Providence

God’s good and man's lie oft apart, 
       Oft meet at last by separate doors;
The pangs that wring a tortured heart
Are very mercies, if they start 
       Its blood to run a nobler course.

There is no blind misguided chance;
       The wandering atoms feel the sway 
Of central forces, till they dance 
Harmonious in the sunset's glance,
       As stars that throng the Milky Way.

The loneliest cannot walk alone,
       A hand unseen is in his hand, 
A heart is beating with his own 
And thrills of home-like chords hath know 
       The pilgrim in a desert land.

The brook that down its sinuous way
       Glides, humming with a low content,
Though clinging in a pleased delay 
Round flower-banks many a summer's day,
       Goes fate-like whither it was sent:

Goes to its marriage with the sea
       Not less predestined than the shock
Of arrowy torrents foaming free 
And roaring down with boisterous glee 
       Or madly hurled from rock to rock.

Let him thank God, who at the last,
       Though sorely scourged by storm and ware,
On any solid shore is cast;
There shall he find the very blast
       That wrecked, will bring him food, to save.

More proudly shall he tread the wreck 
       Of shattered hopes compelled once more
To bear him home, than, ere the check 
Of adverse fates, he trod the deck
       Of his gay bark and turned from shore.

Strength comes of trial, soon or late, 
       And that omnipotence of will 
Which dares to man a helmless fate, 
No sleek-browed fortune can create,
       No scowling fortune daunt with ill.