Summer: Friday Evening Poem by John Bowring

Hour after hour steals rapidly away,
Bearing past pleasures on its airy wings,
E'en like the sunny clouds, which evening's ray
Gilds with ten thousand bright and beauteous things.
Where are the million million actors now
That once this busy scene of being trod?
All garner'd underneath the grassy sod,
Sleeping yon heaps of turf, or stone, below!


'Tis fleeting all,-all false;-in life's rude sea,
Religion is the only towering rock;
A thousand ages roll on hurriedly-
It stands unshaken by the billow's shock;
It stands unshaken. Mountains tottering fall,
Hills bow,-and forests, cities, shrines decay;
There's no security, no staff, nor stay-
Time's mighty curtain must envelop all.
But thou, heaven's daughter, hast in heaven thy throne,
Thy chariot moves with the unclouded sun;
Thy light, thy strength, immortal and alone,
Roll in their full career of glory on.
What tho' the door of evening's twilight close?
What tho' the voice of death may call aloud?
In midnight's gloom a star of Eden glows-
A beam of heavenly hope illumes the shroud.


Fulfil thy journey, pilgrim! all may fade,
Fail, perish round thee-death shall dim thine eye,
Shall freeze thy beating heart-and thou shalt lie
A silent slumberer in the realms of shade;
Yet faint not,-fear not! let thy nobler sense
Look upward-it shall see delightful gleams
Smiling from heaven-catch pure intelligence
From realms of truth-and from the idle dreams
Of earth escaping, build a holy fane
To those high principles, unshaken, real,
Tow'ring above these passing scenes ideal,
And chase the flitting clouds of time and pain.


Ours is a faith nurtured and nourished
In the inmost heart-but not imprison'd there-
With holy thoughts and aspirations fed,
The object of its worship always near;
That object-the all-present Spirit of God-
A Spirit more diffused than is the light,
(For it no twilight knows, nor clouds, nor night,)
Beaming thro' all-yet fixing its abode
In the recesses of the pious breast.


Ye soft and beautiful dreams! whose origin
Is, when life's day is purest, holiest,
Ere tinged by suffering, or stain'd by sin;
Growing with our growth, and strength'ning with our strength,
And glowing in our full maturity,
Till, mingled with our being, they shall be
The link that binds us to our heaven at length.


This world has nought to soothe or satisfy
The spirit, save the lustre it receives
(Like sunbeams glimmering thro' the dewy eaves)
From the bright influence of eternity.