Page:Poems Hoffman.djvu/513

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THE HEAVENLY HOPE

Take not this hope, this high-born hope, I plead,
World, whose loud voices tell me to forget it,
For when those voices like lost waves recede
How shall I waken sadly to regret it!
O, take not that for which man lives to learn,
Cold World, thou givest nothing in return!

Take not this hope, this Heavenly hope away,
Let not ambition, love or sorrow drown it
Until I stand within Thy courts that day
When light celestial in Thy sight shall crown it;
Take not this hope, this one great hope away,
This be my prayer until I cease to pray.


GOD'S GIFT TO MAN.

Life is the greatest gift of God to man,
The one foundation of His perfect plan,
Whereon the great Almighty Architect
His boundless, endless structure doth erect;
Thereon the walls of Triumph have their hold
And Joy's bright columns hewn from Hope's pure gold
Spring up to part the curtains of the skies
And prop the farthest vaults of Paradise.

Life is the root of Eden's loftiest tree
Whose ripened fruit is immortality,
All joys, all triumphs from its branches grow,
While at the root God's love in streams doth flow;
Leaves, buds and blossoms and the ripened fruit
Are perfected and nourished by the root;
Let stern decay its hidden fountain doom,
And note the sudden blight of fruit and bloom.

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