Life's early pathway strewn with earth's sweet flowers--
Can these be dying things--so bright, so fair?
Or lights to lead us o'er a chequered road,
And cheer the shadows to a blest abode?

Oh! spell-bound Fancy fain would wander far,
If we might only break this mortal thrall;
And roam, unshackled, o'er Time's broken bar,
Trace these gleams whose glory lights on all!
Then would we see in all below, above,
The Great Creator's perfect power and love.

Yet in this path that stretched before us lies
We may, as oft with weary feet we tread
Through chequered ways of change, see through the mysteries
The living promise from their gleamings shed,
That far from mortal things, and sin, and care,
There is a glorious world, unchanging, fair.

Oh! may we trace in all that lives and grows
The shadows of a perfect life, unseen;
As when some star that in the twilight glows
In mirrored dimly in the water's sheen,
And we can see, in the calm lake's cool breast,
The far-off glow that lingers in the West.

Thus, as we onward go, may thoughts be ours
Whose holy pureness in our souls may raise
An anthem of thanksgiving, till life's hours,
Ending, shall find our hearts' attuned to praise