The Omer

SO, Lord, teach us to number our days,

That our hearts in the process grow wise.

But what is there for man to appraise?—

A measure of grain

And a measure of pain.

And the end? The dead chaff from the sheaf?

So this trouble leaps forth to the skies;

When Death holds us in wintry embrace,

Shall we gaze, O our God, on Thy face?

Lo, the Spring to our craving replies,

And the bud and the leaf

Are the ground of belief

That the soul, spite of dying, ne’er dies,

Takes new life in God’s springtime again.