Service

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

From “Pippa Passes”

ALL service ranks the same with God:

If now, as formerly he trod

Paradise, his presence fills

Our earth, each only as God wills

Can work—God’s puppets, best and worst,

Are we; there is no last nor first.

Say not “a small event”! Why “small”?

Costs it more pain than this, ye call

A “great event,” should come to pass,

Than that? Untwine me from the mass

Of deeds which make up life, one deed

Power shall fall short in or exceed!