Classic Poem

How oft the morn has cheated us
As with unsleeping eye,
We lay upon our silent couch,
And watched the changing sky.

How often, as the heavy hours
Stole by with endless haste,
We've said, Ah now the dawn begins,
The weary night is past.

Hours went and came, but yet no streak
On eastern cloud or hill,
We looked in vain, no sign appeared,
'Twas night and silence still.

'Twas but the starlight, not the sun,
The moonlight, not the day;
We thought it was the dawn, but now
That dawn seems far away.

'Tis thus, beguiled with fond desire,
And sick with hope deferred,
The watching Church, with eager ear,
The well-known cry has heard: —

" He whom you look for is at hand,
Both hope and fear are done! "
No, 'tis not yet, — and still she waits
The still unrisen sun.

Age after age, in love and faith,
She has with longing eye
Been watching every streak of dawn
In yon perplexing sky.

And shall she now give up her trust,
And turn her eye away,
As if there were no sun for her,
No hope of light and day?

She will not, for she knows how sure
The promise of her Lord;
She will not, for she knows how true
Is the unchanging word.

The morn shall come; nay He himself,
Brighter than morn's best ray,
Shall come to bid the night depart,
And bring at last the day.

Then shall the weary night-watch cease,
When, counting each lone hour,
She marked the shadows flitting by
The lattice of her tower.

'Twas not in vain she kept the watch
When all around her slept;
'Twas not in vain she waited thus,
And loved, and longed, and wept.

It dawns at last, the long-loved morn,
It comes, the meeting-day,
And in its joys shall be forgot
The sorrows of delay.