The Joy of Work

True Work looks out under serious brows,
          With a glad eye's sunny ray:
     The little birds as they build their house
          Sing merrily all the day.
The squirrel that leaps on the nutty boughs, 
     The delving mole and the timid mouse 
          Make labor a pleasant play.

The lover of wisdom moils and toils, 
          And a painful lore is won;
The forest growth, from the vine that coils 
At his foot like a snake, to the lordly spoils 
          Of cedared Lebanon —
Beasts of the field, and fowls that flock 
In the middle air, and gems of the rock,
          He knows them every one, 
          And his labors are joyfully done.

The mother who tends her babe all day, 
          And watches half the night,
Has a song in her heart like a fountain's play, 
Leaping in gladness and welling away 
          With gleams of an inner light;
For love is the sun of her lowly sphere, 
And bliss, the white lily, its warm beams rear,
          And labor is delight.

But alas, for the mass of our nobler race, 
Less wise than the brute in his time and place—
Man, the artificer, naked born,
King of the world or the rude world's scorn, 
Man, the new Maker, and heir of his God, 
Clanks an invisible chain o'er the sod, 
Lives as a slave and goes down to his grave 
Crushed by the weight of the burden and rod!
Moaning or cursing, or sullenly dumb
          O'er the task of his hour,
Forgetful that work is the measure and sum
          Of all visible power ;
That God is a worker whose joy is to do, 
Whose works are his worshipers faithful and true,
          And delight is the victor's dower!