A Prayer to All the Dead Among Mine Own People

    Though I have watched so many mourners weep
    O'er the real dead, in dull earth laid asleep -
    Those dead seemed but the shadows of my days
    That passed and left me in the sun's bright rays.
    Now though you go on smiling in the sun
    Our love is slain, and love and you were one.
    You are the first, you I have known so long,
    Whose death was deadly, a tremendous wrong.
    Therefore I seek the faith that sets it right
    Amid the lilies and the candle-light.
    I think on Heaven, for in that air so clear
    We two may meet, confused and parted here.
    Ah, when man's dearest dies, 'tis then he goes
    To that old balm that heals the centuries' woes.
    Then Christ's wild cry in all the streets is rife: -
    "I am the Resurrection and th...

How many of my selves are dead?
    The ghosts of many haunt me: Lo,
The baby in the tiny bed
With rockers on, is blanketed
    And sleeping in the long ago;
And so I ask, with shaking head,
How many of my selves are dead?

A little face with drowsy eyes
    And lisping lips comes mistily
From out the faded past, and tries
The prayers a mother breathed with sighs
    Of anxious care in teaching me;
But face and form and prayers have fled -
How many of my selves are dead?

The little naked feet that slipped
    In truant paths, and led the way
Through dead'ning pasture-lands, and tripped
O'er tangled poison-vines, and dipped
    In streams forbidden - where are they?
In vain I listen for their tread -
How many of my selves are dead...

    They loved life, even as we, who went away
        From their dear dwelling-place to one unknown
    To us who linger here. They could not stay,
        Nor we go with them, so they went alone.

    Although their beating hearts with ours kept time,
        Although their clinging hands we fondly held,
    We could not walk the path they had to climb,
        Hardly we heard the death-call when it knelled.

    Trustful, or fearful of the way ahead,
        They had to journey from this throbbing life,
    And we - we know they are the blessed dead,
        For they have gone away from pain and strife.

    We cannot see the land where they have gone.
        Our eyes are dim, and they are hid in light,
    But we are following them toward the dawn,

    Look you, I'll go pray,
    My shame is crying,
    My soul is gray and faint,
    My faith is dying.
    Look you, I'll go pray -
    "Sweet Mary, make me clean,
    Thou rainstorm of the soul,
    Thou wine from worlds unseen."

EZEKIEL XXXVII.


The Spirit of God with resistless control,
Like a sunbeam, illumined the depths of my soul,
And visions prophetical burst on my sight,
As he carried me forth in the power of his might.
Around me I saw in a desolate heap
The relics of those who had slept their death-sleep,
In the midst of the valley, all reckless and bare,
Like the hope of my country, lie withering there,--

"Son of man! can these dry bones, long bleached in decay,
Ever feel in their flesh the warm beams of the day;
Can the spirit of life ever enter again
The perishing heaps that now whiten the plain?"
"Lord, thou knowest alone, who their being first gave:
Thy power may be felt in the depths of the grave;
The hand that created again may impart
The rich tide of f...

My brow is bent beneath a heavy rod!
My face is wan and white with many woes!
But I will lift my poor chained hands to God,
And for my children pray, and for my foes.
Beside the graves where thousands lowly lie
I kneel, and weeping for each slaughtered son,
I turn my gaze to my own sunny sky,
And pray, O Father, let Thy will be done!

My heart is filled with anguish, deep and vast!
My hopes are buried with my children's dust!
My joys have fled, my tears are flowing fast!
In whom, save Thee, our Father, shall I trust?
Ah! I forgot Thee, Father, long and oft,
When I was happy, rich, and proud, and free;
But conquered now, and crushed, I look aloft,
And sorrow leads me, Father, back to Thee.

Amid the wrecks that mark the foeman's path
I kneel, and...