Textarchiv - Lucy Larcom

Ye shall live also

mrbot — Sun, 18 Nov 2018 21:10:10 +0000

Say not of thy friend departed,
"He is dead:" — he is but grown
Larger-souled and deeper-hearted,
Blossoming into skies unknown.
All the air of earth is sweeter
For his being's full release;
And thine own life is completer
For his conquest and his peace.

Roll the stone from sorrow's prison,
White-robed angel, holy Faith,
Till with Christ we have arisen,
And believe the word He saith!
Heaven is life to Life brought nearer:
Love withdraws, more love to give:
Hearts to hearts in Him are dearer: —
"Lo! I live, and ye shall live!"

Lucy Larcom

1892

In remembrance of me

mrbot — Sun, 18 Nov 2018 21:10:02 +0000

Who could refuse
The last wish of a friend?
Loving unto the end,
Fain would His love transfuse
Itself into the lives He left behind,
That in their souls Him they might always find.

"Remember Me!"
It was Christ's last request,
Unto His own addressed:
And all souls claimeth He;
Only by Him our human hearts are fed
With spiritual wine and living bread.

By One so dear
Invited, who would stay
In loneliness away?
O friends, let us draw ,tear!
For in us now His image grows too dim:
Let us forget ourselves, remembering Him!

Lucy Larcom

1892

My cup runneth over

mrbot — Sat, 17 Nov 2018 21:10:10 +0000

Wherefore drink with me, friends! It is no draught
Of red intoxication; at its brim
No vine-wreathed head of Bacchus ever laughed, —
This homely cup of mine, now worn and dim
With time's rough usage; no bright bubbles swim,
Or foam-beads sparkle over. — Have ye quaffed
These waters clear, and felt the Shepherd waft
His breath of life through souls that follow Him?
He cools my feverish fancies; calms the stir
Of dreams whose end was only bitterness.
Healed at this fount our inmost ail would be,
Did we but health before disease prefer.

My cup is filled at wells whose blessedness
A world's thirst cannot drain. Friends, drink with me!

Lucy Larcom

1892

Himself he cannot save

mrbot — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 21:10:06 +0000

O scoffer! He who from the cross
Looked down thy dark abysm of loss,
And knew His pain alone could win
Such souls as thine from gulfs of sin, —
His death-groan mournful echo gave:
"Myself I cannot save."

Words breathed in scorn, yet understood
By Him to bear a sense of good:
The secret of the glorious strife
Between the powers of death and life,
Love's deepest truth- self-sacrifice —
Hid in that mockery lies.

And he must understand it so
Who would relieve a brother's woe:

He cannot shun his own distress;
He hastes, with Christlike earnestness,
Although the way be through his grave:
Himself he cannot save.

Some happy souls may pass along
The heavenward road with smile and song,
Through guileless infancy and youth
Linked in with followers of the truth;
And their unconsciousness of ill
But makes them lovelier still.

Their peaceful path is not for all:
Each must obey his separate call;
And he is of himself abhorred
Who flies the summons of the Lord:
Sailing from danger unto ease,
He sinks in unknown seas.

None longs so for yon vales of peace
As he whom war gives no release.
But exiles' chains his brethren wear;
He knows no rest they may not share;
For them all hardships he must brave:
Himself he cannot save.

Aye, through all pain and loneliness,
Where men are perilled, he must press
To rescue, crying, "Woe is me,
Resisting not the wrong I see!
If none uphold me, I must go,
Single, against the foe!"

And not the warrior-heart alone
The scoffer's word for truth has known: —
The mourner, weeping out the night
For aliens from the one true Light;
The watcher by the bed of pain,
Who knows her watch is vain;

He who has felt his heaviest cross
Far lighter than another's loss;
He who can ask and bear the blow
That shelters any soul from woe,
Sees why that Death on Calvary
Life's beacon-light must be.

Ring, mournful echo, through the world!
Float, banner of the Cross, unfurled
To show the servant who would prove
His Master's joy of suffering love,
That while thy folds above him wave
Himself he cannot save!

Lucy Larcom

1892

Even as he is pure

mrbot — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 21:10:02 +0000

Thou who seest my soul within,
Thou who knowest my unknown sin,
Through Thy holy eyes let me
Learn what sin is unto Thee!

Oh, my Saviour undefiled,
Leave me not by self beguiled,
Blinded by my heart's deceit,
For Thy friendship all unmeet!

If there be in me a thought
That Thy dear name honoreth not,

Pierce it with Thy pitying gaze
Till its silence turns to praise!

Make me, Pure One, as Thou art,
Pure in soul and mind and heart;
Never satisfied with less
Than Thy perfect holiness!

Bathing in Thy love's clear stream,
Let my soul fulfill her dream,
Beautified with every grace
Shining on me from Thy face!

None Thy holy heaven may win
Stained with earthliness and sin:
They must in white robes appear,
Who Thy whiteness venture near.

Cleanse us, fill us, Soul Divine,
With a purity like Thine,
That within, without us, we
In clear vision, God may see!

Lucy Larcom

1892

Be Ye Therefore Perfect

mrbot — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 21:10:10 +0000

Oh, the beauty and the joy of living
As the children of our Father, God!
All we have and hope for gladly giving
His abounding love to pour abroad, —
Healing waters of His pure salvation,
Through the world for which His Son has died:
Sharing in our Master's consecration;
Walking at our Elder Brother's side.

Wonderful the whiteness of Thy glory!
Can we truly that perfection share?
Yes; our lives are pages of Thy story;
We Thy shape and superscription bear:
Tarnished forms — torn leaves — but Thou canst mend them;
Thou Thine own completeness canst unfold
From our imperfections, and wilt end them;
Dross consuming, turning dust to gold.

