Front matter
Glass .__ Book_
Gonyiiglit]^?-
COPnUCHT DEPOSm
Preface
but, as man has been loth to receive, He has, in His infinite goodness and mercy, withheld many of His choicest gifts and blessings. When man is prepared to receive them, these gifts and blessings will be freely showered down upon him.
I may be considered a fanatic, but I certainly believe that greater poets than the greatest of those who have made their homes among mortals are now living in the celestial mansions of our God, and that they are waiting with impatient anxiety for the time to come when they will be permitted to mold around themselves caskets of mortality and pour forth, in mortal song, the music of their overflowing souls. It requires no great effort on my part to believe that they will all be sent to 'the earth at the proper time. When they do come, their songs will not be the sickly sentiments of weak and sensual lovers ; they will not be whining complaints addressed to fat and faithless mistresses; nor even the eloquent musings of gifted infidels. The thrilling numbers of their songs will flow forth with such harmony and sweetness that the skeptic's spirit will tremble with an undeceivable consciousness of its own immortality. The burden of the muse will then be: The redemption of man wrought out by the great God, Jesus Christ; the justice and mercy of a kind and aftectionate Father; and the unimaginable and never-ending joys of loved ones when they meet, where partings are unknown, in that sweet, celestial home of their God.
The Author.
December, i8gi.
COINTTEISTTS.
Page.
Ill the Yalley of Prayer, . . . .9
"To a Lady Weeping," ... 84
A Soldier's Confession, . . . .43
The Graves of my Loved Ones, . . .47
A Prayer, .... 48
Lines on Leaving Home, . . . .50
A Welcome to Spring, . . . .52
AVheu I (Taze Xipon Thy Beauty, . . 53
In the Gloom of Death, ... 55
Inspiration, . . ... . .57
Reconciliation, . . . . . 59
A Sad Death, . . . . (iO
The Dying Christian, .... 61
Lines Addressed to a Despondent Friend, . 63
The Purpose of Human Existence, . . 64 The World in Darkness : —
Canto the Fourth, . . . .146
To a Loved One in Paradise, . . . 186 Our Deeds Will Follow Us, ... 188
Sorrow's Lessons, .... 189
CONTENTS. Vlll
I'AOE.
Why Should Ye Falter ? . . . . 191
Must We Part? .... 192
The Withered Flowers, .... 193
The Farmer's Daughter, . . . 197
"Arise, O My Soul ! " . . . . 19S
A Jealous Lover, .... 199
Where I Would Have My Home, . . 200
Thoughts on Death (A Fragment), . . 201
Pleasure-Seekers, ..... 205
Life and Death, 209
The Battle Between Truth and Error, . .211
Poetry and Poets ( A Fragment), . . 220
An Evening in the Grove, . . . 241 A Christian's Pilgrimage : —
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