New mercies each returning day Hover around us while we pray; New perils past, new sins forgiven, New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.
If on our daily course our mind Be set to hallow all we find, New treasures still, of countless price, God will provide for sacrifice.
Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be As more of heaven in each we see; Some softening gleam of love and prayer Shall dawn on every cross and care.
We need not bid, for cloistered cell, Our neighbor and our work farewell, Nor strive to wind ourselves too high For sinful man beneath the sky.
The trivial round, the common task, Will furnish all we ought to ask: Room to deny ourselves a road To bring us daily nearer God.
Seek we no more; content with these, Let present rapture, comfort, ease, As Heaven shall bid them, come and go; The secret, this, of rest below.
Only, O Lord, in thy dear love Fit us for perfect rest above; And help us this and every day, To live more nearly as we pray.
Let nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright thee; All things are passing; God never changeth; Patient endurance Attaineth to all things; Who God possesseth In nothing is wanting; Alone God sufficeth.
--St. Teresa, tr. by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
He that holds fast the golden mean And lives contentedly between The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door, Embittering all his state.
If every man's internal care Were written on his brow, How many would our pity share Who raise our envy now?
The fatal secret, when revealed, Of every aching breast, Would prove that only while concealed Their lot appeared the best.
Let us be content in work To do the thing we can, and not presume To fret because it's little.
If none were sick and none were sad, What service could we render? I think if _we_ were always glad, We scarcely could be tender. If sorrow never claimed our heart, And every wish were granted, Patience would die and hope depart-- Life would be disenchanted.
A pilgrim, bound to Mecca, quite away his sandals wore, And on the desert's blistering sand his feet grew very sore. "To let me suffer thus, great Allah, is not kind nor just, While in thine service I confront the painful heat and dust." He murmured in complaining tone; and in this temper came To where, around the Kaaba, pilgrims knelt of every name; And there he saw, while pity and remorse his bosom beat, A pilgrim who not only wanted shoes, but _feet_.
