Hog’s Back Church

Foursquare it stands! A stalwart witness year by year To courage steadfast but austere. The toilworn hands That shaped its beams and laid its floors Are folded now. The toilers lie In marble dotted rows nearby Though some found graves on distant shores And some were lost at sea! This fickle, carefree world might heed Those iron men of Pilgrim breed, Though rude their lives and stern their bent They built a during monument To strict integrity. Foursquare it stands! And gazes out o’er Pamet Bay Once whitened by the sails that lay Where now are choking sands. The weathered houses prim and square That marked the hillsides everywhere Have disappeared, But that old church in stately pride Still dominates the countryside; Is still revered. Foursquare it stands! The dust upon the pulpit lies Whence lurid texts and prophecies Were hurled like burning brands. No more the silent walls are stirred By thunders of Jehovah’s wrath That seekers for the “Narrow Path” Once, trembling, heard; They reverenced an awful Name And glimpsed the pit of quenchless flame In God’s own word. Foursquare it stands on hallowed ground And from its lonely windswept height A landmark like a beacon light Its spire is seen for leagues around. Though times may change, and changing creeds Are modified to modern needs Still staunch and true, Memorial of a former age It keeps the priceless heritage From olden time to new. The plaster from the ceiling falls On creaking floors, and in the dead Of night there sounds the ghostly tread Of phantom footsteps. But the walls Still battle with the winter gale That roars about the ancient spire, Nor all its torrents can avail To drown that spark of living fire - The spirit of that temple set On crowning heights, lest men forget! Foursquare it stands! The bell, long silent, seems to ring And to the world its message fling; “I yield alone to God’s commands. “Though all about may change, not I. “True to my settled destiny “I still remain. “Though constancy be but a wraith “Steadfastly I have kept the faith “And shall maintain “That faith, unfaltering, down the years “Through all the shoals of doubts and fears, “A lighthouse on that shoreless sea “That broadens to Eternity”. There, like the Sphinx the old church broods Among its deepening solitudes. In simple grandeur let it stand For years unborn, to bless the land, And when its timeworn tower has gone Still may its memory linger on.