MEMORIES by Rosa A. Young

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 8, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 48.

MEMORIES.

By Rosa A. Young

BY ROSA A. YOUNG.

I sit in the fast-deep'ning twilight When the work of the long day is done, And there comes to my mind's inner vision The faces of loved ones now gone.

We traveled life's pathway together, Shared often its pleasures and pain, But now they are silently sleeping; We hear not their voices again.

We miss the bright smiles that would greet us, The words of good counsel and cheer, The hands that had oft eased life's burdens, The burdens of toil and of care.

The places that once had beheld them Shall see them forever no more, And we, ah, we can but look forward To meet them on heaven's blest shore!

Oh, sorely our saddened hearts miss them, The parents, the kindred so dear, And as some dear memory comes to us, Would glisten the warm, silent tear!

The home, oh, how empty without them! Their works, silent witnesses, stand To remind us that earth joys are fleeting, They pass as the wind o'er the land.

The cold, vanished hands, they are resting, The oft-tired feet are at rest, But soon, from their slumbers awaking, They will soar to the land of the blest.

Night deepens, and out from the darkness Their voices with mine once again Seem mingling, as softly we chanted The measures of this sad refrain,—

"Silently the shades of evening Gather round my lonely door; Silently they bring before me, Faces I shall see no more.

"Oh, the lost, the unforgotten, Though the world be oft forgot! Oh, the shrouded and the lonely! In our hearts they perish not." Pitcairn Island.