HE DOETH ALL THINGS WELL. 209

Oh, in this mocking world too fast

The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth! Better be cheated to the last

Than lose the blessed hope of truth.

Frances Anne Kemble.

HE DOETH ALL THINGS WELL.

I

HOPED that with the brave and strong

My portioned task might lie;
To toil amid the busy throng
With purpose pure and high;
But God has fixed another part,
And He has fixed it well;
I said so with my breaking heart
When first this anguish fell.

These weary hours will not be lost,
These days of misery,

These nights of darkness, tempest-tossed,

Can I but turn to Thee;

With secret labor to sustain

In patience every blow,
To gather fortitude from pain,
And holiness from woe.

If Thou shouldst bring me back to life,

More humble I should be,

More wise, more strengthened for the strife,
More apt to lean on Thee.

Should death be standing at the gate,
Thus should I keep my vow;
But Lord! whatever be my fate,
Oh, let me serve Thee now !

Anne Brontë.

THE FAIREST ACTION.

THE fairest action of our human life
Is scorning to revenge an injury;
For who forgives without a farther strife,
His adversary's heart to him doth tie,
And 't is a firmer conquest truly said,
To win the heart than overthrow the head.

Lady Elizabeth Carew.

THE FRIEND UNSEEN.

HOLY Saviour, Friend unseen!

The faint, the weak, on Thee may lean;
Help me, throughout life's varying scene,
By faith to cling to Thee.

Blest with communion so divine,
Take what Thou wilt, shall I repine,

When, as the branches to the vine,

My soul may cling to Thee?

THE FRIEND UNSEEN.

Without a murmur I dismiss

My former dreams of earthly bliss:
My joy, my recompense, be this,

Each hour to cling to Thee.

-

What though the world deceitful prove,
And earthly friends and joys remove;
With patient, uncomplaining love,
Still would I cling to Thee.

Oft when I seem to tread alone
Some barren waste, with thorns o'ergrown,
A voice of love, in gentlest tone,
Whispers, "Still cling to Me."

Though faith and hope awhile be tried,
I ask not, need not, aught beside :
How safe, how calm, how satisfied,
The souls that cling to Thee!

They fear not life's rough storms to brave,
Since Thou art near, and strong to save;
Nor shudder e'en at death's dark wave;
Because they cling to Thee!

Blest is my lot, whate'er befall;

What can disturb me, who appall,

While, as my Strength, my Rock, my All,

Saviour! I cling to Thee?

211

Charlotte Elliott.

COMPENSATIONS.

THE compensating springs! O the balancings of life,

Hidden away in the workings under the seeming strife!

Slowing the fret and the friction, weighting the whirl and the force,

Evolving the truest power from each unconscious

source.

How shall we gauge the whole, who can only guess a part?

How can we read the life, when we cannot spell the

heart?

How shall we measure another, we who can never

know

From the juttings above the surface the depth of the vein below?

Even our present way is known to ourselves alone, Height and abyss and torrent, flower and thorn and stone;

But we gaze on another's path as a far-off mountain

scene,

Scanning the outlined hills, but never the vales be

tween.

COMPENSATIONS.

213

How shall we judge their present, we who have never

seen

That which is past for ever, and that which might have been?

Measuring by ourselves, unwise indeed are we,

Measuring what we know by what we can hardly see.

Ah! if we knew it all, we should surely understand That the balance of sorrow and joy is held with an even hand,

That the scale of success or loss shall never overflow, And that compensation is twined with the lot of high and low.

The easy path in the lowland hath little of grand or

new,

But a toilsome ascent leads on to a wide and glorious

view;

Peopled and warm is the valley, lonely and chill the height,

But the peak that is nearer the storm-cloud is nearer the stars of light.

Launch on the foaming stream that bears you along like a dart

There is danger of rapid and rock, there is tension of muscle and heart;

Glide on the easy current, monotonous, calm, and

slow,

You are spared the quiver and strain in the safe and quiet flow.