POEMS OF JAMES RYDER RANDALL
LABOR AND PRAYER
Despite the wisdom of the Past,
From lips prophetic or divine,
Men wander in this world aghast,
And ask another saving sign.
They seek cold Science in her cell,
With front of brass and feet of clay;
And this is what her sibyls tell:
“The man who labors need not pray!”
Starving upon this soulless rind,
The pilgrim, weary with his strife,
Cries to the proud poetic mind:
“Sing to us, seer, the psalm of life!”
The bard, with sensual lore endowed,
Unclasps his dreamy Book of Fate,
And answers: “Let the famished crowd
First learn to labor and to wait!”
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