With every grace endued

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P l a c e s   P l e a s e

Elmwood Cemetery

Columbia, South Carolina

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The Church’s one foundation

Is Jesus Christ her Lord;

She is His new creation

By water and the Word:

From heav’n He came and sought her

To be His holy Bride;

With His own blood He bought her,

And for her life He died.

Elect from every nation,

Yet one o’er all the earth,

Her charter of salvation,

One Lord, one faith, one birth;

One holy Name she blesses,

Partakes one holy food,

And to one hope she presses,

With every grace endued.

’Mid toil and tribulation,

And tumult of her war,

She waits the consummation

Of peace for evermore;

Till, with the vision glorious,

Her longing eyes are blest,

And the great Church victorious

Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union

With God the Three in One,

And mystic sweet communion

With those whose rest is won:

O happy ones and holy!

Lord, give us grace that we,

Like them, the meek and lowly,

In love may dwell with Thee.

~Samuel John Stone (1839-1900)~

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In sumptuous solitude

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R e s c i n d

Columbia, South Carolina

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The Thrill came slowly like a Boon for

Centuries delayed

Its fitness growing like the Flood

In sumptuous solitude --

The desolation only missed

While Rapture changed its Dress

And stood amazed before the Change

In ravished Holiness --

~Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)~

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The flood may bear me far

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B u r n   a n d   F a d e

February 20, 2014

Columbia, South Carolina

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Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

~Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)~

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One who came with eyes and hands and a heart

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A s l e e p

Capernaum Cemetery

Denmark, South Carolina

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How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead,

The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust?

Is there a horn we should not blow as proudly

For the meanest of us all, who creeps his days,

Guarding his heart from blows, to die obscurely?

I am no king, have laid no kingdoms waste,

Taken no princes captive, led no triumphs

Of weeping women through long walls of trumpets;

Say rather, I am no one, or an atom;

Say rather, two great gods, in a vault of starlight,

Play ponderingly at chess, and at the game's end

One of the pieces, shaken, falls to the floor

And runs to the darkest corner; and that piece

Forgotten there, left motionless, is I ...

Say that I have no name, no gifts, no power,

Am only one of millions, mostly silent;

One who came with eyes and hands and a heart,

Looked on beauty, and loved it, and then left it.

Say that the fates of time and space obscured me,

Led me a thousand ways to pain, bemused me,

Wrapped me in ugliness; and like great spiders

Dispatched me at their leisure ... Well, what then?

Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust,

The horns of glory blowing above my burial?

From Tetelestai

~Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)~

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You said to minds like mine

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B l u e    H o r s e

Capernaum Cemetery

Denmark, South Carolina

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Well, World, you have kept faith with me,

Kept faith with me;

Upon the whole you have proved to be

Much as you said you were.

Since as a child I used to lie

Upon the leaze and watch the sky,

Never, I own, expected I

That life would all be fair.

'Twas then you said, and since have said,

Times since have said,

In that mysterious voice you shed

From clouds and hills around:

"Many have loved me desperately,

Many with smooth serenity,

While some have shown contempt of me

Till they dropped underground.

"I do not promise overmuch,

Child; overmuch;

Just neutral-tinted haps and such,"

You said to minds like mine.

Wise warning for your credit's sake!

Which I for one failed not to take,

And hence could stem such strain and ache

As each year might assign.

~Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)~

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