Trust

The hope of a wise heart is Prophecy;
     God tortures not the souls that purely aspire,
     With a vain hunger and a bootless fire;
Love lives to bless us, though for love we die;
Beauty, to fill her darlin’s longing eye;
     And ever good, for every good desire:
     Want is the garner of our bounteous Sire;
Hunger, the promise of its own supply.
We weep because the joy we seek is not,
     When but for this it is not, that we weep;
We creep in dust to wail our lowly lot,
     Which were not lowly if we scorned to creep’
That which we dare we shall be, when the will
Bows to prevailing Hope, its Would-be to fulfill.

All suns are not light-bearers, but around
     Some black, majestic orb, its flaming peers
     Grind down the darkness with their golden spheres,
Their fire-hearts yearning, through the dim profound,
To their strong brother, in his utmost bound
     Unwinding the still gloom of lampless years.
     So yearn the bosoms of high-hearted seers,
Drawn by the grandeur of a vast unfound;
They flash their bright revealings from afar,
     Marching triumphant through the cloven dark;
And men know not that some invisible star
     Circles their flight unerring to the mark;
Nor yet know they their overmastering Power,
But that it shall appear in its appointed hour.