Poetic Inspirations
To reflect on Brother Warner’s career is to marvel at the accomplishment that was crowded into a few short years. He was active in several callings at one time. As a minister with the heavy burden of the gospel upon him he labored hard, preaching often and being everywhere in demand. On occasions he preached for three and even four hours in one discourse, the audience as well as the preacher forgetful of the passing time. Though in physical endurance he was weak, yet there were perhaps few speakers who could wear so well in the labor of the pulpit. His private work of instructing seekers, and his ministrations for the sick, requiring the exercise of prayer and faith, absorbed his strength and occupied much time. As editor of the paper, to which he contributed articles, many of them doctrinal and requiring study, and for which he had to edit articles written by others, it was necessary that he spend much time with the pen. His correspondence also was considerable, and as stenographers were not so available then as now he had to do his writing with his own hand. Where would he get time for study and prayer, and for writing hymns or poetry? And yet he accomplished all of these.
In the latter years of his life he apparently was declining to some extent in ministerial vigor; but as a writer his productions seemed only to grow richer with his years. Had his life been prolonged to the full period of what is commonly expected of man, he would have given to the world some of the finest poetical productions. His poems are not at all inferior, though written during a strenuous career.
In 1890 he collected and published his poems in a book entitled Poems of Grace and Truth. It contained 343 pages. With the exception of a small book entitled Bible Readings, and the limp-cover binding of a songbook, this book of poems was the first cloth bound book ever made at The Gospel Trumpet Publishing Office. The press work is imperfect owing to the poor stereotyped plates from which it was printed. A number of beautiful poems were written since the publication of this book and therefore were not included in it.
His longest poem was his “Meditations on the Prairie.” It occupies eighty-four pages of the book mentioned and is written in ten-syllable iambic verse. It touchingly describes with beautiful imagery the author’s acquaintance with and his subsequent marriage to Sarah A. Keller, and the circumstances that led to her deception and separation from him. His own description of its origin, as given in the preface to the poem, is as follows:
In the summer of 1873, the author took a mission field in Nebraska, much of which had just been settled the previous year. My companion had died one year previously. Just before going West a correspondence was arranged with Sister Sarah A. Keller, which soon kindled into a glowing flame of love. A year later I returned and we were happily joined in marriage. With her precious company I came again to this blooming plain, where one year was sweetened with the most transporting conjugal bliss. In 1875 we returned to Ohio, where life and labors flowed on in uninterrupted happiness, until in 1884 the dear object of our love was deceived by the wily foe and torn from our soul, a crisis that threatened our frail life, and which we survived only by the grace of God.
In the fall of 1887, while on an extensive Western tour, we came into a new part of the great prairie, which strikingly reminded us of our travels on the new plains twelve and thirteen years before. There the Spirit touched our mind with vivid recollections of that cherished one, who made for us this prairie a blissful Eden. An inspired imagination also portrayed what dire wreck of our own life might have ensued from the crisis of broken love had not the grace of God averted the sad issue. This cast us on the sod beneath a load of gratitude, where the poem was inspired as our heart’s humble tribute for Heaven’s pity and sustaining arm.
Brother Warner was a great admirer of nature as the handiwork of God, and several of his poems are on nature subjects. What we give here are in most cases but selections from the poems named, the omissions being indicated by stars.
Autumn
Gone is the spring with all its flowers,
And gone the summer’s verdant show;
Now strewn beneath the autumn bowers,
The yellow leaves await the snow.
Behold, this earth so cold and gray
An emblem of our life appears;
Its blooming robes sink to decay,
To rise again in round of years.
Earth cheers its winter sleep with dreams
Of springtime’s warmth and gentle rain,
When she shall wake to murmuring streams
And songs of merry birds again.
So we come forth like springtime flowers,
Soon into manhood’s summer go,
Then, like the leaves of autumn bowers,
Lie down beneath the winter’s snow.
And there our bodies slumb’ring wait
Till time’s short winter day has fled,
And Christ, our Lord and Advocate,
Shall come again to wake the dead.
Then winter’s storm and summer’s heat
Shall end in everlasting spring,
And all immortal we shall meet,
And round the throne of glory sing.
New Year’s Greeting—January 1, 1890
Another year has come and gone
So swiftly flows unceasing time.
Forever, on and on and on,
With sorrow’s groan and merry chime
Commingled in its surging tide,
Time bears along upon its flood
Poor human wrecks by sin destroyed;
Yet o’er its stream the hand of God
Still bends His bow of hope divine.
