Mother, I see you with your nursery light, <br />Leading your babies, all in white, <br />To their sweet rest; <br />Christ, the Good Shepherd, carries mine tonight, <br />And that is best. <br /> <br />I cannot help tears when I see them twine <br />Their fingers in yours, and their bright curls shine <br />On your warm breast. <br />But the Saviour's is purer than yours or mine. <br />He can love best. <br /> <br />You tremble each hour because your arms <br />Are weak; your heart is wrung with alarms <br />And sore opprest: <br />My darlings are safe, out of reach of harm <br />And that is best. <br /> <br />You know over yours may hang even now <br />Pain and disease, whose fulfilling slow, <br />Naught can arrest. <br />Mine in God's gardens run to and fro, <br />And that is best. <br /> <br />You know that of yours, your feeblest one <br />And dearest, may live long years alone, <br />Unloved, unblest. <br />Mine entered spotless on eternal years, <br />Oh, how much the best. <br /> <br />But grief is selfish; I cannot see <br />Always why I should stricken be, <br />More than the rest: <br />But I know that, as well as for them, for me <br />God did the best.<br /><br />Helen Hunt Jackson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/best/
