Classic Poem

The Babe is sleeping sweet,
The Mother bending low
Above the folded feet,—
The roads that they shall go!

By lake and little town,
By heading fields of corn,
The city, up and down,
Noon and night and morn.

Dusk and dark and day,
In ministering free,
They walk the broad highway,
They tread the very sea.

Unfettered, tireless till—
With all their labor red—
They climb a weary hill,
Their work consummated.

Consummated? Not so,
Those shamed and shining feet
The Way forever show,
And make the going sweet.