FOR stock and stone; For grass, and pool; for quince tree blown A virginal white in spring; And for the wall beside, Gray, gentle, wide; For roof, loaf, everything, I praise Thee, Lord; For toil, and ache, and strife, And all the commonness of life. Hearty, yet dim, Like country voices in a hymn, The things a house can hold; The memories in the air; And down the stair Fond footsteps known of old; The chair, the book or two; The little bowl of white and blue. What would it be, If loveliness were far from me? A staff I could not take, To hurry up and down, From field to town; Needs would my wild heart break; Or, I would vacant go, And, being naught, to nothing grow. This is the best: My little road from east to west, The breadth of a man's hand, Not from the sky too far, Nor any star, Runs through the unwalled land; From common things that be, Is it but a step to run to Thee. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE DAUGHTER OF DEBATE by ELIZABETH I THE WAVING OF THE CORN by SIDNEY LANIER THE FOUNTAIN by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO THE LADYBIRD by MOTHER GOOSE THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: ON MY TWENTY-FOURTH YEAR by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |