POETRY.
LOVE AND LEARNING : J. B. L.
WEEP ye, all of learned men, For a master of the pen, Passed beyond our mortal ken !
Weep him, weep the exalted soul Gathering from the ages' roll Learning's tribute, tax and toll, To devote an offering meet, Holiest incense, perfume sweet, For his Lord, his dear Lord's feet !
Weep him all, for he was kind, And together heart and mind Worked for all of humankind ; All ! He knew not rich and poor : All ! His love's exceeding store Would not close the Church's door, Rather spread it wider. Clear This at least, that man is dear, Truth is large, and God is near!
So he drew us, young and old, With a modesty untold— He the silver, we the gold !
Drew us, now with purpose high, Now with tender-streaming eye, Now with power of sympathy;
Till we knew not where did start Truths that he would free impart, In the mind or in the heart,—
From the mind the sentence clear, Pregnant utterance, thought severe : But the heart's the tone, the tear!
So he taught us, master, friend ; Love it seemed, without an end, Nothing on himself to spend ; All for others ! Night and day Toiling ever, work his play, Till he toiled his life away. Weightiest voice in Church and School, Weightiest tongue to awe the fool, Weightiest voice, but gentlest rule, How shall we replace him P Gone, Say we by his funeral stone, Gone, and we are left alone !
Ah, these students ! Brief their fate,. Crushed beneath the double weight, Love and learning's heaviest freight:: Brilliant thus the life, but soon Burning out like tropic noon, While the colder Arctic moon, Where the pallid icebergs throng, Sways its night of winter long, Chill of death, but deathlike strong..
Martyr-students ! See they go One by one, and in our woe Friendless seem we left below : Double burden cannot stay : Yet resolved they seem to say, Better thus to burn away, Than as leaves to fade and fall, Mouldering by some churchyard welt. Lingering leaves at winter's call, Mouldering on oblivion's sod.
Quick, then, brothers, where they trod, Upward ! Lo, it leads to God ! A. G. E.
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