sky

Believers buried with Christ in baptism.

Rom. 6:3,4,etc.

Do we not know that solemn word,
That we are buried with the Lord,
Baptized into his death, and then
Put off the body of our sin?

Our souls receive diviner breath,
Raised from corruption, guilt, and death;
So from the grave did Christ arise,
And lives to God above the skies.

No more let sin or Satan reign
Over our mortal flesh again;
The various lusts we served before
Shall have dominion now no more.

The fall and recovery of man; or, Christ and Satan at enmity.

Gen. 3:1,15,17; Gal. 4:4; Col. 2:15.

Deceived by subtle snares of hell,
Adam, our head, our father, fell;
When Satan, in the serpent hid,
Proposed the fruit that God forbid.

Death was the threat'ning: death began
To take possession of the man
His unborn race received the wound,
And heavy curses smote the ground.

But Satan found a worse reward;
Thus saith the vengeance of the Lord
"Let everlasting hatred be

Heaven invisible and holy.

1 Cor. 2:9,10; Rev. 21:27.

Nor eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor sense nor reason known,
What joys the Father hath prepared
For those that love the Son.

But the good Spirit of the Lord
Reveals a heav'n to come;
The beams of glory in his word
Allure and guide us home.

Pure are the joys above the sky,
And all the region peace;
No wanton lips nor envious eye
Can see or taste the bliss.

Those holy gates for ever bar

HUSH'D be the camps to-day;
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons;
And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate,
Our dear commander's death.

No more for him life's stormy conflicts;
Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time's dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.


But sing, poet, in our name;
Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it
truly.

Hush'd be the camps today,
And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons,
And each with musing soul retire to celebrate,
Our dear commander's death.

No more for him life's stormy conflicts,
Nor victory, nor defeat--no more time's dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.

But sing poet in our name,
Sing of the love we bore him--because you, dweller in camps, know it truly.

As they invault the coffin there,
Sing--as they close the doors of earth upon him--one verse,

I

Faint falls the gentle voice of prayer
In the wild sounds that fill the air,
Yet, Lord, we know that voice is heard,
Not less than if Thy throne it stirred.

II

Thine ear, thou tender One, is caught,
If we but bend the knee in thought;
No choral song that shakes the sky
Floats farther than the Christian's sigh.

III

Not all the darkness of the land
Can hide the lifted eye and hand;
Nor need the clanging conflict cease,
To make Thee hear our cries for peace.

I

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,

No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it.

He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.

Oh, but a thought ago a baying hound
had led him to a clearing in the sky.
The stars tolled beyond the sombre clouds
and on the frozen pond the forest sighed.

He knelt, his arrows whetted by a tear,
the fire he’d set, rising into night.
Eternity approached, and in its sphere,
a sudden passing bird eclipsed the light.

He aimed and freed an arrow into dark.
Then maelstroms, downy plumes, snow tainted red,
the pity of the moon: he hit his mark.

The hellward bird now tumbling overhead—

Write it. Write. In ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they were given no food,
they all died of hunger. "All. How many?
It's a big meadow. How much grass
for each one?" Write: I don't know.
History counts its skeletons in round numbers.
A thousand and one remains a thousand,
as though the one had never existed:
an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,
an ABC never read,
air that laughs, cries, grows,
emptiness running down steps toward the garden,
nobody's place in the line.

How calm, how beauteous and how cool--
How like a sister to the skies,
Appears the broad, transparent pool
That in this quiet forest lies.
The sunshine ripples on its face,
And from the world around, above,
It hath caught down the nameless grace
Of such reflections as we love.

But deep below its surface crawl
The reptile horrors of the night--
The dragons, lizards, serpents--all
The hideous brood that hate the light;
Through poison fern and slimy weed
And under ragged, jagged stones