smiters of the glowing steel,?Dark feeders of the forge's flame,?Pale watchers at the loom and wheel,?Repeat his honored name.
And thus the influence of that hour?Of converse on Rhode Island's strand?Lives in the calm, resistless power?Which moves our fatherland.
God blesses still the generous thought,?And still the fitting word He speeds?And Truth, at His requiring taught,?He quickens into deeds.
Where is the victory of the grave??What dust upon the spirit lies??God keeps the sacred life he gave,--?The prophet never dies!?1844.
TO MY FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS SISTER.
Sophia Sturge, sister of Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of the British Complete Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 1845. She was the colleague, counsellor, and ever-ready helpmate of her brother in all his vast designs of beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot says of her: "Never, perhaps, were the active and passive virtues of the human character more harmoniously and beautifully blended than in this excellent woman."
Thine is a grief, the depth of which another?May never know;?Yet, o'er the waters, O my stricken brother!?To thee I go.
I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding?Thy hand in mine;?With even the weakness of my soul upholding?The strength of thine.
I never knew, like thee, the dear departed;?I stood not by?When, in calm trust, the pure and tranquil-hearted?Lay down to die.
And on thy ears my words of weak condoling?Must vainly fall?The funeral bell which in thy heart is tolling,?Sounds over all!
I will not mock thee with the poor world's common?And heartless phrase,?Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman?With idle praise.
With silence only as their benediction,?God's angels come?Where, in the shadow of a great affliction,?The soul sits dumb!
Yet, would I say what thy own heart approveth?Our Father's will,?Calling to Him the dear one whom He loveth,?Is mercy still.
Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel?Hath evil wrought?Her funeral anthem is a glad evangel,--?The good die not!
God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly?What He hath given;?They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly?As in His heaven.
And she is with thee; in thy path of trial?She walketh yet;?Still with the baptism of thy self-denial?Her locks are wet.
Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest?Lie white in view?She lives and loves thee, and the God thou servest?To both is true.
Thrust in thy sickle! England's toilworn peasants?Thy call abide;?And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy presence,?Shall glean beside!?1845.
DANIEL WHEELER
Daniel Wheeler, a minister of the Society of Friends, who had labored in the cause of his Divine Master in Great Britain, Russia, and the islands of the Pacific, died in New York in the spring of 1840, while on a religious visit to this country.
O Dearly loved!?And worthy of our love! No more?Thy aged form shall rise before?The bushed and waiting worshiper,?In meek obedience utterance giving?To words of truth, so fresh and living,?That, even to the inward sense,?They bore unquestioned evidence?Of an anointed Messenger!?Or, bowing down thy silver hair?In reverent awfulness of prayer,?The world, its time and sense, shut out?The brightness of Faith's holy trance?Gathered upon