Compensation

Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813–1892)

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.