1. All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs,
Than all my prayers have told!
2. Enough that blessings undeserved
Have marked my erring track;
That wheresoe’er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turned me back.
3. That more and more a providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;
4. That death seems but a covered way
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father’s sight;
5.* That care and trial seem at last,
Through memory's sunset air,
Like mountain ranges overpast,
In purple distance fair;
6.* That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.
7. And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.
Source: Songs of Praise #1
Whittier, John Greenleaf, the American Quaker poet, was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, Dec. 17, 1807. He began life as a farm-boy and shoemaker, and subsequently became a successful journalist, editor and poet. In 1828 he became editor of the American Manufacturer (Boston), in 1830 of the New England Review, and an 1836 (on becoming Secretary to the American Anti-Slavery Society) of the Pennsylvania Freeman. He was also for some time, beginning with 1847, the corresponding editor of the National Era. In 1840 he removed to Amesbury, Massachusetts, where most of his later works have been written. At the present time [1890] he lives alternately at Amesbury and Boston. His first poetical piece was printed in the Newburyport Free Press in 182… Go to person page >
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