Those Happy Hours [poem by Philip Durham Lorimer]

[Editor: This poem by Philip Durham Lorimer was published in Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, 1901.]

Those Happy Hours

Hours of rapture come upon us
Full of Heav’nly thoughts sublime ;
Happy moments, foretastes only
Of a bliss unknown to time.
As at night the vivid lightning
Flashes o’er the meadow-stream,
For the moment, sleeping daisies
Lift their faces to the gleam ;
So, when Heaven’s open windows
Bring to us a brighter ray,
Deep delights of happy glimpses
Cheer us onward in life’s day.
Hours of gladness, ever welcome.
Coming ’tween the clouds of sin.
Day’s restorer in the night hour.
Here’s my heart : oh ! stay within !

Hours of rapture, when Joy’s waters
Flow from hidden wells of song,
Bearing joys like early blossoms
Cheering, leading man along.
Oh ! when Nature’s life encircles,
With a rich and golden frame,
All our hours of treasured gladness
(Days without these have no name) ;
Far they seem in Life’s past vision,
Pathways we have often trod,
And we see, on looking closer,
There the loving hand of God,
Telling us these isles of pleasure
Come between the clouds of sin.
And these short and sunny moments
Lead to peace and joy within.

1868.

Source:
E. A. Petherick (editor). Songs and Verses by Philip Durham Lorimer: An Australian Bush Poet, William Clowes and Sons, London, 1901, pages 65-66