GRIEF.
Reading edition
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him: He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.—Isaiah, liii. 3, 4.
For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
For though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies.
For He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.—Lamentations, iii. 31, 32, 33.
For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.—I. Peter, ii. 19.
When grief that well might humble, swells our pride, And pride increasing, aggravates our grief, The tempest must prevail till we are lost. Lillo.
Every grief we feel Shortens the destined number; every pulse Beats a short moment of the pain away, And the last stroke will come. By swift degrees Time sweeps us off, and soon we shall arrive At life’s sweet period. Celestial point That ends this mortal story. Watts.
We grieve to think our eyes no more That form, those features loved, shall trace. But sweet it is from memory’s store To call each fondly-cherished grace, And fold them in the heart’s embrace. No bliss ’mid worldly crowds is bred, Like musing on the sainted dead. We grieve to see expired the race They ran, intent on works of love; But sweet to think no mixture base, With which their better nature strove, Shall rear their virtuous deeds above. Sin o’er their soul has lost its hold, And left them with their earthly mould. Bishop Mant.
This is the curse of time. Alas! In grief I am not all unlearned; Once thro’ mine own doors death did pass— One went who never hath returned. ***** Let grief be her own mistress still, She loveth her own anguish deep, More than much pleasure. Let her will Be done—to weep or not to weep. Words weaker than your grief, would make Grief more. ’Twere better I should cease; Altho’ myself could almost take The place of him that sleeps in peace. Tennyson.
We overstate the ills of life, and take Imagination, given us to bring down The choirs of singing angels, overshone By God’s clear glory,—down our earth, to rake The dismal snows instead; flake following flake, To cover all the corn. We walk upon The shadow of hills, across a level thrown, And pant like climbers. Near the alder-brake We sigh so loud, the Nightingale within Refuses to sing loud, as else she would. O, brothers! let us leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, The holy name of Grief!—holy herein, That by the grief of One, came all our good. Miss Barrett.
Warm, soft, motionless, As flowers in stillest noon before the sun, They lie three paces from him: such they lie As when he left them sleeping side by side, A mother’s arm round each, a mother’s cheeks Between them, flusht with happiness and love. He was more changed than they were, doomed to show, Thee and the stranger, how defaced and scarr’d Grief hunts us down the precipice of years, And whom the faithless prey upon the last. W. S. Landor.