As we watch the darkness creep the landscape o’er,

And the thick shadows fall, and the night draw on;

And we mourn for the brightness lost, and the vanished sun.

And all the time the sun in the self-same place

Waits, ready to clasp the earth in his embrace,

Ready to give to all of his stintless ray;

And ’tis we who have “set,” it is we who have turned away!

“The Lord has hidden his face,” we sadly cry,

As we sit in the night of grief with no helper by.

“Guiding uncounted worlds in their courses dim,

How should our little pain be marked by him?”

But all the while that we mourn, the Lord stands near,

And the Son divine is waiting to help and hear;

And ’tis we who hide our faces, and blindly turn away,

While the Sun of the soul shines on mid the perfect day.