But Strangely Unafraid

                      'I was unquiet, Lord, beneath Your hands,
                      and chafed because You chose to bend my will
                      to Yours.  I built upon uncertain sands,
                      but You are wise; and in the gloomy chill
                      of pain You razed my dream-house to the ground.
                      I was rebellious, Lord, but impotent
                      when You permitted agony to sound
                      my soul, and stripped my heart of earth's content.

                      Now like a wounded bird I lie within
                      Your hands, wings clipped, but strangely unafraid,
                      secure in Your embrace.  Great God, You win
                      my soul with all its yearnings unbetrayed,
                      and like a dove-gray dawn, peace comes to me,
                      since I have learned to suffer tranquilly.'

 (from Fervorinos From Galilee's Hills, compiled by a Religious, Pelligrini, Australia, 1936, p. 95)

Painting:  'The Stroller,' 1893 


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