Moses, the man of meekest heart, Lost Canaan by self-will, To show, where grace has done its part, How sin defiles us still. Thou who hast taught me in thy fear, Yet seest me frail at best, Oh, grant me loss with Moses here, To gain his future rest. --John Henry Newman. LAUS DEO Let praise devote thy work, and skill employ Thy whole mind, and thy heart be lost in joy. Well-doing bringeth pride; this constant thought Humility, that thy best done is naught. Man doeth nothing well, be it great or small, Save to praise God; but that hath saved all. For God requires no more than thou hast done, And takes thy work to bless it for his own. --Robert Bridges. "A commonplace life," we say, and we sigh; But why should we sigh as we say? The commonplace sun in the commonplace sky Makes up the commonplace day. The moon and the stars are commonplace things, And the flower that blooms and the bird that sings, But dark were the world and sad our lot If the flowers failed and the sun shone not; And God, who studies each separate soul Out of commonplace lives makes his beautiful whole. Humility, that low, sweet root From which all heavenly virtues shoot. --Thomas Moore. THE EVERLASTING MEMORIAL Up and away, like the dew of the morning That soars from the earth to its home in the sun, So let me steal away, gently and lovingly, Only remembered by what I have done. My name, and my place, and my tomb all forgotten, The brief race of time well and patiently run, So let me pass away, peacefully, silently, Only remembered by what I have done. Gladly away from this toil would I hasten, Up to the crown that for me has been won; Unthought of by man in rewards or in praises; Only remembered by what I have done. Up and away, like the odors of sunset, That sweeten the twilight as evening comes on, So be my life--a thing felt but not noticed,-- And I but remembered by what I have done. Yes, like the fragrance that wanders in freshness When the flowers that it came from are closed up and gone. So would I be to this world's weary dwellers Only remembered by what I have done. I need not be missed, if my life has been bearing (As its summer and autumn move silently on) The bloom, and the fruit, and the seed of its season; I shall still be remembered by what I have done. Needs there the praise of the love-written record, The name and the epitaph graved on the stone? The things we have lived for--let them be our story-- We ourselves but remembered by what we have done. I need not be missed if another succeed me, To reap down the fields which in spring I have sown; He who plowed and who sowed is not missed by the reaper, He is only remembered by what he has done.