| |
| WHEN night her lonely shade has spread | |
| Around the wayworn wanderer’s head, | |
| How welcome is the distant gleam | |
| Of cottage taper’s twinkling beam, | |
| To guide and cheer his devious tread, | 5 |
| By marshy fen or mountain stream. | |
| Thus in the wilderness of life, | |
| When o’er us gloom the shades of strife, | |
| When adverse fortune’s tempests roll, | |
| And beat upon the troubled soul, | 10 |
| There beams athwart affliction’s night, | |
| With rays of peace, a holy light: | |
| Oh! ’t is that bright and lovely star, | |
| Which guides the wanderer from afar; | |
| Which smiles upon the brow of even, | 15 |
| And holds its course in midway heaven. | |
| Mark’st thou the rainbow’s beauteous hue | |
| In yonder eastern sky of blue? | |
| A moment, and the tints shall fade, | |
| And all its glories sink in shade. | 20 |
| Or dost thou mark yon opening flower? | |
| ’T is but the blossom of an hour; | |
| Its leaves shall by the winds be strown, | |
| And where it bloom’d no more be known. | |
| The solid globe shall pass away, | 25 |
| The fleeting atom of a day. | |
| The sun, and every lesser light, | |
| Shall all be quenched in endless night. | |
| Yet shall the Star of Bethlehem shine, | |
| A light of origin divine: | 30 |
| And when the flood of ruin streams, | |
| That star shall brighter shed its beams. | |
| It shone upon a Saviour’s birth, | |
| And chased the gathering gloom of earth. | |
| No cloud obscures its holy ray, | 35 |
| Its torch was lit in realms above, | |
| And from the shrine of boundless love | |
| It flames with heaven’s own lucid day. | |
| When is fulfilled Jehovah’s grace, | |
| When other orbs no more have place, | 40 |
| ’T will light th’ immensity of space. | |
| |
