Our Leader

GRACE NIXON STECHER

Your midnight skies were wet with many a tear,
Your sun, your moon, your very stars were gone;
This was the hour most potent, though most drear,
For even then the rhythms of the dawn
Were pulsing through the dark, until there came
Across your skies of grief a vibrant flame.

Irradiance! from darkest night to day
Was but a leap, when light had once begun;
The lambent lyrics of the dawn gave way
To brilliant arias of morning sun.
Your midnight lamentations had no choice
But vanish in Love's universal voice.

Yours the discovery, the morning glow,
The full-orbed sun, the revelation yours;
Yours to anoint, rechristen and bestow
Upon a people weary of old cures;
Your to reveal the "dayspring from on high,"
Urging its gold upon a leaden sky.

Yours to lead up from shining star to star
This wistful people who have waited long,
And oh! they follow gladly though afar,
And find their weary feet are winged with song;
For you have twined their heavy cross with flowers
And shown the crown, topping the thorny hours.