p. 204 | The Home Circle by Mrs. Lucy Ward Beach

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 13.

The Home Circle.

By Mrs. Lucy Ward Beach

STRENGTHENED.

I had not known the sunshine was so bright, The fields so golden, or the hills so blue, Until a glad, sweet Hope made all things new With radiant light.

My heart grew strong with happiness; I thought, "Now I can brave life's worst, nor wish to hide; My place shall be among the workers tried, To faint at naught."

Too soon the bright, glad days forever fled; Time came when my dear Hope grew wan and pale. With heart turned stone, I saw her fade and fail, And then lie dead.

Oh, then no soft light fell on field or hill! The earth reflected but a strange, fierce glare. My heart that was so bold to do or dare, Lay stunned and still.

But when, with life laid waste, I prayed for death, The angels came, I think, on silent wings, And in my bosom placed a poor, weak thing, And called it Faith.

I held it close, so frail it seemed, nor guessed How fair and strong my Heaven-born one would grow, Nor how in peace, that knew no ebb nor flow, My soul would rest.

She showed a glory past the sunset skies, The far-off gleaming of the jasper sea; The weary road seems straightest now to me To Paradise.

Sunshine or storm, the smooth or stormy way I scarcely heed; only one yearning, deep— To aid weak, stumbling feet up the pathways steep, Is mine each day.

When purple shadows creep o'er hill and plain, In the sweet twilight stillness, kneeling low Over the grave of my lost Hope, I know My loss was gain. —Mrs. Lucy Ward Beach.