 | Coffin's Poems with Ajax' Ordeals |  |
40
Bishop Daniel A. Payne.
(Deceased).
He has gone forth in the light of light,
Out of the long watch and the heavy night,
Out of the life that was so hard to bear,
Crowded by sorrow and perplexed by care.
Out of the long watch and the heavy night,
Out of the life that was so hard to bear,
Crowded by sorrow and perplexed by care.
Love was the life which pulsed his being through,
No task too hard, if set by love to do,
No pain too sharp, if love called to endure,
No weariness he knew if love was true.
No task too hard, if set by love to do,
No pain too sharp, if love called to endure,
No weariness he knew if love was true.
Heaven has received him as a welcome guest,
Balming earth's tie with compensating rest,
Healing earth's grievous wound with sure content,
The sense of home after long banishment.
Balming earth's tie with compensating rest,
Healing earth's grievous wound with sure content,
The sense of home after long banishment.
But more to him than smile of vanished kin,
Or hands outstreched to greet and draw him in,
Or “bonded walls” of amethyst unpriced
Is the clear vision of the face of Christ.
Or hands outstreched to greet and draw him in,
Or “bonded walls” of amethyst unpriced
Is the clear vision of the face of Christ.
The face divine, which, in his boyhood days,
Seeing he loved and never looked away,
Which, like a star in the dim firmament,
Guided his steps and moved where'er he went.
Seeing he loved and never looked away,
Which, like a star in the dim firmament,
Guided his steps and moved where'er he went.
41
Out of the life that was not always sweet,
Out of the puzzle and the day's defeat,
Out of earth's hindering and alien zone,
The Lord of love has led him to his own.
Out of the puzzle and the day's defeat,
Out of earth's hindering and alien zone,
The Lord of love has led him to his own.
| Coffin's Poems with Ajax' Ordeals | |