The Poetical Works of William Motherwell/It Deeply Wounds the Trusting Heart
It Deeply Wounds the Trusting Heart.
It deeply wounds the trusting heart
That ever throbs to good,
To know that by a perverse art
It still is misconstrued:
And thus the beauties of the field,
The glories of the sky,
To lofty natures often yield
Sole solace ere they die.
The things that harmless couch on earth,
Or pierce the blue of heaven,
Have mystic reasons in their birth
Why they should be sin-shriven.
The secrets of the human breast
No human eye may scan;
With Him alone those secrets rest
Who made and judgeth man.
Nor lightly should we estimate
The Hand which rules it so.
Nor idly seek to penetrate
What angels may not know.
Enough that with a righteous will,
In this disjointed scene,
The upright one, through good and ill,
Will be as he hath been.
And should a ribald multitude
Repay with hate his love,
He still can smile : man’s ways are viewed
By Him who rules above.