Classic Poem

No eyes can see man's destiny completed
Save His, who made and knows th' eternal plan:
As shapes of clouds in mountains are repeated,
So thoughts of God accomplished are in man

Here the divinest of all thoughts descended;
Here the sweet heavens their sweetest boon let fall;
Upon this hallowed ground begun and ended
The life that knew, and felt, and uttered all.

There is not anything of human trial
That ever love deplored or sorrow knew,
No glad fulfilment and no sad denial,
Beyond the pictured truth that Shakespeare drew.

All things are said and done, and though forever
The streams dash onward and the great winds blow,
There comes no new thing in the world, and never
A voice like his, that seems to make it so.

Take, then, thy fate, or opulent or sordid,
Take it and bear it and esteem it blest;
For of all crowns that ever were awarded,
The crown of simple patience is the best.