WHERE NEITHER RUST NOR MOTH DOTH CORRUPT by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

Nerve us with patience, Lord, to toil or rest,
Toiling at rest on our allotted level;
Unsnared, unscared by world or flesh or devil,
Fulfilling the good Will of Thy behest:
Not careful here to hoard, not here to revel;
But waiting for our treasure and our zest
Beyond the fading splendour of the west,
Beyond this deathstruck life and deathlier evil.
Not with the sparrow building here a house:
But with the swallow tabernacling so
As still to poise alert to rise and go
On eager wings with wing-outspeeding wills
Beyond earth's gourds and past her almond boughs,
Past utmost bound of the everlasting hills.

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