I know not if the dark or bright
Shall be my lot;
If that wherein my hopes delight
Be best or not.
It may be mine to drag for years
Toil's heavy chain;
Or day and night my meat be tears,
On bed of pain.
Dear faces may surround my hearth
With smiles and glee;
Or I may dwell alone, and mirth
Be strange to me.
My bark is wafted to the strand
By breath divine;
And on the helm there rests a hand
Other than mine.
One who has known in storms to sail
I have on board;
Above the raging of the gale
I hear my Lord.
He holds me when the billows smite;
I shall not fall;
If sharp, 'tis short; if long, 'tis light,
He tempers all.
Safe to the land, safe to the land!
The end is this:
And then with him go, hand in hand,
Far into bliss.
--Dean Alford.