Classic Poem

The daylight waning and the darkness near:
So little done, and still so much to do!
Before me the long night of cloud and fear,
Without one star to pierce its shadows through.

I hear the rumble of the swaggering wains;
I hear the burden of the harvest song;
And, through the hazy light in happy lanes,
I see the sun-browned reapers pass along.

And I must lay my sickle down and go
From the dim fields that look so drear and lone:
Alas! that I have so few sheaves to show!
I shall not hear the Master say, ‘Well done.’

With what regret I look back to the past,
When the long shadows loomed so far away,
And Morning seemed, on every wakening blast,
To waft the whispers of an endless day!

So many misspent moments, wasted hours,
Playing with pebbles on the sea-washed strand,—
Searching for butterflies or gathering flowers,
Instead of toiling in the harvest land.

And now the Night stol'n on me like a thief,
While yet I dreamt that it was scarcely noon,—
Sad that the sunshine is so very brief!
Sad that the shadows fall so very soon!

Oh for one other hour of God's bright day
In which to work with sinew, heart and will,
Ere yet I leave the fields and pass away
To that mysterious sleep where all is still!

In vain, in vain! no answer to my calls,
When from the gloom my spirit cries for light!
The last faint lingering gleam is gone, and falls
Across the land the chill and starless night!