The Reply To Gray's Elegy

Before you read this I wanted to explain who this man was. He was a teacher who discovered a why to teach geography to children by doing rhymes and poetry.

We have been researching our heritage from Ireland to peasant-day and through that research we found Needham Bryan Cobb. Not long after we found a book that he had writen on the geology of North Carolina! At the end of which contained a few poems of his Christian faith! I hope you enjoy this one.

Reply To Gray’s Elegy

By Needham Bryan Cobb
Shelby, N.C., August 29, 1871

The Unseen Rose – The Hidden Gem

Thoughts suggested by reading the following lines in “Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard:”

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of the ocean bear,
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

No Flower on earth “is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air,”
No ocean “gem of purest ray serene”
Is planted in the deep to perish there.

The eye of Man may ne’er behold that gem
“The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear,”
His keenest sense ne’er note the sweet perfume
That rose distills upon the desert air.

Still not one sparkle of that gem is lost;
And not one breath of fragrance from the rose,
For round about them are a countless host
Who in their splendor revel or repose.

Those “dark unfathomed caves” of ocean’s deep
Are not so dark as poets sometimes write;
There myriads, moving, mingling monsters creep,
And doubtless to them all that gem is bright.

With the caverns of the grains of sand
That lie around that desert rose’s feet,
A thousand living things, fed by God’s hand,
Find joyous homes. To them that rose is sweet.

But still, if not a creature wandered where
That rose is blooming, or that gem is laid,
The great Creator, God, who placed them there,
Would take delight in works His hands have made.

Think not thy worth and work are all unknown,
Because no partial penman paint thy praise.
Man my not see nor mind; but God will own
Thy worth and work, thy thoughts and words and ways.

The desert rose, though never seen by man,
Is nurtured with a care divinely good.
The ocean gem, though ‘neath the rolling main,
Is ever brilliant in the eyes of God.