Your ShelfYour Projects

If We Had But a Day

20%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jan 28, 1904

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 81, No. 4.

Read the full edition

If We Had But a Day

By Mary Lowe Dickinson

WE should fill the hours with the sweetest things, If we had but a day! We should drink alone at the purest springs In our upward way; We should love with a lifetime’s love in an hour, If the hours were few; We should rest, not for dreams, but for fresher power To be and to do!
We should guide our wayward or wearied wills By the clearest light; We should keep our eyes on the heavenly hills, If they lay in sight; We should trample the pride and discontent Beneath our feet; We should take whatever the good God sent With a trust complete!
We should waste no moments in weak regret, If the day were but one, If what we remember and what we forget Went out with the sun; We should be from our clamorous selves set free, To work or to pray, And be what the Father would have us be, If we had but a day!
— Mary Lowe Dickinson.