Its hues of love in beauty shine.
Another year of hope and fear
Has swept around its dial-plate,
And with it thousands disappear
To higher bliss or awful fate.
God grant to us who yet survive
A heart of fervent gratitude,
And grace that we may wholly live
To glorify the source of good;
Then, should this be our final year,
We’ll sink to rest without a fear.
Another year hath brought its store
In rich profusion at our feet,
That we should, heart and soul adore
Our Maker’s love so broad and deep.
And have you cast your bread upon
The waters of the passing year,
In hope that what your hands have done
Will in much future good appear?
Then as thy faith so shall it be;
In coming days thine eyes shall see.
* * *
The poem “To the Alien” is addressed to his wife, Sarah, who, early in the year 1884, through the influence of a spiritual deceiver, as already stated, left her husband.
To the Alien
Three years have fled since billows wild
Wrecked our domestic bark,
And chilled your love for husband, child,
’Mid waters cold and dark.
“How wonderful the mystery,”
Astonished men exclaim,
“That hearts so knit in unity
Could ever part in twain?”
* * *
We suffered some adversities,
A portion all must find,
When compassed round by devotees
Whose creeds we’d left behind.
When pressing to the harvest field
Of everlasting truth,
And just before the golden yield,
Alas! you turned aloof.
Oh, how I wish that you could share
In these ecstatic days,
Enjoy the light of God so pure,
And help to sing His praise!
My soul had longed for more of God,
More glory in the cross;
But never dreamed that it must come
Through such a bitter loss.
I cannot chide His providence,
But count it all the best;
For in each storm of violence
I sink to sweeter rest.
* * *
’Twas not a rival filled thine eyes
With colored fancies rare;
But Satan came in deep disguise,
And wrought the dread affair.
* * *
We still are joined in Eden’s bond
Of matrimony true;
While life endures, yet undissolved
It binds my heart to you.
No court of man nor Satan’s pow’r
Can disannul the tie;
Though spirits rent, in evil hour,
“One flesh” are you and I.
No face so fair, no heart so warm,
Upon this verdant sod,
Shall alienate with rival charm
The wife received of God.
So I will walk with God alone,
And bless His holy name,
Till He shall bring the alien home
To dwell in love again.
In vision of the night I saw—
And woke to joyful praise—
True nature reimprint her law
That ruled thy former days.
From nature’s pure affections then
Grace led to love divine;
Then heaven’s bliss alone can bound
Our mutual joy sublime.
God grant that this may real prove
Through coming years of time,
And in his shining courts above,
An endless crown be thine.
The hand of God alone can take
The broken chords of love
And knit them in a union sweet
As love’s pure reign above.
Here I will close my present rhyme;
But ever pray for you,
That God may give you back again
The heart of woman true.
Then touched by sweet seraphic strains,
With all the heavenly throng,
I’ll shout aloud my Savior’s praise,
And sing another song.
To My Dear Sidney
The heart that feels a father’s love
And swells with love’s return,
Will kindly bear this overflow
Toward my only son.
Yes, Sidney’s love so blent with mine,
A poem shall employ
A token left to coming time
That father loved his boy.
One gentle vine—thy tendrils sweet
Around my soul entwine;
A comfort left in sorrows deep,
One heart to beat with mine.
Thy life has dawned in peril’s day,
’Mid wars that heaven shake;
Thy summers five, eventful, they
Like surges o’er thee break.
Thy little soul has felt the shock
Of burning Babel’s fall,
When hell recoiled in fury black
And stood in dread appall.
But wreaking out his vengeance now,
Like ocean’s terror dark,
Hell’s monster came athwart the bow
Of our domestic bark.
Thy guardian angel wept to see
This brunt of fury sweep
The girdings of maternity
From underneath thy feet.
But pity still her garland weaves
Around thy gentle brow,
And angels on thee softly breathe
Their benedictions now.
They soothe and bless thy manly heart,
And wipe away thy tears;
So tempered to thy bitter lot,
The bitter sweet appears.
An exile now is each to each,
As banished far at sea;
A martyr on his island beach,
I daily think of thee.
And stronger love has seldom spanned
The mocking billows wild,
Than are the chords that ever bind
To my beloved child.
Though sundered not by angry main,
Compelled from thine embrace,
We flee abroad in Jesus’ name
To publish Heaven’s grace.
