Classic Poem

I.

However sad man's lot,
Despair should enter not
The suffering heart of man.
God by one single stroke
Can heal the heart he broke,
So carrying out his plan.

For no man sighs in vain:
The humblest creature's pain
Is known to God on high.
He hears the horse's neigh;
He hears his red-breasts pray;
He hears his throstles sigh.

He hears his violets plead,
And on the thirsty mead
He sends the gladdening rain.
The golden buttercup
That sighs its sweet heart up
To heaven, sighs not in vain.

No bright marsh-marigold
Is withered by the cold
Of late tempestuous May
Without a pitying thought
Of God, who hastening brought
At last the warm sun-ray.

The trefoil owes to him
(Just as the cherubim
Receive from him their crowns!)
Its crown of fairy gold
That lights the wind-swept wold
Or glitters on the downs.

The daisy once was white
— Until it caught a sight
Of angels in the air.
Such rapture flushed the flower
That, ever since that hour,
Its glad pink blush is there!

So with the sons of men. —
God often and again
By sudden stroke can change
The most unequal lot:
Aye, oftentimes his thought
Takes roads and courses strange.

How often has he sent,
To bring some soul content,
An angel all in white —
When on the window-sill
A snowdrop by his will
Has blossomed in the night!

How often has he brought
From sorrow beyond thought
A peace exceeding praise.
Though daylight bring despair,
There shall be starlight fair
And hope in the moon's rays.

Above the weary town
The silver moon smiles down:
The towers and turrets shine.
The fog-clouds roll away
In banks of sullen grey
Along the river-line.

Though man's vast cities breed
Deep misery indeed,
They yield their joys as well.
Not all the city life
Is one long round of strife,
Or one grim coign of hell.

With song and laugh and shout
The children sally out,
Poor hoarse-throat London rooks!
They leave the streets dull-grey,
And seek the meadows gay
Where gleam the silver brooks.

We follow where they go:
Pale faces all aglow,
And hearts no longer sad.
See! one child's fingers hold
A kingcup. Crown of gold
Would make a queen less glad.

They paddle in the brook:
They strive — in vain — to hook
With crooked pins and thread
The minnows flashing through
The waters clear and blue,
Or roach with eye-rings red.

Their laughter is divine!
Their merry glances shine! —
Oh, God is good to these.
They make grand holiday
Amid the fragrant hay
And under the elm-trees.

What could an angel need
More than this grassy mead
Which buttercups enstar?
The blue sky shines out clear:
Heaven seems so very near,
And hell so very far!

Their London life is hell
Maybe. To-day this dell
Where white wild roses bloom
Is heaven indeed, and God
Is in the golden-rod
And in the yaffle's plume.

God speaks to children thus:
And he commissions us
To guard them as they go.
In God's great endless park
From daylight until dark
They wander to and fro.

Then, when the night sinks down
The white moon o'er the town
Shines out and points the way
The children's feet have trod
Sweet country roads with God
For one long summer day.

II.

Moreover things men dread —
War's reckless sword, stained red,
And trumpet-bearing hand, —
The thunder of the seas, —
Swift arrows of disease, —
The thirsty wastes of sand, —

Blue leagues of glittering ice
That crushes in a vice
The ship that tempts its grip, —
All evil things and strange, —
The loves that pale and change,
That once lay lip to lip, —

All these things God includes
In his vast rule. Man broods
On ceaseless plan and plot;
But under and above
Is the eternal love,
The God who changes not.

God does not dread the storm
That shakes the ship's frail form:
He sees beyond the night.
The sailor fears, for he
Sees darkness whelm the sea —
But God's eye sees the light.

The lover's broken heart
Sees all sweet dreams depart,
For all his dreams were one.
He sees to-day's black gloom,
And thunder-clouds that loom —
But God's eye sees the sun.

God hears to-morrow sing,
And voice of birds that wing
Through future boughs their way.
Man only marks and sees
The chill and leafless trees;
Man only sees to-day.

Man only sees the earth
To-day. God marks the birth
Of blossoms yet to be. —
Man sees the storm-drum swing.
God sees the white gull's wing
Upon a stormless sea. —

Man sees the earthquake's shock
Rend house and tower and rock, —
Feels horror over all.
God, heath to-morrow's sun,
Sees the green lizard run
Along the shored-up wall, —

Man worships in one star.
In globes that near and far
Whirl in their maddening race
God brings forth ever-new
Life, thrilling the strange blue
Unsounded depths of space.

God, in that he is God,
Upon the winds hath trod
And rested on the storm
The stars are in his fold;
Nor plunges from his hold
One comet's angry form.

And yet the God who counts
The stars on the dark mounts
Of heaven, nor loses one,
Will let no frail heart break;
And for one daisy's sake
He would create a sun.