Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 320 pages of information about Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland.

Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 320 pages of information about Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland.

  And I have followed to the cross,
    On which a dying Saviour hung,
  Bemoaned my sins with weeping eyes,
    Besought his grace with suppliant tongue.

  He witness’d all my sorrowing tears,
    And heard my suppliant prayer in Heaven;
  Then sweetly spake with cheering voice,
    “Daughter, thy sins are all forgiven.”

  Prostrate in dust before His throne,
    My heart’s pure worship then I gave;
  Sweetly my ransomed spirit sang,
    Jesus Christ has power to save.”

  Then spake the son:—­“Talk not to me,
    I heeded not weak woman’s tears;
  But when I sail’d upon the sea,
    I quickly silenc’d all their fears.

  Free was my trade, my arm was free,
    And human blood I freely spilt;
  And many an aged breast like thine,
    Has sheath’d my dagger to its hilt.

  Our blood-red pennon floated free,
    Our blood-stained deck its witness gave;
  Blood, human blood, was on our hands,
    And mingled oft with ocean’s wave.”

  Shudd’ring, the mother cried:  “My son,
    Though you are steeped in human gore,
  There is a fountain filled with blood,
    That can your purity restore.

  Your Angel wife bath’d in that flood,
    And proved a Saviour’s promise true,
  And when she gently pass’d from earth
    She left her dying love for you;

  And bade you seek a Saviour’s face,
    And by His mercy be forgiven,
  And by that new and living way,
    Seek an inheritance in Heaven.”

  “Then she is dead,” he mournful cried,
    “’Tis better thus, for see the sun
  With rosy light now streaks the east: 
    And ere it sets my race is run.

  Firm would I stand upon the drop,
    Meet firmly my approaching doom;
  But death is not an endless sleep,
    And justice lives beyond the tomb.

  Yet this conviction comes too late;
    My soul is lost,—­I cannot pray;
  Forget your son—­forget my fate,
    And walk in wisdom’s pleasant way.”

  In agony the mother pressed
    To her sad heart her guilty son;
  But yet, like incense from that heart,
    Sweetly arose, “thy will be done.”

  No hands were folded on his breast. 
    They laid him not within the tomb;
  The surgeon took him from the drop,
    To meet a more disgraceful doom.

  And such is life, whose ebb and flow
    Heaves the deep sea of human mind;
  True happiness they only know,
    Whose every wish’s to Heaven resigned.

The History of a Household.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.