- O friends! with whom my feet have trod
- The quiet aisles of prayer,
- Glad witness to your zeal for God
- And love of man I bear.
- I trace your lines of argument;
- Your logic linked and strong
- I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
- And fears a doubt as wrong.
- But still my human hands are weak
- To hold your iron creeds;
- Against the words ye bid me speak
- My heart within me pleads.
- Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
- Who talks of scheme and plan?
- The Lord is God! He needeth not
- The poor device of man.
- I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
- Ye tread with boldness shod:
- I dare not fix with mete and bound
- The love and power of God.
- Ye praise His justice; even such
- His pitying love I deem
- Ye seek a king; I fain would touch
- The robe that hath no seam.
- Ye see the curse which overbroods
- A world of pain and loss;
- I hear our Lord's beatitudes
- And prayer upon the cross.
- The wrong that pains my soul below
- I dare not throne above:
- I know not of His hate,—I know
- His goodness and His love.
- I dimly guess from blessings known
- Of greater out of sight,
- And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
- His judgments too are right.
- I long for household voices gone,
- For vanished smiles I long,
- But God hath led my dear ones on,
- And He can do no wrong.
- I know not what the future hath
- Of marvel or surprise,
- Assured alone that life and death
- His mercy underlies.
- And if my heart and flesh are weak
- To bear an untried pain,
- The bruised reed He will not break,
- But strengthen and sustain.
- No offering of my own I have,
- Nor works my faith to prove;
- I can but give the gifts He gave,
- And plead His love for love.
- And so beside the Silent Sea
- I wait the muffled oar;
- No harm from Him can come to me
- On ocean or on shore.
- I know not where His islands lift
- Their fronded palms in air;
- I only know I cannot drift
- Beyond His love and care.
- O brothers! if my faith is vain,
- If hopes like these betray,
- Pray for me that my feet may gain
- The sure and safer way.
- And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen
- Thy creatures as they be,
- Forgive me if too close I lean
- My human heart on Thee!
