To the soft gladness of a summer sky;
To dream ourselves alone, unloved, forsaken,
And then to wake 'mid smiles, and love, and joy;
To look at evening on the storm's rude motion,
The cloudy tumult of the fretted deep;
And then at day-burst upon that same ocean,
Soothed to the stillness of its stillest sleep—
So runs our course—so tells the church her story,
So to the end shall it be ever told;
Brief shame on earth, but after shame the glory,