Rugby Chapel

Coldly, sadly descendsThe autumn evening. The fieldStrewn with its dank yellow driftsOf withered leaves, and the elms,Fade into dimness apace,Silent; hardly a shoutFrom a few boys late at their play!The lights come out in the street,In the schoolroom windows; but cold,Solemn, unlighted, austere,Through the gathering darkness, ariseThe chapel-walls, in whose boundThou, my father! art laid.

There thou dost lie, in the gloomOf the autumn evening. But ah!That word gloom to my mindBrings thee back in the lightOf thy radiant vigor again.In the gloom of November we passedDays not dark at thy side;Seasons impaired not the rayOf thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.Such thou wast! and I standIn the autumn evening, and thinkOf bygone autumns with thee.

Fifteen years have gone roundSince thou arosest to tread,In the summer-morning, the roadOf death, at a call unforeseen,Sudden. For fifteen years,We who till then in thy shadeRested as under the boughsOf a mighty oak, have enduredSunshine and rain as we might,Bare, unshaded, alone,Lacking the shelter of thee.

O strong soul, by what shoreTarriest thou now? For that force,Surely, has not been left vain!Somewhere, surely, afar,In the sounding labor-house vastOf being, is practised that strength,Zealous, beneficent, firm!

Yes, in some far-shining sphere,Conscious or not of the past,Still thou performest the wordOf the Spirit in whom thou dost live,Prompt, unwearied, as here.Still thou upraisest with zealThe humble good from the ground,Sternly repressest the bad;Still, like a trumpet, dost rouseThose who with half-open eyesTread the border-land dim'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st,Succorest. This was thy work,This was thy life upon earth.

What is the course of the lifeOf mortal men on the earth?Most men eddy aboutHere and there, eat and drink,Chatter and love and hate,Gather and squander, are raisedAloft, are hurled in the dust,Striving blindly, achievingNothing; and then they die,—Perish; and no one asksWho or what they have been,More than he asks what waves,In the moonlit solitudes mildOf the midmost ocean, have swelled,Foamed for a moment, and gone.

And there are some whom a thirstArdent, unquenchable, fires,Not with the crowd to be spent,Not without aim to go roundIn an eddy of purposeless dust,Effort unmeaning and vain.Ah yes! some of us striveNot without action to dieFruitless, but something to snatchFrom dull oblivion, nor allGlut the devouring grave.We, we have chosen our path,—Path to a clear-purposed goal,Path of advance; but it leadsA long, steep journey, through sunkGorges, o'er mountains in snow.Cheerful, with friends, we set forth:Then, on the height, comes the storm.Thunder crashes from rockTo rock; the cataracts reply;Lightnings dazzle our eyes;Roaring torrents have breachedThe track; the stream-bed descendsIn the place where the wayfarer oncePlanted his footstep; the sprayBoils o'er its borders; aloft,The unseen snow-beds dislodgeTheir hanging ruin. Alas!Havoc is made in our train!Friends who set forth at our sideFalter, are lost in the storm.We, we only are left!With frowning foreheads, with lipsSternly compressed, we strain on,On; and at nightfall at lastCome to the end of our way,To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;Where the gaunt and taciturn hostStands on the threshold, the windShaking his thin white hairs,Holds his lantern to scanOur storm-beat figures, and asks,—Whom in our party we bring?Whom we have left in the snow?

Sadly we answer, We bringOnly ourselves! we lostSight of the rest in the storm.Hardly ourselves we fought through,Stripped, without friends, as we are.Friends, companions, and train,The avalanche swept from our side.

But thou wouldst not aloneBe saved, my father! aloneConquer and come to thy goal,Leaving the rest in the wild.We were weary, and weFearful, and we in our marchFain to drop down and to die.Still thou turnedst, and stillBeckonedst the trembler, and stillGavest the weary thy hand.If, in the paths of the world,Stones might have wounded thy feet,Toil or dejection have triedThy spirit, of that we sawNothing: to us thou wast stillCheerful, and helpful, and firm!Therefore to thee it was givenMany to save with thyself;And, at the end of thy day,O faithful shepherd! to come,Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.

And through thee I believeIn the noble and great who are gone;Pure souls honored and blestBy former ages, who else—Such, so soulless, so poor,Is the race of men whom I see—Seemed but a dream of the heart,Seemed but a cry of desire.Yes! I believe that there livedOthers like thee in the past,Not like the men of the crowdWho all round me to-dayBluster or cringe, and make lifeHideous and arid and vile;But souls tempered with fire,Fervent, heroic, and good,Helpers and friends of mankind.

Servants of God!—or sonsShall I not call you? becauseNot as servants ye knewYour Father's innermost mind,His who unwillingly seesOne of his little ones lost,—Yours is the praise, if mankindHath not as yet in its marchFainted and fallen and died.

See! In the rocks of the worldMarches the host of mankind,A feeble, wavering line.Where are they tending? A GodMarshalled them, gave them their goal.Ah, but the way is so long!

Years they have been in the wild:Sore thirst plagues them; the rocks,Rising all round, overawe;Factions divide them; their hostThreatens to break, to dissolve.Ah! keep, keep them combined!Else, of the myriads who fillThat army, not one shall arrive;Sole they shall stray: on the rocksBatter forever in vain,Die one by one in the waste.

Then, in such hour of needOf your fainting, dispirited race,Ye like angels appear,Radiant with ardor divine.Beacons of hope, ye appear!Languor is not in your heart,Weakness is not in your word,Weariness not on your brow.Ye alight in our van! at your voice,Panic, despair, flee away.Ye move through the ranks, recallThe stragglers, refresh the outworn,Praise, re-inspire the brave.Order, courage, return;Eyes rekindling, and prayers,Follow your steps as ye go.Ye fill up the gaps in our files,Strengthen the wavering line,Stablish, continue our march,On, to the bound of the waste,On, to the City of God.