Personal Poems I, vol 4, part 1 | Page 9

thy countenance,?As if each lingering cloud of doubt,?The cold, dark shadows resting here?In Time's unluminous atmosphere,?Were lifted by an angel's hand,?And through them on thy spiritual eye?Shone down the blessedness on high,?The glory of the Better Land!
The oak has fallen!?While, meet for no good work, the vine?May yet its worthless branches twine,?Who knoweth not that with thee fell?A great man in our Israel??Fallen, while thy loins were girded still,?Thy feet with Zion's dews still wet,?And in thy hand retaining yet?The pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell?Unharmed and safe, where, wild and free,?Across the Neva's cold morass?The breezes from the Frozen Sea?With winter's arrowy keenness pass;?Or where the unwarning tropic gale?Smote to the waves thy tattered sail,?Or where the noon-hour's fervid heat?Against Tahiti's mountains beat;?The same mysterious Hand which gave?Deliverance upon land and wave,?Tempered for thee the blasts which blew?Ladaga's frozen surface o'er,?And blessed for thee the baleful dew?Of evening upon Eimeo's shore,?Beneath this sunny heaven of ours,?Midst our soft airs and opening flowers?Hath given thee a grave!
His will be done,?Who seeth not as man, whose way?Is not as ours! 'T is well with thee!?Nor anxious doubt nor dark dismay?Disquieted thy closing day,?But, evermore, thy soul could say,?"My Father careth still for me!"?Called from thy hearth and home,--from her,?The last bud on thy household tree,?The last dear one to minister?In duty and in love to thee,?From all which nature holdeth dear,?Feeble with years and worn with pain,?To seek our distant land again,?Bound in the spirit, yet unknowing?The things which should befall thee here,?Whether for labor or for death,?In childlike trust serenely going?To that last trial of thy faith!?Oh, far away,?Where never shines our Northern star?On that dark waste which Balboa saw?From Darien's mountains stretching far,?So strange, heaven-broad, and lone, that there,?With forehead to its damp wind bare,?He bent his mailed knee in awe;?In many an isle whose coral feet?The surges of that ocean beat,?In thy palm shadows, Oahu,?And Honolulu's silver bay,?Amidst Owyhee's hills of blue,?And taro-plains of Tooboonai,?Are gentle hearts, which long shall be?Sad as our own at thought of thee,?Worn sowers of Truth's holy seed,?Whose souls in weariness and need?Were strengthened and refreshed by thine.?For blessed by our Father's hand?Was thy deep love and tender care,?Thy ministry and fervent prayer,--?Grateful as Eshcol's clustered vine?To Israel in a weary land.
And they who drew?By thousands round thee, in the hour?Of prayerful waiting, hushed and deep,?That He who bade the islands keep?Silence before Him, might renew?Their strength with His unslumbering power,?They too shall mourn that thou art gone,?That nevermore thy aged lip?Shall soothe the weak, the erring warn,?Of those who first, rejoicing, heard?Through thee the Gospel's glorious word,--?Seals of thy true apostleship.?And, if the brightest diadem,?Whose gems of glory purely burn?Around the ransomed ones in bliss,?Be evermore reserved for them?Who here, through toil and sorrow, turn?Many to righteousness,?May we not think of thee as wearing?That star-like crown of light, and bearing,?Amidst Heaven's white and blissful band,?Th' unfading palm-branch in thy hand;?And joining with a seraph's tongue?In that new song the elders sung,?Ascribing to its blessed Giver?Thanksgiving, love, and praise forever!
Farewell!?And though the ways of Zion mourn?When her strong ones are called away,?Who like thyself have calmly borne?The heat and burden of the day,?Yet He who slumbereth not nor sleepeth?His ancient watch around us keepeth;?Still, sent from His creating hand,?New witnesses for Truth shall stand,?New instruments to sound abroad?The Gospel of a risen Lord;?To gather to the fold once more?The desolate and gone astray,?The scattered of a cloudy day,?And Zion's broken walls restore;?And, through the travail and the toil?Of true obedience, minister?Beauty for ashes, and the oil?Of joy for mourning, unto her!?So shall her holy bounds increase?With walls of praise and gates of peace?So shall the Vine, which martyr tears?And blood sustained in other years,?With fresher life be clothed upon;?And to the world in beauty show?Like the rose-plant of Jericho,?And glorious as Lebanon!?1847
TO FREDRIKA BREMER.
It is proper to say that these lines are the joint impromptus of my sister and myself. They are inserted here as an expression of our admiration of the gifted stranger whom we have since learned to love as a friend.
Seeress of the misty Norland,?Daughter of the Vikings bold,?Welcome to the sunny Vineland,?Which thy fathers sought of old!
Soft as flow of Siija's waters,?When the moon of summer shines,?Strong as Winter from his mountains?Roaring through the sleeted pines.
Heart and ear, we long have listened?To thy saga, rune, and song;?As a household joy and presence?We have known and loved thee long.
By the mansion's marble mantel,?Round the log-walled cabin's hearth,?Thy sweet thoughts and northern fancies?Meet and mingle with our mirth.
And o'er weary spirits keeping?Sorrow's night-watch, long and chill,?Shine they like thy sun of summer?Over midnight vale and hill.
We alone to thee are strangers,?Thou our friend and teacher art;?Come, and know us as we know thee;?Let us meet thee heart to heart!
To our homes and household