Littell's Living Age/Volume 127/Issue 1635/Whithersoever

by John Wesley Hales

WHITHERSOEVER.

Whatever haps shall come to you and me.

What sunshines and what shadows, what delights

And what strange anguish, what long-during nights

Of loneliness, and what sweet sympathy;

What hours of vision when we seem to see

Something of meaning round us, and what glooms,

Sight-foiling, when an unstarr'd prospect dooms

Our baffled souls to mere perplexity;

Whate'er shall come, friend, yet will we not fear;

For we will aye to our own selves be true —

True to our higher selves all life-time through;

Not murmuring creeds unvital, but agreed

To search for truth, where'er the search shall lead.

With "bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear."

J. W. Hales.

⁠Macmillan's Magazine.