Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight, Through present wrong the eternal right; And, step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man; - John Greenleaf Whittier

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;
I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God...
I know not where his islands lift
Their fronded palms in the air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond his love and care.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, — A universe of sky and snow!