"SORE IN NEED WAS I OF A FAITHFUL FRIEND"

Sore in need was I of a faithful friend,
And it seemed to me that life
Had come to its much desired end--
Just then God gave me a wife.

I had seen the beauty of fairy things,
And seen the women walk;
I had heard the voice of the seven sins
And all the wonderful talk.

Ah, the promising earth that seems so kind,
And the comrades with outstretched hand--
But did you ever stand alone
In a black, forsaken land?
Then the wonderful things that God can do
One comes to understand:

How He turns the desert dust to a dream,
And the lonely wind to a friend,
And makes a bright beginning
Of what had seemed the end:
'Twas in such an hour God placed in mine
The moonbeam hand of a friend.


"I THOUGHT, BEFORE MY SUNLIT TWENTIETH YEAR"

I thought, before my sunlit twentieth year,