By DAVID BUXTON.
[During a gloomy November the singing of a bird was
heard daily in Regent’s Park, London; beginning before
daylight and continuing until sunset.]
Welcome and glad, this dim November morning,
The lone bird singing from a leafless tree,
Cheering the chilly world ere earliest dawning;—
Nor is its cheery message missed by me.
The bird’s sweet song is but the Father’s teaching;
Gladness and joy He sends for every hour—
Sends both, in answer to true heart’s beseeching,
Whether the sun is bright or tempests lower.
Dark night hath stars; dark cloud its “silver lining;”
Something of sunshine lightens darkest days;
Happy the heart in trust and faith divining
God’s light and leading through life’s dreariest ways.
So would I sing, and sing like thee, till silence
Shall tell that we have passed beyond the flood—
Thou, to sing on in some isle far-distant hence,
I, farther still, at home, in heaven, with God.