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DIVINE WISDOM.
Temporal afflictions sometimes hide those eternal blessings to which they lead; as temporal enjoyments cover those eternal evils which they too often procure.”
Pascal.God's will, God's will, my soul! and not thine own,
No, not thine own!
Thou hadst an earnest choice
To look on pleasant things beneath the sun,
Sweet flowers and fruitful vines; but most of all
To taste that love which bindeth heart to heart,
In close communion.
But thy choice was made
In darkness, and thou know'st not what was best:
He knoweth,—the Eternal!
They who hoard
Metallic heaps, say, what will that avail
When from their death-struck hands the gold shall fall,
O'er selfish, thankless, or estranged hearts,
While they, amid the tossings of disease,
Part to return no more?
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Ambition master, and his bidding do,
Upon the war-cloud, trampling fiercely down
All loves, all charities, all bonds of right,
And bringing plagues upon the souls of men,
That they may swell in greatness,—is their gain
A blessing, or a pang, when they shall tread
That lone St. Helena, which conscience makes,
And wrestle with the death-pang, unsustained
By breath of treacherous fame?
Even they, who reap
The fulness of their hope in earthly love,
Finding each sorrow lulled by sympathy,
Each joy reflected from the mirror-plate
Of a quick, answering heart, do they repose
Too fondly on their idols?—Do they claim
Firm property in that which is but dust,
And so complain, when on the winged winds,
Uplifted lightly, it doth fleet away?
Doth Heaven's rich bounty make the erring heart
Shrink from the travel of eternity?
It may be so—and therefore He who knows
Our frame hath gathered round this banquet-board
The hyssop branch and taste of bitter herbs,
And where we grasp a rose-wreath, as we think,—
Gives us a thorn to kiss.
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Deep voices to us, from the Spirit-Land,
Breathed from the lips that once on earth were dear,
And tenderly they teach us how to strike
The key-note of that never ending song,
Which through the arch of heaven's high temple swells,
“God's will, not ours!—God's praise forever more!”
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