The morning was fine, and the morning was gay,
And the sky seemed to promise a beautiful day,
The rose in the sunshine bloomed freshly and fair,
And charged with its tribute of fragrance the air.
But scarcely the sun his meridian had passed,
Ere the thunder rolled loud, and the lightning it flashed;
The hail and the rain fell in torrents around,
And the rose’s gay blossoms were beat to the ground.
Ah such, I exclaimed, is the lot of our race,
In the morning of life all is sunshine and peace,
But how quickly the storms of affliction arise,
And they burst o’er our head, and they crush all our joys.
But the sun in his glory shall quickly appear,
And dry on the breast of the roses the tear,
And now raising their heads to his smile, every flower
More fresh and more lovely shall seem for the shower.
So when from the storms of this world we remove,
More lovely will seem the blest regions above,
Each woe that is past shall make pleasure more dear,
And the clouds make the sunshine more bright and more fair.
In the sight of his smiles who has ordered our lot,
The storms of this world shall be quickly forgot,
And while winged with delight fly the moments away,
The shadows of night ne’er shall darken our day.
R.