
AUGUST FIFTH
To live within a cave—it is most good;
But if God made a day,
And some one come, and say,
"Lo! I have gathered faggots in the wood!"
E'en let him stay,
And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood!
So sit till morning! when the light is grown
That he the path can read,
Then bid the man Godspeed!
His morning is not thine: yet must thou own
Those ashes on the stone.
They have a cheerful warmth.
But if God made a day,
And some one come, and say,
"Lo! I have gathered faggots in the wood!"
E'en let him stay,
And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood!
So sit till morning! when the light is grown
That he the path can read,
Then bid the man Godspeed!
His morning is not thine: yet must thou own
Those ashes on the stone.
They have a cheerful warmth.
It is given to us sometimes, even in our everyday life, to witness the saving influence of a noble nature, the divine efficacy of rescue that may lie in a self-subduing act of fellowship.
—George Eliot.





