(A mighty Fortress is our God, dédié à mon ami, M)

What of the strength that you have before required, that you should think yourself now weak?
Remember as you should that darker days you have seen, that higher waves
Have crashed against your breakers, and yet you stood, and now here you stand.
Hope, my friend, is not a trifle for you to handle roughly and examine minutely,
Peering into it’s jeweled center as if searching for a flaw, a crack, a fault
Whereupon you believed in a foundation---it is a force whose dominion
You must recognise in the absolute, the duty of noblesse oblige, the same bulwark
That has sheltered your heart in times too numerous to count.
So breathe then my friend, let your heart not be weighted with such things
That are insubstantial as motes.
Believe in this and trust in God that His will be done.
Let not the ghosts of the past have your ear, nor worries for what could be, could be---
Only let your heart rejoice in what is.