THOU HAST MADE DESOLATE.
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To shut me from those cherished forms,
My beautiful, my own?
Yet who this fearful deed hath wrought?
Who thus hath laid me low?
Was it a hand with vengeance fraught?
The malice of a foe?
No!—He who called my being forth
From mute, unconscious clay;
He who with more than parent's love
Hath led me night and day;
Who erreth not, who changeth not,
Who woundeth but to heal,
Who darkeneth not man's sunny lot
Save for his spirit's weal:
Therefore I bow me to his sway,
I mourn, but not repine,
And chastened, yet confiding say,
Lord—not my will, but thine.
