William Ellery Channing (1818–1901)

I STILL can suffer pain;

I strive and hope in vain;

My wounds may not all heal,

Nor time their depth reveal.

So dreamed I, of a summer day,

As in the oak’s cool shade I lay,

And thought that shining, lightsome river

Went rippling, rippling on forever:—

That I should bend with pain,

Should sing and love in vain;

That I should fret and pine,

And hopeless thought define.

I want a true and simple heart,

That asks no pleasure in a part,

But seeks the whole; and finds the soul,

A heart at rest, in sure control.

I shall accept all I may have,

Or fine or foul, or rich or brave;

Accept that measure in life’s cup,

And touch the rim and raise it up.

Some drop of Time’s strange glass it holds,

So much endurance it enfolds;

Or base and small, or broadly meant,

I cannot spill God’s element.

Dion or Cæsar drained no more,

Not Solon, nor a Plato’s lore;

So much had they the power to do,

So much hadst thou, and equals too.