How slow the dragging moments seem to glide
To the transgressor in his living grave.
Ah! words unutterable cannot describe
The dread companions of the culprit's cave!
*********
Think'st thou, the Christian on the lonely isle,
Banished from every tie of heart or home
Far from a friendly word or loving smile,
Is hopeless and alone?
No; though he mourns that human love no more
May soothe the lonely pathway he must tread,
And when the weary journey shall be o'er
No loved one comes to soothe his dying bed;
Yet in his soul a calm and perfect peace,
Deep as the ocean, fathomless as thought
Commands the fury of the tempest cease
And bids the lonely wanderer murmur not.
"Tis evening, from the Eastern star there shines
A radiance, unnoticed there before;
While the blue wavelets, traced in beauteous lines,
In a new grandeur break upon the shore;
He listens to the breaker's ceaseless moan,
They wake to being, voices of the past,
Memory is there, with scenes of friends and home,
Like leaves upon the eddying current cast.
He fathoms the sublimity of time,
He views the emblem of life's troubled sea.
Breaker and crag in unity divine,
Sing to his soul a sweeter melody;
And as he keeps his vigil there alone
He feels the living presence of a friend,
Holier than friendship's voice that loving tone,
"Lo, I am with thee, even to the end."
He lifts his voice; hushed is the balmy air
A benediction rests on Nature's things,
Angelic beings breathe their notes of prayer,
And wait in silence while the Christian sings:
To the transgressor in his living grave.
Ah! words unutterable cannot describe
The dread companions of the culprit's cave!
*********
Think'st thou, the Christian on the lonely isle,
Banished from every tie of heart or home
Far from a friendly word or loving smile,
Is hopeless and alone?
No; though he mourns that human love no more
May soothe the lonely pathway he must tread,
And when the weary journey shall be o'er
No loved one comes to soothe his dying bed;
Yet in his soul a calm and perfect peace,
Deep as the ocean, fathomless as thought
Commands the fury of the tempest cease
And bids the lonely wanderer murmur not.
"Tis evening, from the Eastern star there shines
A radiance, unnoticed there before;
While the blue wavelets, traced in beauteous lines,
In a new grandeur break upon the shore;
He listens to the breaker's ceaseless moan,
They wake to being, voices of the past,
Memory is there, with scenes of friends and home,
Like leaves upon the eddying current cast.
He fathoms the sublimity of time,
He views the emblem of life's troubled sea.
Breaker and crag in unity divine,
Sing to his soul a sweeter melody;
And as he keeps his vigil there alone
He feels the living presence of a friend,
Holier than friendship's voice that loving tone,
"Lo, I am with thee, even to the end."
He lifts his voice; hushed is the balmy air
A benediction rests on Nature's things,
Angelic beings breathe their notes of prayer,
And wait in silence while the Christian sings:
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