Immortality
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The youth, who daily from the east
Must travel, still is nature’s priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
—William Wordsworth.
Life A Working Day
Man’s life is but a working day
Whose tasks are set aright;
A time to work, a time to pray,
And then a quiet night.
And then, please God, a quiet night
Where palms are green and robes are white;
A long-drawn breath, a balm for sorrow,
And all things lovely on the morrow.
—Christina G. Rossetti.
Light Through Service
Could we by a wish
Have what we will and get the future now,
Would we wish aught done undone in the past?
So, let him wait God’s instant men call years;
Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,
Do out the duty! Through such souls alone
God stooping shows sufficient of His light
For us i’ the dark to rise by. And I rise!
—Robert Browning.
Alternate Reading: Matthew 14:13-21.