Time was when war’s alarm
        Called for a fear,
    When sorrow’s seeming harm
        Hastened a tear;
    Naught care I now what foe
    Threatens, for scarce I know
    How the year’s seasons go
        Since I am here.

    This is my resting-place
        Holy and dear,
    Where Pain’s dejected face
        May not appear. 
    This is the world to me,
    Earth’s woes I will not see
    But rest contentedly
        Since I am here.

    Is’t your voice chiding, Love,
        My mild career? 
    My meek abiding, Love,
        Daily so near? 
    “Danger and loss” to me? 
    Ah, Sweet, I fear to see
    No loss but loss of Thee
        And I am here.

Death.

    If days should pass without a written word
      To tell me of thy welfare, and if days
      Should lengthen out to weeks, until the maze
    Of questioning fears confused me, and I heard. 
      Life-sounds as echoes; and one came and said
      After these weeks of waiting:  “He is dead!”

    Though the quick sword had found the vital part,
      And the life-blood must mingle with the tears,
      I think that, as the dying soldier hears
    The cries of victory, and feels his heart
      Surge with his country’s triumph-hour, I could
      Hope bravely on, and feel that God was good.

    I could take up my thread of life again
      And weave my pattern though the colors were
      Faded forever.  Though I might not dare
    Dream often of thee, I should know that when
      Death came to thee upon thy lips my name
      Lingered, and lingers ever without blame.

    Aye, lingers ever.  Though we may not know
      Much that our spirits crave, yet is it given
      To us to feel that in the waiting Heaven
    Great souls are greater, and if God bestow
      A mighty love He will not let it die
      Through the vast ages of eternity.

    But if some day the bitter knowledge swept
      Down on my life,—­bearing my treasured freight
      To founder on the shoals of scorn,—­what Fate
    Smiling with awful irony had kept
      Till life grew sweeter,—­that my god was clay,
      That ’neath thy strength a lurking weakness lay;

    That thou, whom I had deemed a man of men
      Faulty, as great men are, but with no taint
      Of baseness,—­with those faults that shew the saint
    Of after days, perhaps,—­wert even then
      When first I loved thee but a spreading tree
      Whose leaves shewed not its roots’ deformity;

    I should not weep, for there are wounds that lie
      Too deep for tears,—­and Death is but a friend
      Who loves too dearly, and the parting end
    Of Love’s joy-day a paltry pain, a cry
      To God, then peace,—­beside the torturing grief
      When honor dies, and trust, and soul’s belief.