IF WE KNEW | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 27, 1880

IF WE KNEW.

If we knew the woe and heart-ache Waiting for us down the road, If our lips could taste the wormwood, If our backs could feel the load, Would we waste to-day in wishing For a time that ne'er can be? Would we wait in such impatience For our ships to come from sea?

If we knew the baby-fingers Pressed against the window-pane, Would be cold and still to-morrow— Never trouble us again— Would the bright eyes of our darling Catch the frown upon our brow? Would the print of rosy fingers Vex us then as they do now?

Ah, these little, ice-cold fingers! How they point our memories back To the hasty words and actions Strewn along our backward track! How these little hands remind us, As in snowy grace they lie, Not to scatter thorns, but roses, For our reaping by and by!

Strange we never prize the music Til the sweet-voiced bird has flown! Strange that we should slight the violets Til the lovely flowers are gone! Strange that summer skies and sunshine Never seem one-half so fair As when winter's snowy pinions Shake their white down in the air!

Lips from which the seal of silence None but God can roll away, Never blossomed in such beauty As adorns the mouth to-day; And sweet words that freight our memory With their beautiful perfume, Come to us in sweeter accents Through the portals of the tomb.

Let us gather up the sunbeams, Lying all along our path; Let us keep the wheat and roses, Casting out the thorns and chaff; Let us find our sweetest comfort In the blessings of to-day, With the patient hand removing All the briers from our way.