So links more subtle and more fine Bind every other soul to thine In one great brotherhood divine. Nor with thy share of work be vexed; What seems so dark to thy dim sight Making some brightness doubly bright. The flash that struck thy tree,- Thy life that has been dropped aside The cry wrung from thy spirit's pain And guide a wanderer home again. Fail-yet rejoice; because no less It may be that in some great need Thy life's poor fragments are decreed To help build up a lofty deed. Thy heart should throb in vast content, Thus knowing that it was but meant As chord in one great instrument; That even the discord in thy soul It may be, that when all is light, To hear life's perfect music rise, Then strive more gladly to fulfil Thy little part. This darkness still And trust, as if already plain, How just thy share of loss and pain I dare not limit time or place One only knows. Yet if the fret Needs a more tender comfort yet: Then thou mayst take thy loneliest fears, And through thy anguish there outspread, May ask that God's great love would shed Blessings on one beloved head. And thus thy soul shall learn to draw Sweetness from out that loving law That sees no failure and no flaw, Where all is good. And life is good, Were the one lesson understood Of its most sacred brotherhood. A CHANGELING. LITTLE changeling spirit So all day long I soothed her, And hushed her on my breast; And all night long her wailing Would never let me rest. I dug a grave to hold her, A grave both dark and deep; I covered her with violets, And laid her there to sleep. I used to go and watch there, Both night and morning too: It was my tears, I fancy, That kept the violets blue. |