Idol worship in these later ages,
When the light of learning shines so clear,
Golden sayings graved on million pages—
Wisdom's voices sounding far and near.

Idol worship, subtle and deceiving,
Lives mis-spent and talents thrown away;
Grim remorse, and after years of grieving—
Skeletons that haunt us night and day.

Idols have we manifold in number—
Idols worshipped both in age and youth;
Visions that beguile life's fitful slumber,
Soul-destroying, blinding us to truth.

All unreal dreams that fade and perish,
Painted idols, rich in gilded shrines—
Airy phantoms that we blindly cherish,
Clad in borrowed tints from Fancy's mines.

All the shining, glittering, worthless splendour—
All the brilliance of the earthly toy
That we deck with careful hands and tender,
Is not gold, but dross and foul alloy.

Earth-born idols, lovely but in seeming,
Flitting round us in the moonlight hours
On Love's holy shrine we place them dreaming,
"Though all else may leave us, this is ours!"

Oh! like meteor-flashings gleaming only
Through the far-off vapours, dense and dark,
Disappearing, leaves, misled and lonely
'Mid the angry waves, the storm-beat bark.

So our earthly idols, vain, deceiving,
Come with promise fair for future years;
Fill us with false hopes, forsake us, leaving
Nought but memory's torture, gloom and tears.

Oh! may we, their many tempting scorning
From earth's sceptres lift our yearning sigh
To fadeless flowers the heavenly hills adorning
That shall be ours when we have gained the high.

Not the joy whose end is gloom and sadness—
Withering flowers that deck the earthly sod
Patience hath her crown—eternal gladness—
By the living "hid with Christ in God."