Sunday

After long days of storms and showers,
Of sighing winds, and dripping bowers,
How sweet at morn to ope our eyes
On newly ” wept and garnished” skies! —

To miss the clouds, and driving rain,
And see that all is bright again —
So bright we cannot choose but say.
Is this the world of yesterday?

Even so, methinks, the Sunday brings
A change o’er all familiar things ;
A change — we know not whence it came —
They are, and they are not, the same.

There is a spell within, around,
On eye and ear, on sight and sound.
And, loth or willing, they and we
Must own this day a mystery.

Sure all things wear a heavenly dress,
That sanctifies their loveliness,
Types of that endless resting-day,
When “we shall all be changed” as they.

To-day our peaceful, ordered home
Foreshadoweth mansions yet to come,
We foretaste, in domestic love.
The faultless charities above.

And as at yester eventide
Our tasks and toys were laid aside,
Lo ! here our training for the day
When we shall lay them down for aye.

But not alone for musings deep,
Meek souls their “day of days” will keep ;
Yet other glorious things than these
The Christian in his Sabbath sees.

His eyes, by faith, his Lord behold;
How on the week’s first day of old
From Hell He rose, on Death He trod,
Was seen of men, and went to God.

And as we fondly pause to look
Where, in some daily-handled book,
Approval’s well-known tokens stand.
Traced by some dear and thoughtful hand,

Even so there shines one day in seven
Bright with the special mark of Heaven,
That we with love and praise may dwell
On Him who loveth us so well;

Whether in meditative walk,
Alone with God and Heaven we talk.
Catching the simple chime that calls
Our feet to some old church’s walls;

Or passed within the church’s door,
Where poor are rich, and rich are poor,
We say the prayers, and hear the word,
Which there our fathers said and heard;

Or represent in solemn wise
Our all-prevailing sacrifice,
Feeding in joint communion high
The life of faith that cannot die.

And surely in a world like this,
So rife with woe, so scant of bliss —
Where fondest hopes are oftenest crossed,
And fondest hopes are severed most —

‘Tis something that we kneel and pray
With loved ones near and far away ;
One God, one faith, one hope, one care,
One form of words, one hour of prayer.

‘Tis just; yet pause, till ear and heart.
In one brief silence, ere we part,
Somewhat of that high strain have caught —
“The peace of God which passeth thought.”

Then turn we to our earthly homes,
Not doubting but that Jesus comes,
Breathing His peace on hall and hut,
At evening, when the doors are shut ;

Then speeds us oh our work-day way,
And hallows every common day;
Without Him Sunday’s self were dim,
But all are bright, if spent with Him,

I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day. — Rev. i. 10.

Unknown. Taken from The Changed Cross