The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 2/Number 7/All's Well

by David Atwood Wasson

For works with similar titles, see All's Well.

 

ALL'S WELL.

Sweet-voicèd Hope, thy fine discourse
Foretold not half life's good to me;
Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force
To show how sweet it is to be!
Thy witching dream
And pictured scheme
To match the fact still want the power;
Thy promise brave
From birth to grave
Life's boon may beggar in an hour
Ask and receive,—'tis sweetly said;
Yet what to plead for know I not;
For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped,
And aye to thanks returns my thought.
If I would pray,
I've nought to say
But this, that God may be God still;
For Him to live
Is still to give,
And sweeter than my wish his will.

O wealth of life beyond all bound!
Eternity each moment given!
What plummet may the Present sound?
Who promises a future heaven?
Or glad, or grieved,
Oppressed, relieved,
In blackest night, or brightest day,
Still pours the flood
Of golden good,
And more than heartfull fills me aye.

My wealth is common; I possess
No petty province, but the whole;
What's mine alone is mine far less
Than treasure shared by every soul.
Talk not of store,
Millions or more,—
Of values which the purse may hold,—
But this divine!
I own the mine
Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold.

I have a stake in every star,
In every beam that fills the day;
All hearts of men my coffers are,
My ores arterial tides convey;
The fields, the skies,
And sweet replies
Of thought to thought are my gold-dust,—
The oaks, the brooks,
And speaking looks
Of lovers' faith and friendship's trust.

Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow
For him who lives above all years,
Who all-immortal makes the Now,
And is not ta'en in Time's arrears:
His life's a hymn
The seraphim
Might hark to hear or help to sing,
And to his soul