Anniversary Poem

Once more, dear friends, you meet beneath     A clouded sky     Not yet the sword has found its sheath,     And on the sweet spring airs the breath     Of war floats by.     Yet trouble springs not from the ground,     Nor pain from chance;     The Eternal order circles round,     And wave and storm find mete and bound     In Providence.     Full long our feet the flowery ways     Of peace have trod,     Content with creed and garb and phrase:     A harder path in earlier days     Led up to God.     Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear,     Are made our own;     Too long the world has smiled to hear     Our boast of full corn in the ear     By others sown;     To see us stir the martyr fires     Of long ago,     And wrap our satisfied desires     In the singed mantles that our sires     Have dropped below.     But now the cross our worthies bore     On us is laid;     Professions quiet sleep is oer,     And in the scale of truth once more     Our faith is weighed.     The cry of innocent blood at last     Is calling down     An answer in the whirlwind-blast,     The thunder and the shadow cast     From Heavens dark frown.     The land is red with judgments. Who     Stands guiltless forth?     Have we been faithful as we knew,     To God and to our brother true,     To Heaven and Earth.     How faint, through din of merchandise     And count of gain,     Have seemed to us the captives cries!     How far away the tears and sighs     Of souls in pain!     This day the fearful reckoning comes     To each and all;     We hear amidst our peaceful homes     The summons of the conscript drums,     The bugles call.     Our path is plain; the war-net draws     Round us in vain,     While, faithful to the Higher Cause,     We keep our fealty to the laws     Through patient pain.     The levelled gun, the battle-brand,     We may not take     But, calmly loyal, we can stand     And suffer with our suffering land     For conscience sake.     Why ask for ease where all is pain?     Shall we alone     Be left to add our gain to gain,     When over Armageddons plain     The trump is blown?     To suffer well is well to serve;     Safe in our Lord     The rigid lines of law shall curve     To spare us; from our heads shall swerve     Its smiting sword.     And light is mingled with the gloom,     And joy with grief;     Divinest compensations come,     Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom     In sweet relief.     Thanks for our privilege to bless,     By word and deed,     The widow in her keen distress,     The childless and the fatherless,     The hearts that bleed!     For fields of duty, opening wide,     Where all our powers     Are tasked the eager steps to guide     Of millions on a path untried:     THE SLAVE IS OURS!     Ours by traditions dear and old,     Which make the race     Our wards to cherish and uphold,     And cast their freedom in the mould     Of Christian grace.     And we may tread the sick-bed floors     Where strong men pine,     And, down the groaning corridors,     Pour freely from our liberal stores     The oil and wine.     Who murmurs that in these dark days     His lot is cast?     Gods hand within the shadow lays     The stones whereon His gates of praise     Shall rise at last.     Turn and oerturn, O outstretched Hand     Nor stint, nor stay;     The years have never dropped their sand     On mortal issue vast and grand     As ours to-day.     Already, on the sable ground     Of mans despair     Is Freedoms glorious picture found,     With all its dusky hands unbound     Upraised in prayer.     Oh, small shall seem all sacrifice     And pain and loss,     When God shall wipe the weeping eyes,     For suffering give the victors prize,     The crown for cross.