DE PROFUNDIS by Elder L. D. Santee

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 18, 1902

DE PROFUNDIS.

By Elder L. D. Santee

ELDER L. D. SANTEE.

The wind has blown chill through life's valley, And scattered its snows in my hair, The song birds of spring are all silent, And my forehead is seamed with its care; But I dream not of days that are vanished, Swallowed up in time's pitiless years; All the thoughts of the past I have banished, With their story of gladness or tears.

All the years of the past, with their crosses, I would leave as a dream of the night; All the shadows of life and its losses, In the splendor of heaven grow bright. Hopes die, and their tombs are a token That this earth is no home for the soul; Love changes, and true hearts are broken, And the sadness of grief has control.

I look for a heaven more gracious Than the mutable things that I see,— A region of love, bright and spacious, Prepared by the Saviour for me, Where angels repeat the glad story, As they worship again and again, That Christ left the mansions of glory, And died for the children of men.

Far out past life's pain and its fever Is the beautiful land that we love, Where with Jesus forever and ever We shall dwell in the mansions above; Where the pure, with their beautiful faces, Are redeemed from the living and dead, To mingle with fervent embraces, Where sorrow forever has fled.

O heaven of love and of glories! O sheen of life's wonderful sea! Not once has the earth's fairest stories Told the pleasures that in thee shall be. The wind has blown chill through life's valley, And scattered its snows in my hair, The song birds of spring are all silent, But I wait for the home over there.