The path I trod for thee

And he rode alone because the huntsmen of the unknown must follow a path narrow as the confines of his own body, lonely as his own pain, dark as his own ignorance, and his way is his own way and cannot be shared with another.

The voice came again, the words this time spoken very low in his own soul, as though in warning,
'Many sorrows shalt thou endure for my sake, many temptations will assail thee, but be of good courage, I will always be with thee.'

Pilgrim's Inn: Elizabeth Goudge

Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world
Matt 28:20


Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace,
To look through and behind the mask of me,
(Against which years have beat thus blenchingly
With their rains), and behold my soul's true face,
The dim and weary witness of life's race,-
Because thou hast the faith and love to see,
Through that same soul's distracting lethargy,
The patient angel waiting for a place,
In the new Heavens...

Sonnets from the Portuguese: Elizabeth Barrett Browning