Thy Works Shall Praise Thee

When I would speak my Maker's praise, 
     I bless him for the life he gives, 
The bounty of these golden days, 
     The joy of every form that lives.

And when I glorify his gifts, 
     I glory in the bliss they bring,
Through all the round year, as it shifts 
     From flowers to frost, from frost to spring.

What work shall fill my sounding song, 
     If I would sing the wine-god's praise?
Homes blasted by a life of wrong?
     Hearts frozen in his gorgon gaze?

The anguish of deserted wives;
     The wail of orphans, or, yet worse,?
Despair of desolated lives,
     Dumb with the greatness of their curse?

Or shall I vaunt each loathly scene,
     That steeps the soul in blood and shame,
The revels of the vile "shebeen,"
     Unholy deeds without a name?

Oh! every note my harp could sound
     Would quiver with some clinging woe, 
Chords struck for peans would rebound
     And smite the hand that shamed them so!

Still may I sing the praise of him
     Whose works are beautiful and good,
Till hope, the morning star, is dim, 
     In the great dawn of life renewed.