WHAT are the thoughts that are stirring his breast? | |
| What is the mystical vision he sees? | |
| —“Let us pass over the river, and rest | |
| Under the shade of the trees.” | |
| |
| Has he grown sick of his toils and his tasks? | 5 |
| Sighs the worn spirit for respite or ease? | |
| Is it a moment’s cool halt that he asks | |
| Under the shade of the trees? | |
| |
| Is it the gurgle of waters whose flow | |
| Ofttime has come to him, borne on the breeze, | 10 |
| Memory listens to, lapsing so low, | |
| Under the shade of the trees? | |
| |
| Nay—though the rasp of the flesh was so sore, | |
| Faith, that had yearnings far keener than these, | |
| Saw the soft sheen of the Thitherward Shore | 15 |
| Under the shade of the trees;— | |
| |
| Caught the high psalms of ecstatic delight— | |
| Heard the harps harping, like soundings of seas— | |
| Watched earth’s assoiled ones walking in white | |
| Under the shade of the trees. | 20 |
| |
| Oh, was it strange he should pine for release, | |
| Touched to the soul with such transports as these,— | |
| He who so needed the balsam of peace, | |
| Under the shade of the trees? | |
| |
| Yes, it was noblest for him—it was best | 25 |
| (Questioning naught of our Father’s decrees), | |
| There to pass over the river and rest | |
| Under the shade of the trees! | |
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