OUR TRUE COMPANION.
“Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day
is far spent.”—Luke xxiv. 29.
Abide with us! sustaining Lord, abide;
Without Thee, vain is all the world beside:
When Thou art vanish'd, nought true Souls can see
But the sad loneliness that sighs for Thee.
The life we bear is oft a burden'd thing
Fill'd with a load of varied suffering,
Though, mask'd with smiles, the forehead seems to say
“My heart is sunshine in its golden play.”
A thousand shadows from the soul arise
Casting a tinge o'er all young natures prize;
E'en from the centre of consummate bliss
We inly murmur, “breathes there truth in this?”
Without, works mystery; within, the same;
And truths, profounder than mere words can name,
Float through the mind, like seraph-whispers sent
From the far glories of God's firmament.
Lofty but low, abased and yet sublime,
With hearts eternal in a home of time,
Sinful, but sainted, doom'd on earth to walk,
And yet with Seraphim in spirit talk,—
Extremes of contrast! such our being rule;
And fever'd Life, with contradiction full,
Can echo the beseeching twain who cried,
“Lord of our souls, for ever with us bide!”
The beautiful and bright, creation yields
From rock and dale, from forest and from fields,
Lacking Thy presence, want that master-grace
Which decks the earth with each diviner trace.
Oft o'er yon heav'ns when strays the poet's eye
While soundless evening steals along the sky,
That Afterward, to which no after comes,
Seems to salute him from ideal homes,
Which pale and pensive, from each pilgrim star
Gleam through the air, and glisten from afar:
And then, dear Lord! amid the vast and lone
Faith can discern Thee on creation's throne.
Thy solemn grandeurs, Thy nocturnal scenes,—
How oft 'tween us and them there intervenes
A troubled shadow, which our guilt must throw
On all which manifests dread power below!
But oh, amid the struggle, toil, and tears,
And blighting anguish of our baffled years,
The hush'd religion of a grief-worn heart
How does it love Thee, Healer as Thou art!
But when life's wearied days are spent and gone,
And calm eternity is coming on,
Ere the wing'd soul shall take its awful flight,
Abide with us! and death will be delight.
