Home ⇒ 📌Henry Van Dyke ⇒ Work
Work
Let me but do my work from day to day,
In field or forest, at the desk or loom,
In roaring market-place or tranquil room;
Let me but find it in my heart to say,
When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
“This is my work; my blessing, not my doom;
“Of all who live, I am the one by whom
“This work can best be done in the right way.”
Then shall I see it not too great, nor small,
To suit my spirit and to prove my powers;
Then shall I cheerful greet the labouring hours,
And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall
At eventide, to play and love and rest,
Because I know for me my work is best.
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Work When twenty-one I loved to dream, And was to loafing well inclined; Somehow I couldn’t get up steam To welcome work of any kind. While students burned the midnight lamp, With dour ambition as their goad, I longed to be a gayful tramp And greet adventure on the road. But now that sixty years have […]...
- Spirit whose Work is Done SPIRIT whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours! Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets; Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering pressing;) Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene! Electric spirit! That with muttering voice, through the war now closed, like a tireless […]...
- What Work Is We stand in the rain in a long line Waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work is if you’re Old enough to read this you know what Work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, Shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain […]...
- Work chapter VII Then a ploughman said, “Speak to us of Work.” And he answered, saying: You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission […]...
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 118. Contemplate all this work of Tim Contemplate all this work of Time, The giant labouring in his youth; Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature’s earth and lime; But trust that those we call the dead Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends. They say, The solid earth whereon we tread In tracts of fluent […]...
- No Beer, No Work The shades of night was fallin’ slow As through New York a guy did go And nail on ev’ry barroom door A card that this here motter bore: “No beer, no work.” His brow was sad, his mouth was dry; It was the first day of July, And where, all parched and scorched it hung, […]...
- Work And Contemplation The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarole; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel Is full, and artfully her fingers feel With quick adjustment, provident control, The lines too subtly twisted to unroll Out to a perfect thread. I […]...
- Work And Joy Each day I live I thank the Lord I do the work I love; And in it find a rich reward, All price and praise above. For few may do the work they love, The fond unique employ, That fits them as a hand a glove, And gives them joy. Oh gentlefolk, do you and […]...
- It is easy to work when the soul is at play It is easy to work when the soul is at play But when the soul is in pain The hearing him put his playthings up Makes work difficult then It is simple, to ache in the Bone, or the Rind But Gimlets among the nerve Mangle daintier terribler Like a Panter in the Glove...
- Sonnet 5: Those hours, that with gentle work did frame Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting Time leads summer on To hideous winter and confounds him there, Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o’ersnowed […]...
- Sonnet V: Those Hours, That With Gentle Work Did Frame Those hours, that with gentle work did frame The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, Will play the tyrants to the very same And that unfair which fairly doth excel; For never-resting time leads summer on To hideous winter, and confounds him there; Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, Beauty o’er-snowed […]...
- The Way Things Work is by admitting Or opening away. This is the simplest form Of current: Blue Moving through blue; Blue through purple; The objects of desire Opening upon themselves Without us; the objects of faith. The way things work Is by solution, Resistance lessened or Increased and taken Advantage of. The way things work Is that we […]...
- The Gardener X: Let Your Work Be, Bride Let your work be, bride. Listen, the Guest has come. Do you hear, he is gently shaking The chain which fastens the door? See that your anklets make no loud Noise, and that your step is not over- Hurried at meeting him. Let your work be, bride, the guest Had come in the evening. No, […]...
- On No Work Of Words On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft: To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to […]...
- Work Without Hope All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair- The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing- And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the […]...
- Work Gangs BOX cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack. Maybe their chatter goes: I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line. I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered […]...
- The Night Cometh Work! for the night is coming; Work! through the morning hours; Work! while the dew is sparkling; Work! ‘mid the springing flowers; Work! while the day grows brighter, Under the glowing sun; Work! for the night is coming, Night, when man’s work is done. Work! for the night is coming; Work! through the sunny noon; […]...
- Work for Immortality Some Work for Immortality The Chiefer part, for Time He Compensates immediately The former Checks on Fame Slow Gold but Everlasting The Bullion of Today Contrasted with the Currency Of Immortality A Beggar Here and There Is gifted to discern Beyond the Broker’s insight One’s Money One’s the Mine –...
- The Real Work It may be that when we no longer know what to do We have come our real work, And that when we no longer know which way to go We have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings....
- To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For how can you compete, Being honour bred, with one Who, were it proved he lies, Were neither shamed in his own Nor in his neighbours’ eyes? Bred to a harder thing Than Triumph, turn away And like a laughing […]...
- Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
- West London Crouch’d on the pavement close by Belgrave Square A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied; A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, Pass’d opposite; she touch’d her girl, who hied Across, and begg’d […]...
- Work I caught rumours of some internal hearing Then you appeared with tears squeezing your eyes, Hands scrunched up like a child’s, rice paper skin. That work mates complained was a big surprise As you were office sunshine, shafted no-one, And turned your quick mind to the broadest cause. But there you were, a whisper finished…gone, […]...
- Hymn 22 part 2 Flesh and spirit. Rom. 8:1 What vain desires and passions vain Attend this mortal clay! Oft have they pierced my soul with pain, And drawn my heart astray. How have I wandered from my God! And, following sin and shame, In this vile world of flesh and blood Defiled my nobler frame! For ever blessed […]...
- Making It Work 3-foot blue cannisters of nitro Along a conveyor belt, slow fish Speaking the language of silence. On the roof, I in my respirator Patching the asbestos gas lines As big around as the thick waist Of an oak tree. “These here are The veins of the place, stuff Inside’s the blood.” We work in rain, […]...
- Astrophel and Stella VII: WhenNature Made her Chief Work When Nature made her chief work, Stella’s eyes, In colour black why wrapt she beams so bright? Would she in beamy black, like painter wise, Frame daintiest lustre, mix’d of shades and light? Or did she else that sober hue devise, In object best to knit and strength our sight; Lest, if no veil these […]...
- Psalm 63 Longing after God; or, The love of God better than life. Great God, indulge my humble claim, Thou art my hope, my joy, my rest; The glories that compose thy name Stand all engaged to make me blest. Thou great and good, thou just and wise, Thou art my Father and my God; And I […]...
- Hymn 81 A song for morning or evening. Lam. 3:23; Isa. 45:7. God, how endless is thy love! Thy gifts are every evening new; And morning mercies from above Gently distill like early dew. Thou spread’st the curtains of the night, Great guardian of my sleeping hours; Thy sovereign word restores the light, And quickens all my […]...
- At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
- Quiet Work One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world proclaim their enmity Of toil unsever’d from tranquility! Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplish’d in repose, Too great for haste, too high […]...
- THANKS HER griefs were the hours When my struggle was sore, Her joys were the powers That the climber upbore. Her home is the boundless Free ocean that seems To rock, calm and soundless, My galleon of dreams. Half hers are the glancing Creations that throng With pageant and dancing The ways of my song. My […]...
- Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
- Wallace Stevens On His Way To Work He would leave early and walk slowly As if balancing books On the way to school, already expecting To be tardy once again and heavy With numbers, the unfashionably rounded Toes of his shoes invisible beyond The slope of his corporation. He would pause At his favorite fundamentally sound Park bench, which had been the […]...
- You said that I "was Great" one Day You said that I “was Great” one Day Then “Great” it be if that please Thee Or Small or any size at all Nay I’m the size suit Thee Tall like the Stag would that? Or lower like the Wren Or other heights of Other Ones I’ve seen? Tell which it’s dull to guess And […]...
- Hymn 169 The Divine Perfections. The Lord Jehovah reigns, His throne is built on high; The garments he assumes Are light and majesty: His glories shine With beams so bright, No mortal eye Can bear the sight. The thunders of his hand Keep the wide world in awe; His wrath and justice stand To guard his holy […]...
- To May I have no heart to write verses to May; I have no heart-yet I’m cheerful today; I have no heart-she has won mine away So-I have no heart to write verses to May....
- Redemption Having been tenant long to a rich lord, Not thriving, I resolved to be bold, And make a suit unto him, to afford A new small-rented lease, and cancel the old. In heaven at his manor I him sought; They told me there that he was lately gone About some land, which he had dearly […]...
- "I Love You Sweatheart" A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
- Toads Revisited Walking around in the park Should feel better than work: The lake, the sunshine, The grass to lie on, Blurred playground noises Beyond black-stockinged nurses – Not a bad place to be. Yet it doesn’t suit me. Being one of the men You meet of an afternoon: Palsied old step-takers, Hare-eyed clerks with the jitters, […]...
- The Village Green On the cheerful village green, Skirted round with houses small, All the boys and girls are seen, Playing there with hoop and ball. Now they frolic hand in hand, Making many a merry chain; Then they form a warlike band, Marching o’er the level plain. Now ascends the worsted ball, High it rises in the […]...