Oh, who would fly the suffering that earthly natures know,
The sinking frame, the tortured heart, the stifled cry of woe,
To seek a sphere where misery and pain can never come,
The throbbing of the heart be still, the voice of sorrow dumb.
Though full of rest to weary ones its stagnant shores might scein,
"I is rest as dull and passionless as sleep without a dream:
As tideless as an ever full, but sourceless mountain lake,
O'er which the tempest's wrath might burst, yet not a ripple make.

No valiant soul for such a sphere could ever wish to seek,
Nor leave the battle-field below, a craven false and weak.
No! striving on all fearlessly its only rest can be,

The thrilling, ever active life that fills eternity!

It asks no lethe for the grief that rends the quivering form,
For naught but heaven's canopy to shield it from the storm;
More glorious and beautiful the bow of hope appears
When the radiance of holy faith shines through a mist of tears.

What though the fibres of the heart, like some forgotten lute,
All loosened, long in solitude, lie motionless and mute,
Until to joyous melody a master-hand awakes

And thrills with rapture every chord while silently it breaks :
More blessed in its breaking is the long neglected string,
Than in its hour of idleness, a voiceless, worn-out thing;
O, better far to break beneath a touch of heavenly fire,
Than fall a prey to gnawing rust, and echoless expire.

Full oft the heart that sluggishly above its torpor broods,
And feels no stir of life within its trackless solitudes,
Gives back a cry of victory from out its very deeps,
When darkest wing of suffering above its torpor sweeps;
There is a bliss in agony which they can only know
Who bless the rush of feelings that torture as they flow.
Oh, better far to them the pang no lapse of time can heal,
Than that dark and heaviest curse, a breast which cannot feel.

Then, child of earthly parentage, shun not the sombre guest,
But with a strong, undaunted heart, close fold her to thy breast;
Forget not that in bygone days she rested once before
Upon a meek and sinless breast, which blessed the weight it bore,
And wore with calm endurance the thorny wreath she wove,
With soul resigned and thankful for that coronal of love;
Then take with hands unflinching the gift in death laid down,
And for His sake submissive, unmurmuring wear his crown.

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