Learn patience. Watch the quiet-moving hours Slowly beneath hard winter form the spring. To-day the earth is locked in icy death, To-morrow, and to-morrow. Dreary boughs Flaunt their dry leaves in mockery of life. The ground is adamant; no juices run; The world is chained in silent hopelessness. But patience! By a hair's breadth momently The whirling globe turns nearer to the sun. And patience! By a hair's breadth momently The iron earth relaxes into life. Slow drop by drop the sluggish current starts Through nature's myriad veins. The glittering sky Takes on insensibly a milder light. The meadow softens. Through the waiting woods Delicious thrills anticipate the spring. For He, the Life, the omnipresent Life, The Life that beats at every door of death, The Life that broods in every sky, and spreads In ceaseless widening waves to every shore, Has filled the world too full for any noise Or bluster of His working, -- nought to do, In any corner of His universe, But live and love and be the God He is! So shall I live when I am one with Him. So shall I work in all serenity. So shall I face the cold or any heat, The storm or drought, and live my life through all. So shall I know the shallowness of sound, The majesty of calm; and so at last Become co-worker of God's patient years. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HIDE AND SEEK by SARA TEASDALE RARE DESTINY by FLORA LOUISE BAILEY THE STRICKEN HART by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT MY DELIGHT by GAMALIEL BRADFORD SONNET TO --. by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD THE CAPTAIN'S LADY by ROBERT BURNS O'CONNOR'S CHILD; OR, THE FLOWER OF LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING by THOMAS CAMPBELL |