Thy little heart cannot divine
Why Papa stays away,
But coming years will tell, if thine,
The great necessity.
When sickness crushed thy little form,
I knew my boy was ill;
I heard thee in my visions call,
But duty kept me still.
A trial deep, to feel thy pain,
And yet debarred from thee,
To show that sinners lost are in
A greater misery.
Oh, may this lesson speak to thee
When Father’s work is done!
And highest may thy glory be,
A soul for God is won.
And now, my son, attentive hear
My benediction-prayer,
And ever tune thy heart and ear
To heaven’s music rare;
For ere the light of day had shone
In thy unfolding eyes,
We gave thee up to God alone,
A living sacrifice;
And oft repeated when a babe,
To God our child was given;
And Jesus heard the vow we made,
And wrote it down in heaven.
So, like a little Samuel, you
Must answer “Here am I”;
Give all your heart to Jesus, too,
For Him to live and die.
Like Samuel, serve the living God,
His temple be thy home;
In love obey His holy Word,
Thy gentle heart His throne.
The Lord is good, my darling boy;
He made thy body well,
And He will bless thee evermore,
If in His love you dwell.
A new edition may you be
Of Father’s love and zeal,
But yet enlarged so wondrously
That earth thy tread may feel.
The poem “Throwing Ink at the Devil” refers to the printing and publishing of The Gospel Trumpet. The place “where two lightning tracks lie crossing” is Grand Junction, Michigan, where the publishing office was then located.
At Wartburg Castle sat a son of thunder
Dealing heaven’s dynamite,
When, lo! before him ‘peared an apparition,
Fury-threatening demon sight.
The piercing words of truth, so long besmothered
Flashed the burning wrath upon
The devil’s patent monk and pope religion,
Which confronts the dread reform.
* * *
Before the dauntless, lion-hearted Luther
Forth the hellish monster stood,
Drawn from his prison by the scattering theses
’Gainst the Romish viper brood.
He lifted up his eyebrows knit with thunder,
To the hellish specter said,
With stern address, “Du bist der wahre Teufel!”
Hurls an inkstand at his head.
The doctor’s splattering missile, proving potent,
Drove old Satan from his door;
But ink he threw on paper at the devil
Battered down his kingdom more.
* * *
Not now, as did the sturdy Wittenberger
Fling an inkstand at the foe,
But by the mighty force of steam, much faster
We the battle-ink can throw.
Just at a point where lightning tracks lie crossing,
Northward, southward, east, and west,
The Lord has planted His revolving cannon,
Firing ink at Satan’s crest.
* * *
Not only toward the main forewinds of heaven
Sin-consuming ink is shot,
But right and left in force, ’tis outward given,
Striking sin in every spot.
When round “Mansoul” Immanuel plants His army,
To retake the famous town,
On “eye-gate” hill He plants this mighty engine,
Till surrendered to His crown.
If chance a pilgrim’s shield of faith is drooping,
And his heart with fear oppressed,
Then comes the ink-winged angel trumpet sounding,
And his soul anew is blessed.
Truth
“And what is truth?” asked Pilate, sober,
Immersed in deep perplexity,
And trembled while in judgment over
The One his final judge must be.
He asked, but waited not the answer;
For in his majesty there stood
The Truth himself at his tribunal—
Yea, the incarnate Truth of God.
Shine on with all thy constellation,
The precious attributes of God,
Love, mercy, justice, and compassion;
For second in thy magnitude
Thou only art in love’s effulgence.
“I am the truth,” and “God is love”;
From both in one omnific fullness
Proceed the streams of truth above.
High honored and from everlasting
Thou art, O Truth, a pillar strong,
Upholding justice, faith, and virtue.
Before the stars together sang
Our ill-doomed planet’s new creation,
Thy hand didst hold, on heaven’s throne,
The balance weighing every nation,
Upon the worlds that round thee shone.
Thou art the firm and deep foundation
Of hope and universal good,
And on thy broad eternal bosom
Is based the awful throne of God.
The myriad stars that gem the ocean
Of boundless space, at thy command
Pursue their even-tenored motion,
And are supported by thy hand.
* * *
Autumn Leaves
A mournful sermon greets my ear!
The pensive season of the year
Now preaches in a muffled tone,
From nature’s fast-decaying throne.
