The Sabbath

The Sabbath

THE world is full of toil,

It bids the traveler roam,

It binds the laborer to the soil,

The student to his home -

The beasts of burden sigh,

O'erloaded and opprest -

The Sabbath lifts its banner high,

And gives the weary rest.

The world is full of care,

The haggard brow is wrought

In furrows as of fixed despair,

And check'd the heavenward thought

But with indignant grace,

The Sabbath's chastening tone

Drives money changers from the place

Which God doth call his own.

The world is full of grief,

Sorrows o'er sorrows roll,

And the far hope that brings relief

Doth sometimes pierce the soul.

The Sabbath's peaceful bound

Bears Mercy's holy seal.

A Balm of Gilead for the wound,

That man is weak to heal.

The world is full of sin,

A dangerous flood it rolls,

The unwary to its breast to win,

And whelm unstable souls.

The Sabbath's beacon tells

Of reefs and wrecks below,

And warns, though gay the billows swell,

Beneath are death and wo.

There is a world - where none

With fruitless labor sigh,

Where care awakes no lingering groan,

And grief no agony;

Where sin, with fatal arts,

Hath never forged her chains,

But deep-enthroned in angel hearts,

One endless Sabbath reigns.

L.H.S. (Lydia Huntley Sigourney)

2:43, p. 172

1838.12.15

From the Hartford Observer