Poem by James Whitcomb Riley

A Hymb of Faith

O, Thou that doth all things devise
  And fashon fer the best,
He'p us who sees with mortul eyes
  To overlook the rest.

They's times, of course, we grope in doubt,
  And in afflictions sore;
So knock the louder, Lord, without,
  And we'll unlock the door.

Make us to feel, when times looks bad
  And tears in pitty melts,
Thou wast the only he'p we had
  When they was nothin' else.

Death comes alike to ev'ry man
  That ever was borned on earth;
Then let us do the best we can
  To live fer all life's wurth.

Ef storms and tempusts dred to see
  Makes black the heavens ore,
They done the same in Galilee
  Two thousand years before.

But after all, the golden sun
  Poured out its floods on them
That watched and waited fer the One
  Then borned in Bethlyham.

Also, the star of holy writ
  Made noonday of the night,
Whilse other stars that looked at it
  Was envious with delight.

The sages then in wurship bowed,
  From ev'ry clime so fare;
O, sinner, think of that glad crowd
  That congergated thare!

They was content to fall in ranks
  With One that knowed the way
From good old Jurden's stormy banks
  Clean up to Jedgmunt Day.

No matter, then, how all is mixed
  In our near-sighted eyes,
All things is fer the best, and fixed
  Out straight in Paradise.

Then take things as God sends 'em here,
  And, ef we live er die,
Be more and more contenteder,
  Without a-astin' why.

O, Thou that doth all things devise
  And fashon fer the best,
He'p us who sees with mortul eyes
  To overlook the rest.

1. Wortermelon Time
2. Knee-Deep in June
3. On the Death of Little Mahala Ashcraft
4. To My Old Friend, William Leachman
5. A Barefoot Boy

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