SOME pine with wistful hunger all their years,
Watering their scanty crumb of joy with tears;
And some there are who, feasting long lives through,
Frighted at over-happiness, weep too.
The sense of undesert, a constant sting,
Pierces and stabs through every pleasant thing,
They shrink before the cup filled to the brim,
Lest through God’s very gift they forfeit him.
Ah! dear hearts, heavy with this nobler woe,
This pain divine, which even saints may know,
There is this thought to balm and still your pain:
“God gives to us that we may give again.”
“I am unworthy!” do you, trembling, say?
Strive to be worthier, then, and day by day
Heap corn and wine, and stand with open door,—
A granary of heaven to feed the poor.
Put of your sweet into each bitterer cup;
Halve every loaf, that some one else may sup,—
Till in the crumbs and fragments of your good
The miracle of old shall seem renewed.
And so, all fearless of the gift of heaven,
Give gladly out that which to you is given,
Sure that to be God’s cup-bearer is meant
For privilege, and not for punishment.