THIS IS MY TASK
When the whole world resounds with rude alarms
Of warring arms,
When God’s good earth, from border unto border
Shows man’s disorder,
Let me not waste my dower of mortal might
In grieving over wrongs I cannot right.
This is my task: amid discordant strife
To keep a clean sweet centre in my life;
And though the human orchestra may be
Playing all out of key—
To tune my soul to symphonies above,
And sound the note of love.
This is my task.
When by the minds of men most beauteous Faith
Seems doomed to death,
And to her place is hoisted, by soul treason,
The dullard Reason,
Let me not hurry forth with flag unfurled
To proselyte an unbelieving world.
This is my task: in depths of unstarred night
Or in diverting and distracting light
To keep (in crowds, or in my room alone)
Faith on her lofty throne;
And whatsoever happen or befall,
To see God’s hand in all.
This is my task.
When, in church pews, men worship God in words,
But meet their kind with swords,
When Fair Religion, stripped of holy passion,
Walks masked as Fashion,
Let me not wax indignant at the sight;
Or waste my strength bewailing her sad plight.
This is my task: to search in my own mind
Until the qualities of God I find;
To seek them in the hearts of friend and foe—
Or high or low;
And in my hours of toil, or prayer, or play,
To live my creed each day.
This is my task.
THE STATUE
A granite rock in the mountain side
Gazed on the world and was satisfied.
It watched the centuries come and go,
It welcomed the sunlight yet loved the snow,
It grieved when the forest was forced to fall,
Yet joyed when steeples rose white and tall
In the valley below it, and thrilled to hear
The voice of the great town roaring near.
When the mountain stream from its idle play
Was caught by the mill-wheel and borne away
And trained to labour, the gray rock mused,
‘Tree and verdure and stream are used
By man the master, but I remain
Friend of the mountain and star and plain,
Unchanged forever by God’s decree
While passing centuries bow to me.’
Then all unwarned, with a mighty shock
Out of the mountain was wrenched the rock;
Bruised and battered, and broken in heart
It was carried away to the common mart.
Wrenched, and ruined in peace and pride,
‘Oh, God is cruel,’ the granite cried,
‘Comrade of mountain, of star the friend,
By all deserted—how sad my end.’
A dreaming sculptor in passing by
Gazed on the granite with thoughtful eye;
Then stirred with a purpose supremely grand
He bade his dream in the rock expand.
And lo! from the broken and shapeless mass
That grieved and doubted, it came to pass
That a glorious statue of priceless worth
And infinite beauty adorned the earth.