Love Shall Save Us All

O pilgrim, comes the night so fast?

Let not the dark thy heart appall.

Though loom the shadows vague and fast,

For love shall save us all.

There is no hope but this to see

Through tears that gather fast and fall;

Too great to perish love must be,

And love shall save us all.

Have patience with our loss and pain,

Our troubles’ space of days so small;

We shall not reach our arms in vain,

For love shall save us all.

O pilgrim, but a moment wait,

And we shall hear our darlings call

Beyond death’s mute and awful gate,

And love shall save us all!

-       Thaxter[1]

---

[1] Celia Laighton Thaxter was born in 1836 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. When she was young her father, Thomas Laighton, lost a local election. Bitter, he purchased some islands off the coast and took a job as lighthouse keeper on an adjacent island.  For Celia, this was the beginning of a lifetime on and about the Isles of Shoal. Her father eventually opened a guest house at which some of New England’s finest writers stayed. Celia met Hawthorne, Whittier (see footnote 240), and others.  Perhaps it is no surprise she became a poet. Celia’s published collections include: Among the Isles of Shoals (1873); Poems (1871); Driftweed (1878); Poems for Children (1884); and The Cruise of the Mystery, and other Poems (1886). Celia lived on or near the islands all her adult life. She married Levi Lincoln Thaxter in 1851, and died in 1894.  (Sources: Poemhunter.com, Celia Thaxter Timeline by Norma H. Mandel, Ph.D.)