"Through this dark and stormy night Faith beholds a feeble light Up the blackness streaking; Knowing God's own time is best, In a patient hope I rest For the full day-breaking!" So the Laird of Ury said, Turning slow his horse's head Toward the Tolbooth prison, Where, through iron grates, he heard Poor disciples of the Word Preach of Christ arisen! Plot in vain, Confessor old, Unto us the tale is told Of thy day of trial; Every age on him who strays From its broad and beaten ways Pours its sevenfold vial. Happy he whose inward ear Angel comfortings can hear, O'er the rabble's laughter; And, while Hatred's fagots burn, Glimpses through the smoke discern Of the good hereafter. Knowing this, that never yet Share of Truth was vainly set In the world's wide fallow; After hands shall sow the seed, After hands from hill and mead Reap the harvest yellow. Thus, with somewhat of the Seer, Must the moral pioneer From the Future borrow; Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, And, on midnight's sky of rain, Paint the golden morrow! ALL'S WELL The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake Our thirsty souls with rain; The blow most dreaded falls to break From off our limbs a chain; And wrongs of man to man but make The love of God more plain. As through the shadowy lens of even The eye looks farthest into heaven On gleams of star and depths of blue The glaring sunshine never knew! RAPHAEL I shall not soon forget that sight: The glow of autumn's westering day, A hazy warmth, a dreamy light, On Raphael's picture lay. It was a simple print I saw, The fair face of a musing boy; Yet, while I gazed, a sense of awe Seemed blending with my joy. A simple print:--the graceful flow Of boyhood's soft and wavy hair, And fresh young lip and cheek, and brow Unmarked and clear, were there.