Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete

A LEGACY

     Friend of my many years
     When the great silence falls, at last, on me,
     Let me not leave, to pain and sadden thee,
     A memory of tears,

     But pleasant thoughts alone
     Of one who was thy friendship's honored guest
     And drank the wine of consolation pressed
     From sorrows of thy own.

     I leave with thee a sense
     Of hands upheld and trials rendered less—
     The unselfish joy which is to helpfulness
     Its own great recompense;

     The knowledge that from thine,
     As from the garments of the Master, stole
     Calmness and strength, the virtue which makes whole
     And heals without a sign;

     Yea more, the assurance strong
     That love, which fails of perfect utterance here,
     Lives on to fill the heavenly atmosphere
     With its immortal song.

     1887.