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| THERE is a Sabbath won for us, | |
| A Sabbath stored above, | |
| A service of eternal calm, | |
| An altar-rite of love. | |
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| There is a Sabbath won for us, | 5 |
| Where we shall ever wait | |
| In mute or voiceful ministries | |
| Upon the Immaculate. | |
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| There shall transfigured souls be filled | |
| With Christ’s Eternal Name, | 10 |
| Dipped, like bright censers, in the sea | |
| Of molten glass and flame. 1 | |
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| Yet set not in thy thoughts too far | |
| Our Heaven and Earth apart, | |
| Lest thou shouldst wrong the Heaven begun | 15 |
| Already in thy heart. | |
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| Though Heaven’s above and Earth’s below, | |
| Yet are they but one state, | |
| And each the other with sweet skill | |
| Doth interpenetrate. | 20 |
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| Yea, many a tie and office blest, | |
| In earthly lots uneven, | |
| Hath an immortal place to fill, | |
| And is a root of Heaven. | |
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| And surely Sundays bright and calm, | 25 |
| So calm, so bright as this, | |
| Are tastes imparted from above | |
| Of higher Sabbath bliss. | |
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| We own no gloomy ordinance, | |
| No weary Jewish day, | 30 |
| But weekly Easters, ever bright | |
| With pure domestic ray; | |
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| A feast of thought, a feast of sight, | |
| A feast of joyous sound, | |
| A feast of thankful hearts, at rest, | 35 |
| From labour’s wheel unbound; | |
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| A day of such homekeeping bliss | |
| As on the poor may wait, | |
| With all such lower joys as best | |
| Befit his human state. | 40 |
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| He sees among the hornbeam boughs | |
| The little sparkling flood; | |
| The mill-wheel rests, a quiet thing | |
| Of black and mossy wood. | |
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| He sees the fields lie in the sun, | 45 |
| He hears the plovers crying; | |
| The plough and harrow, both upturned, | |
| Are in the furrows lying. | |
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| In simple faith he may believe | |
| That earth’s diurnal way | 50 |
| Doth, like its blessed Maker, pause | |
| Upon this hallowed day. | |
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| And should he ask, the happy man! | |
| If Heaven be aught like this:— | |
| ’Tis Heaven within him, breeding there | 55 |
| The love of quiet bliss. | |
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| Oh leave the man, my fretful friend! | |
| To follow nature’s ways, | |
| Nor breathe to him that Christian feasts | |
| Are no true holydays. | 60 |
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| Is Earth to be as nothing here, | |
| When we are sons of Earth? | |
| May not the body and the heart | |
| Share in the spirit’s mirth? | |
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| When thou hast cut each earthly hold | 65 |
| Whereto his soul may cling, | |
| Will the poor creature left behind | |
| Be more a heavenly thing? | |
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| Heaven fades away before our eyes, | |
| Heaven fades within our heart, | 70 |
| Because in thought our Heaven and Earth | |
| Are cast too far apart. | |
