The Reward

WHO, looking backward from his manhood’s prime,

Sees not the spectre of his misspent time?

And, through the shade

Of funeral cypress planted thick behind,

Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind

From his loved dead?

Who bears no trace of passion’s evil force?

Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse?

Who does not cast

On the thronged pages of his memory’s book,

At times, a sad and half-reluctant look,

Regretful of the past?

Alas! the evil which we fain would shun

We do, and leave the wished-for good undone:

Our strength to-day

Is but to-morrow’s weakness, prone to fall;

Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all

Are we alway.

Yet who, thus looking backward o’er his years,

Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears,

If he hath been

Permitted, weak and sinful as he was,

To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,

His fellow-men?

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in

A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin;

If he hath lent

Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need,

Over the suffering, mindless of his creed

Or home, hath bent;

He has not lived in vain, and while he gives

The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives,

With thankful heart;

He gazes backward, and with hope before,

Knowing that from his works he nevermore

Can henceforth part.

1848.