In gazing into heaven
In idle ecstacy,
What progress make ye to the haven
Where ye at length would be?
In heaven-appointed work
The sure ascension lies.
O, never yet did drone or shirk
Make headway to the skies.
Who in his heart rebels
Has never ears to hear
The morning and the evening bells
On yonder shores so clear.
For work communion is
With God's one order here,
And all the secret melodies
Which fill our lives with cheer.
David.
In action day by day
King David's manhood grew,
A character to live for aye,
It was so strong and true.
Hordes of misrule became
As stubble to the fire,
Till songs of praise like leaping flame
Burst from his sacred lyre.
He grappled with all rude
And unpropitious things:
A garden from the solitude
Smiled to the King of kings.
And fiercer yet the strife
With mighty foes within,
Who stormed the fortress of his life
And triumphed in his sin.
Good out of Evil.
True David halted not
When sin had cast him down,
Upon his royal life a blot,
Death reaching for his crown.
His work was but half done;
A man of action still,
He struggled in the gloaming sun
To do his Maker's will;
Till in the golden light
Great words began to shine:
In sorrow is exalting might,
Repentance is divine.
And now the shepherd king
We count the human sire
Of One who turns our hungering
Into achieved desire.
Elijah.
Elijah, through the night
Which shrouded Israel
In toiling, groping for the light,
Foretold Immanuel.
And in heroic trust
That night would yield to day--
His imperfections thick as dust
Along the desert way;
His bold, rebuking cry
Heard in the wilderness.
Till from the chariot of the sky
His mantle fell to bless--
The stern, half-savage seer
Became a prophecy
Of gladness and the Golden Year,
In all high minstrelsy.