ALLELUIA HEIGHT

Obedience to the seasons’ marshall-rod,

That is a law of God,

Here beauty passes with her gorgeous train,

On paths that range from bud to grain.

O, here the searching eyes

In traffic for the soul's good gain

Earn wealth of rare delight.

Far pathways of surprise,

In color's frumenty bedight,

Lead off from avenues of day

Through miles of pageantries:

And from the starry chancels of the night

And the inscrutable farther skies,

Beyond where trackless comets stray,

Outspreads a world in thought's array.

And lo! the heart's true voices sing

From the exulting reverent breast,

And lips proclaim, with adoration blessed,

Glad Alleluias to the King.

Prompt is our praise unto a jewelled queen

In all her courtly splendor set,

( Fair as those fairylands are seen

By childhood's other sight ):

But if in pauper mien,

Too poor for stray regret

Where crowded streets affright

She stood in beggary,

Unknown, though faithful to her high degree,—

O, then her praise‘ twere easy to forget.

Yet ever here,

For all of time's prompt fickleness —

From plenteous June and wide largess

Of full midsummer days,

To dwarf December pitiless

Amid the earth's uncomplimented ways —

Yea, constant through the changeful year,

This queenly Height commands our praise.

To stand in meek unflinching hardihood

When fortune blows its storm of fright,

And work to full effect that good

Resolved in open days of clearer sight —

O, this is worth!

That daily sees the soul

To braver liberties give birth,

That heeds not time's annoy,

And hears surrounding voices roll

Perennial circumstance of joy.

Then come not only when the springtime blows

The old familiar strangeness of its breath

Across the long-lain snows,

And chants her resurrected songs

About the tombs of death;

Nor yet when summer glows

In roseate throngs

And works her plenitude of deeds

By tangled dells and waving meads,

Come here in beauty's pilgrimage:

Nor when the autumn reads

Illuminate her page

With tints of magicry besprent

Of iridescent wonderment —

( As scrolls in old monastic towers,

Done in an earnest far-off age ).

But choose to come in winter hours

To see how character can live,

How noble character will give

Through desolate distress

And cold neglect's duress,

The fulness of its powers

And win the soul its victor sign.

Yea, come when in a peasant gown,

Amid the ample banners of the pine,

And the resounding harpers of the vine,

Lone winter holds upon the Height

Her court in full renown.

Obedient her courtiers go,

Their gonfalons aloft and bright,

And scatter pearls of snow;

Her sturdy knighthood wear for crown

Prismatic sheen in young delight,

And wave the cedar oriflamme on high;

While windward heralds cry,

Across the battlements of earth

To parapets along the sky,

The lauds of character's full worth.

The winter passes and the days come in

Vibrant with spring.

And men find welcome at the Easter tomb,

Reward they win,

Who make their hearts with courage sing

Through Lenten opportunity of gloom:

( Not as the Pharisees,

With faces lacrimose,

Who wear pretence of ashen woes,

And murmur like the tuneless bees,

Whose honies are hypocrisies ),

But men of character's delight,

Who like this valiant Height

Still serving through the bleakest day,

With humble offerings of sound and sight,

Do steadfast stand and pray:

O, count those souls of noble worth,

And God's good pleasure on His earth,

Who still, if joy or pain

Brings sun or rain,

Heroic sing

The law of Alleluia to the King.