Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime, <br />Sees not the spectre of his misspent time? <br />And, through the shade <br />Of funeral cypress planted thick behind, <br />Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind <br />From his loved dead? <br /> <br />Who bears no trace of passion's evil force? <br />Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse? <br />Who does not cast <br />On the thronged pages of his memory's book, <br />At times, a sad and half-reluctant look, <br />Regretful of the past? <br /> <br />Alas! the evil which we fain would shun <br />We do, and leave the wished-for good undone <br />Our strength to-day <br />Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall; <br />Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all <br />Are we alway. <br /> <br />Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years, <br />Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears, <br />If he hath been <br />Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, <br />To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause, <br />His fellow-men? <br /> <br />If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in <br />A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin; <br />If he hath lent <br />Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, <br />Over the suffering, mindless of his creed <br />Or home, hath bent; <br /> <br />He has not lived in vain, and while he gives <br />The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives, <br />With thankful heart; <br />He gazes backward, and with hope before, <br />Knowing that from his works he nevermore <br />Can henceforth part.<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-reward-3/
