Poems (Sharpless)/On My Twenty-third Birthday

by Frances M. Sharpless

ON MY TWENTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY

Two years ago I sat beneath these trees
 And to my birthday chanted feeble lays;
Leaning on former happiness and ease,
 I wailed impatiently the coming days,
And cried, "These waves will surely overwhelm,
 This storm will crush me, crawling here beneath,
I have no strength, or hope to hold the helm,
 Life has no better boon for me than Death."

But now I sing, "Oh sky so blue above,
 Oh, waters calmly glittering in the sun,
Death is not half so sweet to me as Love!
 Nor what may be, less dear than what has flown";
I look on bravely to the far "to be,"
 For I have learned life's chances are all wove
Into the pattern God hath chosen, we
 Being the dear recipients of His Love.

By the dark past's dismay, and doubt, and fear,
 By all the terror turned to happiness,
By all the clouds that, feared afar, drew near,
 Only with gentle rains, like dews, to bless,
This have I learned, with slow and faltering tongue,
 And many a shrinking look of dark distrust.
He who has taught the birds to love their young,
 Who heeds the worm that crawls thro' slime and dust,
Who bids the flowers close up their fragrant eyes
 From death-distilling vapors of the night,
Whose power provides the insects' destinies
 And guides, thro' pathless air, the birds aright,
He who has given unto me a soul
 Thrilled with aspiring and immortal life,
With power to force to my will and control
 The elements that else with death were rife—

He will care for me, whatsoe'er I be;
 Sinner or saint, still, still a child of His;
And tho' I grow bewildered as I see
 The mazy windings of a world like this,
He has cared for me, thro' my wayward youth;
 He, if I yield unto the yoke when given
(In night and storm, still let me hold this truth!),
 He will recall me to my Loves in Heaven.