'Patience Taught by Nature' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1845)

Poetry

Patience Taught by Nature

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1845)

“O dreary life,” we cry, “O dreary life!” And still the generations of the birds Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds Serenely live while we are keeping strife With Heaven’s true purpose in us, as a knife Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds Unslackened the dry land: savannah-swards Unweary sweep: hills watch unworn; and rife Meek leaves drop yeary from the forest-trees, To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass In their old glory: O thou God of old! Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these;— But so much patience as a blade of grass Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.


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