Yet where the conflict 's worst
Brightest it gleams;
Rays long in silence nursed
Shoot forth in streams:
Beauties before unknown
Out from its breast are thrown;
Light, like a golden zone,
Brilliantly beams.
Thus in the Christian's breast
Pure faith may lie,
Hid in the day of rest
Deep from the eye;
But when life's shadows lower
Faith lights the darkest hour,
Driving, by heavenly power,
Gloom from the sky.
DAY-DREAMS OF OTHER YEARS.
There are moments when my spirit wanders back to other years,
And time long, long departed, like the present still appears;
And I revel in the sunshine of those happy, happy hours,
When the sky of youth was cloudless, and its path was strewn with flowers.
O those days of dreamy sweetness! O those visions of delight!
Weaving garlands for the future, making all of earth too bright;
They come creeping through my memory like messengers of peace,
Telling tales of bygone blessings, bidding present sorrows cease.
Long-lost friends are gath'ring round me, smiling faces, gentle forms,
All unconscious of earth's struggles, all unmindful of its storms—
Beaming radiantly and beautiful, as in the days of youth,
When friendship was no mockery, when every thought was truth.
Joy, illuming every bosom, made fair nature fairer still—
Mirth sported on each summer breeze, and sung in every rill;
Beauty gleaming all around us, bright as dreams of fairy land—
Oh, faded now that lustre, scatter'd far that happy band!
Now deeply traced with sorrow is the once unclouded brow,
And eyes that sparkled joyously are dim with weeping now;
We are tasting life in earnest—all its vain illusions gone—
And the stars that glisten'd o'er our path are falling one by one.
Some are sleeping with their kindred—summer blossoms o'er them wave;
Some, lonely and unfriended, with the stranger found a grave;
While others now are wand'ring on a far and foreign shore,
And that happy, loving company shall meet—ah! never more.