T W IL IG H T V IS IO N S . “ A t evening time there shall be light/* — Z e c H. xiv., 7.
T h e day’s work done, I cast my pen aside
And rose, with aching eye and troubled brain, Thinking how oft my fellow workers here Have suffered in the flesh for labours wrought In love to all mankind ; and how the world Cares nought for words which teach not of itself; For to the world, itself is all in all, And nought outside it can the world conceive As real and true. And yet this earth must cease T o be for ever to each mortal, when The Spirit casts off earth, and, in new life Will feel and know the world to be the vale O f deathly shadows compass’d round about With ignorance and error, sin and crime, With yearnings, longings, miseries, and griefs, And all that makes the “ Breath of Lives ” to seem As Angels wrestling with the powers of hell. • • * • A gentle Spirit with the twilight camc And rested on my so u l; then hope with peace, Long since to me as strangers, touched my heart, And, sitting at the organ, soft and sweet There streamed a flow of harmony, tho’ I Scarce seemed to touch the keys, yet simple hymns Called forth a train of Spirits bright and young, Amongst them saw I all that I had known And loved in days when life seem’d sweet to me. I was a child again, and saw myself A s such— no aching eye— no troubled brain Had that young being who in faith and hope Sang songs of holiness, of peace and truth— There, resting on his Mother’s breast, with arms Clasped round her neck, with loving eyes that watched The loving face, whereon a parent’s smile Was ever present in the days now past, Now buried in the dust with former things. • • • • In saddened notes swelled forth “ T hy will be done! ” And then appeared a radiant spirit form O f one who, as a babe, was called away, From out this world of wretchedness and sin.