Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete

OVERRULED.

     The threads our hands in blindness spin
     No self-determined plan weaves in;
     The shuttle of the unseen powers
     Works out a pattern not as ours.

     Ah! small the choice of him who sings
     What sound shall leave the smitten strings;
     Fate holds and guides the hand of art;
     The singer's is the servant's part.

     The wind-harp chooses not the tone
     That through its trembling threads is blown;
     The patient organ cannot guess
     What hand its passive keys shall press.

     Through wish, resolve, and act, our will
     Is moved by undreamed forces still;
     And no man measures in advance
     His strength with untried circumstance.

     As streams take hue from shade and sun,
     As runs the life the song must run;
     But, glad or sad, to His good end
     God grant the varying notes may tend!
     1877.