Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
George Francis Savage-Armstrong b. 1845The Father
I
Were it not good to cherish,
Seeing to lose its beam
Is in despair to perish—
Maker and Father and Friend,
Yearning in pity to guide me,
Leading me on to the end,
Ever in love beside me,
Never in storm or gloom
Deaf to a cry of sorrow,
Kindling beyond the tomb
Light of an endless morrow?
Better it were to clasp it,
Brood on it until it seem
Real as the lives that grasp it.
Helpless, feeble, and lost,
Groping in Wisdom’s traces,
Whirl’d like a leaf, and tost
Out in the awful spaces,—
Oh, how the heart betray’d
Bounds, into life upleaping,
Trusting that He who made
Watch over all is keeping!