CHEERLY with us that great November morn | |
| Rose, as I trace its features in my mind; | |
| A day that in the lap of winter born, | |
| Yet told of autumn scarcely left behind. | |
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| And we by many a hearth in all the land, | 5 |
| Whom quiet sleep had lapped the calm night through, | |
| Changed greetings, lip with lip, and hand to hand, | |
| Old greetings, but which love makes ever new. | |
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| Then, as the day brought with it sweet release | |
| From this world’s care, with timely feet we trod | 10 |
| The customary paths of blessed peace, | |
| We worshipped in the temples of our God; | |
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| And when the sun had travelled his brief arc, | |
| Drew round our hearths again in thankful ease; | |
| With pleasant light we chased away the dark, | 15 |
| We sat at eve with children round our knees. | |
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| So fared this day with us:—but how with you? | |
| What, gallant hosts of England, was your cheer, | |
| Who numbered hearts as gentle and as true | |
| As any kneeling at our altars here? | 20 |
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| From cheerless watches on the cold dank ground | |
| Startled, ye felt a foe on every side; | |
| With mist and gloom and deaths encompassed round, | |
| With even to perish in the light denied. | |
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| And that same season of our genial ease, | 25 |
| It was your very agony of strife; | |
| While each of those our golden moments sees | |
| With you the ebbing of some noble life. | |
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| ’Mid dark ravines, by precipices vast, | |
| Did there and here your dreadful conflict sway; | 30 |
| No Sabbath day’s light work to quell at last | |
| The fearful odds of that unequal fray. | |
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| Oh “hope” of England, only not “forlorn,” | |
| Because ye never your own hope resigned, | |
| But in worst case, beleaguered, overborne, | 35 |
| Did help in God and in your own selves find; | |
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| We greet you o’er the waves, as from this time | |
| Men, to the meanest and the least of whom, | |
| In reverence of fortitude sublime, | |
| We would rise up, and yield respectful room: | 40 |
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| We greet you o’er the waves, nor doubt to say, | |
| Our Sabbath setting side by side with yours, | |
| Yours was the better and the nobler day, | |
| And days like it have made that ours endures. | |
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