Compensation

Tears wash away the atoms in the eye That smarted for a day; Rain-clouds that spoiled the splendors of the sky The fields with flowers array. No chamber of pain but has some hidden door That promises release; No solitude so drear but yields its store Of thought and inward peace. No night so wild but brings the constant sun With love and power untold; No time so dark but through its woof there run Some blessèd threads of gold. And through the long and storm-tost centuries burn In changing calm and strife The Pharos-lights of truth, where’er we turn,— The unquenched lamps of life. O Love supreme! O Providence divine! What self-adjusting springs Of law and life, what even scales, are thine, What sure-returning wings Of hopes and joys, that flit like birds away, When chilling autumn blows, But come again, long ere the buds of May Their rosy lips unclose! What wondrous play of mood and accident Through shifting days and years; What fresh returns of vigor overspent In feverish dreams and fears! What wholesome air of conscience and of thought When doubts and forms oppress; What vistas opening to the gates we sought Beyond the wilderness; Beyond the narrow cells, where self-involved, Like chrysalids, we wait The unknown births, the mysteries unsolved Of death and change and fate! O Light divine! we need no fuller test That all is ordered well; We know enough to trust that all is best Where love and wisdom dwell.