Caroline Fry (Wilson)

Patience

Patience, when heathen darkness veil'd the world,
Was that high spirit of unbending pride,
That dar'd to err, but was asham'd to suffer.
When man, unknowing of the God that made him,
Unknowing of himself, indignant saw
He could not turn aside the bitter shafts
Of pain and sorrow that beset him round,
Helpless to shun, and impotent to change
His fortunes, he determin'd not to feel.
God pitying saw — but man undaunted stood,
With stubborn courage arm'd, and call'd it Patience.
Not such was His, upon whose sacred brow
The bloody drops of agony intense
Attest the writhing anguish of his soul,
When, sinking low and heavy unto death,
He wish'd it might be that the cup might pass.
Not such was His, who on the burthen'd cross,
That bare the sins and sorrows of a world,
With eyes uplifted to his native skies,
Bewail'd himself forsaken of his God!
His was no bosom obdurately bold,
That brav'd Omnipotence itself to wound, —
The heathen's boast. And what is Patience now?
A spirit alive to every touch of woe,
And willing to endure it; — a spirit sublime,
That feels and tears not, mourns and is content, —
That scorns to ask an antidote of pride,
And what the world calls firmness, to defeat
The purpose, all terrific as it is,
For which the bitter cup of wrath was mix'd.
"Strike me, O Lord, I am content to suffer! —
Strike, and I'll fall!"—is all a Christian's boast.
No hero he, with cool defiance arm'd,
To try his strength against an adverse fate;
But a chastis'd, submitting, contrite child,
Who trembles at an angry Father's frown.
A Christian's Patience never is asham'd
To shed the tear her God is pleas'd to draw,
Nor blushes though a world should hear the groan
With which she sinks beneath his chastening hand.
But she disclaims the anticipating fear,
The doubt mistrustful, and the faithless eye,
Whose gloomy vision nothing sees but ill,
Regrets all past, and fears for all to come.
Patience gives thanks for all that is gone by,
Or sorrow borne, or pleasure past away;
Patience hopes good in all that is unseen,
The present feels, and suffers and submits:
Or if the sense of wrath-deserving guilt
Compel her to expect the judgment due,
She waits, as the consenting patient waits
The knife that is to part the canker'd limb.
Such is a Christian's patience tow'rds his God.
Patience tow'rds others is that holy calm
That grows not warm at sight of others' wrong,
Too eager to correct what Heav'n permits.
She ventures not with a presuming hand
To pluck the ears from the unripen'd corn
That God has said must stand and grow together;
But, seeing evil, marks it with a frown,
Avoids its touch, and leaves the rest to Heaven.
If insincerity and trust betray'd
Have check'd the glow of artless confidence,—
If black ingratitude the service pay
Of generous and disinterested zeal, —
Patience exclaims not, with indignant haste,
Against the world, and all that habit it —
Shuns not their face with misanthropic hate,
Nor selfishly withdraws her from their claims;
But feeling, some small circumstance apart,
The nature that has wrong'd her is her own,
She wishes it were other than it is,
But as it is, she loves, and serves it still.
If jealous misconstruction watch her looks,
Injustice sit in judgment on her deeds,
And falsehood be reporter of her words,
Not too much anxious to excuse herself,
Not eager to be thought for ever right,
Patience beholds the impotent attempt,
And smiles to think they never can detect
A thousandth part of all the guilt she feels.
When Patience sits upon the higher seat,
Without resentment she receives the shafts
That envious littleness, with erring aim,
Shoots upwards from its lowness, but to prove
Its own impatience of superior powers.
She sees in Jealousy's reflective glass
The value of the talent she enjoys,
And thence prepares her reckoning with her Lord.
Or if her seat be low, Patience feels not
Herself despis'd when others are esteem'd;
But, with an even and untroubled step,
Lowly, but not asham'd, pursues her way,—
Renders to all, without a jealous pang,
The honour that she blushes not to want,—
And proves, all unpretending as she is,
She is too great to wish that she were greater.
But Patience, tow'rds each other and to God,
Leaves yet unperfected her harder task.
"Possess your souls in patience," were the words
Of One who better knew the human heart
Than he whose darken'd bosom it inhabits:
He knew that man, as proud as he is weak,
Abhors his weakness for his honour's sake,
Feeling less sorrowful that ill be done,
Than that himself must bear its obloquy.
For many a tear of seeming penitence
Has fallen disregarded of the Lord,
And many a cry of bitter self-reproach
Has been dispers'd before it reach'd to heav'n.
For the false tear was wrung from wounded pride—
And self-esteem, impatient of disgrace,
Breath'd the impetuous, unapprov'd confession.
But patience, such as pious bosoms feel,
Is calm in contemplation of herself;
Sees with a sad, but not impassion'd eye,
The sin she hates because her Father hates it,
But bears, because her gracious Master bears.
If some besetting sin her bosom sear,
More sorry for the wrong it does her God
Than for the shame it brings upon herself,
More anxious that repentance be sincere,
Than wroth to have occasion to repent;
No high resolves of self-subduing force
Solace her pride with thought of generous effort;
She calmly lays it at her Maker's feet,
And cries, "O Lord, do thou perform the cure,
And let me pay the cost! — and if it be
The utmost sum of all that I possess,
Yet spare it not— take what I cannot give!"
No idle dreamer of perfection here,
Patience looks forward with intense delight,
But with submission, to that happier hour
When death shall purify the erring soul,
And rid her of the guilt that wearies her.
She bears it as the culprit wears his chain,
The badge of infamy that marks his fall,
With calm, submissive penitence and shame;
Not as the maniac, impotently raging,
To burst the bonds he knows not why he wears.
Such is a Christian's patience. Would you ask
What may be his who dares not boast that name,
Whose sins are yet unpardon'd, unsubdued,
And unrepented?—I would answer, None!—
None to the wicked, none to the condemn'd.
Patience, the child of Heav'n, inhabits not
That seat of desolation and despair,
That earthly hell, an unregenerate bosom!
Some decent counterfeit, some self-command,
Some lordly passion, bow'd to interest,
Or prudent calculation of the gain,
May wear the semblance of the thing it is not;
But pure and holy Patience blossoms never,
Unless implanted by celestial grace!