Zinzendorff and Other Poems/Cry of the Corannas
CRY OF THE CORANNAS.
"Missionaries are going far beyond us, but they come not to us. We have been promised a Missionary, but can get none. God has given us plenty of corn, but we are perishing for want of instruction. Our people are dying every day. We have heard there is another life after death, but we know nothing of it."
We see our infants fade. The mother clasps
The enfeebled form, and watches night and day
Its speechless agony, with tears and cries,
But there's a hand more strong than her despair
That rends it from her bosom. Our young men
Are bold and full of strength, but something comes
We know not what, and so they droop and die.
Those whom we lov'd so much, our gentler friends,
Who bless our homes, we gaze and they are gone.
Our mighty chiefs, who in the battle's rage
Tower'd up like Gods, so fearless, and return'd
So loftily, behold! they pine away
Like a pale girl, and so, we lay them down
With the forgotten throng who dwell in dust.
They call it death, and we have faintly heard
By a far echo o'er the distant sea
There was a life beyond it. Is it so?
If there be aught above this mouldering mound
Where we do leave our friends,—if there be hope
So passing strange, that they should rise again
And we should see them, we who mourn them now,
We pray you speak such glorious tidings forth
In our benighted clime. Ye heaven-spread sails
Pass us not by! Men of the living God!
Upon our mountain heights we stand and shout
To you in our distress. Fain would we hear
Your wondrous message fully, that our hearts
May hail its certainty before we go,
Ourselves to those dark caverns of the dead,
Where everlasting silence seems to reign.