COMPENSATION.

O the compensating springs! O the balance-wheels of life,

Hidden away in the workings under the seeming strife!

Slowing the fret and the friction, weighting the whirl and the force,

Evolving the truest power from each unconscious source.

How shall we gauge the whole, who can only guess a part?

How can we read the life, when we cannot spell the heart?

How shall we measure another, we who can never know

From the juttings above the surface the depth of the vein below?