IT is not much that I can do.
My hands are weak.
The lines they draw seem never true;
The works I speak
Are not the ones I long to say,—
I speak not prayers I long to pray.
It is no coward spirit, no—
I try to learn
How others bravely strive and go
Rewards to earn,
And yet success is never mine—
I labor on a false design.
They are not much, these little things
That form my task,
Yet constant seeking never brings
What I would ask,
And of what use is life to one
Who never knew a victory won?
But this one thing I know, that He
Who guides the stars
Will look in charity on me
And see the scars
Which show that I have tried to trace
A path that weeds could not efface.