For Insight

Lord, as I thread the ways of life 

Amid confusion, toil and strife,

The sting of ill, the mystery

Of hearts concealed beneath the eye:

Help me to know the kindness meant

The purpose born of good intent;

To feel amid distrust and fear

The faith of loyal souls sincere,

Whose grace, though oft I knew it not,

My sins discerned, forgave, forgot.

Give me the patient skill to guess

What words have perished to express;

To realize how a heart is wrung

In anguish hidden by the tongue;

To feel the cheer of prayers unheard;

The gentle wish that hath no word.

The sympathy too deep for sound;

And know in truth that these abound

For him who will his duty do

And to his fellow man be true.

-       Charles Poole Cleaves[1]

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[1] Charles Poole Cleaves was born at Yarmouth, Maine in 1869. He was the son of Thomas and Julia Poole Cleaves.  He graduated from the Bangor Theological Seminary in 1893. Upon graduating Charles became a Congregationalist minister. He also became a husband, marrying Alice Lawrence in June of that year. He was pastor of several New England congregations over the years, mostly in Maine.  He wrote many articles and poems for magazines such as Youth’s Companion, Congregationalist, and Harper’s. In 1904 he published the novel A Case of Sardines: A Story of the Maine Coast.  (Source: Who’s Who in New England, 1909, by Albert N. Marquis)