Still shall the soul around it call The shadows which it gathered here, And, painted on the eternal wall, The Past shall reappear. Think ye the notes of holy song On Milton's tuneful ear have died? Think ye that Raphael's angel throng Has vanished from his side? O no!--We live our life again Or warmly touched, or coldly dim, The pictures of the Past remain,-- Man's works shall follow him! SEED-TIME AND HARVEST As o'er his furrowed fields which lie Beneath a coldly-dropping sky, Yet chill with winter's melted snow, The husbandman goes forth to sow, Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast The ventures of thy seed we cast, And trust to warmer sun and rain To swell the germ, and fill the grain. Who calls thy glorious service hard? Who deems it not its own reward? Who, for its trials, counts it less A cause of praise and thankfulness? It may not be our lot to wield The sickle in the ripened field; Nor ours to hear, on summer eves, The reaper's song among the sheaves. Yet where our duty's task is wrought In unison with God's great thought, The near and future blend in one, And whatsoe'er is willed, is done! And ours the grateful service whence Comes, day by day, the recompense; The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed, The fountain and the noonday shade. And were this life the utmost span, The only end and aim of man, Better the toil of fields like these Than waking dream and slothful ease. But life, though falling like our grain, Like that revives and springs again; And, early called, how blest are they Who wait in heaven their harvest-day! THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL 1697