The Reward

Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime, Sees not the spectre of his misspent time? And, through the shade Of funeral cypress planted thick behind, Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind From his loved dead?

Who bears no trace of passion's evil force? Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse? Who does not cast On the thronged pages of his memory's book, At times, a sad and half-reluctant look, Regretful of the past?

Alas! the evil which we fain would shun We do, and leave the wished-for good undone Our strength to-day Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall; Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all Are we alway.

Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years, Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears, If he hath been Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause, His fellow-men?

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin; If he hath lent Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, Over the suffering, mindless of his creed Or home, hath bent;

He has not lived in vain, and while he gives The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives, With thankful heart; He gazes backward, and with hope before, Knowing that from his works he nevermore Can henceforth part.

1848.

THE WISH OF TO-DAY.

I ask not now for gold to gild With mocking shine a weary frame; The yearning of the mind is stilled, I ask not now for Fame.

A rose-cloud, dimly seen above, Melting in heaven's blue depths away; Oh, sweet, fond dream of human Love For thee I may not pray.

But, bowed in lowliness of mind, I make my humble wishes known; I only ask a will resigned, O Father, to Thine own!

To-day, beneath Thy chastening eye I crave alone for peace and rest, Submissive in Thy hand to lie, And feel that it is best.

A marvel seems the Universe, A miracle our Life and Death; A mystery which I cannot pierce, Around, above, beneath.

In vain I task my aching brain, In vain the sage's thought I scan, I only feel how weak and vain, How poor and blind, is man.

And now my spirit sighs for home, And longs for light whereby to see, And, like a weary child, would come, O Father, unto Thee!

Though oft, like letters traced on sand, My weak resolves have passed away, In mercy lend Thy helping hand Unto my prayer to-day!

1848.