CAMP-MEETING SUNDAY AT OCEAN GROVE by ETHEL LYNN BEERS

From the bud of a cloud-calyxed midnight
Comes the bloom of the clear Sunday morn,
And the crown of the week with hosannas
In sun-lighted beauty is born.

I sit in the shaded Pavilion
That centres these homes by the sea,
In the city whose name tells its story --
Fair child of the wave and the tree.

I see the oaks standing about me,
God's sentinels, steady and true,
Up-bearing their sky-rifted banners,
Where sunshine comes brokenly through.

I look up to pleasant roof-shadow,
Strong built, 'gainst the storm to defend
(It is good to look upward for shelter,
Still upward, for aye, to the end.)

I see a blue line over yonder,
That sends a salt kiss on the breeze,
And the sound of the sea, chanting softly,
Comes echoing up to the trees.

A cloud, soft and snowy, floats upward;
I think, as I watch it flit o'er
Out of sight, 'tis the glorified body
Of the wavelet that died on the shore.

Around and about me, uncounted,
Throng worshippers, drifting together,
As the leaves in the hollows are heaped
By the gusts of the bright autumn weather.

Blooming girls, in the pride of their beauty;
Old men, with the almond-bloom crowned,
Pale and pitiful worn women's faces,
Where tear-drops a channel have found;

Stout men, with their hardened hands folded;
Fair children, whose song is a prayer;
And grandams, who wait to go over,
Full soon, to the "home over there."

Now, they glow as the hymn rises upward,
Now, bow 'neath a prayer-laden breath,
Now, a shout supplements the glad story
Of "ransomed from sin and from death."

Rising now, hark! they sing "Coronation,"
Sing of kingdom and glory to be,
Till the gates of the city stand open
To the surge of humanity's sea.

O beautiful Camp-meeting Sunday!
When clouds on my path hover low,
I shall call up thy happy remembrance
To cheer me wherever I go.

And tho' in this sun-lighted temple
I'll meet this great host never more,
We shall meet in the Lamb-lighted City,
When the wave bears us up the bright shore.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...