I
We cannot choose our sorrows. One there was
Who, reverent of soul, and strong with trust,
Cried, ‘God, though Thou shouldst bow me to the dust,
Yet will I praise thy everlasting laws.
Beggared, my faith would never halt or pause,
But sing Thy glory, feasting on a crust.
Only one boon, one precious boon I must
Demand of Thee, O opulent great Cause.
Let Love stay with me, constant to the end,
Though fame pass by and poverty pursue.’
With freighted hold her life ship onward sailed;
The world gave wealth, and pleasure, and a friend,
Unmarred by envy, and whose heart was true.
But ere the sun reached midday, Love had failed.
II
Then from the depths, in bitterness she cried,
‘Hell is on earth, and heaven is but a dream;
And human life a troubled aimless stream;
And God is nowhere. Would God so deride
A loving creature’s faith?’ A voice replied,
‘The stream flows onward to the Source Supreme,
Where things that ARE replace the things that SEEM,
And where the deeds of all past lives abide.
Once at thy door Love languished and was spurned.
Who sorrow plants, must garner sorrow’s sheaf.
No prayers can change the seedling in the sod.
By thine own heart Love’s anguish must be learned.
Pass on, and know, as one made wise by grief,
That in thyself dwells heaven and hell and God.’
THE GOSSIPS
A rose in my garden, the sweetest and fairest,
Was hanging her head through the long golden hours;
And early one morning I saw her tears falling,
And heard a low gossiping talk in the bowers.
The yellow Nasturtium, a spinster all faded,
Was telling a Lily what ailed the poor Rose:
‘That wild, roving Bee, who was hanging about her
Has jilted her squarely, as every one knows.
‘I knew when he came, with his singing and sighing,
His airs and his speeches, so fine and so sweet,
Just how it would end; but no one would believe me,
For all were quite ready to fall at his feet.’
‘Indeed, you are wrong,’ said the Lilybelle proudly,
‘I cared nothing for him. He called on me once
And would have come often, no doubt, if I’d asked him.
But though he was handsome, I thought him a dunce.’
‘Now, now, that’s not true,’ cried the tall Oleander.
‘He has travelled and seen every flower that grows;
And one who has supped in the garden of princes,
We all might have known would not wed with the Rose.’