I think if thou couldst see, With thy dim mortal sight, How meanings, dark to thee, Are shadows hiding light; Truth's efforts crossed and vexed, Life's purpose all perplexed,-- If thou couldst see them right, I think that they would seem all clear, and wise, and bright. And yet thou canst not know, And yet thou canst not see; Wisdom and sight are slow In poor humanity. If thou couldst _trust_, poor soul, In Him who rules the whole, Thou wouldst find peace and rest: Wisdom and sight are well, but Trust is best. --_Adelaide Procter._ COMPENSATION. O the compensating springs! O the balance-wheels of life, Hidden away in the workings under the seeming strife! Slowing the fret and the friction, weighting the whirl and the force, Evolving the truest power from each unconscious source. How shall we gauge the whole, who can only guess a part? How can we read the life, when we cannot spell the heart? How shall we measure another, we who can never know From the juttings above the surface the depth of the vein below? Even our present way is known to ourselves alone, Height and abyss and torrent, flower and thorn and stone; But we gaze on another's path as a far-off mountain scene, Scanning the outlined hills, but never the vales between. How shall we judge their present, we who have never seen That which is past forever, and that which might have been? Measuring by ourselves, unwise indeed are we, Measuring what we _know_ by what we can hardly _see_. Ah! if we knew it all, we should surely understand That the balance of sorrow and joy is held with an even hand, That the scale of success or loss shall never overflow, And that compensation is twined with the lot of high and low. The easy path in the lowland hath little of grand or new, But a toilsome ascent leads on to a wide and glorious view; Peopled and warm is the valley, lonely and chill the height, But the peak that is nearer the storm-cloud is nearer the stars of light. Launch on the foaming stream that bears you along like a dart,-- There is danger of rapid and rock, there is tension of muscle and heart; Glide on the easy current, monotonous, calm, and slow, You are spared the quiver and strain in the safe and quiet flow. O the sweetness that dwells in a harp of many strings, While each, all vocal with love, in tuneful harmony rings! But O, the wail and the discord, when one and another is rent, Tensionless, broken or lost, from the cherished instrument. For rapture of love is linked with the pain or fear of loss, And the hand that takes the crown must ache with many a cross; Yet he who hath never a conflict hath never a victor's palm, And only the toilers know the sweetness of rest and calm.