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English melodies

By Charles Swain

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173

TO HIM WHO FOR SIX DAYS.

To him who for six days a week
Can rarely call an hour his own,
How sweet to watch the Sabbath break,
And bless the light that Heaven hath thrown.
Oh! welcome, more than tongue can name,
The dearest morn that greets our soil,
Is that the Sabbath bells proclaim,
Which shuts the busy world of toil.
From morn to eve—from morn to eve—
Still wakening but for work alone;
Oh! heaven, it is a blest reprieve
To have one day to call our own:
One day to breathe a wider span
Unfetter'd by the bonds of trade,
To leave the plodding world of man,
And view the world which God hath made.