Classic Poem

Clear in memory's silent reaches
Lie the pastures I have seen,
Greener than the sun-lit spaces
Where the May has flung her green:
Needs no sun and needs no starlight
To illume these fields of mine,
For the glory of dead faces
Is the sun, the stars, that shine.

More than one I count my pastures
As my life-path groweth long;
By their quiet waters straying
Oft I lay me, and am strong.
And I call each by its giver,
And the dear names bring to them
Glory as from shining faces
In some New Jerusalem.

Yet, O well I can remember,
Once I called my pastures, Pain,
And their waters were a torrent
Sweeping through my life amain!
Now I call them Peace and Stillness,
Brightness of all Happy Thought,
Where I linger for a blessing
From my faces that are nought.

Nought? I fear not. If the Power
Maketh thus his pastures green,
Maketh thus his quiet waters,
Out of waste his heavens serene,
I can trust the mighty Shepherd
Loseth none he ever led;
Somewhere yet a greeting waits me
On the faces of my dead!