While The Billy BoilsSearchWhen that hour comes when I shall sit alone,And ponder on the things that were, but are no more,The while the weird night-breeze’s dirge-like monotoneIs sobbing fitful anthems round the door;
When homing billows moan and croon unchecked,And no light glimmers on the ocean’s broad expanse;When all my anxious hopes are safe in port, or wreckedOn sharp uncharted rocks of circumstance;
When I have lived my life, and Time at lastDisplays the mottled fate the sisters three have spun,When the night’s mystic, sombre, starless cloak is castAround the naked shoulders of the sun;
I shall be tired, I know, and long to rest,And o’er the past sleep’s veil of sweet oblivion draw,To feel myself drawn softly, dream-like on the breastOf life’s ebb-tide that laps the Eternal Shore.
When that hour comes, and I am drifting slowTo azure distance stretching on, and on, and on;When earth’s coast-lights are dim and blurred and burning low,And other stars rise other worlds upon;
I shall not fear to meet my Master’s gaze,Nor, like an idling child, His Searching Presence shun,E’en though no herald trumpet-voice pronounce my praise,And earth-won hero garlands wear I none.
E’en though the best the world shall know of me,When mouldering clay is laid with kindred clay again,Is but a stone on which the stars shine carelessly,Smooth-polished by the fingers of the rain:
I shall not fear to stand before His FaceAnd answer for the schemes I reared on shifting sandWhereon the waves are trailing albs of pointed lace,If on my way I’ve lent the helping hand
To fellow-pilgrims toiling at my side,Who, worn and weary, faint and fall beside the road,If here betimes the blinding, scalding tear I’ve dried,Or soothed a heart, or eased a galling load,
For He shall say “Your name in dust is hid,No thought or word has earned you immortality;Immortal only are the kindly things you did—Amen I say, you did them unto me.”