Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/204

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204
MRS. SIGOURNEY'S POEMS.

                                              But thou, oh man!
Whose hold on life is like the spider's web,
Who hast thy footing 'mid so many snares,
So many pitfalls, yet perceivest them not,—
Seek peace with Him who made thee,—bind the shield
Of faith in Christ more firmly o'er thy breast,
That when its pulse stands still, thy soul may pass
Unshrinking, unreluctant, unamazed,
Into the fullness of the light of Heaven.



"LET THERE BE LIGHT."

A Mission Hymn.


Light for the dreary vales
    Of ice-bound Labrador!
Where the frost-king breathes on the slippery sails
    Till the mariner wakes no more,
Lift high the lamp that never fails
    To that dark and sterile shore.

Light for the forest child!
    An outcast though he be
From haunts where the sun of his childhood smiled,
    And the country of the free,—
Pour the hope of Heaven o'er his desert-wild,
    For what home on earth has he?