Weekend Wisdom: “O Day of Rest and Gladness”
This hymn also comes from “A Sacrifice of Praise, Second Edition, An anthology of Christian Poetry in English from Caedmon to the Mid-Twentieth Century; edited by James H. Trott.”
Enjoy and may you find rest and gladness today and every day.
O Day of Rest and Gladness
O day of rest and gladness,
O day of joy and light,
O balm of care and sadness,
Most beautiful, most bright!
On Thee the nigh and lowly,
Through ages joined in tune,
Sing, “Holy, holy, holy!”
To the great God triune.
Thou art a port protected
From storms that round us rise;
A garden intersected
With streams of paradise;
Thou art a cooling fountain
In life’s dry dreary sand;
From thee, like Pisgah’s mountain,
We view our promised land.
Today on weary nations
The heavenly manna falls;
To holy convocations
The silver trumpet calls;
Where gospel light is glowing
With pure and radiant beams,
And living water flowing
With soul-refreshing streams.
A day of sweet reflection
Thou art, – a day of love,
A day of resurrection
From earth to things above.
New graces ever gaming
From this our day of rest,
We reach the rest reaming
To spirits of the blest.
Christopher Wordsworth
(1807-1885)
