Poems (Kimball)/Interrupted Zeal

by Harriet McEwen Kimball

INTERRUPTED ZEAL

According to the mind of God, our perfection does not depend upon our doing much. This was Martha's error which our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked.—Bourdalour.

LORD, is my service at an end?
I am so slow to comprehend!
Why comes this pause that seems to say
Thou hast no work for me to-day?

Do I not hoard my time for Thee?
Do not my hand and heart agree
To yield to Thee their best, their all?
Dear Lord, why hast Thou ceased to call?

There comes no beggar to my gate
For whom my halvèd loaf doth wait;
I know no creatures suffering
For cheer that haply I might bring.

Where lies my load of precious care?
Whose are the tears that I might share?
Or whose the joy that I might make
My equal joy for Thy sweet sake?

The world is just ad full of woe,
For sin in hand with grief must go;
But now the world seems distant grown,
And I unheeded and alone.

Ah! now Thou dost Thy will reveal
To interrupt my restless zeal,
That I in solitude may heed
My own, my all-surpassing need.

"Much serving" often hinders love,
And care forgetfulness may prove;
The busy hand may cheat the heart
That else might choose the better part.

Who waits in holy idleness
Can never learn to serve Thee less,
But rather learns how poor, how vain,
Is all he hath accounted gain.

Strive as I may, my every toil
Some lurking vanity will spoil;
Self-love doth ever enter in
To steal what I for Thee may win.

Then give me, Lord, no work to-day,
But give what none can take away,—
The portion everymore most sweet,
To sit like Mary at Thy feet.

And quicken Thou my inward ear
That I like her Thy Word may hear
In inward silence that shall drown
All voices other than Thine own.

The soul that seeks no end but this
The end of zeal can never miss,
But even amidst her toil shall be
In holy solitude with Thee.