Help me to bear thy chastening rod;
Give me endurance; let me borrow
Strength from thy promise, O my God!
Not mine the grief which words may lighten;
Not mine the tears of common woes;
The pang with which my heart-strings tighten
Only the All-seeing One may know.
And I am weak, my feeble spirit
Shrinks from life's task in wild dismay;
Yet not that thou that task wouldst spare it,