Light and Shade

Thou hast done well to kneel and say,"Since He who gave can take away,And bid me suffer, I obey."

And also well to tell thy heartThat good lies in the bitterest part,And thou wilt profit by her smart.

But bitter hours come to all:When even truths like these will pall,Sick hearts for humbler comfort call.

Then I would have thee strive to seeThat good and evil come to thee,As one of a great family.

And as material life is planned,That even the loneliest one must standDependent on his brother's hand;

So links more subtle and more fineBind every other soul to thineIn one great brotherhood divine.

Nor with thy share of work be vexed;Though incomplete, and even perplex,It fits exactly to the next.

What seems so dark to thy dim sightMay be a shadow, seen aright,Making some brightness doubly bright.

The flash that struck thy tree,--no moreTo shelter thee,--lets Heaven's blue floorShine where it never shone before.

Thy life that has been dropped asideInto Time's stream, may stir the tide,In rippled circles spreading wide.

The cry wrung from thy spirit's painMay echo on some far-off plain,And guide a wanderer home again.

Fail--yet rejoice; because no lessThe failure that makes thy distressMay teach another full success.

It may be that in some great needThy life's poor fragments are decreedTo help build up a lofty deed.

Thy heart should throb in vast content,Thus knowing that it was but meantAs chord in one great instrument;

That even the discord in thy soulMay make completer music rollFrom out the great harmonious whole.

It may be, that when all is light,Deep set within that deep delightWill be to know why all was right;

To hear life's perfect music rise,And while it floods the happy skies,Thy feeble voice to recognise.

Then strive more gladly to fulfilThy little part. This darkness stillIs light to every loving will.

And trust,--as if already plain,How just thy share of loss and painIs for another fuller gain.

I dare not limit time or placeTouched by thy life: nor dare I traceIts far vibrations into space.

One only knows. Yet if the fretOf thy weak heart, in weak regretNeeds a more tender comfort yet:

Then thou mayst take thy loneliest fears,The bitterest drops of all thy tears,The dreariest hours of all thy years;

And through thy anguish there outspread,May ask that God's great love would shedBlessings on one beloved head.

And thus thy soul shall learn to drawSweetness from out that loving lawThat sees no failure and no flaw,

Where all is good. And life is good,Were the one lesson understoodOf its most sacred brotherhood.