Poems (Jackson)/Best

by Helen Hunt Jackson

BEST.

OTHER, I see you, with your nursery light,Leading your babies, all in white, To their sweet rest;Christ, the Good Shepherd, carries mine to-night,      And that is best.

I cannot help tears, when I see them twineTheir fingers in yours, and their bright curls shine      On your warm breast;But the Saviour's is purer than yours or mine,      He can love best!

You tremble each hour because your armsAre weak; your heart is wrung with alarms      And sore opprest;My darlings are safe, out of reach of harms,      And that is best.

You know, over yours may hang even nowPain and disease, whose fulfilling slow      Naught can arrest;Mine in God's gardens run to and fro,      And that is best.

You know that of yours, your feeblest oneAnd dearest may live long years alone,      Unloved, unblest;Mine are cherished of saints around God's throne.      And that is best.

You must dread for yours the crime that sears.Dark guilt unwashed by repentant tears,      And unconfessed;Mine entered spotless on eternal years,      O, how much the best!

But grief is selfish; I cannot seeAlways why I should so stricken be,      More than the rest;But I know that, as well as for them, for me      God did the best!