The Old Laborer

What end doth he fulfil?
He seems without a will,
Stupid, unhelpful, helpless, age-worn man!
He hath let the years pass;
He hath toiled, and heard Mass,
Done what he could, and now does what he can.

And this forsooth is all!
A plant or animal
Hath a more positive work to do than he:
Along his daily beat,
Delighting in the heat,
He crawls in sunshine which he does not see.

What doth God get from him?
His very mind is dim,
Too weak to love, and too obtuse to fear.
Is there glory in his strife?
Is there meaning in his life?
Can God hold such a thing-like person dear?

Peace! he is dying now:
No light is on his brow;
He makes no sign, but without sign departs.
The poor die often so, -
And yet they long to go,
To take to God their over-weighted hearts.

Born only to endure,
The patient passive poor
Seem useful chiefly by their multitude;
For they are men who keep
Their lives secret and deep;
Alas! the poor are seldom understood.

This laborer that is gone
Was childless and alone,
And homeless as his Saviour was before him;
He told in no man's ear
His longing, love, or fear,
Nor what he thought of life as it passed o'er him.

He had so long been old,
His heart was close and cold;
He had no love to take, no love to give:
Men almost wished him dead;
T was best for him, they said;
T was such a weary sight to see him live.

He walked with painful stoop,
As if life made him droop,
And care had fastened fetters round his feet;
He saw no bright blue sky,
Except what met his eye
Reflected from the rain-pools in the street.

To whom was he of good?
He slept and he took food,
He used the earth and air, and kindled fire:
He bore to take relief,
Less as a right than grief; -
To what might such a soul as his aspire?

His inexpressive eye
Peered round him vacantly,
As if whate er he did he would be chidden;
He seemed a mere growth of earth;
Yet even he had mirth,
As the great angels have, untold and hidden.

Alway his downcast eye
Was laughing silently,
As if he found some jubilee in thinking;
For his one thought was God,
In that one thought he abode,
For ever in that thought more deeply sinking.

Thus did he live his life,
A kind of passive strife,
Upon the God within his heart relying;
Men left him all alone,
Because he was unknown,
But he heard the angels sing when he was dying.

God judges by a light,
Which baffles mortal sight,
And the useless-seeming man the crown hath won
In His vast world above,
A world of broader love,
God hath some grand employment for His son.