When we are weary with the world's rough teaching,
Too weak to press our way among the rest,
Too tired to guess at life's perplexed meaning,
Too worn to follow in its eager quest,
We ask but room beneath still summer skies
To dream in rest, and, waking, dream again.
Calmly to bear what still before us lies,
Sutter unshared the woes that yet remain.
'Tis then, I think, God sends His special spirits.
Who straightway open our cold slumbering hearts
With love that yields far more than it inherits.
With love that claims as much as it imparts.
No winged troop of angels, pure and sinless.
Nor saints, who too grew weary of the earth;
But little souls whose life is fresh and guileless.
Of human weakness and of human birth;
The little children, with their wistful pleading
For love and strength to feed their tender growth,
Yet give us warmth and sunshine, all unheeding,
Unconscious teachers of life-giving truth.
When baby-fingers twine within our own.
We cannot push their clinging love away;
We cannot walk the tedious path alone
When little feet want strengthening on the way.
When childish eyes grow brighter with the sun,
How can we shun the glowing golden light?
With little thoughts unfolding one by one,
We dare not shut the truth out from our sight.
Their tender love, dependence full and sweet,
We needs must feed with fuller love and power;
And seeking this will bring us to His feet
Who feeds the birds, unfolds the opening flower.
And doubting souls first know a God above them
When they have felt the spirit's mother-bliss.
And weary hearts God gathers to His bosom
When in His father love He sends us this.