They awaited with head erect
Whatever fate could befall them;
Tried but the good to recollect,
Cried for the truth to call them.
To be loved by the children of other suns
And send a message to find them,
This is the fate of the happiest ones
Tho’ the mortar of life may grind them.
They were like swimmers breasting the waves
In the troughs of a stormy channel,
They are silent now in their lonely graves,
But the world has become the panel.
They wore the truth like a bridal dress
And sorrow like wedding apparel,
Tho’ the placid laughed at their foolishness
And the cynic sneered from his barrel.
Or like the wandering Ishmaelites,
Who found no city to dwell in,
Whose lonely hearts ached for pleasant sights,
Whose graves were the places they fell in,
Rock their pillow and sand their bed,
As the sun of the desert paints them;
The fierce kites screaming overhead,
And the hands of all men against them.
But a word goes out and over the earth,
From the silent burying-places,
Like a gentle rain in a land of dearth,
And lights up the tired faces.
It brings a roof and a sweet abode
To many a soul that is vagrant;
Their names are blossoms along the road
And their lives are for ever fragrant.
We who sorrow are brothers of theirs,
Because of their beautiful sorrows,
Wheat will grow up among the tares,
And young corn grow in the furrows.