The gifts that to our breasts we fold
Are brightened by our losses.
The sweetest joys a heart can hold
Grow up between its crosses.
And on life's pathway many a mile
Is made more glad and cheery,
Because, for just a little while,
The way seemed dark and dreary.
--Nixon Waterman.
Wherever now a sorrow stands,
'Tis mine to heal His nail-torn hands.
In every lonely lane and street,
'Tis mine to wash His wounded feet--
'Tis mine to roll away the stone
And warm His heart against my own.
Here, here on earth I find it all--
The young archangels, white and tall,
The Golden City and the doors,
And all the shining of the floors!
I sent my soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell;
And by and by my soul returned to me,
And answered, "I myself am Heaven and Hell."
--Omar Khayyam.
Count that day really worse than lost
You might have made divine,
Through which you scattered lots of frost
And ne'er a speck of shine.
--Nixon Waterman.
O, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness, His rest.
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
If by one word I help another,
A struggling and despairing brother,
Or ease one bed of pain;
If I but aid some sad one weeping,
Or comfort one, lone vigil keeping,
I have not lived in vain.