Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/The Departed Pastor
THE DEPARTED PASTOR.
You will not see him more. You whose young thoughts
Blent with his image, who to manhood grew
Beneath the shelter of his saintly shade,
Bringing your tender infants to his hand
For the baptismal water, and lived on
Amid his teachings, till the silver hairs
Came all unlook'd for, stealing o'er your brow,
You will not see him more.
There was a place
Where, duly as the day of God return'd,
His solemn voice held converse with the skies
For you and yours, till more than fourscore years
Swept in deep billows o'er him. You will hear
That voice no more.
There stands his ancient house,
Where, with the partner of his heart, he shared
Affection's joys so long, and fondly mark'd
His children and his children's children rise
Clustering around his board.
Remember ye
His cordial welcome? how he freely dealt
A patriarch's wisdom, in monitions kind
To all who sought him? how, with hallow'd grace
Of bounteous hospitality, he gave
Example of those virtues, pure and sweet,
Which, round the hearth-stone rooting, have their fruit
Where men are judged?
He linger'd with you late,
Till all the loved companions of his youth
Had gone to rest. Yet so he loved your souls,
That for their sakes he willingly sustain'd
Life's toil and cumbrance, and stood forth alone,
An aged oak, amid the fallen grove.
—His Master call'd.
It was the Sabbath morn:
And he had girded up his loins to speak
A message in the Temple. Time had strown
The almond-blossom, and his head was white
As snows of winter, yet his step was firm,
And in his heart the same unblenching zeal
That warm'd his youth.
But, lo! the Master call'd.
So, laying down the Bible that he loved,
That single weapon he so meek had borne
Through all life's tribulation, he gave back
The spirit to its Giver, and went home;
Yes, full of honours as of days, went home.