NOT as you meant, O learnèd man, and good! | |
| Do I accept thy words of truth and rest; | |
| God, knowing all, knows what for me is best, | |
| And gives me what I need, not what he could, | |
| Nor always as I would! | 5 |
| I shall go to the Father’s house, and see | |
| Him and the Elder Brother face to face,— | |
| What day or hour I know not. Let me be | |
| Steadfast in work, and earnest in the race, | |
| Not as a homesick child who all day long | 10 |
| Whines at its play, and seldom speaks in song. | |
| |
| If for a time some loved one goes away, | |
| And leaves us our appointed work to do, | |
| Can we to him or to ourselves be true | |
| In mourning his departure day by day, | 15 |
| And so our work delay? | |
| Nay, if we love and honor, we shall make | |
| The absence brief by doing well our task,— | |
| Not for ourselves, but for the dear One’s sake. | |
| And at his coming only of him ask | 20 |
| Approval of the work, which most was done, | |
| Not for ourselves, but our Belovèd One. | |
| |
| Our Father’s house, I know, is broad and grand; | |
| In it how many, many mansions are! | |
| And, far beyond the light of sun or star, | 25 |
| Four little ones of mine through that fair land | |
| Are walking hand in hand! | |
| Think you I love not, or that I forget | |
| These of my loins? Still this world is fair, | |
| And I am singing while my eyes are wet | 30 |
| With weeping in this balmy summer air: | |
| Yet I ’m not homesick, and the children here | |
| Have need of me, and so my way is clear. | |
| |
| I would be joyful as my days go by, | |
| Counting God’s mercies to me. He who bore | 35 |
| Life’s heaviest cross is mine forevermore, | |
| And I who wait his coming, shall not I | |
| On his sure word rely? | |
| And if sometimes the way be rough and steep, | |
| Be heavy for the grief he sends to me, | 40 |
| Or at my waking I would only weep, | |
| Let me remember these are things to be, | |
| To work his blessèd will until he comes | |
| To take my hand, and lead me safely home. | |
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