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A Better Resurrection

Your home is built in sunlight, mine in another day:

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Your home is close at hand, sweet friend, but mine is far

away:

Your bark is in the haven where you fain would be:

I must launch out into the deep, across the unknown sea.

You, white as dove or lily or spirit of the light:

I, stained and cold and glad to hide in the cold dark night:
You, joy to many a loving heart and light to many eyes:
I, lonely in the knowledge earth is full of vanities.

Yet when your day is over, as mine is nearly done,
And when your race is finished, as mine is almost run,

You, like me, shall cross your hands and bow your graceful head:

Yea, we twain shall sleep together in an equal bed.

Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894]

A BETTER RESURRECTION

I HAVE no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;

My life is in the falling leaf:

O Jesu, quicken me!

My life is like a faded leaf,

My harvest dwindled to a husk;

Truly my life is void and brief

And tedious in the barren dusk;

My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall,—the sap of Spring;
O Jesu, rise in me!

My life is like a broken bowl,

A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul

Or cordial in the searching cold;

Cast in the fire the perished thing,

Melt and remold it, till it be A royal cup for Him my King: O Jesu, drink of me!

Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894]

THE SUMMER IS ENDED

WREATHE no more lilies in my hair,
For I am dying, Sister sweet:
Or, if you will for the last time
Indeed, why make me fair
Once for my winding-sheet.

Pluck no more roses for my breast,
For I like them fade in my prime:
Or, if you will, why pluck them still,
That they may share my rest
Once more for the last time.

Weep not for me when I am gone,
Dear tender one, but hope and smile:
Or, if you cannot choose but weep,
A little while weep on,

Only a little while.

Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894]

A LITTLE PARABLE

I MADE the cross myself whose weight

Was later laid on me.

This thought is torture as I toil

Up life's steep Calvary.

To think mine own hands drove the nails!

I sang a merry song,

And chose the heaviest wood I had

To build it firm and strong.

In the Hospital

If I had guessed-if I had dreamed

Its weight was meant for me,
I should have made a lighter cross
To bear up Calvary!

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Anne Reeve Aldrich [1866–1892]

MY CROSS

My Lord would make a cross for me
But I would none of His,-
I thought I better knew than He
To bear my pain or bliss.

My Lord would make a cross for me
But I would make my own,—

In fashion light as cross could be
But now it weighs like stone.

If I had only bowed me low
To take the cross He laid,

It never would have galled me so
As this, the one I made.

For aye, His cross is true and sure
In all its breadth and length,
Just what His children can endure
And measured to their strength.

But I had fainted 'neath the load
I on myself did lay,

Had He not met me on the road

And helped me on the way!

Zitella Cocke [1847

IN THE HOSPITAL

I LAY me down to sleep,

With little thought or care

Whether my waking find
Me here, or there.

A bowing, burdened head,
That only asks to rest,
Unquestioning, upon
A loving breast.

My good right hand forgets
Its cunning now;

To march the weary march
I know not how.

I am not eager, bold,

Nor strong all that is past;

I am ready not to do

At last, at last.

My half day's work is done,
And this is all my part-

I give a patient God

My patient heart,

And grasp His banner still,

Though all the blue be dim;

These stripes as well as stars

Lead after Him.

Mary Woolsey Howland [1832-1864]

WHEN

If I were told that I must die to-morrow,

That the next sun

Which sinks would bear me past all fear and sorrow

For any one,

All the fight fought, all the short journey through, What should I do?

I do not think that I should shrink or falter,

But just go on,

Doing my work, nor change nor seek to alter
Aught that is gone;

But rise and move and love and smile and pray
For one more day.

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And, lying down at night for a last sleeping,

Say in that ear

Which hearkens ever: "Lord, within Thy keeping
How should I fear?

And when to-morrow brings Thee nearer still,
Do thou Thy will."

I might not sleep for awe; but peaceful, tender,
My soul would lie

All the night long; and when the morning splendor
Flushed o'er the sky,

I think that I could smile-could calmly say,
"It is His day."

But if a wondrous hand from the blue yonder
Held out a scroll

On which my life was writ, and I with wonder
Beheld unroll

To a long century's end its mystic clue,
What should I do?

What could I do, O blessed Guide and Master,
Other than this:

Still to go on as now, not slower, faster,
Nor fear to miss

The road, although so very long it be,
While led by Thee?

Step after step, feeling Thee close beside me,

Although unseen,

Through thorns, through flowers, whether the tempest hide Thee,

Or heavens serene,

Assured Thy faithfulness cannot betray,

Thy love decay.

may not know; my God, no hand revealeth
Thy counsels wise;

Along the path a deepening shadow stealeth,
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To all my questioning thought, the time to tell;
And it is well.

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