Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/212

184 If ended were the strife—

Man were not man, nor God were truly God!

See from the sod

The lark thrill skyward in an arrow of song:

Even so from pain and wrong

Upsprings the exultant spirit, wild and free.

He knows not all the joy of liberty

Who never yet was crusht 'neath heavy woe.

He doth not know,

Nor can, the bliss of being brave

Who never hath faced death, nor with unquailing eye hath measured his own grave.

Courage, and pity, and divinest scorn—

Self-scorn, self-pity, and high courage of the soul;

The passion for the goal;

The strength to never yield tho' all be lost—

All these are born

Of endless strife; this is the eternal cost

Of every lovely thought that through the portal

Of human minds doth pass with following light.

Blanch not, O trembling mortal!

But with extreme and terrible delight

Know thou the truth,

Nor let thy heart be heavy with false ruth.

No passing burden is our earthly sorrow

That shall depart in some mysterious morrow.

'T is His one universe where'er we are—

One changeless law from sun to viewless star.

Were sorrow evil here, evil it were forever,

Beyond the scope and help of our most keen endeavor.

God doth not dote,

His everlasting purpose shall not fail.

Here where our ears are weary with the wail