Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 193, 14 May 1891 — OUR ONE LIFE. [ARTICLE]

OUR ONE LIFE.

? Tis not for man to trifle! Life ie brief, And sin ia here; Our age is but the falling of a leaf, A dropping tear. We have no time to sport away the hours. All must be earnest in a world like ours. Not many lives, but onlv one have we — One, only one; How sacred shouid that one life ever be, That narrow span! Day after day filled up with blessed toil, : Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil Our being is ho shadow r of thin air, No vacant dream, >vo fable of the things that never were, But only seem; 'īie full of meaning as of mystery, Th ough strange and solemn may that meaning be. Our goriows are no phantom of the night, No idle tale; No eloud that floats along a sky of light On Bummer gale: They āre the true realities of earth, Friends and c/>mpanions even from our birth. 0 iife below! how brief and poor and sad! One heavy sigh O life above! how long and fair and glad! An endless joy. Oh. to be done with daily dying here! Oh, to begin the living in yon sphere! « O day of time, how dark! 0 sky and earth, How dull your hue! 0 dav of Christ, how bright! O sky and earth, Made fair and new Oonie better Eden, with thy fresher green Oome, brighter Salem, gl»dden all the scene. —Horatius Bonar.