 | To the end of the trail |  |
PER ASPERA AD ASTRA
To Amélie Rives.
There is no heart that sorrows not. The higherThe path winds for our feet o'er shards and stones
The sharper cuts the stinging wind that moans
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They that are struggling in the lower mire,
For all their sorrowing, never know the groans,
The Mutius-agony, the dread monotones
Of Golgotha, that whoso would aspire
Must shudder with throughout earth's period.
Crowned Poet! read God's message through the storm;
“Yea, there shall pierce thine own heart, too, a sword;
For Art, like Mary, handmaid of the Lord,
Tears out of her own quivering flesh the form
To clothe the unseen and living Word of God.
Washington, 1888.
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