WHY do I sleep amid the snows, Why do the pine boughs cover me, While dark the wind of winter blows Across the Narragansett's sea? O sense of right! O sense of right, Whate'er my lot in life may be, Thou art to me God's inner light, And these tired feet must follow thee. Yes, still my feet must onward go, With nothing for my hope but prayer, Amid the winds, amid the snow, And trust the ravens of the air. But though alone, and grieved at heart, Bereft of human brotherhood, I trust the whole and not the part, And know that Providence is good. Self-sacrifice is never lost, But bears the seed of its reward; They who for others leave the most, For others gain the most from God. O sense of right! I must obey, And hope and trust, whate'er betide; I cannot always know my way, But I can always know my Guide. And so for me the winter blows Across the Narragansett's sea, And so I sleep beneath the snows, And so the pine boughs cover me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A MAN CHILD IS BORN (1839) by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALONZO CHURCHILL by EDGAR LEE MASTERS HER EYES by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON SHIPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR EPITAPH ON THE MONUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM DYER by KATHERINE DYER WOODNOTES: 2 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON |