Bruised Reeds and Smoking Flax
(Isa. 42:3)

Where is the scale that tells the weight
of an imp that alights a heart,
or who can comprehend the state
of one struck by a fiery dart?

Who can know- how dark the darkness
that a demon's shadow casts
or somehow obscures joy's brightness
or how cold some hellish blast?

So poor soul, that's perch to sorrow
should such awful fowl alight,
gloom so huge, seems gone the morrow
as it brings with it the night

Oh, but grace will shoo and scatter
and will chase the evil thing.
And without a sound or clatter
make that ugly beast take wing

I know not how many angels
ever danced upon a pin,
but I know the world without
is not as large as that within

The eye of mercy knows the reed
so bruised all strength it lacks; 
and holds the heat a candle needs
and breathes on smoking flax.

And I know that Christ knew sorrow
and was acquainted well with grief.
His grace is there to borrow
and in grace there comes relief