"Give Content to Others"

Give Content to Others

God, give content to others; but to me 
The throbbing night and bugle-noted day; 
No peaceful valleys, but the strong, salt spray 
Of some large sea. 

Give me no transient pain that frets and stings; 
Let me be as the nightingale forlorn, 
That, leaning her bruised breast upon a thorn, 
Bleeds while she sings. 

Give me, O God, not overmuch of sweet; 
Let me climb heights and, looking backward, see 
My own blood-prints, and know the agony 
Of stone-cut feet. 

For more and more I feel that not for me 
Are little passions and delightful ways; 
Only can I thro’ torturing nights and days 
Climb up to Thee. 


"Give Content to Others" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Vanishing Race (1911).

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