God Knows (Times of Trial)

1. God knows the bitter, weary way,
The endless striving day by day,
The souls that weep, the souls that pray—
He knows it all.

2. He knows how hard the fight has been,
The clouds that come our lives between,
The wounds the world has never seen—
He knows it all.

3. He knows, when faint and worn we sink,
How deep the pain, how near the brink
Of dark despair we pause and shrink—
He knows it all.

4. He knows! O tho’t so full of bliss!
For tho’ on earth our joys we miss,
We still can bear it, feeling this—
He knows it all.

This poem was written by Marian Adele Longfellow, a niece of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She born to Stephen Longfellow and Marianne Preble at Portland, Maine on April 1, 1849. She married William Francis Morris (1846-1910) on May 9, 1876. Later she married Michael F. O’Donoghue (1856-1921). According to Julian, her poem/hymn beginning “He knows the bitter, weary way” was titled “Times of Trial” and was written September 15, 1874. (A Dictionary of Hymnology, Part II, John Julian, editor. New York, NY: Dover Publications,  1907/1957, p. 1577)

Marian Longfellow Morris died at the mining town of Shawmut in Tuolumne County, California in the home of her son, Henry Wadsworth Morris, on January 23, 1924. Marian Longfellow published a good bit of poetry under pseudonyms, which might possibly account for this hymn being credited to various authors.