a wiser hand than yours or mine
Pours out this potion for our lips to drink.
And if some friend we love is living low,
Where human kisses cannot reach his face,
Oh, do not blame the loving Father so,
But bear your sorrow with obedient grace!
And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath
Is not the sweetest gift God sends his friends,
And that, sometimes, the sable pall of death
Conceals the fairest bloom his love can send.
If we could push ajar the gates of life,
And stand within and all God’s workings see,
We could interpret all this doubt and strife,
And for each mystery could find a key.
But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart;
God’s plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold.
We must not tear the close shut leaves apart—
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.
And if, through patient toil we reach the land,
Where tired feet, with sandals loose, may rest,
When we shall clearly know and understand,
I think we will say that “God knows best.”
PIED BEAUTY
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-color as a brinded cow,
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow and plow;
And all their trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
SET III:
THE TOYS
My little Son, who looked from thoughtful eyes
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobeyed,
I struck him, and dismissed
With hard words and unkissed,
His Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-veined stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
And six or seven shells,
A bottle with bluebells,
And two French copper coins, ranged there with careful art,
To comfort his sad heart.
So when that night I prayed
To God, I wept, and said:
Ah, when at last we lie with trancéd breath,
Not vexing Thee in death,
And thou rememberest of what toys
We made our joys,
How weakly understood
Thy great commanded good,
Then, fatherly not less
Than I whom Thou has moulded from the clay,
Thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
“I will be sorry for their childishness.”
IS THERE ROOM IN ANGEL LAND?
“These lines were written after hearing the following touching incident related by a minister. A mother, who was preparing some flour to bake into bread, left it for a moment, when little Mary, with childish curiosity to see what it was, took hold of the dish, when it fell to the floor, spilling the contents. The mother struck the child a severe blow, saying, with anger, that she was always in the way. Two weeks after, little Mary sickened and died. On her death-bed, while delirious, she asked her mother if there would be room for her among the angels. ‘I was always in your way, mother; you had no room for little Mary! And will I be in the angels’ way? Will they have no room for me?’ The broken-hearted mother then felt no sacrifice would be too great, could she have saved her child.”
Is there room among the angels
For the spirit of your child?
Will they take your little Mary
In their loving arms so mild?
Will they ever love me fondly,
As my story-books have said?
Will they find a home for Mary—
Mary, numbered with the dead?
Tell me truly, darling mother!
Is there room for such as me?
Will I gain the home of spirits,
And the shining angels see?
I have sorely tried you, mother,
Been to you a constant care,
And you will not miss me, mother,
