Page:Poems Shipton.djvu/194

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RETROSPECTION.

"Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee."—Deut. viii. 2.
"Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward."—Heb. x. 35.

He was better to me than all my hopes,
 He was better to me than all my fears;
He made a bridge of my broken works,
 And a rainbow of my tears.
The billows that guarded my sea-girt path
 Carried my Lord on their crest;
When I dwell on the days of my wilderness march,
 I lean on His love for the rest.

He emptied my hands of my treasured store,
 And His covenant Love revealed;
There was not a wound in my aching heart
 But the balm of His breath hath healed.
O! tender and true was the chastening sore,
 In wisdom that taught and tried;
Till the soul that He sought was trusting in Him,
 And nothing on earth beside.

There is light for me on the trackless wild,
 As the wonders of old I trace;
When the God of the whole earth went before
 To search me a resting-place.
Has He changed for me? Nay! He changes not;