A heart, O God, that pain nor sor­row tir­eth,
I see Thy will de­mands, my good re­quir­eth;
May I this task, not thought­less, but dis­cern­ing,
Be dai­ly learn­ing.

How oft, when mur­mur­ing
At what Heav’n hath grant­ed,
We still but pluck the thorns our fol­ly plant­ed,
Christ’s cross our own de­sert for sin­ful fall­ing,
Profanely call­ing.

But is his pain, Thy ho­ly law who spurn­eth,
Nor seeks Thy fear, nor Thy obe­di­ence learn­eth,
Nor rues, but for some brok­en earth­ly bub­ble,
A Chris­tian trou­ble?

Yet ev­en when Thou scourg­est, Thy sweet pi­ty
Woos us again to the eter­nal ci­ty;
Thou com’st to wake us from our sin­ful sleep­ing
By pain and weep­ing.

But if I walk un­blamed in all up­right­ness,
The dark­est cloud shall turn for me to bright­ness;
Thou rul­est, Lord! and all Thy paths are tend­ing
To good un­end­ing.

A pil­grim and a stran­ger now I wan­der,
I seek not here my bliss—I find it yon­der;
O bless­èd coun­ter­poise! this mo­ment’s sor­row—
That bright to­mor­row!

And if I cause­less suf­fer, un­de­serv­ing,
For Christ’s dear sake,
Ne’er from His pre­cepts swerv­ing,
Then safe I look, with all the ran­somed na­tion,
For His sal­va­tion.

Frail child of dust am I, by trou­bles driv­en;
Yet in my need I lift my heart to Hea­ven;
From thence firm trust and con­fi­dence I bor­row
For ev­ery sor­row.

Lift up thine eyes! Who guides yon orb­èd mo­tion?
Who saith, No fur­ther! to the feet of ocean?
Is He thy help­er only? and not ra­ther
Thy ten­der­est Fa­ther?

He is all wise:
Wouldst thou His know­ledge mea­sure?
Seek why He sends pain
When thou choos­est plea­sure?
Thou know’st not now;
But thou shalt find here­af­ter
For weep­ing, laugh­ter.

Heav’nward He lifts us by this pre­sent griev­ing,
That we, His Spir­it’s ho­li­ness re­ceiv­ing,
May soothe and bind, by strength to us im­part­ed,
The brok­en heart­ed.

The cross of Christ makes wise by pa­tient bear­ing;
Patience ex­pe­ri­ence works; ex­pe­ri­ence dar­ing;
A heart that dares in ev­ery con­flict’s light­est:
Hope for the bright­est!