FOR months and years, with penury and want | |
| And heart-sore envy did they dare to cope; | |
| And mite by mite was saved from earnings scant, | |
| To buy, some future day, the God-sent hope. | |
| |
| They trod the crowded streets of hoary towns, | 5 |
| Or tilled from year to year the wearied fields, | |
| And in the shadow of the golden crowns | |
| They gasped for sunshine and the health it yields. | |
| |
| They turned from homes all cheerless, child and man, | |
| With kindly feelings only for the soil, | 10 |
| And for the kindred faces, pinched and wan, | |
| That prayed, and stayed, unwilling, at their toil. | |
| |
| They lifted up their faces to the Lord, | |
| And read His answer in the westering sun | |
| That called them ever as a shining word, | 15 |
| And beckoned seaward as the rivers run. | |
| |
| They looked their last, wet-eyed, on Swedish hills, | |
| On German villages and English dales; | |
| Like brooks that grow from many mountain rills | |
| The peasant stream flowed out from Irish vales. | 20 |
| |
| Their grief at parting was not all a grief, | |
| But blended sweetly with the joy to come, | |
| When from full store they spared the rich relief | |
| To gladden all the dear ones left at home. | |
| |
| “We thank thee, God!” they cried; “The cruel gate | 25 |
| That barred our lives has swung beneath Thy hand; | |
| Behind our ship now frowns the cruel fate, | |
| Before her smiles the teeming Promised Land!” | |
| |
| Alas! when shown in mercy or in wrath, | |
| How weak we are to read God’s awful lore! | 30 |
| His breath protected on the stormy path, | |
| And dashed them lifeless on the promised shore! | |
| |
| His hand sustained them in the parting woe, | |
| And gave bright vision to the heart of each | |
| His waters bore them where they wished to go, | 35 |
| Then swept them seaward from the very beach! | |
| |
| Their home is reached, their fetters now are riven, | |
| Their humble toil is o’er,—their rest has come; | |
| A land was promised and a land was given,— | |
| But, oh! God help the waiting ones at home! | 40 |
| |
