PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
“What saith the past to thee? Weep!
Truth is departed;
Beauty hath died like the dream of a sleep,
Love is faint-hearted;
Trifles of sense, the profoundly unreal,
Soar from our spirits God's holy ideal;
So as a funeral bell, slowly and deep,
So tolls the past to thee! Weep! How speaks the present hour? Act!
Walk, upward glancing;
So shall thy footsteps in glory be traced,
Slow, but advancing.
Scorn not the smallness of daily endeavor,
Let the great meaning ennoble it ever;
Droop not o'er efforts expended in vain,
Work as believing that labor is gain. What doth the future say? Hope!
Turn thy face sunward!
Look where light fringes the far rising slope,
Day cometh onward.
Watch! Though so long be the twilight delaying,
Let the first sunbeam arise on thee praying;
Fear not; for greater is God by thy side,
Than armies of Satan against thee allied.