LOVELINESS by Eliza H. Morton

The Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · November 27, 1879

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 54, No. 22

LOVELINESS

By Eliza H. Morton

In vain we climb the hills of earth In search of some fair spot Where beauty sits unsoiled by sin, And curse has rested not. Eternal beauty is to come, When earthly things will seem, To those who see the glory grand, Like memory of a dream.

In vain we seek the love of friends, And find it not for aye; For death tears heart-strings till they bleed, And wither, and decay. The love that never knows a change Is everlasting love; The beauty that can never fade Must bloom in bowers above.

O summer love, that blooms and dies, And leaves the heart all drear! O lonely graves in weary land! O desolating fear! Alas! perfection's not of earth; The darkness and the cloud Are but the tokens of the gloom, The coffin, and the shroud.

In Christ is blended beauty, love; O glory wondrous fair! Without that love this life would be A desert, bleak and bare. The loveliest things we've loved on earth Are only shadows dim. Of loveliness enthroned on high, Perfected all in Him.

Eliza H. Morton.

Battle Creek, Mich.