BETTER AND BEST
Better in bitterest agony to lie,
Before Thy throne,
Than through much increase to be lifted up on high,
And stand alone.
Better by one sweet soul, constant and true,
To be beloved,
Than all the kingdoms of delight to trample through,
Unloved, unloved.
Yet best—the need that broke me at Thy feet,
In voiceless prayer,
And cast my chastened heart, a sacrifice complete,
Upon Thy care.
For all the world is nought, and less than nought,
Compared with this,—
That my dear Lord, with His own life, my ransom bought,
And I am His.
THE SHADOW
Shapeless and grim,
A Shadow dim
O'erhung the ways,
And darkened all my days.
And all who saw,
With bated breath,
Said, "It is Death!"
And I, in weakness
Slipping towards the Night,
In sore affright
Looked up. And lo!—
No Spectre grim,
But just a dim
Sweet face,
A sweet high mother-face,
A face like Christ's Own Mother's face,
Alight with tenderness
And grace.
"Thou art not Death!" I cried;—
For Life's supremest fantasy
Had never thus envisaged Death to me;—
"Thou art not Death, the End!"
In accents winning,
Came the answer,—"Friend,
There is no Death!
I am the Beginning,
—Not the End!"