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| ’TWAS the love that lightened service! | |
| The old, old story sweet | |
| That yearning lips and waiting hearts | |
| In melody repeat. | |
| As Jacob served for Rachel | 5 |
| Beneath the Syrian sky, | |
| Like the golden sands that swiftly drop | |
| The toiling years went by. | |
| |
| Chill fell the dews upon him, | |
| Fierce smote the sultry sun; | 10 |
| But what were cold and heat to him, | |
| Till that dear wife was won! | |
| The angels whispered in his ear | |
| “Be patient and be strong!” | |
| And the thought of her he waited for | 15 |
| Was ever like a song. | |
| |
| Sweet Rachel, with the secret | |
| To hold a brave man leal; | |
| To keep him through the changeful years | |
| Her own in woe and weal; | 20 |
| So that in age and exile, | |
| The death damp on his face, | |
| Her name to the dark valley lent | |
| Its own peculiar grace. | |
| |
| And “There I buried Rachel,” | 25 |
| He said of that lone spot | |
| In Ephrath, near to Bethlehem, | |
| Where the wife he loved was not; | |
| For God has taken from him | |
| The brightness and the zest, | 30 |
| And the heaven above thenceforward kept | |
| In fee his very best. | |
| |
| Of the love that lightens service, | |
| Dear God, how much we see, | |
| When the father toils the livelong day | 35 |
| For the children at his knee; | |
| When all night the mother wakes, | |
| Nor deem the vigil hard, | |
| The rose of health on sick one’s cheek, | |
| Her happy heart’s reward. | 40 |
| |
| The love that lightens service | |
| The fisherman can tell, | |
| When he wrests the bread his dear ones eat | |
| Where the bitter surges swell; | |
| And the farmer in the furrow, | 45 |
| The merchant in the mart, | |
| Count little worth their weary toil | |
| For the treasures of the heart. | |
. . . . . . As Jacob served for Rachel | |
| Beneath the Syrian sky, | 50 |
| And the golden sands of toiling years | |
| Went swiftly slipping by, | |
| The thought of her was music | |
| To cheer his weary feet, | |
| ’Twas love that lightened service, | 55 |
| The old, old story sweet. | |
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