Come to the woodland’s cold retreat;
The leaves that rustle at thy feet,
With all that linger o’er thy head—
Commingling, yellow, green, and red—
And all that, trembling, leave their place
And softly greet their mother’s face,
As sailing from their lofty top
They in your presence mournful drop,
Remind the thoughtful passerby,
Thy falling autumn, too, is nigh.
Life has its gay and happy spring,
When birds of every feather sing;
Its warm and verdant summer, brief,
Which hastens to the yellow leaf,
Soon winter’s icy hand will lie
Upon our cold and lifeless clay.
But, oh! our soul—where will it be
Throughout the long eternity?
How can this question pass your mind
As falling leaves drift in the wind?
* * *
Ah! there’s a sweet and sacred spell
That draws me to the shady dell;
Here could my soul with God remain
In meditation’s holy frame.
Ho! all ye men that know not God,
Come seek Him in the shady wood;
And, all ye saints of feeble love,
When will ye come and wisely prove
The blessedness that crowns the hour
That’s spent with God in leafy bower!
If only heard your prayers ye say,
Then unto God ye never pray;
For did ye truly seek His face
And pray to win His saving grace
You’d pray when mortals are not near,
Right in your heavenly Father’s ear.
In public, too; yea, everywhere,
But most of all with secret prayer;
Where only silent leaves applaud,
There would ye bow and worship God.
* * *
Then in the hush of solitude
Come listen to the voice of God;
Come oft, and He shall teach thine ear
His gentle words of love to hear.
There is no place on earth so sweet
As forest shades, where streamlets meet
And sing aloud their rocky ways,
With birds, and universal praise.
Do not the lover and his maid,
Delighted, walk the balmy shade,
And there unlock, with words so blest,
The pent-up love within their breast!
The crazy-quilt spread on the ground,
Of beauty-tinted leaves around,
Each bright sunbeam and fragrant flower,
And nature’s music in the bower—
But, most of all, the cooing dove—
Lend inspiration to their love.
And does not nature’s solitude
Inspire a soul to worship God!
Behold, he framed her majesty,
Cast up her hills, and carved the way
For babbling brooks that flow between
And tread the winding valley’s green.
The many lovely trees that spread
Their sheltering wings above our head,
Rose up by His supreme behest,
With all their nuts and fruitage blest,
He taught the vine their trunks to climb,
Like cords of love their boughs entwine.
* * *
Hear thou, O man, our autumn chant
While sunbeams coldly o’re us slant,
And mournfully we fall so low
To don our winding sheet of snow,
There doomed in silence to decay.
So, too, thou, man, must pass away;
Thy springs of love shall lower run
Until thy life’s last setting sun;
Then in thy grave-suit, coldly wound,
Like us return to mother ground.
But we are not without a seed,
From which anew there may proceed
Our kind to grow and multiply,
As round and round the seasons fly.
So, man, within thy mortal breast
There is a soul, immortal quest,
That shall reanimate thy clay,
And both, immortal, live for aye.
Thou shalt from winter’s sleep arise,
And meet thy Savior in the skies.
With this blest hope so sure and bright
All seasons beam with golden light,
In winter’s storm and summer’s heat
The pure in heart have joys complete;
And when the close of life appears,
Their pleasures ripen with his years
Unlike the sinner, dark and cold
Who graceless, godless, hopeless, old,
Sits lowly down in autumn’s vale,
His life all fruitless to bewail.
Each falling leaf his conscience stings
And thoughts of future judgment brings;
Yea, warns him that the time is nigh
When be in black despair must die.
Unlike the life in folly spent,
And now with sinful years is bent
Low at the grave with dismal moan;
Nay, “for the righteous light is sown,”
Yea, light that brightens in the vale
Of falling leaves, where he can hail
The glories of another world;
Where mortal shafts are never hurled,
Nor cruel frosts can ever sting.
There life begins another spring
To flourish in eternal green,
In heaven’s high celestial scene.
Beautiful Spring
Ah, gentle spring, thy balmy breeze,
New chanting ’mid the budding trees,
A glorious resurrection sings!
And on thy soft, ethereal wings
Sweet nectar from ten thousand flowers,
That bloom in nature’s happy bowers
Thou dost as holy incense bring
To Him who sheds the beams of spring.
Far in the South thy bloom appeared,
And all our journey northward cheered;
A thousand miles in sweet embrace,
We northward held an even race;
Or if by starts we did outrun
Thy even tenor from the sun,
Ere long we blessed thy coming tread
And quaffed the odors thou didst spread.
O brightest, sweetest of the year!
