Poems

Introduction

FROM youth to old age my beloved father was a poet in spirit — and that is one reason why his poetic works are real poetry.

HE also had the gift of felicitous expression — the ability to translate poetic thought into poetic language.

DL. MOODY, world-famous evangelist, once ♦ spoke of father as ''the finest English preacher on the American continent."

His gift of illuminating every subject on which he spoke with graphic, gripping English, is also evident in his written works, both prose and poetry.

WE read, ' ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Father's purity of spirit is well known to his hosts of friends — he had visions of God, of Heaven, of things present and things to come — poetic visions.

These visions he translated into beautiful poems.

THESE poems, selected from the hundreds he wrote, over a span of sixty years, many of them published and republished in various periodicals both here and abroad, are here reproduced in loving memory of a great and good man whose fruitful life was dedicated to one purpose — and that purpose always uppermost — to serve well his God and his fellowmen.

GO forth, little book, and transmit something of his beautiful, humble, helpful spirit to every reader.

RoLLiN Zeller Hartzleb.

Contents

Half-tone of Author Frontispiece

Dedication 3

Introduction 5

I

I come ! I come ! a festal year. With eyes of light and voice of cheer. I come ! a grateful nation waits, With incense at her temple gates ; I pour into her list'ning ears The greetings of a hundred years.

II

I come, a Reaper of the land, Columbia's sickle in my hand.

And gather in, from far and near, With ringing song and bounding cheer. From seed of blood and toil and tears. The harvest of a hundred years.

III

I come, a Sower sent from God, To plough the hard and trampled sod. And sow in all the fields of earth. The seeds of Freedom 's second birth. Enfolding with their hopes and fears, The longings of a hundred years.

IV

I come, a Prophet of the day ; The night shall fail and pass away. The looming years are all sublime, With visions of a better time ; And soft millennial light appears — The sunshine of a hundred years.

GO, MY SON!

If it be true that man moulds his own destiny, what a solemn and momentous hour is that, when the son passes out from under the parental roof, to shape his destiny for weal or woe! Fathers! from out whose homes a son is going, you can breathe an amen to these lines.

I.

Go, my son ! the world 's before you ! Heaven will smile approval o'er you ; Prayers and blessings from j^our home Follow wheresoe'er you roam; Life, with all its busy toil.

Calls you to the world's turmoil. With the cross upon your shoulder, Let the strife but make you bolder As you press the upward way.

II.

Go, m}^ son, where duty calls you. Fearless still, whate'er befalls you: Oh ! be manly, brave and true. Cling to Right and dare to do : Weakness often conquers Might — Dare to suffer for the Right.

III.

Go, my son, awake from dreaming! See ! the star of Hope is beaming In the future 's dimming years. And a beck 'ning hand appears That shall guide your feet aright, On a pathway clear and bright.

IV.

Go, my son ; and while you wander Clouds and dark temptations under, Never dream of base retreat; Crush the world beneath your feet; Walk by faith and not by sight — God will give you needed light. 4

V

Go, my son, the days are fleeting ; Life is but a hasty greeting, And a whispered, sad farewell. Then we hear the dying knell ! Work to-day — in God 's design No to-morrow may be thine.