Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain :
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
TIME with an unwearied hand
Pushes round the seasons fast,
And in life's frail glass the sand
Sinks apace, not long to last ;-
Many, as well as you or I,
Who last year assembled thus,
In their silent graves now lie ;—
Graves will open soon for us.
Daily sin, and care, and strife,
While the Lord prolongs our breath,
Make it but a dying life,
Or a kind of living death:
Wretched they, and most forlorn,
Who no better portion know;
Better ne'er to have been born,
Than to have our all below.
When constrain❜d to go alone,
Leaving all you love behind,
Entering on a world unknown,-
What will then support your mind?
When the Lord his summons sends,
Earthly comforts lose their power;
Honour, riches, kindred, friends,
Cannot soothe a dying hour.
Happy souls, who fear the Lord!
Time is not too swift for you;
When your Saviour gives the word,
Glad
you 'll bid the world adieu :
Then he'll wipe away your tears,
Near himself appoint your place:
Swiftly fly, ye rolling years!
Lord, we long to see thy face.
WHEN languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
'Tis sweet to look beyond the cage,
And long to fly away.
Sweet to look inward, and attend
The whispers of his love;
Sweet to look upward to the place
Where Jesus pleads above.
Sweet to look back, and see my name
In life's fair book set down ;
Sweet to look forward, and behold
Eternal joys my own.
Sweet to reflect, how grace divine
My sins on Jesus laid;
Sweet to remember that his blood
My debt of suff'ring paid.
Sweet in his righteousness to stand, Which saves from second death; Sweet to experience, day by day, His spirit's quick'ning breath.
Sweet on his faithfulness to rest,
Whose love can never end;
Sweet on his covenant of grace
For all things to depend.
Sweet in the confidence of faith,
To trust his firm decrees;
Sweet to lie passive in his hands,
And know no will but his.
If such the sweetness of the streams,
What must the fountain be?
Where saints and angels draw their bliss Immediately from thee!
NIGHT is the time for rest!
How sweet, when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast,
The curtain of repose;
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Down on our own delightful bed!
Night is the time for dreams—
The gay romance of life;
When truth that is and truth that seems
Mix in fantastic strife:
Ah! visions less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are!
Night is the time for toil;
To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil
Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang, and heroes wrought.
Night is the time to weep;
To wet, with unseen tears,
Those graves of memory, where sleep
The joys of other years ;
Hopes that were angels at their birth,
But died when young, like things of earth.
Night is the time to watch—
O'er ocean's dark expanse,
To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings into the home-sick mind
All we have loved and left behind.
Night is the time for care :
Brooding on hours mispent,
To see the spectre of despair
Come to our lonely tent;
Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host,
Summoned to die by Cæsar's ghost.
Night is the time to think;
When, from the eye, the soul
Takes flight, and, on the utmost brink
Of yonder starry pole,
Discerns, beyond the abyss of night,
The dawn of uncreated light.
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