When all is vocal with thy cheer,
Thy lily-cups and roses red
With us some tear-drops also shed.
The cherry-trees, in shrouds of white,
Bring back to mind a mournful sight—
A coffined brother ’neath the bloom,
Just ere they bore him to the tomb.
Ah, yes, thou sweet, beguiling spring,
Of thee, my inmost heart would sing.
“The time of love,” all bards agree
To sing in merry notes to thee.
Yea, such thou art, and happy they
Who walk in love’s delightful day
Along the path thy flakes hath strewn,
And know indeed her constant boon.
But what of him who walks alone,
With past love fled and turned to stone?
Shall not the springtide music’s roll
Mock withered joys and sting the soul?
Not in the heart embalmed in love
Transported from the worlds above,
Nor seasons, no, nor else can bring
Heartaches where only God is king.
That soul an endless spring enjoys
Where life the will of God employs.
He ’mid the fields of bliss may tread,
And feast on joys that long have fled,
By sacred memories’ glowing trace
More than the heart untouched by grace,
Can drink from full fruition’s stream,
Or paint in fancy’s wildest dream.
O God! Thou art the life of spring,
The source of all the seasons bring,
The soul of all the joys we know,
The fountain whence our pleasures flow.
While nature wakes from winter’s sleep,
And gentle clouds effusive weep,
We join creation’s grateful lays,
And celebrate our Maker’s praise.
The deaths of individuals furnished inspiration for many a verse from Brother Warner’s pen. Celia Kilpatrick Byrum was one of the early workers in The Gospel Trumpet Office, when the paper was published at Grand Junction, Michigan. Her death occurred on the 11th of December, 1888.
And is she gone—dear Celia gone?
Such news would tax credulity
Did not the Spirit’s previous tone
Toll in our bosom mournfully
The thought, “She’s left this mortal clime,
And we shall see her face no more
Until we pass the bounds of time
And meet upon celestial shore.”
’Twas in our heart to tune our lyre
To sing thy cheerful wedding-day;
But debts are made by fond desire,
More than our fleeting time can pay.
So now we sing our mournful lay—
Another epoch, followed soon
To thy poor soul, a brighter day
Than that when blessed beside thy groom.
The Author of these feeling hearts
Chides not affection’s flowing tears;
But with them soothing balm imparts,
And in His arms of love He bears
Poor nature’s heavy burden up:
So when bereavements press our mind,
Grace drops such sweetness in the cup
That even then we comfort find.
But is she gone whose heart e’er burned
With such devoted, fervent zeal?
To bless mankind her spirit yearned,
Wished every heart God’s love might seal.
She thought no sacrifice too dear,
No painful toil and care too great,
That all this world the truth might hear
And gain redemption’s blissful state.
O sister, while thy eyes beheld
Whate’er thy willing hands could do,
No needed rest thy footsteps held,
No moderation couldst thou know;
Regarding not thy slender frame—
To pious toil so passionate—
Till thy enfeebled limbs refrained
To execute thy heart’s mandate.
* * *
When sickness had already cast
Its waning paleness on thy cheek,
God folded thee within the breast
Of love, connubial, warm and deep.
Thank heav’n for this provision kind,
To bless, support, and comfort thee;
On those strong arms thy life declined
Till from thy suffering body free.
* * *
Dear Celia’s gone! How sad the news,
Dear saints, this mourning Trumpet brings!
The hands that dropped refreshing dews
Upon its flying-angel wings
And toiled so hard to set the lines
That burned upon your hearts with love,
Inspired your souls a thousand times,
Has gone to blissful toils above.
* * *
Ah! now invert the column rules,
And dress The Trumpet sad with crape,
That all who read may know it feels
And weeps the loss of friend so great.
Her artful fingers shall no more
Set up its many vocal peers,
Nor shall her anxious heart yet pour
Upon its sheets her moist’ning tears.
Her gentle voice, so fine and sweet
The Trumpet organ’s highest key
Is singing now, at Jesus’ feet,
With heaven’s joyful minstrelsy.
Oh! could we near the pearly gate
And listen to her ransomed song,
Our souls would more felicitate
The bliss of that immortal one.
The poem “The Marriage of a Mr. Hope” is a play on the word hope and has a slight touch of the humorous.
It appeared that Mr. Hope,
Entertained the pleasing hope
That some hopeless one among the fair
Was seeking hope from life’s despair,
And was pleased with Hope to share,
The cheerful name of Hope to wear.
