Poems

It is my joy in life to find At every turning of the road, The strong arm of a comrade kind To help me onward with my load: And since I have no gold to give, And love alone must make amends, My only prayer is, while I live,— God make me worthy of my friends! Frank Dempster Sherman. In Frank Leslie's Monthly.

I hold him great who for love's sake Can give with generous, earnest will; Yet he who takes for love's sweet sake, I think I hold more generous still. I bow before the noble mind That freely some great wrong forgives; Yet nobler is the one forgiven, Who bears that burden well and lives.

I say to thee, Do thou repeat To the first man thou mayest meet In lane, highway, or open street, That he and we and all men move Under a canopy of love As broad as the blue sky above; That doubt and trouble, fear and pain And anguish, all are shadows vain, That death itself shall not remain; That weary deserts we may tread, A dreary labyrinth may thread, Through dark ways underground be led; Yet if we will our Guide obey, The dreariest path, the darkest way, Shall issue out in heavenly day; And we, on divers shores now cast. Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, All in our Father's house at last.

If deeds of love you would achieve, This one great truth you must believe By giving you can best receive. With prophet poor your cruse divide; The little left is multiplied, And want is kept far from your side.

List ! "Sleep on now and take your rest"— Anew the voice divine Rings out athwart pretended zest That suffers love's decline. Shall the betrayer's faithless kiss Find echo in my part? Christ leads, and none the path can miss, Except the cold of heart.

When men revile thee till the way grows dreary In which thy feet so long have blameless trod, When friends condemn thee and the heart is weary Beneath the chastening of misfortune's rod, Then turn unto the Master's kind bequest: "Come unto me, and I will give you rest. " Be not cast down; behold, the roses borrow Fresh buds of promise from the cloud-wrapt day— Buds that shall blossom in a fair to-morrow, And seem the sweeter for the rude delay; So may the clouds beget the promise blest "Come unto me, and I will give you rest.

We are not free; Freedom doth not consist In musing with our faces toward the Past, While petty cares, and crawling interests, twist Their spider-threads about us, which at last Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp and bind In formal narrowness heart, soul, and mind. Freedom is recreated year by year, In hearts wide open on the Godward side, In souls calm-cadenced as the whirling sphere, In minds that sway the future like a tide.

O help me, heavenly Father To know Thee as Thou art, The Truth that makes me free indeed And purifies the heart. To gain the Life eternal, Of sin I must repent, And follow in humility The Christ whom Thou hast sent.

The past holds no regrets for me. No gaunt and lurking dread Can rob to-morrow of its peace, For God is here.

Well shall it be with the upright man, Well, ever well; For the deeds of his mind are like the seed That grows and ripens for coming need; Hand's work comes back to the hand, they tell, Cease to do evil learn to do well— For that is the heavenly plan. Light is sown for the righteous man, Light, heavenly light; Mists may hang o'er the sproutless fields, And toil be long ere the good grain yields; But the harvest brings the sower's reward In winnowed grain from the hands of his Lord Who purges all with his fan.