Hopes, memories, sweet songs, and sunny faces,<\/div>\n
Cheering each other on, with me did move<\/div>\n
Some way on Lent\u2019s keen roads and desert places.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And many a pilgrim wending o\u2019er the plain, <\/div>\n
With face half-veiled and tear-drops flowing fast,<\/div>\n
Marvelled perchance at that unsightly train, <\/div>\n
When I and my strange servitors rode past. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But every stone that lay along the way,<\/div>\n
Wounding the feet of those who travelled by,<\/div>\n
Each sleety shower, chill blast, and cloudy day, <\/div>\n
Scattered my poor soft-living company. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Thus as my spirit more and more drank in <\/div>\n
The deep mysterious dimness of the time, <\/div>\n
Old forms waxed pale, and lines and shapes of sin<\/div>\n
Wore hardly off, and my baptismal prime<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Grew into colour and distinctness\u2019 there; \u2014<\/div>\n
But my blythe train and equipage were gone, <\/div>\n
The songs and sunny smiles; my heart was bare,<\/div>\n
With Lent all darkening round me, and alone.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
O joy of all our joys! to be bereft<\/div>\n
Of our false power to make the world so dear!<\/div>\n
O joy of all our joys! to be thus left<\/div>\n
In our wild years, with none but Jesus near!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
How sweetly then shall Lent\u2019s few Sundays shock <\/div>\n
The sadness which itself hath now grown sweet, <\/div>\n
Like the soft striking of an old church-clock, <\/div>\n
Making the heart of summer midnight beat. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
How sweetly now shall this most holy gloom <\/div>\n
Gather and double on my chastened heart, <\/div>\n
Circling with dark bright folds the Garden-Tomb,<\/div>\n
Where Lent and I, like Christian friends, shall part.<\/div>\n
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