--He, old and lone,
Long waited by the river, staff in hand,
Till a voice called him, and he sought that land
Where age takes on fresh youth to change unknown.
And we are parted, brothers, sisters dear--
Alas, the band is broken!--One by one
Ye left the hill-side green,--the Sabbath sun
Finds those old paths to-day, forsaken, drear.
And Mem'ry paints me yet another scene--
A home, love-lighted by an earnest eye--
A home, of fellowship so pure, so high.
I pause, and ask myself, have such things been?--
Or have I dreamed?--Was it a blessed dream?--
A dream of peace, and rest, and hallowed calm,--
The skies all sunshine, and the air all balm,--
The tranquil hours aglow with Heaven's own beam?--
A dream?--a dream?--the long, long, clouded day
That ended in a longer, sadder night,
When, in my home went out that blessed light,
And Love from its hushed chambers passed away?
O no!--oh no! 'Tis but the old, old tale
Of human bliss and human agony,--
Of morning's joy-bells ringing full and free,--
And evening's hollow winds and funeral wail!
Yet thou art left me, Sabbath! In thy light
I sit and muse, this sweet, June morning, till
The past, with all its varied scenes of good and ill,
Fades from my thought--fades, with the bliss and blight,
The short-lived transports of those buried years,--
The summer flowers I gathered with such pains,--
The gold I hoarded in slow-gathered grains,--
All lost,--the summer chilled by Autumn's tears,--
The long, lone, flowerless autumn--when the sun,
Hurled from his zenith, shivered cold and pale
On the horizon's verge--the funeral wail
O! tempest-burdened winds through forests dim,
And desolate, and drear,--all pass away
This morn, O Sabbath, in thy hallowed light,
And, glancing far beyond the infinite
Of thy blue heavens, where a clearer day
Lights the Eternal hills, I seem to see
The Heavenly City, whence the radiant gleam
Of a fair Temple, and a crystal stream
Of living water wanders down to me
In changeless light! O Home!--O Rest!-O Heaven!
Thus to thy hallowed calm I'd look away,
Sabbath of God!--Eternal Sabbath day!
Till to my soul thy tranquil rest is given.
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