《Impartiality》 - 免费有声读物

SEED-TIME AND HARVEST

               As o'er his furrowed fields which lie
                Beneath a coldly-dropping sky,
               Yet chill with winter's melted snow,
                The husbandman goes forth to sow,

               Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast
                The ventures of thy seed we cast,
               And trust to warmer sun and rain
                To swell the germ, and fill the grain.

               Who calls thy glorious service hard?
                Who deems it not its own reward?
               Who, for its trials, counts it less
                A cause of praise and thankfulness?

               It may not be our lot to wield
                The sickle in the ripened field;
               Nor ours to hear, on summer eves,
                The reaper's song among the sheaves.

               Yet where our duty's task is wrought
                In unison with God's great thought,
               The near and future blend in one,
                And whatsoe'er is willed, is done!

               And ours the grateful service whence
                Comes, day by day, the recompense;
               The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed,
                The fountain and the noonday shade.

               And were this life the utmost span,
                The only end and aim of man,
               Better the toil of fields like these
                Than waking dream and slothful ease.

               But life, though falling like our grain,
                Like that revives and springs again;
               And, early called, how blest are they
                Who wait in heaven their harvest-day!