There come our summers and winters.
And no matter how we spend them,
In time will appear the sum of them all,
Looming nearer until its only landing,
When the number of our days is settled once and for all,
When the others will say,
“So that’s how long he lived.”
And whether any shall marvel at the sum or not,
The questions haunt the mind:
Has the sum of his days meant anything?
And has their worth matched their number?
And in answering, we shall reveal ourselves,
Each in his own way, seeing things as he does.
But the question also comes to the one Mind
Whose proper business it is to decide.
And He shall make of us what He does.
And His answer will be the right one.
He will know.
He will know what was given,
And endured,
And overcome,
And hidden,
And what had been expected.
He will know what to do.
And He will do it.
And as for the rest of us,
We can leave it calmly in His hands,
If we dare.
Or we can pretend to know
What is yet unknowable to us.
And either way,
He goes on as before,
Judging his creatures justly,
Knowing just what to think about them,
And being Himself that very great reward for those
Whose time on earth shall have pleased Him in the balance.
