Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, IA [i.e. Ind.]) 1839-1854, 1845-12-31

Let me hear thy voice through this deep and black
Abysmal night.
What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth.
For God and man,
From the golden hours of bright-eyed youth
To life's mid span!
All, soul of mine, thy tones hear,
But weak and low,
Like far, sad murmurs on my ear,
They come and 60.
~ have wre.tled stoutly with the Wrong,
And borne the Right.
From beneath the football of the throng
To life and light.
"Whcrever Freedom shivered a chain
God speed, quoth l.
To Error amidst her Bile nded train
gave the lie"
All. .ou, Of mine! ah soul of mine!
Thy deeds are well,
Were they wrought for Truths sake or for thine'
My soul, pray tell.
"Of all the work my hand hath wrought
Beneath the sky,
Save place in kindly human thought
No gain have l."
Go to- go to.-for thy very self
Thy deeds were done:
Those for fame, the miser's for pelf
Your end is one!
And where art thou going, soul of mine'
Canst the cnd2
And whittier this troubled life of thine
Evermorc doth tend?
What daunts thee now what shakes thee So
My sad soul say:
~ see a cloud like q curtain low
Hang DER my way
"Whither 90 cannot tell;
That cloud hangs black,
High the Heaven and deep as He'll
Across my track
81 see its shadow codly cnwraP
The souls before,
Sadly they enter it, step by step,
To return no more.
"Thcy shrink, they shudder dear God. they kneel
To Thee in prayer
They shut their eyes the cloud, but feel
That it still is there.
'In vain they turn from the dread Before
To the Known and Gone;
For while gazing behind them evermoro
Their feet glide
"Yet at times, see upon sweet pale faces
A light begin,
To trembie if from holy places
And shines within.
"And at times methinks their cold lips move
With hymn and prayer,
As II somewhat of awe, but more of love
And hope, were there.
81 call on the soul. who have left the light
To reveal their lot;
l bend mine to that wall Of night,
And they answer not.
but hear around me signs of pain
And the of fear
And a sound like the slow, sad dropping of rain,
Each drop tear!
"Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day,
| am moving thither
must pass beneath il way
God pity NEW HirHERr'
All, soul Of mine. brave and wise
In the life storm loud,
Fronting calmly all human eyes,
In the sun-lit crowd!
Now standing apart with God and me
Thou art weakness all,
Gazing vanly after the things to be
Through Deaths dread wall.
But never for this. never for this,
Was thy being lent.
For the craven's fear is but selhshncss,
Like his merriment
Folly and fear are sisters twain:
One closing her ewes,
The other peopling the dark inane
With spectral lies.
Know well, my soul. Gods hand controls
Whate'er thou fearest,
Round him in calmest music rolls
Whate'er thou nearest.
What to thee is shadow to Him is day
And the end He knowe,h.
And not blind and aimless way
The spirit gocth.
Man futurc-a phantom show
Is alone before him;
Past time IS dead and the grasses grow
And flowers bloom DER him
Nothing before him. nothing behind:
We walk in Faith
Over the seeming void and find
The rock beneath.
The Prcsent-the Present. is all thou hast
For thy sure possessing;
Like the patriarch S angel hold him fast
Till he gives his blessing.
Why fear the night why shrink from Death.
- That phantom wan9
There is nothing in Heaven earth beneath
Save God and man.
Pecpling LIES shadows we turn from Him
And from another,
Anis spectral vague and dim