Eastertide

Amidst the varied scenes through which we trace
   The lot wherein our passing years are cast,
Time keeps unchanged each sacred resting-place
That marks life's pathway with familiar grace,
   And ever links the present to the past.

Again we see the hallowed dawn arise,
   Around whose advent purest thoughts abide,
For Faith still lingers to immortalise
The theme of Love Divine, whose sacrifice
   Won for the world its first glad Eastertide.

To-day, when lights of glorious promise shine
   O'er all our unforgotten paths of pain.
We turn, oh Easter, to thy tranquil shrine,
And, weaving there our mem'ries into thine,
   We cannot plead thy ministry in vain.

For thou unto our waiting souls dost bring
   The sympathy that calls all care aside,
And bids us hear thee down the ages sing
How Faith and Hope are proved by suffering,
   And Love itself by sorrow sanctified.

Nor can we miss thy nobler, higher plea,
   That breathes across the silence of the tomb,
How Life by Death alone can perfect be,
So, through the cypress boughs deep mystery
   Are woven flowers of amaranthine bloom.

This is thy crown, that round each lifted cross
   Unfolds the Peace that overcomes all strife;
This thy true balm that purifies earth's dross,
And this thy Victory, that o'er Death's loss
   Proclaims the Resurrection and the Life.

Lily Marcus, Londonderry.

Poem from The Witness, 18 April 1919.
Image Sunrise over Ards by Edward Connolly.