And so good Hope went smiling ’round
Till the object of his hope was found;
Then sitting by the fair one’s side,
Hope beamed with prospects of a bride.
The question asked, the prompt decision
Turned hopeful’s hope to full fruition,
And so it happened very soon,
The beau of hope became a groom.
Then hopeless changed to Hope by name,
And two hopes but one Hope became.
Their bark now launched on the stream of hope,
May all the blessings hope bespoke
Their voyage crown along the way
Of hope’s uncrowded blissful day,
And may their happy little bark afford
A lively crew of sunny Hopes aboard;
And when to anchor in the harbor driven
May all their hopes be realized in heaven.
An interesting imaginative story of some length is his poem “Soul Cripple City” in which he represents sectarian religion as a city wherein the inhabitants walk on crutches. The following is the first stanza.
Not a mere imaginary
Object, borne on fancy’s wing,
Is the city of this story,
But a real historic thing.
Though by troupes and proper figures
We delineate her fame,
Though she has some mystic features,
She’s an entity the same.
He takes up the different denominations as particular brands of crutches on which people hobble.
But whereunto shall we liken,
Or with what similitude,
Paint this foolish generation!
Ah! behold the sinful brood!
All within that mystic city
Walk not upright on their feet,
But on crutches play the cripple—
’Tis a custom they must keep.
Not a man in all Soul Cripple,
Not a woman, girl, or boy,
But must go it on quadruple,
Must the wooden legs employ.
Not one ever tried it walking
On created feet alone;
Not on crutches to be stalking
Were a scandal to the town.
* * *
Next appeared the English crutches,
And the High Episcopal.
Thence the mania fast increases,
Every style conceivable.
Wycliffe crutches, Calvin crutches,
Quaker, Shaker, Mennonite,
Wesley crutches, twenty branches,
M. E. crutches, black and white.
* * *
Then there are the Baptist crutches,
Hard-shelled and inflexible,
Free-will Baptist, bond-will Baptist,
And the creed Six Principle.
There are Baptists called Ephrata,
Saturnarian Baptists, too,
Anabaptist, Calvinistic
Baptist crutches we’ll undo.
* * *
In this mart of vain religions
You will find on Water Street,
And at all her river stations,
Crutches vaunted as complete.
But the clubs that they are vending,
Are as hollow as a horn;
They that buy need no repenting,
In cold water they are born.
* * *
All these bapto ‘sociations
Have a god of water made,
Leaving fire and salvation
And the blood without the trade,
More than all the sects who clamor,
Just to make the sinner wet,
Who have swallowed down a Campbell,
And are straining at a gnat.
He allots special “Additions” to the city for Adventism, the Salvation Army, Russellism, and Lyman Johnson of The Stumbling Stone. The last of the poem is devoted to God’s call to His people to come out of Babylon. We give but three stanzas.
But adieu, for we must travel
With the remnant who return
Fleeing from the fall of Babel,
To the new Jerusalem.
Hark a noise like many waters!
’Tis the captive jubilee,
Like the voice of mighty thunders.
Hallelujah! we are free!
* * *
Jesus is our head and ruler,
And His Word our only guide,
And His gentle Spirit leader,
He our peace, a constant tide
Flowing in our tranquil bosom,
Where is reared the mystic throne
Of the King of peace eternal,
Where He dwells and reigns alone.
Oh, the glorious hope of Zion!
Oh, the riches of her grace!
Ever happy are the people
Who abide in such a place.
God is over all in glory,
And is through them great and small,
And He’s in them by His Spirit,
Jesus, Jesus, all in all.
“The Crusades of Hell” is the title of a serial poem describing the fall of man, the plan of salvation, and the different epochs of Christian history. It shows how Satan attempted to destroy the church by martyrdom and, failing in that, next attempted counterfeiting the church by making false churches.
His poems “To the Ocean” and “Goodbye, Old Rockies” were written on his Pacific Coast trip in the autumn of 1892.
To the Ocean
Help me, O sweet voice of inspiration,
Help me sing one gentle lay
To the ocean’s wide and deep creation,
Singing for us night and day.
And thou restless sea, with all thy wonders,
Touch my heart with melody;
For no bard can sing thy awful numbers
Uninspired indeed by thee.
’Twas a balmy evening in October,
As our train sped on its time,
That we came in sight of God’s great ocean,
To the old Pacific brine.
