This note of resignation is written by F. C. Browning:
I can not feel
That all is well when darkening clouds conceal
The shining sun;
But then, I know
God lives and loves; and say, since it is so,
Thy will be done.
I do not see
Why God should e’en permit some things to be,
When He is love.
But I can see
Tho often dimly through the mystery,
His hand above!
I do not know
Where falls the seed that I have tried to sow
With greatest care,
But I shall know
The meaning of each waiting hour below,
Sometime, somewhere!
I do not look
Upon the present, nor in nature’s book,
To read my fate;
But I do look
For promised blessings in God’s holy Book,
And I can wait. (Text.)
(2716)
* * * * *
Paul Laurence Dunbar, the negro poet, occupied a unique position in the
literary world. W. D. Howells called him the only man of pure African
blood and of American civilization to feel the negro life esthetically
and express it lyrically. While he was dying of consumption, he
contributed to _Lippincott’s_ this verse-sermon of resignation:
Because I had loved so deeply,
Because I had loved so long,
God in his great compassion
Gave me the gift of song.
Because I had loved so vainly
And sung with such faltering breath,
The Master in infinite mercy
Offers the boon of death. (Text.)
(2717)