Classic Poem

What was his name? I do not know his name.
I only know he heard God's voice and came;
Brought all he loved across the sea,
To live and work for God — and me;
Felled the ungracious oak,
With horrid toil
Dragged from the soil
The thrice-gnarled roots and stubborn rock;
With plenty piled the haggard mountain-side,
And when his work was done, without memorial died.
No blaring trumpet sounded out his fame;
He lived, he died. I do not know his name.

No form of bronze and no memorial stones
Show me the place where lie his mouldering bones.
Only a cheerful city stands,
Builded by his hardened hands;
Only ten thousand homes,
Where every day
The cheerful play
Of love and hope and courage comes;
These are his monuments, and these alone, —
There is no form of bronze and no memorial stone.


And I?
Is there some desert or some boundless sea
Where thou, great God of angels, wilt send me?
Some oak for me to rend, some sod
For me to break,
Some handful of thy corn to take,
And scatter far afield,
Till it in turn shall yield
Its hundredfold
Of grains of gold,
To feed the happy children of my God? —
Show me the desert, Father, or the sea.
Is it thine enterprise? Great God, send me!
And though the body lie where ocean rolls,
Father, count me among all faithful souls!