WHY ever to a shining mark
- Should human hope be reaching?
- The heavens may fail to tell the tale
- That fading flowers are teaching:
- A little lamp outshines a star,
- And come to conscience clearer,
- Reflected from this humble heroine's story,
- Than Solomon's could give, with all his glory.
- Poor widow, wasted, wan, and weak,
- I see thy footsteps falter,
- As through the throng, that flaunt along
- To gain God's awful altar,
- Thou, in thy worn and week-day garb,
- From silken robes art shrinking;
- And, one by one, the proud pass on
- Before thee, never thinking
- Their golden gifts, bestowed in ostentation,
- Will be as dross weighed with thy pure oblation.
- O, sad and stricken poverty!
- A scanty pittance earning,
- How like the dream of cooling stream
- To lips in fever burning,
- The Savior's sweet and soothing tone—
- As though the poor addressing—
- Comes in the hour of sorrow's power,
- "The widow wins the blessing!"
- O woman! in the depths of want and sadness,
- Heaven holds for thee a fount of hope and gladness.
- To cedar's shade, like cloud, may lie
- Athwart the lily's brightness;
- Yet why complain? there rests no stain
- To mar the blossom's whiteness:
- And darkly thus may pride and power
- Appear to press the lowly;
- Yet never may the shadow stay
- Where faith, like blossom holy,
- Keeps white the heart—to such there will be given
- a Blest assurance of the love of Heaven!
|