Like a snowy mountain-peak above us,
"Be ye perfect!" dazzles our dim eyes.
Canst Thou look from Thy pure height and love us?
May our earth-clogged feet to Thee arise?
We before the vision veil our faces,
Yet would have it not a ray less bright.
Shine into our sin's dark hiding-places!
Fill us, flood us with Thy cleansing light!

Perfect even as Thou art perfect, Father!
As the little hilltops catch the sun;
As the small shoots springing up together
Round the Tree of Life, with it are one.
In these earthen vessels heavenly treasure
For the enrichment of Thy poor may shine:
Thou canst fill us, in our human measure,
With Thy being's overflow divine.

Perfect only with God's own perfection!
Drop the crumbling model shaped of clay!
Break the weak ideal of man's erection!
Let the Real burn the false away!
This is life — to pour out love unstinted!
Good and evil sunlike blesseth He:
Through your finite is His infinite hinted: —
Children of your Father must ye be.

Lucy Larcom

1892

As Strangers and Pilgrims

mrbot — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 21:10:10 +0000

As strangers, glad for this good in,
Where nobler wayfarers have been;
Yet asking but a little rest:
Earth may not keep her spirit-guest.

As those whom no entangling bond
Must draw from life and love beyond:
Strangers to all that lures astray
From one plain path, the homeward way.

How must the pilgrim's load be borne?
With staggering limbs, and look forlorn?
His Guide chose all that load within:
There's need of everything, but sin.

So, trusting Him whose love he knows,
Singing along the road he goes;
And nightly of his burden makes
A pillow till the morning breaks.

How thinks the pilgrim of his way?
As wanderers homesick and astray?
The starlight and the dew he sees;
He feels the blessing of the breeze;

The valley-shades, how cool and still!
What splendor from the beetling hill!
He longs to go; he loves to stay;
For God is both his Home and Way.

Strangers to sin! beloved of God!
Ye track with heaven-light earth's mean sod;
For, pilgrims dear, HE walks with you,
A Guide, — but once a Pilgrim too.

Lucy Larcom

1892

A Door Opened

mrbot — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 21:10:02 +0000

Might a door but be opened in heaven!
Might we look for a moment within!
Might only one comforting glimpse be given,
Of the life that we hope to win!

A door has been opened in heaven: —
Its glory shone full on the earth,
When the clouds of her midnight were smitten and riven
By the joy of the Christ-Child's birth.

And a door is yet opened in heaven;
Its light floods our world to its brim,
When a soul, for His truth having suffered and striven,
Ascends, a crowned conqueror, to Him.

Lucy Larcom

1892

Drawing Nearer

mrbot — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 21:10:01 +0000

Are we daily drawing nearer
Thee, the Perfect, the Unseen?
Grows the pathway ever clearer,
Stretching sense and God between?
Thine own messengers beside us
Wait, wherever we may be;
Earth and heaven are met, to guide us
Nearer unto Thee.

In the web of beauty's weaving,
In the picture and the song;
In our dreaming and believing,
By our friendships borne along;
By our own heart's human story,
By the light on land and sea,
Glimpsing unimagined glory,
Draw we nearer Thee?

In our doings and ambitions,
Heaping gold and probing thought;
In crude science, worn traditions,
Finds the spirit what it sought?
In the tumult of the nations,
Surging like a shoreward sea,
Are Thy sundered congregations
Gathering unto Thee?

With the footsteps of the ages,
Are we drawing nearer Thee?
Beautiful upon Time's pages
Will our name and record be?
Year on year of worthier living
Add we to life's glorious sum? —
Through our failures, Thy forgiving,
Lord, Thy kingdom come!

Over fallen towers of error,
Laid by our own hands in dust;
Past the ghosts of doubt and terror;
Out of sloth's in-eating rust;
From Gomorrah's lurid smouldering,
Borders of the drear Dead Sea;
Graves where selfish loves lie mouldering,
Fly we unto Thee.

Vain a secret hoard to carry
From our ruined house of pride;
Weights that hinder, fiends that harry,
Are the idols that we hide.

Draw us rather by the sweetness
Of Thy breath in living things
To Thyself, with unclogged fleetness
Lifted, as on wings!

Dogmas into truth transmuting,
Fusing differences in love;
Creed and rite no more disputing,
Closing rank and file we move;
Leaving our dead Past behind us,
Turning not, nor looking back:
May no wayside glimmer blind us
To the one straight track!

Brother hastening unto brother,
Youth rewakening in our eyes,
Loving Thee and one another,
Find we our lost Paradise.
Where the heart is, there the treasure;
Led by paths we cannot see
Unto heights we cannot measure,
Draw we nearer Thee!

Nearer Thee, through every aeon,
Every universe of Thine!
Man and seraph swell one paean,
Harmonizing chords divine.
Thine from Thee no power can sever;
Through death's veil Thy face they see;
Saved, forever and forever
Drawing nearer Thee!

Lucy Larcom

1892

As a Flower

mrbot — Wed, 13 Dec 2017 21:10:04 +0000

Open your heart as a flower to the light!
Darkness is passing; the Sun is in sight;
Morning with splendor is piercing life through,
Arrows of radiance, and spear-tips of dew.

Glad is the world in the Holy One's birth.
Lo, the new heavens! and lo, the new earth!
Scattered and fled are the phantoms of night:
Christ is the victor, and Christ is the Light!

Open your heart, and His love will shine in,
Cleansing and healing the hurt of your sin.
Who can resist Him, the Saviour, the Son?
Hell flies before Him, and Heaven is won.

Open your heart as a flower to the light!
Bloom and bear fruit in the glory of right!
Be of His Presence a perfume, a ray,
Child of the morning, and heir of the day!

Lucy Larcom

1892