  By FOLLIOTT SANFORD PIERPOINT. “Who can abide his cold?” “Pray that your flight be not in the winter.” Is it not hard to live one day, When God His face has turned away, When prayer is wingless, or her wing Droops earthward like some weary thing? Yet did no bent and broken light Pierce the dark vault of utter night, Of hope or memory no ray, Who could abide His cold one day? Summer and winter, sun and rain, The soul needs for her golden grain— Warm sun, warm rain, the ear to fill, His cold, love’s selfishness to kill. Come, winter, come, to kill dull pelf, Love of His sweetness not Himself; Till we can kiss His frowning face, Unmeet our soul for summer grace. But when the harvest-tide is nigh, God grant His summer fill the sky, God grant His harvest-rays be shed, God grant His harvest-moon rise red. Cold is the shore, and dark the tide, Through which to His warm arms we glide But if He then His face withhold, Who can that day abide His cold? Not in the winter be our flight! Then need we most His summer light, His presence felt, His angels near, His bride to bless, His bread to cheer. From strength to strength, from Thee to Thee, Grant, Lord, our summer flight may be; From veiled form and mystic grace To splendors of Thine unveiled face. decorative line
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