Oh! day of days! shall hearts set free
No min­strel rap­ture find for thee?
Thou art the sun of oth­er days:
They shine by giv­ing back thy rays.

Enthronèd in thy sov­er­eign sphere
Thou shedd’st thy light on all the year,
Sundays by thee more glor­ious break,
An East­er Day in ev­ery week:

And week-days, fol­low­ing in their train,
The full­ness of thy bless­ing gain,
Till all, both resting and employ,
Be one Lord’s day of holy joy.

Then wake, my soul, to high desires,
And earlier light thine altar fires:
The world some hours is on her way
Nor thinks on thee, thou bless­èd day:

Or, if she think, it is in scorn:
The ver­nal light of East­er morn
To her dark gaze no bright­er seems
Than rea­son’s or the law’s pale beams.

Where is your Lord? she scorn­ful asks,
Where is His hire? we know His tasks;
Sons of a king ye boast to be;
Let us your crowns and trea­sures see.

We in the words of truth re­ply
(An an­gel brought them from the sky),
“Our crown, our trea­sure is not here,
’Tis stored ab­ove the high­est sphere.

Methinks your wis­dom guides amiss,
To seek on earth a Christ­ian’s bliss:
We watch not now the life­less stone;
Our on­ly Lord is ris­en and gone.

Yet e’en the life­less stone is dear,
For thoughts of Him who late lay here;
And the base world, now Christ hath died,
Ennobled is and glor­ified.

No more a char­nel house, to fence
The rel­ics of lost in­no­cence,
A vault of ru­in and dec­ay—
Th’im­pris­on­ing stone is rolled away.

’Tis now a cell, where an­gels use
To come and go with heav­en­ly news,
And in the ears of mourn­ers say,
Come, see the place where Je­sus lay.

’Tis now a fane where love can find
Christ ev­ery­where em­balmed and shrined;
Aye ga­thering up me­mor­ials sweet,
Where’er she sets her du­te­ous feet.

Oh! joy to Mary first al­lowed,
When roused from weep­ing o’er His shroud,
By His own calm, soul-sooth­ing tone,
Breathing her name, as still His own!

Joy to the faith­ful three re­newed
As their glad er­rand they pur­sued!
Happy, who so Christ’s word con­vey,
That He may meet them on their way!

So is it still: to ho­ly tears,
In lone­ly hours, Christ ris­en ap­pears;
In so­cial hours, who Christ would see,
Must turn all tasks to char­ity.