All’s For The Best.
All’s for the best ! Be sanguine and cheerful,
Trouble and sorrow are friends in disguise;
Nothing but folly goes faithless and fearful,
Courage forever is happy and wise.
All for the best – if a man would but know it,
Providence wishes us all to be blest;
This is no dream of the pundit or poet,
Heaven is gracious, and – all’s for the best.
All’s for the best ! – set this on your standard,
Soldiers of sadness, or pilgrims of love,
Who to the shores of despair may have wandered,
A way-wearied swallow or heart-stricken dove.
All’s for the best ! Be a man but confiding,
Providence tenderly governs the rest,
And the frail bark of His creature of guiding,
Wisely and warily, all for the best.
All’s for the best ! Then fling away terrors,
Meet all of your fears and your foes in the van,
And in the midst of your dangers or errors,
Trust like a child, when you strive like a man.
All’s for the best ! – unbiased, unbounded,
Providence reigns from the East to the West;
And, by both wisdom and mercy surrounded,
Hope and be happy that all’s for the best.
Title:All’s For The Best.
Author:Unknown
Publication:Preston Guardian
Published in:
Date:March 9th 1861
Commentary
This optimistic poem with its Panglossian message is republished here from Hogg’s Weekly Instructor. This kind of moral poem was not unusual in the Victorian period but they took on a new significance during the Cotton Famine. Coming at the beginning of the crisis this piece might be seen as slightly misjudged. The town it was published in, Preston, saw half of its population dependent on food relief within a year. – SR