Poem by Alfred Noyes

Compensations

Not with a flash that rends the blue
  Shall fall the avenging sword.
Gently as the evening dew
  Descends the mighty Lord.

His dreadful balances are made
  To move with moon and tide;
Yet shall not mercy be afraid
  Nor justice be denied.

The dreams that seemed to waste away,
  The kindliness forgot,
Were singing in your heart today
  Although you knew them not.

The sun shall not forget his road,
  Nor the high stars their rhyme,
The traveller with the heavier load
  Has one less hill to climb.

And, though a darker shadow fall
  On every struggling age,
How shall it be if, after all,
  He share our pilgrimage?

The end we mourn is not the end.
  The dust has nimble wings.
But truth and beauty have a friend
  At the deep heart of things.

He will not speak? What friend belies
  His love with idle breath?
We read it in each others' eyes,
  And ask no more in death.

1. Princeton, May, 1917
2. The Elfin Artist
3. Earth-Bound
4. A Ride for the Queen
5. Moving through the Dew

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