Friend I commend to thee the narrow way: Not because I, please God, will walk therein, But rather for the love-feast of that day The exceeding prize which whoso will may win. This world is old and rotting at the core Here death's heads mock us with a toothless grin Here heartiest laughter leaves us spent and sore. We heap up treasures for the fretting moth, Our children heap our fathers heaped before, But what shall profit us the cumbrous growth? It cannot journey with us, cannot save, Stripped in that darkness be we lief or loth Stripped bare to what we are from all we have, Naked we came, naked we must return To one obscure inevitable grave. If this the lesson is which we must learn Taught by God's discipline of love or wrath (To brand or purify His fire must burn)''" Friend I commend to theee the narrow path That thou and I, please God, may walk therein, May taste and see how good is God Who hath Loved us while hating even to death our sin. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO AN EARLY DAFFODIL; SONNET by AMY LOWELL THRENODY FOR A BROWN GIRL by COUNTEE CULLEN A TRUE HYMN [HYMNE] by GEORGE HERBERT THE FORERUNNERS by GEORGE HERBERT DANNY DEEVER by RUDYARD KIPLING AN AUTOGRAPH (1) by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |