The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

However sad man's lot,
Despair should enter not
The suffering heart of man.
God by one single stroke
Can heal the heart he broke,
So carrying out his plan.

For no man sighs in vain:
The humblest creature's pain
Is known to God on high.
He hears the horse's neigh;
He hears his red-breasts pray;
He hears his throstles sigh.

He hears his violets plead,
And on the thirsty mead
He sends the gladdening rain.

362

The golden buttercup
That sighs its sweet heart up
To heaven, sighs not in vain.

No bright marsh-marigold
Is withered by the cold
Of late tempestuous May
Without a pitying thought
Of God, who hastening brought
At last the warm sun-ray.

The trefoil owes to him
(Just as the cherubim
Receive from him their crowns!)
Its crown of fairy gold
That lights the wind-swept wold
Or glitters on the downs.

The daisy once was white
—Until it caught a sight
Of angels in the air.
Such rapture flushed the flower
That, ever since that hour,
Its glad pink blush is there!

363

So with the sons of men.—
God often and again
By sudden stroke can change
The most unequal lot:
Aye, oftentimes his thought
Takes roads and courses strange.

How often has he sent,
To bring some soul content,
An angel all in white—
When on the window-sill
A snowdrop by his will
Has blossomed in the night!

How often has he brought
From sorrow beyond thought
A peace exceeding praise.
Though daylight bring despair,
There shall be starlight fair
And hope in the moon's rays.

Above the weary town
The silver moon smiles down:
The towers and turrets shine.

364

The fog-clouds roll away
In banks of sullen grey
Along the river-line.

Though man's vast cities breed
Deep misery indeed,
They yield their joys as well.
Not all the city life
Is one long round of strife,
Or one grim coign of hell.

With song and laugh and shout
The children sally out,
Poor hoarse-throat London rooks!
They leave the streets dull-grey,
And seek the meadows gay
Where gleam the silver brooks.

We follow where they go:
Pale faces all aglow,
And hearts no longer sad.
See! one child's fingers hold
A kingcup. Crown of gold
Would make a queen less glad.

365

They paddle in the brook:
They strive—in vain—to hook
With crooked pins and thread
The minnows flashing through
The waters clear and blue,
Or roach with eye-rings red.

Their laughter is divine!
Their merry glances shine!—
Oh, God is good to these.
They make grand holiday
Amid the fragrant hay
And under the elm-trees.

What could an angel need
More than this grassy mead
Which buttercups enstar?
The blue sky shines out clear:
Heaven seems so very near,
And hell so very far!

Their London life is hell
Maybe. To-day this dell
Where white wild roses bloom

366

Is heaven indeed, and God
Is in the golden-rod
And in the yaffle's plume.

God speaks to children thus:
And he commissions us
To guard them as they go.
In God's great endless park
From daylight until dark
They wander to and fro.

Then, when the night sinks down
The white moon o'er the town
Shines out and points the way
The children's feet have trod
Sweet country roads with God
For one long summer day.