The Second Coming

The saints, whose names fill Heaven's roll,
Their ardent praises e'er outpour,
Yet all await the sev'n-sealed scroll.
And silence great doth still their roar
As now is giv'n the Lamb His right;
He wicked husbandmen doth send
His wrath in searing pain and fright,
With flame and plague the earth doth rend.

On steed of white descendeth He,
Fire in His eyes, His words a sword!
When His dread Holiness they see,
All nations own Him as their Lord
Too late; He judgeth them in might,
The earth doth raze and form anew,
Doth bring Jerus'lem down in light,
And reigneth there, fore'er in view!

—9/4/2010? On Rev 4-22. To “Jerusalem (Parry)” (“And did those feet, in ancient time”).

Tonight have I supp’d with the heroes of old,
And the things that I heard were more seemly than gold
Of the deeds of the past that were gracious and bold.
Oh! I fain would have stayed 'til the night had turn’d cold
As I hark’d to those heroes of old.

—13 August 2010

Election

Sinful and wretched one, what canst thou glory,
Who, for thy sin, stoodest justly condemned,
But that the Lord, ere Creation, foreknew thee,
Did for thy guilt His atonement send?

Though thou despised Him, yet did He save thee:
'Twas not of thee nor of deeds thou hadst done;
Great is His grace, and He gave it thee freely,
Cleansed thee of wickedness, made thee son.

Kept of the Blessed One, what can destroy thee?
Who thine adoption shall render it null?
Thou hast been sealed of the Lord, unto glory;
Thou of His Spirit hast been made full.

Worm that a son wast made, that shalt thou glory!
Boast in thy Father's unfath'mable love!
Speak to the world His immeas'rable mercy;
Bid men pray God wrath and sin remove.

—8/8/2010. To “Russian Hymn.”

The Faithful Pastor

A faithful pastor who has known?
His value countless is
Who ever cares for all God's own
And makes their troubles his.

He shepherds all his flock of God;
Their guarding is his pride;
With tenderness he bears the rod
And staff, their lives to guide.

His life is blameless, without spot,
He cannot be accused;
Example sets he to the lot
Of them that God did choose.

A preacher of God's wondrous Word,
A man of truth is he.
He makes the Gospel to be heard,
For souls works jealously.

When strays a member from the Way,
He feels the utmost pain;
He urges him to Christ obey
And prays 'tis not in vain.

When teachers false invade the church,
He suffers sore in heart;
For ways to show their lies does search,
Of truth forsakes no part.

So therefore, double honor pay
To them that labor hard,
To them that strive to show the Way
And struggle in the Word.

O Lord, we pray, please grant that we
May such a man receive—
Who makes You all his life to be—
And never let him leave.

—7/19/2010

A/N 11/25/25: The church I wrote this at would later violently split. I pray I do not dishonor anyone involved by reposting this old poem here.

A Prayer for Daily Strength

Today, dear Lord, Thy strength bestow,
For I am weak and full of sin.
Subdue my pride; rein in my lusts,
And mold my will till it is Thine.

Today, dear Lord, forgiveness grant,
For I Thy Law have oft disdained.
Ashamed, I venture near the throne,
And kneeling, beg for grace again.

Today, dear Lord, deliver me
And save me from the tempter's lure.
For ev'ry trial that I meet
Please give me power to endure.

Today, dear Lord, Thy favor show
And satisfy my ev'ry need.
And grant that I may prove to all
Thy love, with loving word and deed.

Today, dear Lord, Thy truth impart,
For Thou alone art wholly true.
Remove all falseness from my heart
And teach me what is right anew.

—20 June 2010. To “Hesperus (Quebec)” or “Tallis' Canon.”

May the Mind of Christ, the Humble

May the mind of Christ, the humble,
Teach me servitude afresh.
He, though God, Himself did empty,
Taking human flesh.

May the will of Christ, submissive,
Supersede and swallow mine.
He, though anguished, prayed the Father,
“Not my will but Thine.”

May the death of Christ, the lowly,
Keep my soul in awe employed.
He endured that earthly shaming
For His Heav'nly joy.

May the life of Christ, the risen,
Make me live, though I should die.
Raised in glory, now He sitteth
At the Father's side.

