Classic Poem

A PIONEER .

I STAND , O friend, where they laid thee
When thy warm, true heart grew chill,
When the hand that wrought so bravely
Forgot to obey thy will.

I speak, but thou dost not answer;
I call, but thou dost not come;
The low wind sings in the grasses,
But thine eloquent lips are dumb.

And is this all? Was the spirit
That strove for many a year
In the front rank of life's battle,
Quenched like a taper here?

Is there nothing — no hereafter?
Is the life of the soul so small?
Are our human hopes and guerdons,
In the years of earth-life, all?

Is there nothing higher, better,
Where a clearer light shall show
The full intent and the meaning
Of problems unsolved below?

Was a soul that wrought so grandly,
A heart so faithful and true,
Dispensed to the winds and waters,
While so much remained to do?

Nay, nay: by the truth of Jesus,
By the holy lips that said:
" He that in me believeth
Shall live though he were dead. "

Thou art not here; thou art risen
Beyond this shadowy shore,
And this monumental marble
Marks the robe thy spirit wore.

Thou wert called to higher labor,
Called a grander trust to fill.
And the soul that never faltered
Is doing its duty still.

By a sight beyond the human,
By a sense I can not name,
I perceive thee, greater, grander,
Glorified, and yet the same.

Drinking from unfailing fountains
That supreme, unlettered lore,
Which flows, without beginning,
Without end, forevermore.

And I hope ere long to meet thee,
With my little household band,
Where the Lord will teach His children
What they failed to understand.

Where the good, the true, the perfect,
To our human souls denied,
Shall be found in all their beauty,
And the spirit satisfied.