All's Well! Part 8

EVENING BRINGS US HOME

_Evening brings us home,-- From our wanderings afar, From our multifarious labours, From the things that fret and jar; From the highways and the byways, From the hill-tops and the vales; From the dust and heat of city street, And the joys of lonesome trails,-- Evening brings us home at last, To Thee._

From plough and hoe and harrow, from the burden of the day, From the long and lonely furrow in the stiff reluctant clay, From the meads where streams are purling, From the moors where mists are curling,-- _Evening brings us home at last, To rest, and warmth, and Thee._

From the pastures where the white lambs to their dams are ever crying, From the byways where the Night lambs Thy Love are crucifying, From the labours of the lowlands, From the glamour of the glowlands,-- _Evening brings us home at last, To the fold, and rest, and Thee._

From the Forests of Thy Wonder, where the mighty giants grow, Where we cleave Thy works asunder, and lay the mighty low, From the jungle and the prairie, From the realms of fact and faerie,-- _Evening brings us home at last, To rest, and cheer, and Thee._

From our wrestlings with the spectres of the dim and dreary way, From the vast heroic chances of the never-ending fray, From the Mount of High Endeavour, In the hope of Thy For Ever,-- _Evening brings us home at last, To trust and peace, and Thee._

From our toilings and our moilings, from the quest of daily bread, From the worship of our idols, and the burying of our dead, Like children, worn and weary With the way so long and dreary,-- _Evening brings us home at last, To rest, and love, and Thee._

From our journeyings oft and many over strange and stormy seas, From our search the wide world over for the larger liberties, From our labours vast and various, With our harvestings precarious,-- _Evening brings us home at last, To safety, rest, and Thee._

From the yet-untrodden No-Lands, where we sought Thy secrets out, From the blizzards of the Nightlands, and the blazing White-Lands' drought, From the undiscovered country Where our IS is yet to be,-- _Evening brings us home at last, To welcome cheer, and Thee._

From the temples of our living, all empurpled with Thy giving, From the warp of life thick-threaded with the gold of Thine inweaving, From the days so full of splendour, From the visions rare and tender,-- _Evening brings us home at last, To quiet rest in Thee._

From the Dim-Lands, from the Grim-Lands, from the Lands of High Emprise, From the Lands of Disillusion to the Truth that never dies; With rejoicing and with singing, Each his rightful sheaves home-bringing,-- _Evening brings us all at last, To Harvest-Home with Thee._

From the fields of fiery trying, where our bravest and our best, By their living and their dying their souls' high faith attest, From these dread, red fields of sorrow, From the fight for Thy To-morrow,-- _Evening brings each one at last, To G.o.d'S own Peace in Thee._

THE REAPER

All through the blood-red Autumn, When the harvest came to the full; When the days were sweet with sunshine, And the nights were wonderful,-- _The Reaper reaped without ceasing._

All through the roaring Winter, When the skies were black with wrath, When earth alone slept soundly, And the seas were white with froth,-- _The Reaper reaped without ceasing._

All through the quick of the Spring-time, When the birds sang cheerily, When the trees and the flowers were burgeoning, And men went wearily,-- _The Reaper reaped without ceasing._

All through the blazing Summer, When the year was at its best, When Earth, subserving G.o.d alone, In her fairest robes was dressed,-- _The Reaper reaped without ceasing._

So, through the Seasons' roundings, While nature waxed and waned, And only man by thrall of man Was scarred and marred and stained,-- _The Reaper reaped without ceasing._

How long, O Lord, shall the Reaper Harry the growing field?

Stretch out Thy Hand and stay him, Lest the future no fruit yield!-- _And the Gleaner find nought for His gleaning._

Thy Might alone can end it,-- This fratricidal strife.

Our souls are sick with the tale of death, Redeem us back to life!-- _That the Gleaner be glad in His gleaning._

NO MAN GOETH ALONE

Where one is, There am I,-- No man goeth alone!

Though he fly to earth's remotest bound, Though his soul in the depths of sin be drowned,-- No man goeth alone!

Though he take him the wings of fear, and flee Past the outermost realms of light; Though he weave him a garment of mystery, And hide in the womb of night,-- No man goeth alone!

Though apart in the city's heart he dwell, Though he wander beyond the stars, Though he bury himself in his nethermost h.e.l.l, And vanish behind the bars,-- No man goeth alone!

For I, G.o.d, am the soul of man, And none can Me dethrone.

Where one is, There am I,-- No man goeth alone!

ROSEMARY

Singing, she washed Her baby's clothes, And, one by one, As they were done, She hung them in the sun to dry, She hung them on a bush hard by, Upon a waiting bush hard by, A glad expectant bush hard by, To dry in the sweet of the morning.

The while, her son, Her little son, Lay kicking, gleeful, In the sun,-- Her little, naked, Virgin son.

O wondrous sight! Amazing sight!-- The Lord, who did the sun create, Lay kicking with a babe's delight, Regardless of His low estate, In joy of nakedness elate, In His own sun's fair light!

And all the sweet, sweet, sweet of Him Clave to the bush, and still doth cleave, And doth forever-more outgive The fragrant holy sweet of Him.

Where'er it thrives That bush forthgives The faint, rare, sacred sweet of Him.

So--ever sweet, and ever green, Shall Rosemary be queen.

EASTER SUNDAY, 1916

The sun shone white and fair, This Eastertide, Yet all its sweetness seemed but to deride Our souls' despair; For stricken hearts, and loss and pain, Were everywhere.

We sang our Alleluias,-- We said, "_The Christ is risen!

From this His earthly prison, The Christ indeed is risen.

He is gone up on high, To the perfect peace of heaven._"

Then, with a sigh, We wondered...

Our minds evolved grim hordes of huns, Our bruised hearts sank beneath the guns, On our very souls they thundered.

Can you wonder?--Can you wonder, That _we_ wondered, As we heard the huns' guns thunder?

That we looked in one another's eyes And wondered,--

"_Is Christ indeed then risen from the dead?

Hath He not rather fled For ever from a world where He Meets such contumely?_"

Our hearts were sick with pain, As they beat the sad refrain,-- "_How shall the Lord Christ come again?