Swiftly gliding down its ancient orbit,
The great monarch of the light
Dropped his golden smiles upon the water
Ere he bid us all goodnight.
* * *
Thou a preacher art to all the ages,
And thy audience all the world;
Lo! we read thy sermon on the pages
Of the book that God unfurled.
And to all that tread thy sand environs
Thou dost thunder, yea, and show
How the human heart in sin’s dominion
Never, never peace can know.
As thy waves in ceaseless turmoil labor,
And in fury bent the shore,
As they writhe and moan and dash asunder,
Rise and fall forevermore,
So the blasting hopes and guilty terrors
Of the sinner’s wretched heart,
Restless, fearful, and despairing ever,
From his bosom never part.
Only One has sailed upon the bosom
Of the tempest-troubled sea,
Who could hush the winds and calm the billows—
He who spoke to Galilee.
Only He can break the storms of passion,
And rebuke the fears of hell;
Only He can calm the struggling spirit,
Speak the word, “Be still, be still.”
* * *
Oh, I bless thy kindness, friend Pacific,
For thy temporizing breath;
For the climate wafted from thee truly
Is an enemy to death.
Sweet and soft and balmy are thy breathings,
Keeping winter blasts away;
And I thank thee, Providence, that brought me
Here to San Diego Bay.
* * *
On this seacoast I would fondly linger,
Where the zephyrs gently breathe
O’er the vineyards vast, and lemon orchards,
Where the bright pomegranates wave;
And the golden orange, figs, and guavas,
Apples, pears, and prunes abound;
With delicious nectarines and peaches,
Blessing all the season round.
Where the ocean moans its solemn numbers,
And the sun outpours its gold
On the clouds which bang, while twilight lingers,
O’er the sea waves rising bold.
And the glorious king of day, descending,
Bids the vintage toilers rest,
While he cools his fevered brow each evening
On the great Pacific breast.
Goodbye, Old Rockies
I love your wild, romantic beauties,
Ye forms that seem to vie
Each with the summit of his neighbor,
And pierce the giddy sky.
Old Rockies, now to you
I bid adieu, adieu,
But hope we part not here forever.
I leave you as I found you, covered
With winter’s chilly shroud,
Reaching toward the starry heavens,
And mantled in the cloud.
While I God’s mercy preach,
And you his greatness teach,
We jointly glorify our Maker.
I read upon your lofty bulwarks
The might of nature’s God,
What fortresses thy hands have builded
Where human feet ne’er have trod!
The strength of these are thine,
And round their apex shine
Jehovah’s bright creative glory.
* * *
“Divine Guidance” was a poem of his later years in which he reflects on the kind hand of God upon his whole life.
I own a Providence supreme, divine,
Has ruled and overruled this life of mine,
Yes, ruled in all that heaven’s love bestows,
O’erruled in that from ill-intending foes.
But, oh, what mystery
Veiled all His policy,
And made this life a solemn wonder!
To trace the mystic path my feet have trod,
And note how every step is marked of God,
How mercy hovered o’er my single blank
Till at Love’s throne my haughty spirit sank,
And saw my pardon free
Flow down from Calvary,
Unlocks my bosom’s grateful fountain.
But greater, wider, higher, O my Lord,
My humble walk with Thee unfolds Thy Word,
Unfolds Thy plenitude of love and grace,
And helps Thy hand in providence to trace.
And yet high o’er my soul,
Like ocean billows roll,
Unsolved, ten thousand sacred wonders.
I bless Thee, O Thou wise and loving Guide,
That Thou didst lead to full salvation’s tide,
And there my heart didst wash in crimson blood,
Restore into the image of my God.
Thenceforth my soul bath been
The palace of a King;
The joyful place of royal banquet.
And I, who kingly honors never dreamed,
Am raised with Him who hath my soul redeemed,
To jointly reign on Love’s eternal throne,
His peace and joy and glory all my own.
O mystery Providence!
Why lavishly dispense
Thy gifts on one so meanly suited!
Lord Jesus, when I retrospect my life
Down through the varied scenes of mortal strife,
At every change I stand in wonder wrapt,
How Thou hast saved and used and blessed and kept,
And by Thy blood hast bought
A thing of utter naught;
And well may all the angels marvel.
Besides the foregoing were a number of short poems, also a lengthy poem on Faith, which covers over sixty pages in his book. His poem on Innocence is referred to in our chapter “Ancestry and Early Life.”