Classic Poem

They are not good, the sorrow and the pain,
Save only as leaders unto higher things:
When agony, with black or blood-red wings,
Flaps round our brows it is that we may gain
Some higher gift that God's stern servant brings.
The thorn-crown means that some day we shall reign
Crowned not with thorns but flowers, — as queens and kings
Able the imperial sceptre to retain.

Through mortal pain we pass towards being painless:
Yea, towards the kingly life that God lives; stainless,
Purged of desire, and perfect in its scope.
The daily agony whose hot darts pierce
With flight unintermittent, swift and fierce,
Is wreathed with this unintermittent hope.