Thou sweet hand of God, that so woundest my heart, Thou makest me smile while thou mak'st me to smart; It seems as if God were at ball-play; and I, The harder he strikes me the higher I fly. I own it, he bruises, he pierces me sore; But the hammer and chisel afflict me no more. Shall I tell you the reason? It is that I see The Sculptor will carve out an angel for me. I shrink from no suffering, how painful soe'er, When once I can feel that my God's hand is there; For soft on the anvil the iron shall glow When the Smith with his hammer deals blow upon blow. God presses me hard, but he gives patience, too! And I say to myself, "'Tis no more than my due," And no tone from the organ can swell on the breeze Till the organist's fingers press down on the keys. So come, then, and welcome the blow and the pain! Without them no mortal to heaven can attain; For what can the sheaves on the barn floor avail Till the thresher shall beat out the chaff with his flail? 'Tis only a moment God chastens with pain; Joy follows on sorrow like sunshine on rain. Then bear thou what God on thy spirit shall lay; Be dumb; but, when tempted to murmur, then pray. --From the German. When thou hast thanked thy God for every blessing sent, What time will then remain for murmurs or lament? We must live through the weary winter If we would value the spring; And the woods must be cold and silent Before the robins sing. The flowers must lie buried in darkness Before they can bud and bloom; And the sweetest and warmest sunshine Comes after the storm and gloom. --Agnes L. Pratt. We look along the shining ways, To see the angel faces; They come to us in darkest days And in the blackest places. The strongest hearts have strongest need, To them the fiery trial; Who walks a saint in word and deed Is saint by self-denial. Is it true, O Christ in heaven, That the strongest suffer most, That the wisest wander farthest, And most hopelessly are lost? That the mark of rank in nature Is capacity for pain, That the anguish of the singer Makes the sweetness of the strain? O, block by block, with sore and sharp endeavor, Lifelong we build these human natures up Into a temple fit for freedom's shrine. And trial ever consecrates the cup Wherefrom we pour her sacrificial wine. --James Russell Lowell. But all God's angels come to us disguised; Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, One after other lift their frowning masks, And we behold the seraph's face beneath All radiant with the glory and the calm Of having looked upon the front of God. --James Russell Lowell.