May the hope of Christ's returning
Spur me on to do His Will,
That, when He shall judge the nations,
I'll be faithful still.

—6-7 June 2010. To “St Leonards” (“May the mind of Christ, my Savior”).

Funereal Thoughts

Tonight, I to the fun’ral-parlor went,
There to see the body of a saint,
Who, two days past, this mortal coil did leave
And to the arms of Christ, her Lord, was sent.
And as I stood, surrounded thus
By friends, who many months I had not met,
Both young and old, who came as I—
Their last respects to pay,
I wondered if any of them felt as I—
Sad, and ready now to weep and mourn—
Though not for her, who unto Paradise
Was giv’n, nor even for her husband,
Who for more than sixty years hath had her.
The one no heartache knows,
For she in everlasting pleasure rests;
The other, tho’ old, is strong
And shows no outward sign of loss.
No, the reason that I give for feeling thus—
As though I should betake myself to bed
And cry for hours, if not days—is this:
Sometimes the world seems joyous to me,
As if there were no care or end of good,
But now, surrounded thus, by relatives and friends,
Her body in the casket, gently lit
(How odd the earthly temple seems,
When, bereft of spirit, it lies still—
It seems made of wax, and molded by a master)—
It is now that I remember that from dust came men,
And thence they go again—
That nothing here forever will remain,
But all is doomed to sometime its end know.
How can I be happy in this world and body of death?
Tomorrow, the church's hallowed halls
I, with my presence, shall grace,
And there, with all these people I have seen tonight
And more besides, will learn of her life—
When she was born, when she wed,
How she trusted Christ as Head—
Meaningless to the rest of the world,
But not to us, the few who knew her.
And then I will enter depression, as I have done
After every other funeral that I ever attended—
Is it wrong to feel thus?
To mourn not that she died,
But that death lives?
It seems to me that ‘tis not right,
For “death is swallowed up in victory,”
Yet something in me also says ‘tis right,
For did not even Christ, our Lord,
Also groan inside, that this world
In sin should so exist?
I know not, but with this hope console myself—
However dim, at times, it may be seen—
This world is not my final stopping-place,
But go I on to worlds as yet unseen,
Where Christ shall wipe all teardrops from my face,
And I shall worship Him, my Master
And my Saviour, in the light of His glory.

—12 May 2010

The Noble Book

One day I found a noble book,
And to its study I betook.
And as I read, I wondered ‘loud
If this fine world of tree and cloud,
Of beast, and bird, and flower, too
Were fair as Eden, shining new.
But nay! The garden, long ago,
Was fairer still than all I know.
And as I sat in rapturous thought,
I thanked the God who made of naught
The many things that I did see—
But made them all to perfect be.

And then I had but little read
But learned of things that filled with dread—
Of how a man, created good
And placed within idyllic world
Should then go spurn the very God
That fashioned him from formless sod;
And how his seed, now sinful born
Should also show the selfsame scorn.

And o'er the tome I still did pore
And learned of golden days of yore
When men were men, and acted so
Like men had ought—ah! Long ago!
But all my happiness was marred
By that with which the world was scarred,
For running, like a scarlet thread,
Through all the tales that I had read:
The very scorn that I had seen—
The same first seen in Eden green.
It seemed, for every good I found,
A hundred evils did abound.

And as I hung on every word
A truly wondrous thing I heard—
That God, enthroned in majesty
Should come to earth a slave to be—
Both truly God, and man, like me!
But even more incredibly,
That He should take my sin, as well,
And suffer all the wrath of Hell.
For I could never hope to pay
The debt to take my sin away.
I, dead in sin—He, full alive
Yet He for me was crucified.
Ah! Blest and highest mystery—
The King of Heav’n would die for me!
‘Tis far too great a mystery—
To make a slave of enemy,
And further still, a son make he—
For me to fathom thoroughly!

But while each page I turned with care,
Yet one thing more I learned in there.
This book held yet another side—
The love of bridegroom for his bride,
And how the God that died for me
Will take His servant home to be
Forever with Him, as He said
To all who claim Him as their Head;
How one day, He will call me home—
Tho’ how and when, I do not know—
Perhaps o’er Jordan's shining waves,
Or through the sky’s gold, cloudy haze.

—4/26/2010