Let Us Go Forth

Silent

like men in so­lemn haste

Girded way­far­ers of the waste

We pass out at the world’s wide gate

Turning our back on all its state;

We press along the nar­row road

That leads to life

to bliss

to God.

We can­not and we would not stay;

We dread the snares that throng the way

We fling aside the weight and sin

Resolved the vic­to­ry to win;

We know the pe­ril

but our eyes

Rest on the splen­dor of the prize.

No idl­ing now

no waste­ful sleep

From Christ­ian toil our limbs to keep;

No shrink­ing from the des­per­ate fight

No thought of yield­ing or of flight

No love of pre­sent gain or ease

No seek­ing man nor self to please.

No sor­row for the loss of fame

No dread of scan­dal on our name;

No ter­ror for the world’s sharp scorn

No wish that taunt­ing to re­turn;

No hat­red can our hat­red move

And en­mi­ty but kin­dles love.

No sigh for laugh­ter left be­hind

Or plea­sures scat­tered to the wind

No look­ing back on So­dom’s plains

No list­en­ing still to Ba­bel’s strains

No tears for Egypt’s song and smile

No thirst­ing for its flow­ing Nile.

No van­ity nor fol­ly now;

No fad­ing gar­land round our brow

No moody mus­ings in the grove

No pang of dis­ap­point­ed love

But with brave heart and stea­dy eye

We on­ward march to vic­to­ry.

What though with wea­ri­ness op­pressed?

’Tis but a lit­tle

then we rest.

This throb­bing heart and burn­ing brain

Will soon be calm and cool again.

Night is far spent and morn is near

Morn of the cloud­less and the clear!

’Tis but a lit­tle

and we come

To our re­ward

our crown

our home!

Another year

it may be less

And we have crossed the wil­der­ness

Finished the toil

the rest be­gun

The bat­tle fought

the tri­umph won!

We grudge not

then

the toil

the way;

Its end­ing is the end­less day!

We shrink not from these tem­pests keen

With lit­tle of the calm be­tween;

We wel­come each des­cend­ing sun;

Ere morn

our joy may be be­gun!