Foursquare it stands! The bell, long silent, seems to ring And to the world its message fling; “I yield alone to God’s commands. “Though all about may change, not I. “True to my settled destiny “I still remain. “Though constancy be but a wraith “Steadfastly I have kept the faith “And shall maintain “That faith, unfaltering, down the years “Through all the shoals of doubts and fears, “A lighthouse on that shoreless sea “That broadens to Eternity”. There, like the Sphinx the old church broods Among its deepening solitudes. In simple grandeur let it stand For years unborn, to bless the land, And when its timeworn tower has gone Still may its memory linger on. * * * * * _Struck by lightning in a thunder storm on the night of March 21, 1940 and totally destroyed._ BEYOND THE POINT A ridge of sand dunes barricades the rim Of the horizon like a gilded bar To roving sight; a lonely point, the brim Of earth against the moaning surge. Afar My glances wander, wistfull, ill at ease From longing to explore those far off seas. The murmuring tide creeps up before my feet And leaves a shell or two, a broken spray Of strange sea growth; then to some chill retreat In ocean’s depths it slowly ebbs away. How blithely thought can trail the screaming terns Beyond the boundaries that the eye discerns! On the horizon looms that point beside The pathless main, a prison door to me; For I would follow on that restless tide To lands remote beyond a shoreless sea; Through shimmering haze how like a magic wand That dune ridged finger beckons me beyond! The rolling hills enclose me and the sky Bends overhead, but these are different things; Somehow they do not seem to press so nigh As that wind fretted wall of sand that rings My little world about, and intervenes To shut my vision from enchanted scenes. And though in happier days I sailed those seas Around the globe upon the buoyant trades To Ceylon, Singapore and Celebes, Beheld their fanes and trod their tropic glades Those voyages leave me still unsatisfied In this lone cottage where I now abide. Beyond the point what vistas of romance Of golden kingdoms still their wealth unfold: Though fettered by the bonds of circumstance My failing vision and my limbs grown old Among the embers of my memories One lingering flame, adventure, never dies. THE WINDS OF TIME