Religio Medici

God’s own best will bide the test

    And God’s own worst will fall;

But, best or worst or last or first,

    He ordereth it all.

For all is good, if understood,

    (Ah, could we understand!)

And right and ill are tools of skill

    Held in His either hand.

The harlot and the anchorite,

    The martyr and the rake,

Deftly He fashions each aright,

    Its vital part to take.

Wisdom He makes to form the fruit

    Where the high blossoms be;

And Lust to kill the weaker shoot,

    And Drink to trim the tree.

And Holiness that so the bole

    Be solid at the core;

And Plague and Fever, that the whole

    Be changing evermore.

He strews the microbes in the lung,

    The blood-clot in the brain;

With test and test He picks the best,

    Then test them once again.

He tests the body and the mind,

    He rings them o’er and o’er;

And if they crack, He throws them back,

    And fashions them once more.

He chokes the infant throat with slime,

    He sets the ferment free;

He builds the tiny tube of lime

    That blocks the artery.

He lets the youthful dreamer store

    Great projects in his brain,

Until He drops the fungus spore

    That smears them out again.

He stores the milk that feeds the babe,

    He dulls the tortured nerve;

He gives a hundred joys of sense

    Where few or none might serve.

And still He trains the branch of good

    Where the high blossoms be,

And wieldeth still the shears of ill

    To prune and prune His tree.