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A SONG OF CHEER

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 14, 1879

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 54, No. 8.

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A SONG OF CHEER.

By Marianne Farningham

Over the mists of the wintry sea, A message of gladness is sent to me, And I pass it on to my friends to-night, This message written in words of light; Though dense is the darkness in which we stand, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
Like figures uncertain we grope about In dangerous places in fog and death: In vain we long for a shelter warm From the chilling sleet and the driving storm, But “Be ye patient,” is God’s command, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
Men’s hearts, like the autumn leaves, are cast Hither and thither by sorrow’s blast, The air is heavy with want and woe, And the fierce war tidings we shrink to know, And a cry of sadness rings through the land, Yet, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
It is always the darkest before break of day Drives the shades of the night away, The silence is deepest before the song Bursts into joyousness, loud and long; And though in the stillness of night we stand, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
E’en now as we wait in the shadows dim, The angels are singing the Advent hymn; Faintly we hear it across the snow, The good, glad anthem of long ago, And we say as we think of the shining band, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
For Christ is coming, the world’s true light! And he will banish the mist of night; Do not our troubles prepare his way? And the night make ready for his great day? Oh, let the joy-song peal through the land, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
Let us go to meet it! How? or where? Nay, little it matters, we need not care; The skies may be starry with many a gem As over the fields of Bethlehem, Or we in the shadows of death may stand When “the night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
All shall be well in the happy morn When we see His face, the once lowly born, And glad is the message that comes to me, Out of the mists of the wintry sea; For a Star of Hope is above the land. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.”
—Marianne Farningham.