WILL God indeed with fragments bear,
Snatch’d late from the decaying year?
Or can the Saviour’s blood endear
The dregs of a polluted life?
‘When down th’ o’erwhelming current tost,
Just ere he sink for ever lost,
The sailor’s untried arms are cross’d
In agonizing prayer, will Ocean cease her strife?
Sighs that exhaust but not relieve,
Heart-rending sighs, O spare to heave
A bosom freshly taught to grieve
For lavish’d hours and love mis-spent!
Now through her round of holy thought
The Church our annual steps has brought,
But we no holy fire have caught—
Back on the gaudy world our wilful eyes were bent,
Too soon th’ ennobling carols, pour’d
To hymn the birth-night of the LORD,
Which duteous Memory should have stor’d
For thankful echoing
all the year—
Too soon those airs have pass’d away;
Nor long within the heart would stay
The silence of CHRIST’S dying day,
Profan’d by worldly mirth, or scar’d by worldly fear
Some strain of hope and victory
On Easter wings might lift us high;
A little while we sought the sky:
And when the SPIRIT’S
beacon fires
On every hill began to blaze,
Lightening the world with glad amaze,
Who but must kindle while they gaze?
But faster than she soars, our earth-bound Fancy tires.
Nor yet for these, nor all the rites,
By which our Mother’s voice invites
Our GOD to bless our home delights,
And sweeten every
secret tear :—
The funeral dirge, the marriage vow,
The hallow’d font where parents bow,
And now elate and trembling now
To the Redeemer’s feet their new-found treasures bear :—
Not for the Pastor’s gracious arm
Stretch’d out to bless—a Christian charm
To dull the shafts of worldly harm :—
Nor, sweetest, holiest,
best of all,
For the dear feast of Jesus dying,
Upon that altar ever lying,
Where souls with sacred hunger sighing
Are call’d to sit and eat, while angels prostrate
No, not for each and all of these,
Have our frail spirits found their ease.
The gale that stirs th’ autumnal trees
Seems tun’d as truly
to our hearts
As when, twelve weary months ago,
‘Twas moaning bleak, so high and low,
You would have thought Remorse and Woe
Had taught the innocent air their sadly thrilling parts
Is it, CHRIST’S light is too divine,
We dare not hope like Him to shine?
But see, around His dazzling shrine
Earth’s gems the fire
of Heaven have caught;
Martyrs and saints—each glorious day
Dawning in order on our way—
Remind us, how our darksome clay
May keep th’ ethereal warmth our new Creator brought.
These we have scorn’d, O false and frail!
And now once more th’ appalling tale,
How love divine may woo and fail,
Of our lost year in
Heaven is told—
What if as far our life were past,
Our weeks all number’d to the last,
With time and hope behind us cast,
And all our work to do with palsied hands and cold?
O watch and pray ere Advent dawn!
For thinner than the subtlest lawn
‘Twixt thee and death the veil is drawn.
But love too late
can never glow:
The scatter’d fragments Love can glean,
Refine the dregs, and yield us clean
To regions where one thought serene
Breathes sweeter than whole years of sacrifice below.
