<h2><SPAN name="page48"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>RETROSPECTION</h2>
<p class="poetry">I look down the lengthening distance<br/>
Far back to youth’s valley of hope.<br/>
How strange seemed the ways of existence,<br/>
How infinite life and its scope!</p>
<p class="poetry">What dreams, what ambitions came thronging<br/>
To people a world of my own!<br/>
How the heart in my bosom was longing,<br/>
For pleasures and places unknown.</p>
<p class="poetry">But the hill-tops of pleasure and beauty<br/>
Were covered with mist at the dawn;<br/>
And only the rugged road Duty<br/>
Shone clear, as my feet wandered on.</p>
<p class="poetry">I loved not the path and its leading,<br/>
I hated the rocks and the dust;<br/>
But a Voice from the Silence was pleading,<br/>
It spoke but one
syllable—“Trust.”</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page49"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
49</span>I saw, as the morning grew older,<br/>
The fair flowered hills of delight;<br/>
And the feet of my comrades grew bolder,<br/>
They hurried away from my sight.</p>
<p class="poetry">And when on the pathway I faltered,<br/>
And when I rebelled at my fate,<br/>
The Voice with assurance unaltered,<br/>
Again spoke one
syllable—“Wait.”</p>
<p class="poetry">Along the hard highway I travelled<br/>
And saw, with dim vision, how soon<br/>
The morning’s gold locks were unravelled,<br/>
By fingers of amorous noon.</p>
<p class="poetry">A turn in the pathway of duty—<br/>
I stood in the perfect day’s prime,<br/>
Close, close to the hillside of beauty<br/>
The Voice from the Silence said
“Climb”</p>
<p class="poetry">The road to the beautiful Regions<br/>
Lies ever through Duty’s hard way.<br/>
Oh ye who go searching in legions,<br/>
Know this and be patient to-day.</p>
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