THE BALANCE OF LIFE.
All daring sympathy—clear-sighted love—
Is, from its source, a ray of endless bliss;
Self has no place in the pure world above,
Its shadows vanish in the strife of this.
The toil—the tumult—the sharp struggle o'er,—
The casket breaks;—men say, "A martyr dies!"
The death—the martyrdom—has past before:
The soul, transfigured, finds its native skies.
The good—the ill—we vainly strive to weigh
With Reason's scales, hung in the mists of Time:
Yet child-like Faith the balance doth survey,
Held high in ether, by a hand sublime.
May, 1850. HERMA.