Page:Poems Hornblower.djvu/188

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176

PROVIDENCE.
To all that lives has God assigned
A strength proportioned to its day;
The smallest bird that skims the wind
Finds through that pathless air a way.

The tribes that northern regions range
The polar ice instinctive shim;
And wing their flight, unknown and strange,
Unerring, to a warmer sun.

The frailest forms then heads that raise,
Weak, shivering at the wintry blast,
If they had power, His love would praise,
Who shields them till the storm be past.

And shall not we, his nobler care,
Whose hearts he fills with hope and joy,
With faith to trust, and strength to bear,
In grateful praise our lips employ.