Veiled the future comes, refusing,
To be seen, like Isaac's bride
Whom the lonely man met musing
In the fields at eventide.
Round him o'er the darkening waste
Deeper shades of evening fall,
And behind him in the past
Mother Sarah's funeral.
Mother Sarah being dead,
There comes his veiled destiny;
The veiled Rebecca he must wed
Whatsoe'er her features be.
On he walks in silent prayer,
Bids the veiled Rebecca hail,
Doubting not she will prove fair
When at length she drops the veil.
When the veil is dropped aside,
Dropped in Mother Sarah's tent,
Oh! she is right fair, this bride
Whom his loving God has sent.
To those walking 'twixt the two--
'Twixt the past with pleasures dead
And the future veiled from view--
The veiled future thou must wed;
Walk like Isaac, praying God;
Walk by faith and not by sight;
And though darker grows the road
Doubt not all will yet come right.
Things behind forgetting, hail
Every future from above.
Doubt not when it drops the veil
'Twill be such as thou wouldst love.
Till at death-eve, when the past
Rings dear Mother Earth's own knells,
Bridal heaven unveils at last
With a peal of marriage bells.
--William Robertson.
The night is mother of the day,
The winter of the spring;
And ever upon old decay
The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all his works,
Has left his hope with all.
--John Greenleaf Whittier.