 | A book of hymns for public and private devotion |  |
250
PSALM OF LIFE.
1
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
2
Life is real! life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
3
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end and way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.
4
Lives of true men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
5
Footprints which perhaps another,Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
6
Let us, then, be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
440
ORDINATION.
1
Christ to the young man said: “Yet one thing more,If thou wouldst perfect be;
Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor,
And come and follow me!”
2
Within this temple, Christ again, unseen,Those sacred words has said;
And his invisible hands to-day have been
Laid on a young man's head.
3
And evermore beside him on his way,The unseen Christ shall move,
That he may lean upon his arm and say,
“Dost thou, dear Lord, approve?”
4
Beside him at the marriage feast shall be,To make the scene more fair;
Beside him in the dark Gethsemane
Of pain and midnight prayer.
5
O holy trust! O endless sense of rest!Like the beloved John,
To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast,
And thus to journey on!
| A book of hymns for public and private devotion | |