Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-08-31

skies,
Is but badge upon the silence of Eternity. |
Are flowers clamorOus when they unfold
Their perfect leayes2 Do stars shout along |
Their azure vault? Or does the evening sky |
Roar itself away as tho its flush
Were that Of pain? All how silent nature
Is; silent in its perfect eloquence!
Secret in its grandest operation
Speaking by symbols only, yet mastering
Every chastened heart by its unspoken
thought,
And the great God Himself doth gather
Round His dwelling-place the impenetrable
clouds
And drapery of most still reserve.
And the plsnituds of love He gives, and
Holy thoughts, and gentle aspirations,
Are but silent symbols that, of Himself,
He lives.
Nay, is not the life of our Humanity
A hidden force? As the subtle
Fluid fills tho unruffled summer air,
Unseen, unheard, till gathering all its
power
In flash that shares the sky,
Il tells the grandeur of its hidden life.
So the still life of our humanity
Beats unheard till with fash Of startling
power
It bursts in some heroic deed, publishing
How every action, brave and true, is
But symbol of a secret silent life.
The secret silent life There thought mas
lures
In its impalpable soil true virtue
has its roots; true sentiment and feeling,
Fearless Of the whitening eye, there
Blossom in their native grace. But many
A soul is gsrulousiy given, and has
No silent life-with voluble tongue pirates
Of every sacred thought-digs up
The sanctities of life, to gazs at their roots;
And 30 holds to the worlds cold gaze
Handsful OF dying flowers
But we, my brothers, know different lore.
Oh often have 1 seen at dead of night
Some student-brother, silently bending
His soul thought ward-before him our star
Shining with the glory of pure ideal,
Clasped by his soul as the Crescent
Clasps the Star Tho young, his brow
Is wrinkled into wavelets of thought: sure
some breezss from the silent-land do ripple
Der the calm still waters of his heart, ebb-
ing
visibly upon his brow. Here is the soul
That keeps a grand reserve here the
grandeur
OF man, who in the patient hour
OF earnest thought, tells only by the rip
pling brow
How intimate is he with heavenly things.
And 1 have heard that in our Civil War
A burying-squad once found two stricken
men
With hands stiffsned in a mutual grasp,
The uniform of enmity was on
Their forms, the wounds of honor on tn cir
broWs
The star-and-cresent on their breastl
Through the bloody day, each from his own
Had mad made himself hoarse with shouts of
hate
TIL wounded and dying each crawled away
To die slone-as wounded lions seek
Some lonely place to hide their dying pains
But they met in the last hour
Enemies through the noisy day OF strife
Brothers in the silent secrecy af death,
They spoke no words-their tongues were
ready
In the hour of hate-but their dying hearts
Painting with nnutterable thoughts spake
Through The silent symbol and fraternal
grip,
And so together passed away. Like waves
That through the stomry day curl their hos
tile eresls
But by the strong compulsion of the moon
At evenings hour unite their forces in a tide
That gently ripples up some quiet beach;
storms ST life,
At last BY the silent secret influence of the
same
Ideal, united in the hour of death
Ebbed their life away, gentle tide
Upon the beaches os the silent land.
Aud l thought this lonely student, these
two
Dying men, symbolic how the soul
In its ecstacy Of esrnessness,
Retires with itself, where secrecy and
Silence should guard the true ideal
- - I.
In tho dim reyeslings Of our cresent-stsri
Glorious secrecy! Glorious silence Sure
They throw a pity en- those noisy
Souls, that utter forth with resonant voice
The still music Of the heart, like hrszen
Trumpets, whose noisy metal neither feels
Nor understands the sounds it gives.
And now the cherished light that guided me
Through these few half p-ei thoughts, has
led us all
Together once again; like ships that aail
On WIDE sea, that see each other not
Because Of waves that roll between
Yet steering on the self-same course, guided
By the self-same star, at last cast anchor
In the setf-same port; so we my brothers
An argosy of youthful hearts, find harbor
For a while close to this hospitable
Shore We meet to take each others hand
To look into each others eyes-to tell
Zach other things we saw on the wide seas.
And here true hearts give welcome. Here
The light of our ideal blends its radiance
With the sacred light of many home.
Here our star in clOudless sky
Cleans reflected rays from many gentle
Heart as lonely as Hesperus, reflected
In the pure waters Of a still lake. Here
Many gentle voices chant cur songs-ss
of old
The Jewish women in the temples court
With equal rapture sang of glOries veiled
from view.
And tonight, when the banquet blazes
And tables roar with merriment; tonight
When thought leaPs from brain % brain as
lightning
Leaps from cloud to cloud to meet its kin
dred black;
Tonight, when songs shall burst from our
hearts-songs
OF college days that oace We sung with
breath
That crystalized upon the frosty air
While rapid feet beat music on the crusty |
snow;
Songs of memory and hope, flung to the
midnight stars;
o, tonight, when the waves of every heart |
Shall swell into spring tide of love
Let them, o, my brtehren, gently ebb away |
At the parting hour, with the heartfelt |
praper
That ali things pure and good,
All things true and real,
May forever ebb into our hesrts
From the fouais OF our ideal
And ere we leave this harbor calm
This shall be our parting psalm;
Star of Lifel o, Star of HoPe
Now we spread our parting sails,
Now we cast the straining rope
And turn our prows toward gathering gales
Star Of Life o. Star Of Hope
Lead US through the painless seas.
Star Of Hope o, Star of Life
Hear the scughing winds afar,
Hear the elemental strife
Ere We cross this h2rbor's bar.
Star of Life o, Star Of Hope
Guide Us throug the threatening teas.
Star of Life o, Star of Hope
Can We strive with winds unfair