The Home Circle by Mrs. M. A. Kidder

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 8, 1883

The Home Circle.

By Mrs. M. A. Kidder

MY EIGHTY YEARS.

My eighty years! My eighty years! Shall I look back with joy or tears Across life's track, at duties done, At battles lost and victories won, At sad mistakes that I have made, At hopes that blossomed but to fade, Or, at the fruit that now appears, Of seed well sown in eighty years?

My eighty years! My eighty years! What lights and shadows, hopes and fears, What glimpses of the good and true, What friendships all the journey through, What mercies have around me shone, What honest hands have clasped my own, Since that eventful time, below— My birthday, eighty years ago!

The man who lets the days pass by From youth to late maturity, In carelessness of acts and deeds, Unmindful of his nature's needs, When opportunity has gone, And still the days are passing on, Will never know, as evening nears, What may be done in eighty years.

My eighty years! My eighty years! The western horizon now clears, And I can see with calmer eyes The hand that leads me toward the skies; And listening, I can hear to-day A still small voice that seems to say, "What man hath sown he reaps alone." In eighty years, what have you sown?

—Mrs. M. A. Kidder.