Patience Taught By Nature

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    '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 yearly 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.