Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/387

Rh Dear God!

Thy servant never knew one selfish hour!

How are we shamed, who look upon a world

Ages afar from that true kingdom preached

Millenniums ago in Palestine!

Send us, again, O Spirit of all Truth!

High messengers of dauntless faith and power

Like him whose memory this day we praise,

We cherish and we praise with burning hearts.

Let kindle, as before, from his bright torch,

Myriads of messengers aflame with Thee

To darkest places bearing light divine!

II

As did one soul, whom here I fain would sing,

For here in youth his gentle spirit took

New fire from Wesley's glow.

How oft have I,

A little child, harkened my father's voice

Preaching the Word in country homes remote,

Or wayside schools, where only two or three

Were gathered. Lo, again that voice I hear,

Like Wesley's, raised in those sweet, fervent hymns

Made sacred by how many saints of God

Who breathed their souls out on the well-loved tones.

Again I see those circling, eager faces;

I hear once more the solemn-urging words

That tell the things of God in simple phrase;

Again the deep-voiced, reverent prayer ascends,

Bringing to the still summer afternoon

A sense of the eternal. As he preached

He lived; unselfish, famelessly heroic.

For even in mid-career, with life still full,

His was the glorious privilege and choice