The Waiting

I WAIT and watch: before my eyes

Methinks the night grows thin and gray;

I wait and watch the eastern skies

To see the golden spears uprise

Beneath the oriflamme of day!

Like one whose limbs are bound in trance

I hear the day-sounds swell and grow,

And see across the twilight glance,

Troop after troop, in swift advance,

The shining ones with plumes of snow!

I know the errand of their feet,

I know what mighty work is theirs;

I can but lift up hands unmeet,

The threshing-floors of God to beat,

And speed them with unworthy prayers.

I will not dream in vain despair

The steps of progress wait for me:

The puny leverage of a hair

The planet’s impulse well may spare,

A drop of dew the tided sea.

The loss, if loss there be, is mine,

And yet not mine if understood;

For one shall grasp and one resign,

One drink life’s rue, and one its wine,

And God shall make the balance good.

Oh power to do! Oh baffled will!

Oh prayer and action! ye are one.

Who may not strive, may yet fulfil

The harder task of standing still,

And good but wished with God is done!

1862.