p. 350 | Lost Hours

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 21, 1878

Lost Hours.

It was a mournful watch she kept, In the soundless winter night, While all her world around her slept And the pitiless stars shone bright; For she saw the years in long review, The years she had trifled past, The years when life was bright and new, And what had they left at last? And she cried as she thought of her drooping flowers, Her baffled hopes and her failing powers— “Oh, my lost hours!”

What a harvest might have been garnered in, When the golden grain was wasted! What a nectar of life it was hers to win, When the draught was barely tasted! What happy memories might have shone, Had folly never stained them! What noble hights to rest upon, If a steadier foot had gained them! And she cried, as she sat ’mid her faded flowers— “Rashness and weakness bring fatal dowers; Oh, my lost hours!”

Too late for battle, too late for fame, Comes the vision of better life— With eyes that are burning with tears of shame. She looks on the world’s keen strife; The patient love cannot pardon now, Of the fond believing cheer, Where the white cross stands and the violets blow, Lies the love that made life so dear. Kind nature renews her perished flowers, But death recks nothing of sun or showers; Ah, for lost hours! --Sel.