Classic Poem

Time's Wing dark shadows makes
That will not soon depart,
And from its pinions shakes
Tear-drops upon the heart.

Chill pinions bathed in night, —
The ocean of deep gloom, —
They scatter in their flight
The death-damps of the tomb.

Beneath its shadows deep
The little flowers that lie,
Within their chambers creep
With drooping hearts to die.

And Beauty with fair cheek,
And smiles first born in heaven,
And young Affection meek,
Into the grave are driven.

Time's Wing — the rapid wing!
On which we all do fly —
What midnight it can fling
Across our brightest sky!

Alas, that life's brief years
Should be so mixed with gloom!
That man should track with tears
His passage to the tomb!

Thanks for the heavenly ray
That fringes each dark cloud, —
A speck of that fair Day
Which ends not with a shroud.

Thanks for the cloudless sky,
The joy unmixed with gloom,
The flowers that never die,
The world without a tomb!

Thanks for a Father's home
Where loved ones never part,
Where shadows cannot come,
Nor Winter chill the heart.

O Christ, 't were hard to live,
And harder still to die,
Did not thy Gospel give
Hope of a world on high.