In memory's hall hangs the picture,
And though years of sad care are between;
It hangs with a beautiful gilding
And well do I love it, I ween.
It stood on a bleak country corner,
But boyhood's young heart made it warm, It gloried in the sunshine of summer, "Twas cheerful in winter and storm.
The teacher, oh well I remember;
My heart has long kept him a place;
Perhaps by the world he's forgotten,
His memory no time can efface.
He met us with smiles on the threshold,
And in that rude temple of art,
He left with the skill of a workman,
His touch on the mind and the heart.
Oh, gay were the sports of the noontide,
When winter winds frolicked with snow;
We laughed at the freaks of the storm king,
And shouted him on, all aglow.
We dashed at his beautiful sculptures,
Regardless of all its array,
We plunged in the feathery snowdrift
And sported the winter away.
We sat on the old-fashioned benches,
Beguiled with our pencils and slate,
We thought of the opening future
And dreamed of our manhood's estate;
O, days of my boyhood! I bless you;
While looking from life's busy prime,
The treasures are lingering with me
I gathered in life's early time.
O still to that bleak country corner
Turns my heart in its weariness yet,
Where leading my gentle young sisters
With youthful companions I met,
I cast a fond glance o'er the meadow,
The hills just behind it I see,
Away in the charm of the distance,
Old school house! a blessing on thee!
The following beautiful poem was written by Major Andre,
a few days before his execution.
Hail, sovereign love, which first began
The scheme to rescue fallen man!
Hail, matchless, free, eternal grace,
Which gave my soul a Hiding Place.
Against the God who built the sky,
I fought with hands uplifted high,
Despised the mention of His grace,
Too proud to seek a Hiding Place.
Enwrapt in thick Egyptian night,
And fond of darkness more than light,
Madly I ran the sinful race,
Secure, without a Hiding Place.
And thus the eternal counsel ran,
Almighty love, arrest that man!
I felt the arrows of distress,
And found I had no Hiding Place.
Indignant justice stood in view;
To Sinai's fiery mount I flew;
But justice cried, with frowning face,
This mountain is no Hiding Place.
Ere long a heavenly voice I heard,
And Mercy's angel soon appeared;
He led me in a placid pace,
To Jesus as a Hiding Place.
On Him almighty vengeance fell
Which must have sunk a world to hell.
He bore it for a sinful race,
And thus became their Hiding Place.
Should sevenfold storms of thunder roll,
And shake this globe from pole to pole,
No thunderbolt shall daunt my face,
For Jesus is my Hiding Place.
A few more rolling suns at most,
Shall land me on fair Canaan's coast,
When I shall sing the song of grace,
And see my glorious Hiding Place.
HE WHO DIED AT AZAN SENDS.
He made life-and he takes it—but instead
Gives more; praise the restorer, Al-Mu'hid!
He who died at Azan sends
This to comfort faithful friends:
Faithful friends! it lies, I know,
Pale and white and cold as snow;
And ye say, "Abdullah's dead!”
Weeping at my feet and head;
I can see your falling tears,
I can hear your cries and prayers;
Yet I smile and whisper this:
"I am not that thing you kiss;
Cease your tears, and let it lie;
It was mine, it is not I.”
Sweet friends, what the women lave,
For its last bed in the grave,
Is a tent which I am quitting,
Is a garment no more fitting,
Is a cage from which, at last,
Like a hawk my soul hath passed.
Love the inmate, not the room;
The wearer, not the garb; the plume
Of the falcon, not the bars
Which kept him from those splendid stars.
Loving friends! be wise, and dry
Straightway every weeping eye;
What ye lift upon the bier
Is not worth a wistful tear.
"Tis an empty seashell, one
Out of which the pearl is gone;
The shell is broken, it lies there;
The pearl, the all, the soul, is here.
"Tis an earthen jar whose lid
Allah sealed, the while it hid
That treasure of his treasury,
A mind which loved Him; let it lie!
Let the shard be earth's once more,
Since the gold shines in His store.
Allah Glorious! Allah good!
Now thy grace is understood;
Now my heart no longer wonders
What Al-Barsakh is, which sunders
Life from death, and earth from heaven;
Nor the "Paradises Seven"
Which the happy dead inherit;
Nor those "birds" which bear each spirit Toward the throne, "green birds and white," Radiant, glorious, swift their flight!
Now the long, long darkness ends,
Yet ye wail, my foolish friends,
While the man whom ye call "dead"
In unbroken bliss instead
Lives and loves you; lost, 'tis true,
By any light which shines from you;
But in light ye cannot see
Of unfulfilled felicity,
And enlarging paradise,
Lives the life that never dies.
Farewell, friends! Yet not farewell;
Where I am ye, too, shall dwell.
I am gone before your face
A heart-beat's time, a gray ant's pace,
When ye come where I have stepped,
Ye will wonder why ye wept,
Ye will know, by true love taught,
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