| Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | The Prisoner of Love (1904).
VI. Our Open Cage | | By Frederick William Orde Ward (1843–1922) |
| | | | “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.” |
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BY different paths, O Lord, from many lands | |
| We come, we come unconscious of Thy will, | |
| And the eternal Patience of those Hands | |
| Guiding us still; | |
| For all the roads of knowledge and of faith, | 5 |
| Descents of man, ascents Divine and free, | |
| Through joy or sorrow and by life or death | |
| Lead unto Thee. | |
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| There is one Goal to these our many cares, | |
| While blindly we pursue mere selfish ends, | 10 |
| And but one way at last if unawares | |
| It upward tends. | |
| We think the track is moulded by our pains, | |
| We hew us idols, raise the temple dome, | |
| To reach by altars dead and broken chains | 15 |
| Somehow our Home. | |
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| We choose or seem to choose the daily deed, | |
| The apportioned task and triumph for an hour, | |
| But Thine was ever the immortal seed | |
| And Thine the flower; | 20 |
| We strive against Thee with our idle strength, | |
| As in an open cage a foolish dove, | |
| Until we find our liberty at length | |
| Within Thy Love. | | | |
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