p. 171 | THE CLOUDS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 14, 1872

THE CLOUDS.

How dark is the earth, and how dreary; How full all the air of dismay; How hard is life's road, and how weary The plodders that faint by the way!

How black are the heavens stretched o'er us; How threatening the clouds of despair; How throbs the tired ear, with the chorus Of woe-spirits haunting the air!

Oh, the wailings of doubt and of anguish That sound through the tenanted soul! Oh, the broken-winged longings that languish On the banks where the deep waters roll!

Yet, though starless the night of our sorrow, And pathless the steeps where we stray, Still we wait for the slow-coming morrow, And long for the breaking of day.

We must know—for the Father hath told us— 'Tis a sin for our souls to despond; For the clouds are but mists that enfold us, And there's light in the valleys beyond:—

Ay, light our brief darkness to scatter, And crowns for the purified brow, Soft seraph hands breaking each fetter Which binds us relentlessly now.

Then dark though the earth be and dreary, And full all the air of dismay, We will falter not, faint not, nor tarry, For there's rest at the end of the way.

But we'll sing through life's darkest hours, Faith's jubilant psalm, for we know, On the graves of our earth-hopes the flowers Of joy everlasting shall grow.