Sweet-voiced Hope, thy fine discourse
Foretold not half life's good to me:
Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force
To show how sweet it is to be!
Thy witching dream
And pictured scheme
To match the fact still want the power:
Thy promise brave--
From birth to grave--
Life's boon may beggar in an hour.
"Ask and receive," 'tis sweetly said;
Yet what to plead for know I not;
For wish is wasted, hope o'ersped,
And aye to thanks returns my thought.
If I would pray,
I've naught to say
But this, that God may be God still;
For him to live
Is still to give,
And sweeter than my wish, his will.
O wealth of life beyond all bound!
Eternity each moment given!
What plummet may the Present sound
Who promises a future heaven?
Or glad or grieved,
Oppressed, relieved,
In blackest night or brightest day,
Still pours the flood
Of golden good,
And more than heartful fills me aye.
My wealth is common; I possess
No petty province, but the whole.
What's mine alone is mine far less
Than treasure shared by every soul,
Talk not of store,
Millions or more--
Of values which the purse may hold--
But this divine!
I own the mine
Whose grains outweigh a planet's gold.
I have a stake in every star,
In every beam that fills the day;
All hearts of men my coffers are,
My ores arterial tides convey;
The fields and skies
And sweet replies
Of thought to thought are my gold-dust,
The oaks and brooks
And speaking looks
Of lovers' faith and friendship's trust.
Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow
For him who lives above all years;
Who all-immortal makes the Now,
And is not ta'en in Time's arrears;
His life's a hymn
The seraphim
Might stop to hear or help to sing,
And to his soul
The boundless whole
Its bounty all doth daily bring.
"All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith;
"The wealth I am must then become
Richer and richer, breath by breath--
Immortal gain, immortal room!"
And since all his
Mine also is,
Life's gift outruns my fancies far,
And drowns the dream
In larger stream,
As morning drinks the morning star.
--David Atwood Wasson.