Hard Times Come Again No More

When I was teaching, I introduced the children to a number of Stephen Foster songs – Beautiful Dreamer, Camptown Races, O Susannah… This week I’ve been reminded of the old Stephen Foster Song ‘Hard Times Come Again No More’.

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh Hard times come again no more.

Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.

When Foster wrote this song in 1854, poverty, illness, and social hardship were widespread. It gained great popularity during the American Civil War, as an expression of suffering caused by war, 

Suffering doesn’t go away. We still see war, famine and disasters on the news daily and the tragic impact it has on ordinary people. Closer to home we see the suffering, the struggling, the sick and the sad. We meet folks worn down by life’s burdens, those with invisible troubles; I have friends who are going through their personal hard times.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh hard times come again no more.

There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are o’er:
Though her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day,
Oh hard times come again no more.

As Foster paints the picture, tells the story, the ‘silent voices’, the ‘pleading looks’, the ‘pale maiden with a worn heart’ becomes personal. Hardship isn’t just ‘their’ story; it’s our story; it’s my story. The song calls me to see and share the suffering of others with empathy, tenderness and compassion.

The repeated ‘Hard times, come again no more’ is a wishful longing, a sincere prayer, a desperate hope, for an end to suffering in our world, in our communities, in our families, in ourselves.

Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh hard times come again no more.

My Christian faith points me to the assurance of love during hard times, joy despite hard times and peace through hard times, and the certain hope that one day ‘God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away…’ and hard times will come again no more.