Star of the east
how sweet art Thou
Seen in life’s early morning sky
Ere yet a cloud has dimmed the brow
While yet we gaze with childish eye;
When father
mother
nursing friend
Most dearly loved
and loving best
First bid us from their arms ascend
Pointing to Thee
in Thy sure rest.
Too soon the glare of earthly day
Buries
to us
Thy brightness keen
And we are left to find our way
By faith and hope in Thee unseen.
What matter? if the waymarks sure
On every side are round us set
Soon overleaped
but not obscure?
’Tis ours to mark them or forget.
What matter? if in calm old age
Our childhood’s star again arise
Crowning our lonely pilgrimage
With all that cheers a wanderer’s eyes?
Ne’er may we lose it from our sight
Till all our hopes and thoughts are led
To where it stays its lucid flight
Over our Savior’s lowly bed.
There
swathed in humblest poverty
On chastity’s meek lap enshrined
With breathless reverence waiting by
When we our sovereign master find
Will not the long-forgotten glow
Of mingled joy and awe return
When stars above or flowers below
First made our infant spirits burn?
Look on us
Lord
and take our parts
E’en on Thy throne of purity!
From these our proud yet groveling hearts
Hide not Thy mild forgiving eye.
Did not the Gentile Church find grace
Our mother dear
this favored day?
With gold and myrrh she sought Thy face;
Nor didst Thou turn Thy face away.
She too
in earlier
purer days
Had watched Thee gleaming faint and far
But wandering in self chosen ways
She lost Thee quite
Thou lovely star.
Yet had her Father’s finger turned
To Thee her first inquiring glance:
The deeper shame within her burned
When wakened from her willful trance.
Behold
her wisest throng Thy gate
Their richest
sweetest
purest store
(Yet owned too worthless and too late)
They lavish on Thy cottage floor.
They give their best—O tenfold shame
On us their fallen progeny
Who sacrifice the blind and lame—
Who will not wake or fast with Thee!
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