Monday In Easter Week

Go up and watch the new-born rill
  Just trickling from its mossy bed,
     Streaking the heath-clad hill
        With a bright emerald thread.

Canst thou her bold career foretell,
  What rocks she shall o'erleap or rend,
     How far in Ocean's swell
        Her freshening billows send?

Perchance that little brook shall flow
  The bulwark of some mighty realm,
     Bear navies to and fro
        With monarchs at their helm.

Or canst thou guess, how far away
  Some sister nymph, beside her urn
     Reclining night and day,
        'Mid reeds and mountain fern,

Nurses her store, with thine to blend
  When many a moor and glen are past,
     Then in the wide sea end
        Their spotless lives at last?

E'en so, the course of prayer who knows?
  It springs in silence where it will,
     Springs out of sight, and flows
        At first a lonely rill:

But streams shall meet it by and by
  From thousand sympathetic hearts,
     Together swelling high
        Their chant of many parts.

Unheard by all but angel ears
  The good Cornelius knelt alone,
     Nor dreamed his prayers and tears
        Would help a world undone.

The while upon his terraced roof
  The loved Apostle to his Lord
     In silent thought aloof
        For heavenly vision soared.

Far o'er the glowing western main
  His wistful brow was upward raised,
     Where, like an angel's train,
        The burnished water blazed.

The saint beside the ocean prayed,
  This soldier in his chosen bower,
     Where all his eye surveyed
        Seemed sacred in that hour.

To each unknown his brother's prayer,
  Yet brethren true in dearest love
     Were they--and now they share
        Fraternal joys above.

There daily through Christ's open gate
  They see the Gentile spirits press,
     Brightening their high estate
        With dearer happiness.

What civic wreath for comrades saved
  Shone ever with such deathless gleam,
     Or when did perils braved
        So sweet to veterans seem?