Muse and Mint

Chapter 83: THE EVERLASTING ARMS

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About This Book

A varied collection of short lyrical poems that observes nature and rural life, using seasonal imagery—sap, snow, rivers, cherries—and simple domestic scenes to reflect on change, beauty, and small joys. Sections shift between fireside recollections, sentimental and philosophical meditations, homiletic and religious pieces, and light humor, blending devotional songlike verses with moral aphorisms and affectionate memory. The voice moves between wistful and buoyant moods, finding consolation and ethical insight in commonplace experiences, while concise stanzas and vivid images emphasize mood and moral reflection rather than a continuous narrative.

THE EVERLASTING ARMS

When to our life dark shadows come,

Stern crosses, sacrificial cares

And other fancied temporal harms,

There is eternal refuge from

Our terrifying doubts and fears

Within the Everlasting Arms.

When o’er our souls temptations sweep

And goodness loses half its grace

As sin pursues us with its charms,

There is no refuge left to keep

But the eternal hiding-place

Within the Everlasting Arms.

When through the valley dark and drear

We walk or see another sink

And death o’ercomes us with alarms,

Be then, Eternal Refuge, near

To hold us up upon the brink

Within the Everlasting Arms!