Not otherwise would Truth be all our own
  Unless by flood and flame,
When the last word of Destiny is known—­
  God’s fresh revealed Name. 
For thence do windows burst in Heaven and light
  Breaks on our darkened lands,
And sovereign Mercy may fulfil through night
  The Justice it demands. 
Ah, not in evil but for endless good
  He bids the sluices run
And death, to mould His blessed Brotherhood
  Which had not else begun.

For if the great Arch-builder comes to frame
  Yet broader empires, then
He lays the stones in blood and splendid shame
  With glorious lives of men. 
He takes our richest and requires the whole
  Nor is content with less,
He cannot rear by a divided dole
  The walls of Righteousness. 
And so He forms His grand foundations deep
  Not on our golden toys,
But in the twilight where the mourners weep
  Of broken hearts and joys.

And He will only have the best or nought,
  A full and willing price,
When the tall towers eternal are upwrought
  With tears and sacrifice. 
Our sighs and prayers, the loveliness of loss,
  The passion and the pain
And sharpest nails of every noble cross,
  Were never borne in vain. 
That fragrant faith the incense of His courts,
  Whereon this dim world thrives
And hardly gains at length His peaceful ports,
Is wrung from bruised lives.

Lo, when grim battle rages and is shed
  A dreadful crimson dew,
God is at work and of the gallant dead
  He maketh man anew. 
The hero courage, the endurance stout,
  The self-renouncing will,
The shock of onset and the thunder shout
  That triumph over ill—­
All wreak His purpose though at bitter cost
  And fashion forth His plan,
While not a single sob or ache is lost
  Which in His Breath began.

Each act august, which bravely in despite
  Of suffering dared to be,
Is one with the grand order infinite
  Which sets the kingdoms free. 
The pleading wound, the piteous eye that opes
  Again to nought but pangs,
Are jewels and sweet pledges of those hopes
  On which His empire hangs. 
But if we travail in the furnace hot
  And feel its blasting ire,
He learns with us the anguish of our lot
  And walketh in the fire.

He wills no waste, no burden is too much
  In the most bitter strife;
Beneath the direst buffet is His touch,
  Who holds the pruning knife. 
We are redeemed through sorrow, and the thorn
  That pierces is His kiss,
As through the grave of grief we are re-born
  And out of the abyss. 
The blood of nations is the precious seed
  Wherewith He plants our gates
And from the victory of the virile deed
  Spring churches and new states.