| Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Psalms and Hymns for the Church (1883).
I. “Evening has come” | | By William Josiah Irons (1812–1883) |
| | | EVENING has come, once more the veil of night | |
| Is drawn around us by the hand Divine; | |
| Yet both alike, the darkness and the light, | |
| The evening and the morning, Lord, are Thine. | |
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| Sweet is the silent hour which Thou hast given, | 5 |
| For nature asks some pause, as in distress; | |
| Eternal life is only known in heaven, | |
| There man can live and know no weariness. | |
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| And yet, in all the unconscious world around, | |
| There is no pause, only the spirit waits, | 10 |
| Like traveller for some mountain-city bound, | |
| Tarrying before the dawn without the gates. | |
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| Our moral life stands still awhile, as though | |
| Probation were suspended all night long: | |
| Thought comes at times and says it is not so— | 15 |
| Some work goes on, that we may rise more strong. | |
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| O Lord, we live and move and rest in Thee! | |
| The darkness is not dark if Thou be there; | |
| When “the day dawns and all the shadows flee,” | |
| Then shall true life begin in purer air: | 20 |
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| And we shall know Thee, dwelling evermore | |
| In light no eye hath seen, nor yet can see; | |
| And FATHER SON and SPIRIT there adore, | |
| One glorious GOD, Eternal TRINITY. | | | | |
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