A Sabbath morn - softly the village bells
Ring out their welcome to the sacred day.
The weary swain has drunk of longer sleep,
And now, his children clustering round him, leads
The happy group from under his low porch
And through their little garden, where each plucks
A rose or pansy, to the school they love:
The busy hum delights his ear; and soon
The morning hymn floats heavenward; but himself
Holding the youngest prattler in his arms,
Waits in the churchyard, where about him lie
His father and his father's fathers, till,
The children following their pastor's steps
Whose gray locks flutter in the summer breeze,
All pass beneath the hallow'd roof, and all
Kneeling, where generations past have knelt,
Pour forth their common wants in common prayer.
A rural Sabbath - nearest type of heaven:
Yet scarcely less beloved in toilworn courts
And alleys of the city. What true heart
Loves not the Sabbath? that dear pledge of home;
That trysting-place of God and man: that link
Betwixt a near eternity and time;
That almost lonely rivulet, which flows
From Eden through the world's wide wastes of sand
Uncheck'd, and though not unalloy'd with earth
Its healing waters all impregn'd with life,
The life of their first blessing, to pure lips
The memory of a bygone Paradise,
The earnest of a Paradise to come.
Who know thee best, love best, thou pearl of days,
And guard thee with most jealous care from morn
Till dewy evening, when the ceaseless play
Hour after hour of thy sweet influences
Has tuned the heart of pilgrims to the songs
And music of their heavenly fatherland.
But mortal ears are heavy', and mortal eyes
Catch only glimpses dim and indistinct
Of things unseen, beauteous but far away;
Enough to quicken, but not satiate love:
And the soon weary spirit exhausted sighs
For wings to flee away and be at rest,
Or solaces its musings, there remains
A Sabbath for the toiling Church of God.