Oh! Day of Days!

Oh! day of days! shall hearts set free

No min­strel rap­ture find for thee?

Thou art the sun of oth­er days:

They shine by giv­ing back thy rays.

Enthronèd in thy sov­er­eign sphere

Thou shedd’st thy light on all the year

Sundays by thee more glor­ious break

An East­er Day in ev­ery week:

And week-days

fol­low­ing in their train

The full­ness of thy bless­ing gain

Till all

both resting and employ

Be one Lord’s day of holy joy.

Then wake

my soul

to high desires

And earlier light thine altar fires:

The world some hours is on her way

Nor thinks on thee

thou bless­èd day:

Or

if she think

it is in scorn:

The ver­nal light of East­er morn

To her dark gaze no bright­er seems

Than rea­son’s or the law’s pale beams.

Where is your Lord? she scorn­ful asks

Where is His hire? we know His tasks;

Sons of a king ye boast to be;

Let us your crowns and trea­sures see.

We in the words of truth re­ply

(An an­gel brought them from the sky)

“Our crown

our trea­sure is not here

’Tis stored ab­ove the high­est sphere.

Methinks your wis­dom guides amiss

To seek on earth a Christ­ian’s bliss:

We watch not now the life­less stone;

Our on­ly Lord is ris­en and gone.

Yet e’en the life­less stone is dear

For thoughts of Him who late lay here;

And the base world

now Christ hath died

Ennobled is and glor­ified.

No more a char­nel house

to fence

The rel­ics of lost in­no­cence

A vault of ru­in and dec­ay—

Th’im­pris­on­ing stone is rolled away.

’Tis now a cell

where an­gels use

To come and go with heav­en­ly news

And in the ears of mourn­ers say

Come

see the place where Je­sus lay.

’Tis now a fane where love can find

Christ ev­ery­where em­balmed and shrined;

Aye ga­thering up me­mor­ials sweet

Where’er she sets her du­te­ous feet.

Oh! joy to Mary first al­lowed

When roused from weep­ing o’er His shroud

By His own calm

soul-sooth­ing tone

Breathing her name

as still His own!

Joy to the faith­ful three re­newed

As their glad er­rand they pur­sued!

Happy

who so Christ’s word con­vey

That He may meet them on their way!

So is it still: to ho­ly tears

In lone­ly hours

Christ ris­en ap­pears;

In so­cial hours

who Christ would see

Must turn all tasks to char­ity.