The Swan Song of Parson Avery.

The Swan Song of Parson Avery.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
287.4

Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow sum. mer morn,
With the newly planted orchards dropping their fruits first born.
And the home roots like brown islands amid a sea of corn.

Broad meadows reached out seaward the tided creeks between.

And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and walnuts green-
A fairer home, a goodiler land, his eyes had never seen.

Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led.
And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the living bread
To the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead,

All day they salled; at nightfall the pleasant land breeze died.
The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry lights dented,
And far and low the thunder of tempest prophested!

Blotted out were all the coast lines, gone were rock. and wood. and sand:
Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the rudder In his hand.
And questioned of the darkness what was sea and and what was land.

And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him. weeping soге:
“Never heed, my little children! Christ is walk- ing on before
To the pleasant land of heaven, where the sea shall be no more.”

All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside.
To let down the torch terror far and wide: of lightning on the
And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide.

There was walling in the shallop, woman’s wall so sharp and man’s despair.
A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks and bare,
And, through it all, the murmur of Father Avery’s prayer.

From his struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast.
On a rock, where every billow broke above him as It passed.
Alone, of all his household, the man of God was cast.

There a comrade heard him praying, in the pause of wave and wind:
“All my own have gone before me, and I linger Just behind;
Not for life I ask, but only for the rest thy ran- somed find!

“In this night of death I challenge the promise of thy word-
Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard-
Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord!

“In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin.
And let me follow up to thee my household and my kin!
Open the sea gate of thy heaven, and let me enter in!”

When the Christian sings his death song, all the letening heavens draw near.
And the angels, leaning over the walls of crystal. hear
How the notes so faint and broken swell to music In God’s ear.

The ear of God was open to his servant’s last re- quest: the sweet
As the strong wave swept him downward hymn upward passed.
And the soul soul of its rest. Father Avery went, singing. to rest.

There was wailing on the mainland, from the rocks of Marblehead:
In the stricken church of Newbury the notes of prayer were read;
And long. by board and hearthstone, the living mourned the dead.

And still the fishers outbound, or scudding from the squall.
With grave and reverent faces, the ancient tale recall.
When they see the white waves breaking on the Rock of Avery’s Fall!