The Sun-dial's Matins

by Hannah Flagg Gould

Thou god of my worship, my early devotion
I offer unmingled to thee!
I live at thy coming; I go by thy motion;
Thy presence is being to me!

At eve, in the west when thy glories are sinking,
And the spires and the hill tops have caught
Thy parting embrace, then I feel myself sinking,
To pass for awhile into nought.

For man looks estranged, as he never had known me,
Though late he believed me so true;
And, darkness descending, the night will not own me,
But loads me with umbrage and dew!

The moon, a false queen! with reserve seems to chill me,
Her beams are so distant and pale;
The stars, changing glances, with twinkling would kill me,
Should faith in my deity fail.

But I feel on its axle the globe is revolving;
And know with the morn I shall see
Those mimics, so vain, in thy brightness dissolving,
And nature rejoicing in thee.

So, patient I wait, uncomplaining and fearless,
Nor faint when thy face is withdrawn;
For, never has night been so lengthened or cheerless,
It has not been followed by dawn.

I turn not to earth; for she ever has given
Obscurity, vapor and dust;
I ask not of self, but I look up to heaven
For guidance, with hope and with trust.

Though clouds oft have gathered to tempt or persuade me
My god and my faith to deny,
Thy beams, darting through them, have ever repaid me
For placing my treasure on high.

Then, hail to thy rising! bright god, in thy splendor!
While glory is marking thy way,
Darkness and damps their dominion surrender,
And fly from the monarch of day!

O light! thou art truth! though to me but diurnal,
On thee my affections shall feed;
And he, who will look in the Sun-Dial's journal,
My life and its moral may read!