Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Charles HenryCrandall

1315 The Human Plan

CHILD, weary of thy baubles of to-day—

Child with the golden or the silver hair—

Say, how wouldst thou have built creation’s stair,

Hadst thou been free to have thy puny way?

Could thy intelligence have shot the ray

That lit the universe of upper air?

Wouldst thou have bid the surging stars to dare

Their glorious flight and never stop nor stay?

Yet, casting on this life thy weak disdain,

Thou triest to guess thy lot in loftier places,

To draw the heaven of our human need;

A door of rest, a flash of wings, a strain

Of ’trancing music, and the long-lost faces!

But, after all, what may be Heaven indeed?