This is My Life

To feed my soul with beauty till I die;

To give my hands a pleasant task to do;

To keep my heart forever filled anew

With dreams and wonders which the days supply;

To love all conscious living, and thereby

Respect the brute who renders up its due,

And know the world as planned is good and true—

And thus —because there chanced to be an I!

This is my life since things are as they are:

One half akin to flowers and the grass:

The rest a law unto the changeless star.

And I believe when I shall come to pass

Within the Door His hand shall hold ajar

I’ll leave no echoing whisper of Alas!

William Stanley Braithwaite