SURCEASE by ALICE GARDNER ADAMS

When rain is raining wet and gray,
And all the sky is gloomy,
'Tis hard to mind the yesterday
When woods and fields were bloomy;
But when the sun is bending warm
Among the fields and fallows,
How easy to forget the storm
That melted them to shallows!

When racked with pain or bowed with woe,
When all of life is saddened,
'Tis then that mem'ry's tongue is slow
To tell of joys that gladdened;
But when the stars and birds and flowers
Attune their hearts to singing,
Forgotten are the weary hours,
And sorrow, far a-winging.

So doth attending mercy stay
The mind that fain remembers,
And joy and grief go on their way
With Junes and bleak Decembers,
Adown the winding, changing road
From whence to whence we wander,
Beside the Love whose name is God,
Into eternal Yonder.

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