I know not if the dark or bright
Shall be my lot—
If that wherein my hopes delight
Be best or not.
It may be mine to drag for years
Toil’s heavy chain,
Or day and night my meat be tears
On bed of pain.
Dear faces may surround my hearth
With smiles and glee,
Or I may dwell alone, and mirth
Be strange to me.
My bark is wafted to the strand
By breath divine,
And on the helm there rests a hand
Other than mine.
One who has known in storms to sail
I have on board;
Above the raging of the gale
I hear my Lord.
He holds me when the billows smite—
I shall not fall:
If sharp, ‘tis short; if long, ‘tis light;
He tempers all.
Safe to the land! safe to the land!
The end is this;
And then with Him go hand in hand
Far into bliss!