TO A YOUNG GIRL.
Twelve years before thee through life I must run,
Dearest! oh, would I might counsel the hours,
Saying, "Keep back your best sunshine for one
That is coming behind me, and spare her the showers!"
Dearest! oh, would I might counsel the hours,
Saying, "Keep back your best sunshine for one
That is coming behind me, and spare her the showers!"
Fain would I stop to remove from thy way
Stones that have bruised me, and thorns that have grieved;
Set up my errors for waymarks, to say—
Here I was wounded, ensnared, or deceived!
Stones that have bruised me, and thorns that have grieved;
Set up my errors for waymarks, to say—
Here I was wounded, ensnared, or deceived!
Vain is my wishing! in lines of our own
We must traverse the pathway marked out from above;
Life is a sorrowful teacher, alone
We must learn its deep lessons—unaided by Love.
We must traverse the pathway marked out from above;
Life is a sorrowful teacher, alone
We must learn its deep lessons—unaided by Love.
Yet where I journey waste places among,
I will scatter a seed by the wayside, and say,
Soft to myself as I hasten along—
It may be a flower when she cometh this way;"
I will scatter a seed by the wayside, and say,
Soft to myself as I hasten along—
It may be a flower when she cometh this way;"
