Patience Taught By Nature

'O DREARY life,' we cry, ' O dreary life ! ' And still the generations of the birds Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds Serenely live while we are keeping strife With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife Against which we may struggle ! Ocean girds Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife Meek leaves drop year]y from the forest-trees To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass In their old glory: O thou God of old, Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these !-- But so much patience as a blade of grass Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.