John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Religious PoemsThe Reward
W
Sees not the spectre of his misspent time?
And, through the shade
Of funeral cypress planted thick behind,
Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind
From his loved dead?
Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse?
Who does not cast
On the thronged pages of his memory’s book,
At times, a sad and half-reluctant look,
Regretful of the past?
We do, and leave the wished-for good undone:
Our strength to-day
Is but to-morrow’s weakness, prone to fall;
Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all
Are we alway.
Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears,
If he hath been
Permitted, weak and sinful as he was,
To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,
His fellow-men?
A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin;
If he hath lent
Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need,
Over the suffering, mindless of his creed
Or home, hath bent;
The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives,
With thankful heart;
He gazes backward, and with hope before,
Knowing that from his works he nevermore
Can henceforth part.