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.
Struck by lightning in a thunder storm on the night of March 21, 1940 and totally destroyed.