That leads the spirit, in its aspirations,
Up to the happiness of morn in heaven.
Whatever maketh manifest is light.
Whence doth it come? Is not its place of birth
The native home of day? Is it not true,
That from the heart of earth there cometh not
A solitary beam to bless the world,—
To serve the tender bloom in early Spring,
Illume the Summer, or make the Autumn glad
With plenty ripe and fair? Is it not true,
That knowledge is not with us ever born;
That all we have has freely been received,
Just as the gleaner has the grain he gathers,
Which, ere he came, was scatter'd in the field?
The very life we live, and which we value
Above all other of our precious things,
And justly, too, is from the Lord of life;—
It comes from Him alone. What human power
Could make a living bird, or plant, or flower?
But is it not to life and nature true,
That not the earth and intellect alone,
But the heart too, is under darkness born?
How can affection, then, to heaven ascend?
Behold! the light is come ;-Arise, and shine!
As light material with the morning free-
As intellectual by the course of thought
So comes through faith the daylight of Salvation,
And all the three come freely down from heaven :
The last alone leads thither,-leads to Him
Who is the only way-the light-the life.
And the mornward windows gleaming,
Brightly answer back the glow;
And the streamlets, seaward teeming,
Tell of glory in their flow;
There young Joy, in beauty beaming,
Singeth in the sunny light,
Of its bringer, Spring, the bright.
Who will measure out the meaning
Of the shine and song?
Unto whom do all the teeming
Melodies belong?
All the splendours of the Spring,
Godward turn, and shine, and sing!
As the given proves the giver;
As the house a builder shows;
As of upper source, the river,
And, as consequence, a cause;
So fair Nature's voices ever
Godward turn, and shine, and sing,
In the splendours of the Spring!
"And we shall be changed."
Ir wonder ever met the morn,
'Twas surely when a cheerful child
Beheld the newborn day adorn
Wood-owning vale and heathy wild,
Firs that just fringed the upmost part
Of a not distant hill, nor high;
Were no meet timber for the mart;
Yet that child, in its simple heart,
Believed they touched the sky!
The valley all but boundless seem'd;
The farthest hill of six or seven,
He never for a moment dream'd
Its cloud-crown'd head was not in heaven!
But stars in night's rich diadem,
He deem'd in bright confusion ranged;
And, in his estimate of them,
Each star was but a tiny gem!
How-how has all been changed!
No twenty-no twice twenty years,
Could have worn down those hills so low!
The vale that now so small appears,
Greater dimensions ne'er could show!
And the mornward windows gleaming,
Brightly answer back the glow;
And the streamlets, seaward teeming,
Tell of glory in their flow;
There young Joy, in beauty beaming,
Singeth in the sunny light,
Of its bringer, Spring, the bright.
Who will measure out the meaning
Of the shine and song?
Unto whom do all the teeming
Melodies belong?
All the splendours of the Spring, Godward turn, and shine, and sing! As the given proves the giver;
As the house a builder shows;
As of upper source, the river,
And, as consequence, a cause;
So fair Nature's voices ever
Godward turn, and shine, and sing,
In the splendours of the Spring!
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