Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Belief

The pain we have to suffer seems so broad,
    Set side-by-side with this life's narrow span,
We need no greater evidence that God
    Has some diviner destiny for man.

He would not deem it worth His while to send
    Such crushing sorrows as pursue us here,
Unless beyond this fleeting journey's end
    Our chastened spirits found another sphere

So small this world! So vast its agonies!
    A future life is needed to adjust
These ill-proportioned, wide discrepancies
    Between the spirit and its frame of dust.

So when my soul writhes with some aching grief,
    And all my heart-strings tremble at the strain,
My Reason lends new courage to Belief,
    And all God's hidden purposes seem plain. 

1. Sapphires
2. As by Fire
3. At Eleusis
4. The Barbarous Chief
5. Sonnets of Sorrow. 14. Full many a roadway that we trod was rough

David Lawrence Belief ("Forever nameless")

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