These Beautiful Years

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 16, 1878

These Beautiful Years.

OH, these beautiful years! Teeming with hopes and fears; Fraught with life and decay— How fast they drift away.

They were freighted with loss To those that bear no cross; With golden fields unkept, Dispoil'd while idlers slept; For others there are sheaves, The crown that labor leaves, To cheer the front of toil To tillers of life's soil.

Through slowly creeping years Recurring hopes and fears With life's dark mystery; We, too, shall drift away Along the wrecks of years, One light unfailing cheers Earth's pathway, dark with sin, And gilds the world within; It falls with hallowed ray, O'er life's beclouded day: The light, God's faithful love To guide our steps above.