See it at last, oh close, so close in Paradise the Fair.
The black, black night through which we groped is turned to radiant day,
The doubt to certainty more glad than song or speech can say;
The baffling winds which buffeted beyond our strength to bear,
Blew us along the blessed way to Paradise the Fair.
We doubted and we fainted, and we seemed to miss the road
As, stumbling on and painfully, we toiled beneath our load;
And the uphill left us breathless, and the tempest stripped us bare;—
What matter, since they bore us up to Paradise the Fair?
We who were lonely once and found the silence very sore,