THE LIGHTNING rends the goodly tree, | |
| Whereon the sunbeams loved to play; | |
| Through which the starbeams found their way; | |
| But who may read God’s dark decree? | |
| |
| He spares the tree of lowly form, | 5 |
| Through years that seem without an end,— | |
| In every wind to sway and bend, | |
| No mark for lightning or for storm. | |
| |
| Through toilsome years, on scanty fare, | |
| The artist and the poet seem | 10 |
| Dimly to live within their dream; | |
| Time leaves them with their pleasant care. | |
| |
| Time brings into a perfect grace | |
| The marvel of the stream and hills; | |
| And Time the perfect volume fills | 15 |
| With words that thrill the human race. | |
| |
| Time! that didst shape the cedar fair, | |
| Wilt thou not bring to her who grieves | |
| More than the glory of its leaves, | |
| A people’s love and grief and prayer? | 20 |
| |
| We are but shadows one and all: | |
| The solid earth on which we move | |
| Is nothing, seen by saints above; | |
| So small,—but still man is not small. | |
| |
| His days are written in thy sight, | 25 |
| Who rulest days and rulest men; | |
| And in Thy will he finds Thy when, | |
| And knows that all he finds is right. | |
| |
| Thy Royal student’s days were led | |
| In ways that make the day a year, | 30 |
| Fulfilled with intellectual cheer | |
| Whereon all noble minds are fed. | |
| |
| So shall we say his life was life, | |
| Extended to a noble span; | |
| A life that was a life for man, | 35 |
| Worthy of mother and of wife. | |
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