The Beatific Vision

OH God! if I do my duty
And walk in the thorny way,
Will you pay me with heavens of beauty,
Millions of lives away?
Will you give me the music of heaven,
And the joy that none understands,
In place of what life would have given
If I had held out my hands?

I have lived in a narrow prison,
I have writhed 'neath a bitter creed,
And I dare to say that no heaven can pay
The renounced dream and deed,
But when my life's portal closes,
If you have no heaven to spare
God! give me a garden of roses,
And some one to walk with there.