OUT of the life that was so hard to bear,
Clouded by sorrow and perplexed by care,
Out of the long watch and the heavy night,
She has gone forth into the light of light.
A tropic-blossom, warm with sun and scent,
Set in New England’s chill environment;
Through beat of storm and stress of winter’s cold,
She kept the summer in her heart of gold.
Love was the life which pulsed her being through;
No task too hard if set by Love to do,
No pain too sharp if Love called to endure,
No weariness she knew if Love was sure.
Her rose of Love was set with many a thorn,
Clouds veiled and hid the promise of her morn;
Thirsting and spent, she journeyed on unfed,
While Love, too often, gave her stones for bread.
But still ’mid waning hopes and deepening fears
And brave, hard strivings through the ebbing years,
Lifting her up when she was like to fall,
Love led her to the land where Love is all.
Heaven has received her as a welcome guest,
Balming earth’s tire with compensating rest,
Healing earth’s grievous wound with sure content,—
The sense of home after long banishment.
But more to her than smile of vanished kin,
Or hands outstretched to greet and draw her in,
Or “Bonded Walls” of amethyst unpriced,
Is the clear vision of the Face of Christ!
That Face Divine, which, in her girlhood’s day
Seeing, she loved, and never looked away,
Which, like a star in the dim firmament,
Guided her steps and moved where’er she went.
Out of the life that was not always sweet,
Out of the puzzle and the day’s defeat,
Out of earth’s hindering and alien zone,
The Lord of Love has led her to her own.