Classic Poem

Out of the strife of conflict,
Out of the nightmare wild,
Thou bringest me, spent and broken,
Like the life of a little child.

Like the spume of a far-spent wave,
Or a wreck cast up from the sea,
Out from the pride of being,
My soul returns to thee.

Thou, who only art master,
Lord of the weak and the strong;
Who makest the kings of earth's struggles
As the far refrain of a song.

And thou teachest me all is as nothing
Save to follow the fate love willed,
And dree life's weird to the final port,
Where the tumult of being is stilled:

Where the woe that wrecked me is vanished,
And the pride that stayed me is gone:
And only the feeling of eventime,
When the toil of the world is done: —

O, Master of being and slumber,
When the pageant and paean have passed;
Take me where thy great silence
Is vaster than all that is vast.