For works with similar titles, see The Sabbath.


THE SABBATH.


The world is full of toil;
    Toil bids the traveler roam,
It binds the laborer to the soil,
    The student to his tome;
The beasts of burden sigh,
    O'erladen and opprest,
The Sabbath lifts its banner high,
    And gives the weary rest.

The world is full of care;
    The haggard brow is wrought
In furrows as of fix'd despair
    And check'd the heavenward thought,
But with indignant grace
    The Sabbath's chastening tone,
Drives money-changers from the place
    Which God doth call his own.

The world is full of grief;
    Sorrows o'er sorrows roll,
Even hope that promises relief
    Doth sometimes pierce the soul;
But see the Sabbath's bound
    Bears Mercy's holy seal,
A balm of Gilead for the wound
    That man is weak to heal.

The world is full of sin;
    Its tide, deceptive rolls,

The unwary to its breast to win,
    And whelm unstable souls;
The Sabbath's beacon tells
    Of reefs and wrecks below,
And warns, tho' gay the billow swells,
    Beneath, are death and woe.

O glorious world! where none
    With fruitless labor sigh,
Where care doth wring no lingering groan,
    And grief no agony;
Where Sin with fatal arts
    Hath never forg'd her chains,
But deep enthron'd in angel-hearts,
    One endless Sabbath reigns.