The Home Circle by J. W. Barker

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 24, 1884

The Home Circle.

By J. W. Barker

GROWING OLD.

GRACEFULLY, tenderly, down by the stream Hangs the pale aster at morning and even, Lazily nodding as in a sweet dream, Breathing sweet words of the glory of heaven; Faded its beauty, and crisp are its leaves, Tarnished its vesture of crimson and gold, Mournful the cadence the whispering wind breathes, “Summer has vanished, we're all growing old.”

Over the meadowland, deftly and still, Blasting the beauty of spring's early green, Crisping the forest and browning the hill, Wanders a spirit no mortal hath seen; Through the low valley, the low-voiced wind, Touching the strings that are crispy and cold, Listening, the same plaintive measure I find:— “Summer is over, we're all growing old.”

Laughing o'er meadows, regaling in bowers, Singing a song that is artless and wild, Bathing his locks in the dew of the flowers, Sported in sunshine an innocent child; Over the path of the swift-footed years, Hangeth a shadow, with night on its fold, Bending in sadness, and blinded with tears, White lips are breathing, “We're all growing old.”

As I gazed on the aster that stood by the stream, So withered and pale with the weight of the year, A voice all divine touched its mystical dream, And the tokens of winter and age disappear, And fresher and fairer than ever before, Unfolding their tints in the light of the sun, Adorning in beauty, the evergreen shore, Sweet blossoms are bursting a thousand to one.

And lo, the brown meadow is springing with life, The mountains, the hillsides, and valley between, Are wearing a verdure, amid the glad strife, Far brighter than ever a mortal hath seen; For a spirit as still as the light of a star, And soft as the zephyr that whispers at even, On the wings of the morning, hath come from afar, And covered the earth with the sunshine of heaven.

The pilgrim that stood in the shadow and gloom, And wept o'er the vision of youth that was gone, I can see through the mists that envelop the tomb, On his brow is the glory of life's fairest morn; For a breath hath revealed to my wandering view, What the sages and prophets so often have told; From the death of the old, comes the life of the new, And the true and the beautiful never grow old.

But then, while the years keep their measureless tread Thro' the shadows of earth, we may count by the way, The forms of our beautiful, faded and dead, That gladdened the heart at the dawn of its day. But faith, thro' the shadows that cover us here, Looks out, far beyond the ethereal sky, And the eye gathers light, while the soul swells with cheer, For the true and the pure they shall live though they die.

A thought, breathing love, is a native of heaven, And born in the soul as it wanders o'er earth, From the dawn of its day to the shade of its even, With devotion it clings to the land of its birth; And the schemes that it plans, and the structure it rears, Shall live when the granite is crumbled and old; Who sows in the heart, tho' he scatter in tears, Shall reap a ripe harvest of crimson and gold. —J. W. Barker.