Ours is a lovely world! Where'er
We turn our eyes 'tis bright and fair:
The seasons in their courses fall,
And bring successive joys. The sea,
...
I heard a voice which sweetly said,
'Happy, thrice happy are the dead
Who from their earthly labours rest-
They slumber well-for they are blest.'
...
They are not gone-whom death's dark shroud
Hath curtained from our mortal eye;
They are not gone:
...
Whither, whither shall we go?
For the word of life is Thine;
Nothing of our way we know
If Thy light refuse to shine:
...
Come Thy kingdom! of all blessings,
Of all prayers the first is this;
All heaven's hopes,-all earth's possessings,
...
Father, I bend before Thy sacred shrine,
In grateful reverence to Thy will divine,
...
'Sing no more the song of Moses!'
Sing a loftier, louder lay!
For the time of twilight closes,
And then dawns th'eternal day.
...
If to deny that God hath cursed the child,
And doomed it to perdition-to deny
That He, who sits and reigns above the sky,
...
That Christ who o'er His Lazarus wept,
And said, 'The dead again shall rise!'
Is 'the first fruits of them that slept,'
...
Spring is but another birth,
From the grave of earlier springs,
Which to renovated earth
Other resurrection brings.
...