If niggard Earth her treasures hide,
To all but labouring hands denied,
Lavish of thorns and worthless weeds alone,
The doom is half in mercy given,
To train us in our way to Heaven,
And show our lagging souls how glory must be won.
If on the sinner's outward frame
God hath impressed His mark of blame,
And e'en our bodies shrink at touch of light,
Yet mercy hath not left us bare:
The very weeds we daily wear
Are to Faith's eye a pledge of God's forgiving might.
And oh! if yet one arrow more,
The sharpest of the Almighty's store,
Tremble upon the string—a sinner's death -
Art Thou not by to soothe and save,
To lay us gently in the grave,
To close the weary eye and hush the parting breath?
Therefore in sight of man bereft
The happy garden still was left;
The fiery sword that guarded, showed it too;
Turning all ways, the world to teach,
That though as yet beyond our reach,
Still in its place the tree of life and glory grew.
QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY
- I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth. Genesis ix. 13.
Sweet Dove! the softest, steadiest plume,
In all the sunbright sky,
Brightening in ever-changeful bloom
As breezes change on high; -
Sweet Leaf! the pledge of peace and mirth,
"Long sought, and lately won,"
Blessed increase of reviving Earth,
When first it felt the Sun; -
