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The Home Circle

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 40.

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The Home Circle.

By Eben Rexford

THE KING'S BELL.

"No perfect day has ever come to me," An old man said; "A perfect day for us can never be Till we are dead." The young king heard him, and he turned away In earnest thought. Did men ne'er find, on earth, the happy day For which they sought,
A man so free from care, so running o'er With life's delight, That there seemed room or wish for nothing more From dawn to night? "It must be that such days have come to man," The young king said. "Go search—find one who found them if you can, A wise, gray head!"
"I trust that some time such a day will come To even me," The king said; but the old man's lips were dumb. "Ah, you shall see! That you and those about you, all may know, My perfect day, A bell shall ring out when the sun is low, And men shall say:
"Behold, this day has been unto the king A day replete With happiness! It lacked not anything; A day most sweet!" In a high tower, ere night, the passers saw, A mighty bell, The tidings of a day without a flaw Sometime to tell.
The bell hung silent in its lofty tower: The days came on and went; Each summer brought its sunshine and its flower, Its old content, But not the perfect day he hoped to see, "But soon or late The day of days," he said, "will come to me, I trust and wait."
The years, like leaves upon a restless stream, Were swept away, And in the king's dark hair began to gleam Bright threads of gray. Men, passing by, looked upward to the bell, And, smiling, said: "Delay not of the happy time to tell Till we are dead!"
But they grew old, and died. And silent still The old bell hung. At last the king, bowed down with age, fell ill His cares among. At dusk, one day, with dazed brain, from his room He slowly crept Up rotting tower steps, in the dust and gloom, While watchers slept.
Above the city broke the bell's great voice, Silent so long, "Behold the king's most happy day! Rejoice!" It told the throng. Filled with strange awe, the long night passed away. At morn men said: "At last the king has found his happy day— The king is dead." —Eben Rexford.