other way;
It would be folly to sit and wait,
I must up and do, you say!
I do not want you to wait,
For few before they die
Have got so far as begin to be great,
The lesson is so high.
I will tell you the only plan
To climb and not to fall:
He who would rise and be greater than
He is, must be servant of all.
Turn it each way in your mind,
Try every other plan,
You may think yourself great, but at length you’ll find
You are not even a man.
Climb to the top of the trees,
Climb to the top of the hill,
Get up on the crown of the sky if you please,
You’ll be a small creature still.
Be admiral, poet, or king,
Let praises fill both your ears,
Your soul will be but a windmill thing
Blown round by its hopes and fears.
Then put me in the way,
For you, papa, are a man:
What thing shall I do this very day?—
Only be sure I can.
I want to know—I am willing,
Let me at least have a chance!
Shall I give the monkey-boy my shilling?—
I want to serve at once.
Give all your shillings you might
And hurt your brothers the more;
He only can serve his fellows aright
Who goes in at the little door.
We must do the thing we must
Before the thing we may;
We are unfit for any trust
Till we can and do obey.
I will try more and more;
I have nothing now to ask;
Obedience I know is the little door:
Now set me some hard task.
No, Willie; the father of all,
Teacher and master high,
Has set your task beyond recall,
Nothing can set it by.
What is it, father dear,
That he would have me do?
I’d ask himself, but he’s not near,
And so I must ask you!
Me ’tis no use to ask,
I too am one of his boys!
But he tells each boy his own plain task;
Listen, and hear his voice.
Father, I’m listening so
To hear him if I may!
His voice must either be very low,
Or very far away!
It is neither hard to hear,
Nor hard to understand;
It is very low, but very near,
A still, small, strong command.
I do not hear it at all;
I am only hearing you!
Think: is there nothing, great or small,
You ought to go and do?
Let me think:—I ought to feed
My rabbits. I went away
In such a hurry this morning! Indeed
They’ve not had enough to-day!
That is his whisper low!
That is his very word!
You had only to stop and listen, and so
Very plainly you heard!
That duty’s the little door:
You must open it and go in;
There is nothing else to do before,
There is nowhere else to begin.
But that’s so easily done!
It’s such a trifling affair!
So nearly over as soon as begun.
For that he can hardly care!
You are turning from his call
If you let that duty wait;
You would not think any duty small
If you yourself were great.
The nearest is at life’s core;
With the first, you all begin:
What matter how little the little door
If it only let you in?
Papa, I am come again:
It is now three months and more
That I’ve tried to do the thing that was plain,
And I feel as small as before.
Your honour comes too slow?
How much then have you done?
One foot on a mole-heap, would you crow
As if you had reached the sun?
But I cannot help a doubt
Whether this way be the true:
The more I do to work it out
The more there comes to do;
And yet, were all done and past,
I should feel just as small,
For when I had tried to the very last—
’Twas my duty, after all!
It is only much the same
As not being liar or thief!
One who tried it found even, with shame,
That of sinners he was the chief!
My boy, I am glad indeed
You have been finding the truth!
But where’s the good? I shall never speed—
Be one whit greater, in sooth!
If duty itself must fail,
And that be the only plan,
How shall my scarce begun duty prevail
To make me a mighty man?
Ah, Willie! what if it were
Quite another way to fall?
What if the greatness itself lie there—
In knowing that you are small?
In seeing the good so good
That you feel poor, weak, and low;
And hungrily long for it as for food,
With an endless need to grow?
The man who was lord of fate,
Born in an ox’s stall,
Was great because he was much too great
To care about greatness at all.
Ever and only he sought
The will of his Father good;
Never of what was high he thought,
But of what his Father would.
You long to be great; you try;
You feel yourself smaller still:
In the name of God let ambition die;
Let him make you what he will.
Who does the truth, is one
With the living Truth above:
Be God’s obedient little son,
Let ambition die in love.
The Early Bird
A little bird sat on the edge of her nest;
Her yellow-beaks slept as sound as tops;
Day-long she had worked almost without rest,
And had filled every one of their gibbous crops;
Her own she had filled just over-full,
And she felt like a dead bird stuffed with wool.
“Oh dear!” she sighed, as she sat with her head
Sunk in her chest, and no neck at all,
Looking like an apple on a feather-bed
Poked and rounded and fluffed to a ball,
“What’s to be done if things don’t reform?
I cannot tell where there is one more worm!
“I’ve had fifteen to-day, and the children five each,
Besides a few flies, and some very fat
