SISTER of Faith and Charity,
Where there are only three;
Fit habitant of heaven, yet content,
On pity's errand bent,
To ply upon the earth, and steer
The bark of every helpless passenger:
Whether in lofty and well laden keel,
With gilded prow and purple sail,
Fame in the breeze and honour in the gale;
Or on the raft of poverty, unknown,
He stem the tide, unfreighted and alone.
There is a Power,celestial, yet begot
Of earth,in heaven they need her not:
Our joy's companion and our sorrow's friend,
Her errand is to tend
Our earthly voyage, and amid the storm,
Whene'er it come,
To show the beacon of our distant home.
Sometimes within her gentle hand she'll bring
The youngest blossoms of the unblown Spring;
So beautiful in promise as they grow,
Desire scarce consents that they should blow.
And sometimes, sparkling clear,
Her hand will bear
In amber cup a draught that scarce may seem
Other than those that ancient fablers dream;
Of which the first small sip
That wets the lip,
Wins the enchanted spirit to forego
The sense of present or remembered woe;
And see, instead of things that are, or were,
Or may be, foul or fair,
Nought save the rainbow colours of the drop,
That hangs upon the margin of that cup.
Wrapt in a veil opaque that seems to hide
The secrets of futurity,denied
To read the things that lie
In fate's obscurity;
She bears withal behind that veil an eye,
So piercing, so intent on what may be,
That more and brighter things than truth has told,
Or love may pledge, or faith itself behold,
Of shape indefinite she seems to see,
More fair for their obscurity:
And seeing them, she smiles; and with those smiles,
Man's fearful, dark uncertainty beguiles;
And bids him, on the half-told secret, wait
The nameless promise of his coming fate.
Yon brilliant lamps of heaven, that love to pour
Their brightest stream at their meridian hour,
As towards the dull horizon they decline,
More dimly shine;
Deadened and dull, the waning light decreases;
Grown weary of their task before it ceases.
But truer far than they, the Power divine,
Coldly and darkly as our days decline,
Trims to a chaster and a purer gleam
The lustre of her lamp's expiring beam;
Brighter and brighter as the shadows fall,
The latest beam the brightest of them all.
While Charity and Faith their Sister claim,
Will grateful mortals question of her name?