The Peace of God, which Passeth all Understanding

I WONDER why God hurts little ones in hospital yonder,
Lying so pale and quiet, each in his narrow bed,
Who should be filling the radiant air with ringing laughter !
Here fiendish fingers torture every restless head.
The merry hearts are delivered over to cruel
Anguish !
Why doth God not scare the loathsome Pest away,
The harpy at her feast on His own Httle ones who play ?
Ah ! was it well to blast their one poor hour for pleasure,
Who will weep in dull November, nor ever have known a May ?
Nay ! the little ones are Thy children, Thou hast given them gladness !
May I not trust Thee with them, who art the pity in me ?
For how my heart leaps up when I see their dear eyes dawning,
Beholding a toy lamb I bring them tenderly !
Shall my poor rill of love be more than the infinite fountain ?
Then the womb of all were chaos, one wild disharmony !
Nay, the river of reason sweeps imperially rolling
To a goal of reconcilement afar from mortal eye!
Refuse foul is food for a fair supernal flower ;
Blaspheme not the rank soil where a pure blossom springs ;
For blossom soars away in a singing-bird's blithe pinion,
And bird yields a meek life for a spiritual king's.
Discord feeds, and fades in a universal chorus,
And the world-psalm were silent, wanting moods of bale —
So only Love may work her full miracle of blessing ;
Annihilate the base metal, all her art would fail.
Cease, baffled heart ! thy longing to unravel the confusion :
Nay ! for I hear a Voice beyond the seonian wail!
The immeasurable ideal holds us, laps the world in splendour ;
Every dark point dissolves, and radiates glory infinite,
Heaves in waves of mystic music among the heavenlies out of sight.
The Ideal involved within impels to reconcile,
Blessing vile, and mean, and woeworn with a faint, far smile.