ALONE I walked the ocean strand;
A pearly shell was in my hand :
I stooped and wrote upon the sand
My name-the year-the day.
As onward from the spot I past
One lingering look behind I cast:
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away.
And so, methought, 'twill shortly be
With every mark on earth from me;
A wave of dark oblivion's sea
Will sweep across the place
Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of time, and been to be no more;
Of me-my day-the name I bore,
Nor leave nor track, nor trace.
And yet, with Him who counts the sands,
And holds the waters in His hands,
I know a lasting record stands
Inscribed against my name,
Of all this mortal part has wrought;
Of all this sinking soul has thought;
And from these fleeting moments caught
For glory or for shame.
Ar evening-time let there be light :-
Life's little day draws near its close:
Around me fall the shades of night,
The night of death, the grave's repose;
To crown my joys, to end my woes,
At evening-time let there be light.
At evening-time let there be light :-
Stormy and dark hath been my day;
Yet rose the morn benignly bright,
Dews, birds, and flowers, cheered all the way.
O, for one sweet, one parting ray!
At evening-time let there be light.
At evening-time there shall be light,
For God hath said, "So let it be!" Fear, doubt, and anguish, take their flight, His glory now is risen on me!
Mine eyes shall His salvation see: 'Tis evening-time, and there is light.
I MOURN no more my vanished years:
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain, of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.
The west winds blow, and sighing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
I plough no more a desert land,
To reap but weed and tare;
The manna dropping from God's hand
Rebukes my painful care.
I break my pilgrim staff-I lay
Aside my toiling oar;
The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.
The airs of Spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the Autumn morn;
Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look
Through fringed lids to heaven,
And the pale aster in the brook
Shall see its image given;
The woods shall wear their robes of praise,
The south wind softly sigh,
And sweet, calm days in golden haze
Melt down the amber sky.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told!
Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track:
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back;
That more and more a Providence
Of Love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense.
Sweet with eternal good;
That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;
That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;
That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm,
And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.
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