Quarterly Poems

January-February-March 2016

How Long

My GOD. it is not fretfulness
that makes me say "how long?"
It is not heaviness of heart
that hinders me in song;
'T is not despair of truth and right,
nor coward dread of wrong.

But how can I, with such a hope
of glory and of home;
With such a joy before my eyes,
not wish the time were come,
Of years the jubilee, of days
the Sabbath and the sum?

These years, what ages they have been!
This life, how long it seems!
And how can I, in evil days,
'Mid unknown hills and streams,
but sigh for those of home and heart,
and visit them in dreams?

Yet peace, my heart, and hush, my tongue;
Be calm my troubled breast;
Each restless hour is hastening to
the everlasting rest:
Thou knowest that the time thy Lord
appoints for thee, is best.

Let faith, not fear nor fretfulness,
awake the cry, "how long”?
Let no faint- heartedness of soul
damp thy aspiring song:
Right comes, truth dawns, the night departs
of error and of wrong.

From: Hymns of Faith and Hope, second series, Horatio Bonar, 1862, www.ForgottenBooks.org.