O STREAM, descending to the sea,
Thy mossy banks between,
The flow'rets blow, the grasses grow,
The leafy trees are green.
In garden plots the children play,
The fields the labourers till,
And houses stand on either hand,
And thou descendest still.
O life, descending into death,
Our waking eyes behold,
Parent and friend thy lapse attend,
Companions young and old.
Strong purposes our mind possess,
Our hearts affections fill,
We toil and earn, we seek and learn,
And thou descendest still.
O end, to which our currents tend,
Inevitable sea,
To which we flow, what do we know,
What shall we guess of thee?
A roar we hear upon thy shore,
As we our course fulfil ;
Scarce we divine a sun will shine,
And be above us still.
I count the praises thou art worth,
By thy waves that move aloud,
By thy hills against the cloud,
By thy valleys warm and green,
By the copse's elms between,
By their birds which, like a sprite,
Scattered by a strong delight
Into fragments musical,
Stir and sing in every bush;
By thy silver founts that fall,
As if to entice the stars at night
To thine heart; by grass and rush,
And little weeds the children pull,
Mistook for flowers!
O beautiful
Art thou, Earth, albeit worse
Than in Heaven is called good;
Good to us, that we may know
Meekly from thy good to go;
While the holy crying Blood
Puts its music kind and low
'Twixt such ears as are not dull,
And thine ancient curse!
Praised be the mosses soft
In thy forest pathways oft,
And the thorns, which make us think
Of the thornless river-brink
Where the ransomed tread :
Praisèd be thy sunny gleams,
And the storm, that worketh dreams
Of calm unfinished :
Praised be thine active days,
And thy night-time's solemn need,
When in God's dear book we read
No night shall be therein:
Praised be thy dwellings warm
By household faggot's cheerful blaze,
Where, to hear of pardoned sin,
Pauseth oft the merry din,
Save the babe's upon the arm
Who croweth to the crackling wood:
Yea, and better understood,
Praised be thy dwellings cold,
Hid beneath the churchyard mould,
Where the bodies of the saints,
Separate from earthly taints,
Lie asleep, in blessing bound,
Waiting for the trumpet's sound
To free them into blessing; none
Weeping more beneath the sun,
Though dangerous words of human love
Be graven very near, above.
Earth, we Christians praise thee thus,
Even for the change that comes
With a grief from thee to us,
For thy cradles and thy tombs,
For the pleasant corn and wine
And summer-heat, and also for
The frost upon the sycamore
And hail upon the vine!
YE were mine, flesh and soul, mine, O my children,
A portion of myself is torn away,
The breath of life seems stifled in our parting,
And death like darkness clouds my lonely day.
A chill sick shudder thrills my yearning bosom,
Where never more your gentle arms shall twine.
The memory of your voices doubles anguish ;
Your voices that no longer answer mine!
Yet cease, my soul! O hush this vain lamenting,
Earth's anguish will not alter Heaven's decree
In that calm world whose peopling is of angels,
Those I called mine still live and wait for me.
They cannot redescend where I lament them;
My earthbound grief no sorrowing angel shares :
And in their peaceful and immortal dwelling
Nothing of me can enter-but my prayers!
If this be so-then, that I may be near then,
Let me still pray unmurmuring, night and day.
God lifts us gently to His world of glory,
Even by the love we feel for things of clay.
Lest in our wayward hearts we should forget Him,
And forfeit so the mansion of our rest,
He leads our dear ones forth, and bids us seek them
In a far distant home, among the blest.
So we have guides to Heaven's eternal city,
And when our wandering feet would backward stray,
The faces of our Dead arise in brightness,
And fondly beckon to the holier way.
FOR a thousand years the stars
Stay quiet in the skies,
And ever at each other gaze
With wistful loving eyes.
The words they speak together
Are beautiful and grand,
Yet not the wisest scholar
Their speech may understand.
But I have read and learnt it,
And know it evermore :-
The face of my beloved
Revealed to me their lore.
I KNOW not which to choose; whether to live A little longer here, or to depart.
That would be sweet, to be at rest, to toil
No more; no more feel pain, to have no griefs,
No anxious fears, nor for myself nor others,—
That would be sweet; and sweeter still to have
No more to sin, affection or desire.
But to be near, and feel that nearness near
Unto my Lord; to have a thrilling sense
Of blessedness, the eternity of joy
At hand yet greater, safe, for ever safe.
So to be resting would be sweet. And yet
To live for Christ, to live to do His pleasure:
To fight the fight, clad in His panoply,
Knowing that He looks on the while, and smiles
By love unfathomable ever moved.
To go and tell to others of His grace,
The bliss unutterable of the life
That is in Him!
Surely a life so spent is blessedness,
And all too little to repay His Love,
The Love of His most costly sacrifice.
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