Alas! earth's dusky shadow lies between

My ardent spirit and that blissful shore:

Eye hath not seen, nor mortal ear hath heard,

How then can mortal pen portray, the joys

Prepared for those who live and die in Christ!

Before me flows the rapid stream of time,

Dark, fathomless, encumbered with the wrecks

Of twice three thousand years. They too shall sink

Beneath those turbid waters, swallowed up

In the vast ocean of eternity;

Leaving few fragments on the boundless waste

To tell to coming years that such have been.

How shall the naked spirit cross the flood,

And land in safety on the happy shore?

'Tis not an earthly pilot that can steer

So frail a bark through such a stormy tide.

Cannot the eye of faith look up and see

The clouds of sorrow part—the day-star rise

Above life's trackless ocean, shedding light

[Pg 22]

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