Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-06-20

Read before the Alumni of the Friends, Year
meeti1g school, at the annual meeting Mt Newpor
IL. l., 18th 9th Mo. 1863 PN'

head oeiore the Alumni of the Friends. Yearl
eeung school, at the annual meeting mt Newpor
l., 18th 9th Mo, 1868
BY JOHN G. WHITTIER
Once more, dear friends you meet beneath
A clouded sky;
Nor yet the sword las found its sheath.
And, on the sweet spring airs the breath
Of war floats by.
Yet trouble springs not from the ground.
Nor pain from chance;
Tn Eternal order circles round
And wave and storm find mete and bound
In Providence.
Full long our feet the howery WAYS
Ofpeace have trod,
Content with creed aud garb and phrase:
A harder path in earlier days
Led up to God.
Too cheaply truths, once purchased dear.
Are made our own;
Too long the world has smiled to hear
Our boast of full corn in the ear
By Others sOwn.
To see us stir the martyr fires
Of long ago;
And wrap Our satisfied desires
In the sInged nantes that our sres
Have dropped below.
But now the cross our worthless bore
On us is laid
Professions quiet sleep is DER,
And III the scale of truth once more
Our faith is weighed
The cry of innocent blood at last
- Is calling down
The thunder and the shadoW caSt
From Heavens dark irown.
The land is red with Judgments. Who
Stands guiltess forth?
Have lOe been faithful as we knew,
To God and to our brother true,
70 Heaven and Earth!
How faint through din of merchandise
And count of gain,
Have seemed to us the captives' cries!
How far away the tears and signs
OF souls in pain!
This day the fearful reckoning comes
TO each and all;
We hear amidst our peaceful homes
The summons of the conscriPt drums,
The busle's call
Our path is plain: the war-net draws
Round us in vain,
While, faithful to the Higher Cause,
We keep our teaty to the laws
Through patient pain.
The Ieveled gun, the battle brand
Wcmay not take;
But calmly loyal, we can stand
And suffer with our suffering land
For conscience sake.
Why ask for ease where all is pain?
shall zoe alone
Be left 10 add our gain to gain,
When over ArmageddOn's plain
The trump is blown!
To suffer well is well to serve;
Safe in our Lord
The rigid lines of law shall curve
10 spare U.S. from our heads shall swerve
Its shifting sword.
And light is mingled with the gloom,
And joy with grief;
DiYineSt cumpensatiOns come,
Through thorns of Judgment mercies bloom
In sweet relief.
Thanks for our privilege to bless
By word and deed,
The widow in her keen distress,
The chiidless and the fatheTess,
The hearts that bleed!
For field of duty opening wide,
Where all our powers
Are taSked the eager steps to guide
OF millions ON earth untried;
The SLAVE IS OURS
Ours by traditions dear and DID,
Which make the race
Our wards to cherish and uphold,
And cast their freedom i'll the mold
OF christian grace.
And we may tread the sick-bed floors
Where strong men pine,
And down the groaning corridors,
Pour freely from our liberal stores
The oil aud wine.
Who murmurs that in these dark days
His lot is cast?
Gods hand within the shadow lays
The stones wherein His gates OF praise
Shall rise at last
Turn aud o'erturn; o outstretehed Hand!
Nor stint, nor stay;
The years have never dropped their sand
On mortal issue vast and gland
AS ours to-day.
Already. on the sable ground
vi mans despair,
Is freedoms GLORIOUS picture found,
With all its dusky hands unbound,
Upraised in prayer.
Oh, small shall seem all sacrifice
And pain and loss,
When God shall wipe the weeping eyes,
For suffering give the victor's prize,
The crown for cross!