I wait and watch: before my eyes <br />Methinks the night grows thin and gray; <br />I wait and watch the eastern skies <br />To see the golden spears uprise <br />Beneath the oriflamme of day! <br /> <br />Like one whose limbs are bound in trance <br />I hear the day-sounds swell and grow, <br />And see across the twilight glance, <br />Troop after troop, in swift advance, <br />The shining ones with plumes of snow! <br /> <br />I know the errand of their feet, <br />I know what mighty work is theirs; <br />I can but lift up hands unmeet, <br />The threshing-floors of God to beat, <br />And speed them with unworthy prayers. <br /> <br />I will not dream in vain despair <br />The steps of progress wait for me <br />The puny leverage of a hair <br />The planet's impulse well may spare, <br />A drop of dew the tided sea. <br /> <br />The loss, if loss there be, is mine, <br />And yet not mine if understood; <br />For one shall grasp and one resign, <br />One drink life's rue, and one its wine, <br />And God shall make the balance good. <br /> <br />Oh power to do! Oh baffled will! <br />Oh prayer and action! ye are one. <br />Who may not strive, may yet fulfil <br />The harder task of standing still, <br />And good but wished with God is done!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-waiting-11/
