It May Not Be Our Lot to Wield

Verse 1

It may not be our lot to wield The sickle in the ripened field; Nor ours to hear, on summer eves, The reaper's song among the sheaves.

Verse 2

Yet where our duty's task is wrought In unison with God's great thought, The near and future blend in one, And whatsoe'er is willed, is done.

Verse 3

And ours the grateful service whence Comes, day by day, the recompense; The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed, The fountain, and the noonday shade.

Verse 4

And were this life the utmost span, The only end and aim of man, Better the toil of fields like these Than waking dream and slothful ease.

Verse 5

But life, though falling like our grain, Like that revives and springs again; And, early called, how blest are they Who wait in heaven their harvest day! AMEN.