HAVE HOPE by Rev. F. Ryan

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 29, 1880

HAVE HOPE.

By Rev. F. Ryan

The shadow of the mountain falls athwart the lowly plain, And the shadow of the cloudlet hangs above the mountain's head— And the highest hearts and lowest wear the shadow of some pain, And the smile is scarcely flitted ere the anguished tear is shed.

For no eyes have there ever been without a weary tear, And those lips cannot be human which never heaved a sigh; For without the dreary winter there has never been a year, And the tempests hide their terrors in the calmest summer sky.

So, this dreary life is passing—and we move amid its maze, And we grope along together, half in darkness, half in light; And our hearts are often hardened by the mysteries of our ways, Which are never all in shadow and never wholly bright.

And our dim eyes ask a beacon, and our weary feet a guide, And our hearts of all life's mysteries seek the meaning and the key; And a cross gleams o'er our pathway, on it hangs the Crucified, And he answers all our yearnings by the whisper, "Follow me." —Rev. F. Ryan.