He Walked with God

He walk’d with God, in holy joy,
While yet his days were few;
The deep, glad spirit of the boy
To love and reverence grew.
Whether, each nightly star to count,
The ancient hills he trode,
Or sought the flowers by stream and fount--
Alike he walk’d with God.

The graver noon of manhood came,
The full of cares and fears;
One voice was in his heart--the same
It heard through childhood’s years.
Amidst fair tents, and flocks, and swains,
O’er his green pasture-sod,
A shepherd-king on Eastern plains--
The patriarch walk’d with God.

And calmly, brightly, that pure life
Melted from earth away;
No cloud it knew, no parting strife,
No sorrowful decay:
He bow’d him not, like all beside,
Unto the spoiler’s rod,
But join’d at once the glorified,
Where angels walk with God!

So let us walk! The night must come
To us that comes to all;
We through the darkness must go home,
Hearing the trumpet’s call.
Closed is the path for ever more
Which without death he trode;
Not so that way, wherein of yore
His footsteps walk’d with God!