Niagara, and Other Poems. Benjamin Copeland
power,
Winter’s dearth to summer’s dower.
Glows the mold with vernal fire
Kindled by thy love’s desire;
Nature wakens, at thy call,
To her Easter festival.
Mateless messenger divine!
Peerless privilege is thine:—
Thou interpretest to Faith
The deep mystery of death.
THE GOAL.
Sweet scents, sweet sounds, sweet scenes!
With all that intervenes
In sweeter solemn silences profound—
Whereinto overflows,
In forest, river, rose,
Passionless being, beauty without bound.
How deep the mind’s repose!
The vagrant sea-breeze blows
With kindred pulses through the fragrant shade;
And sod and soul are blent
In blest enfranchisement—
Prefiguring the end for all things made.
For life and love, supreme
Beyond the poet’s dream,
Shall bear all being to its blissful goal;
The wondrous word is true—
"Lo! I make all things new;"
The universe is ransomed with the soul!
THE REWARD.
From green to gold
The year grows old,
With beautiful increase;
The seasons wane
To ripened grain
And Nature’s deepest peace.
The same sure plan
Is thine, O man!
Alike for sod and soul,
The law of love—
Enthroned above—
That guides thee to thy goal.
Have faith in God:—
Who gives the clod
Its meed of fruit or flower,
Shall crown thy cares,
Thy tears, thy prayers,
With an immortal dower.
STRENGTH AND BEAUTY.
The Useful and the Beautiful,
Indissolubly blent,
One law reveal, one Will and weal,
In sod and firmament.
The earth below, the sky above,
With flowers and stars are sprent;—
The child to cheer, the saint, the seer,
Their love and light are lent.
For Strength and Beauty equal are,
In Nature’s kind intent—
The hawthorn hedge, and granite ledge
That binds the continent.
Were wish and will more dutiful,
And life more nobly spent,
Would we not know, with souls aglow,
What such high vision meant?
Ah, yes! our lowliest tasks would then
In heaven’s own glory shine,
And time be told on harps of gold,
In dream and deed divine.
VIOLET, ROSE, AND GOLDEN-ROD.
Violet, rose, and golden-rod!
Blossoms of the self-same sod,
Springing from the breathing mold
Into beauty manifold.
Each its season knoweth well,
Without sign or syllable—
Faithful to the law benign
Potent over palm and pine.
Excellent in their degree,
Rivals they can never be;
Fashioned with divinest grace,
Each is perfect in its place.
Dear to Childhood and to Age,
Each hath ample heritage
In these human hearts of ours,
Kindred with the leaves and flowers.
Children of the shower and sun,
Soon, like theirs, our day is done;—
We are fading e’en as they—
We with them must pass away.
But the flowers shall bloom again;
Ends, at last, the winter’s reign;—
Life is larger than a breath—
Love is master over death!
Precious, in the sight of God,
Violet, rose, and golden-rod;—
Dearer far to Heaven are we,
Children of eternity!
OCTOBER.
Crimson-and-gold, October’s boughs proclaim
The approaching Passion of the waning year;
By sacramental signs, for aye the same,
Pathetic portents show the end is near.
The landscape lessens in the shimmering haze;
The songless silence chants the season’s grief;—
Too soon shall follow, with the darkening days,
The fading field-flower and the falling leaf.
No more allures the lovely glade or glen;
A nameless sorrow haunts the lonely shore;
The frosts have fallen on the hearts of men;
The little children seek the woods no more.
For Nature holds us surely as her own,
In sleet and snow, or under skies of blue;
From birth to