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The Home Circle

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 5, 1882

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 8, No. 38.

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The Home Circle.

By Vandyke Brown

NOW THAT THE DAY IS DONE.

The sun goes down in his regal glory, The sun goes down, for the day is done; With darkness ends forever the story Which first in the rosy morn was begun. What if this day were the final one? For good or for evil 'tis written forever— One page in the book of Time, which never Can altered be by human endeavor, Now that the day is done!
In the deepening twilight I sit and ponder On all that this vanished day may have brought; Has it filled the promise of morn, I wonder? Have its hours with pleasure or pain been fraught? Shall we ever regret that its course is run? How many who bravely went forth in the morning, All fear of possible danger scorning, Lie stark and cold—oh, pitiful warning— Now that the day is done!
How many thousands, in anguish and sorrow, Are watching the shadows of night descend, For this dying day was once that to-morrow On which they counted as on a friend. But alas for the friend they leaned upon! He has proved the traitor to mock and bereave them— His sunshine has been but a cheat to deceive them, And naught but the dregs in the cup does he leave them— Now that the day is done!
But in many a home that was filled with gladness When the morning broke, there stalks to-night A phantom that turns all joy into sadness, That casts on all coming time its blight (Alas, that the day was ever begun!), And little it comforts those hearts in sorrow To know that the sun will rise on the morrow— His rays can never their old charm borrow, Now that the day is done!
But just one day is the old world older, But just one day are we nearer the end. Have hearts grown warmer, or have they grown colder? Have we raised up the weak or assisted a friend? What if this day were the final one? From the flush of the morn to the sun's last setting The world has been toiling and striving and fretting, And what has been gained that was worth the getting, Now that the day is done? —Vandyke Brown.