Of better fortune coming, then, talk not...

By Anne Whitney

Of better fortune coming, then, talk not,
Thou teachest, and think not: -- nay, rather dare
The utmost of the world's ill strength, despair.
Take up with courage the unlovely lot,
And it shall grow in thy familiar thought
To beauty. -- Dumb sorrows that the life-strings wear,
And stings -- the points of broken trust, and care,
And those hot, random arrows, whose keen shot
Must find thine or another heart, shall all
Be rounded in the sweet and ample sky
Of the enfranchised soul. Eternity
Shall come home to the hour. -- Thou didst not call
Light, light -- heaven, heaven -- till now, when not a thrall,
But king thou art -- yea, free, forever free.