Classic Poem

Over that pallid face were wrought
The characters of painful thought;
But on that lip, and in that eye,
Were patience, faith, and piety;
The hope that is not of this earth,
The peace that has in pain its birth;
As if the tumult of this life.
Its sorrow, vanity, and strife,
Had been but as the lightning's shock,
Shedding rich ore upon the rock:
Though in the trial scorched and riven,
The gold it wins, is gold from heaven.