WHAT MATTER

What matter, friend, though you and I

May sow and others gather?

We build and others occupy,

Each laboring for the other?

What though we toil from sun to sun,

And men forget to flatter

The noblest work our hands have done--

If God approves, what matter?

What matter, though we sow in tears,

And crops fail at the reaping?

What though the fruit of patient years

Fast perish in our keeping?

Upon our hoarded treasures, floods

Arise, and tempests scatter--

If faith beholds, beyond the clouds,

A clearer sky, what matter?

What matter, though our castles fall,

And disappear while building;

Though "strange handwritings on the wall"

Flame out amid the gilding?

Though every idol of the heart

The hand of death may shatter,

Though hopes decay and friends depart,

If heaven be ours, what matter?

--H. W. Teller.