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My Legacy

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CONSIDER

CONSIDER

The lilies of the field, whose bloom is brief

We are as they;

Like them we fade away,

As doth a leaf.

Consider

The sparrows of the air, of small account:
Our God doth view

Whether they fall or mount—
He guards us too.

Consider

The lilies, that do neither spin nor toil,

Yet are most fair

What profits all this care,

And all this coil?

Consider

The birds, that have no barn nor harvest-weeks;
God gives them food—

Much more our Father seeks

To do us good.

Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894]

MY LEGACY

THEY told me I was heir: I turned in haste,

And ran to seek my treasure,

And wondered, as I ran, how it was placed,-
If I should find a measure

Of gold, or if the titles of fair lands

And houses would be laid within my hands.

I journeyed many roads; I knocked at gates;

I spoke to each wayfarer

I met, and said, "A heritage awaits

Me. Art not thou the bearer

Of news? Some message sent to me whereby
I learn which way my new possessions lie?"

Some asked me in; naught lay beyond their door;
Some smiled, and would not tarry,

But said that men were just behind who bore
More gold than I could carry;

And so the morn, the noon, the day, were spent,
While empty-handed up and down I went.

At last one cried, whose face I could not see,
As through the mists he hasted:

"Poor child, what evil ones have hindered thee
Till this whole day is wasted?

Hath no man told thee that thou art joint heir

With one named Christ, who waits the goods to share?"

The one named Christ I sought for many days,

In many places vainly;

I heard men name his name in many ways;

I saw his temples plainly;

But they who named him most gave me no sign

To find him by, or prove the heirship mine.

And when at last I stood before his face,

I knew him by no token

Save subtle air of joy which filled the place;
Our greeting was not spoken;

In solemn silence I received my share,

Kneeling before my brother and "joint heir."

My share! No deed of house or spreading lands,
As I had dreamed; no measure

Heaped up with gold; my elder brother's hands
Had never held such treasure.

Foxes have holes, and birds in nests are fed:

My brother had not where to lay his head.

My share! The right like him to know all pain

Which hearts are made for knowing;

The right to find in loss the surest gain;
To reap my joy from sowing

The Celestial Surgeon

In bitter tears; the right with him to keep
A watch by day and night with all who weep.

My share! To-day men call it grief and death;
I see the joy and life to-morrow;

I thank my Father with my every breath,
For this sweet legacy of sorrow;

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And through my tears I call to each, "Joint heir With Christ make haste to ask him for thy share." Helen Hunt Jackson [1831–1885]

THE STARRY HOST

From "God and the Soul"

THE Countless stars, which to our human eye
Are fixed and steadfast, each in proper place,
Forever bound to changeless points in space,
Rush with our sun and planets through the sky,
And like a flock of birds still onward fly;
Returning never whence began their race,
They speed their ceaseless way with gleaming face
As though God bade them win Infinity.
Ah whither, whither is their forward flight
Through endless time and limitless expanse?
What power with unimaginable might

First hurled them forth to spin in tireless dance?
What beauty lures them on through primal night,
So that for them to be is to advance?

John Lancaster Spalding [1840

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

IF I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain,-

Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take,
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,

Choose Thou, before that spirit die,

A piercing pain, a killing sin,

And to my dead heart run them in!
Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]

THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE

O THOU great Friend to all the sons of men,
Who once appeared in humblest guise below,
Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain,
And call thy brethren forth from want and woe,-

We look to thee! thy truth is still the Light
Which guides the nations, groping on their way,
Stumbling and falling in disastrous night,
Yet hoping ever for the perfect day.

Yes; thou art still the Life, thou art the Way
The holiest know; Light, Life, the Way of heaven!

And they who dearest hope and deepest pray,

Toil by the Light, Life, Way, which thou hast given.

Theodore Parker [1810-1860]

THE INNER LIGHT

Lo, if some pen should write upon your rafter
MENE and MENE in the folds of flame,

Think you could any memories thereafter
Wholly retrace the couplet as it came?

Lo, if some strange, intelligible thunder
Sang to the earth the secret of a star,
Scarce could ye catch, for terror and for wonder,
Shreds of the story that was pealed so far.

Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing,
Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand,
Only the Power that is within me pealing

Lives on my lips and beckons to my hand.

Bringing Our Sheaves

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Whoso has felt the Spirit of the Highest

Cannot confound nor doubt Him nor deny:

Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest,
Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.

Rather the earth shall doubt when her retrieving
Pours in the rain and rushes from the sod,
Rather than he for whom the great conceiving
Stirs in his soul to quicken into God.

Ay, though thou then shouldst strike from him his glory,
Blind and tormented, maddened and alone,
Even on the cross would he maintain his story,
Yes, and in hell would whisper, I have known.
Frederic William Henry Myers [1843-1901]

HEREDITY

WHY bowest thou, O soul of mine,

Crushed by ancestral sin?

Thou hast a noble heritage,

That bids thee victory win.

The tainted past may bring forth flowers,

As blossomed Aaron's rod;

No legacy of sin annuls

Heredity from God.

Lydia Avery Coonley Ward [1845

BRINGING OUR SHEAVES

THE time for toil is past, and night has come,
The last and saddest of the harvest eves;
Worn out with labor long and wearisome,
Drooping and faint, the reapers hasten home,
Each laden with his sheaves.

Last of the laborers, Thy feet I gain,

Lord of the harvest! and my spirit grieves
That I am burdened not so much with grain
As with a heaviness of heart and brain;

Master, behold my sheaves!

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