Read the poem: “All-Saints.”

by James Russell Lowell

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American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell
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All-Saints.

One feast, of holy days the crest,
  I, though no Churchman, love to keep,
All-Saints,—the unknown good that rest
  In God’s still memory folded deep;
The bravely dumb that did their deed,
  And scorned to blot it with a name,
Men of the plain heroic breed,
  That loved Heaven’s silence more than fame.

Such lived not in the past alone,
  But thread to-day the unheeding street,
And stairs to Sin and Famine known
  Sing with the welcome of their feet;
The den they enter grows a shrine,
  The grimy sash an oriel burns,
Their cup of water warms like wine,
  Their speech is filled from heavenly urns.

About their brows to me appears
  An aureole traced in tenderest light,
The rainbow-gleam of smiles through tears
  In dying eyes, by them made bright,
Of souls that shivered on the edge
  Of that chill ford repassed no more,
And in their mercy felt the pledge
And sweetness of the farther shore.

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American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell

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by James Russell Lowell

All-Saints.

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