Light and Shadow

Life from Him who ever liveth,
Gifts from Him alone who giveth,
     Every good and perfect gift,
Verily, are not retaken,
Though our homes may seem forsaken
     To the tear-dimmed eyes we lift.

Good is overwrought in better;
Spirit dissipates the letter;
     And the promise stands for aye;
Nothing fails of its fulfilling;
Our true loving and God’s willing
     Run at last the self-same way.

Somewhere, in the great Hereafter,
Woes that quenched our joyous laughter
     Shall dissolve like summer’s cloud;
Watering blooms of ruddier pleasures
Than a clear, unbroken azure
     Feeds, where never anguish plowed.

Somewhile, in the broad Forever,
Chords the fleeting moments sever
     Shall be knit in one again;
Love’s electric thrills, undwindled,
Shall flash warmer gleams, rekindled,
     More intense for every pain.

Tell me not there fall no shadows
On the New Life’s blooming meadows,
     While a woe hangs over this;
Souls from selfish sorrow lifted,
With divine compassion gifted,
     Taste a more supernal bliss.

On the wings of tribulation
May be borne the compensation
      That rewards a loving trust;
Lives unwrestling pass unwritten;
     Tearless hearts are barren dust.

Shall not they, in life’s to-morrow,
Who from mighled joy and sorrow
     Wove their golden web of song,
Shape its glory’s rich possession
To a more divine expression,
      In the memory of earth’s wrong?

As we need a shade of sadness
To make rich the wine of gladness
     In earth’s vintage,—so may souls,
Bathed in their Immortal splendor,
By a soothing pity, render
     Holier their grand aureoles!

Not in cool, blue depths, unclouded
Sky and earth wed;  but mist-shrouded,
     His horizon folds her in;
Earth, the shadowy, touches Heaven,
Heaven meets earth, when souls forgiven
     Stoop to snatch a soul from sin.

Loss? It is the wheat the sower 
Scatters, and our griefs the shower
     Whence the nobler harvest Springs;
Harp and voice, heard here no longer,
Make the immortal chorus stronger
     Where each mortal victor sings!