MARY.
257
Yes! many trials, many cares were mine,
But never, never one that William caused me;
The things we prize the most are ofttimes used
To chasten us—it was not so with me;
Heaven was too kind to send my punishment
Unto me by the hand I loved so well!
I oft have heard grave people at my father's
Talk of the sin of loving over-much,
Forgetting the great Giver in his gift—
To me it seems we best remember Him
By prizing, loving all the things He gives
In Him, the Giver,—loving them the more
Because He gives them; just as we would wear
A token from some cherished earthly friend
Upon our hearts, as if we could not hold
It there too closely for the giver's sake,
That gave it not for slighting.
These were times
Whose very troubles seem to have their dearness
For the one happiness that ran all through them;
But those days passed, and as the proverb tells us,
The darkest hour of life, as of the day,
Is that before the dawning, even so
It was an evil chance that wrought the change
That rolled the heavy stone from off my heart.
My father who was now well up in years,
Yet never seemed to feel their weight, so strong
The spirit that was in him, late and early
Still working with the foremost, in the field
As they were bringing home the hay, was struck
But never, never one that William caused me;
The things we prize the most are ofttimes used
To chasten us—it was not so with me;
Heaven was too kind to send my punishment
Unto me by the hand I loved so well!
I oft have heard grave people at my father's
Talk of the sin of loving over-much,
Forgetting the great Giver in his gift—
To me it seems we best remember Him
By prizing, loving all the things He gives
In Him, the Giver,—loving them the more
Because He gives them; just as we would wear
A token from some cherished earthly friend
Upon our hearts, as if we could not hold
It there too closely for the giver's sake,
That gave it not for slighting.
These were times
Whose very troubles seem to have their dearness
For the one happiness that ran all through them;
But those days passed, and as the proverb tells us,
The darkest hour of life, as of the day,
Is that before the dawning, even so
It was an evil chance that wrought the change
That rolled the heavy stone from off my heart.
My father who was now well up in years,
Yet never seemed to feel their weight, so strong
The spirit that was in him, late and early
Still working with the foremost, in the field
As they were bringing home the hay, was struck
