The Empty Bowl
-R. Louis Scott
My merits and my sins,
My earnings all,
Which, in the bowl
Of my heart
Were stored,
I have now outpoured,
And the emptied bowl I hold,
That Thou mayst
Fill it to the brim.
Before man can with man
Be unified
He faces tests and trials
Which would dismay
The hardihood of martyrs Crucified
By men and women
Of an elder day!
His strength shall fail;
His courage shrink and fade
Before the horrors
Which beset the way
His feet must tread!
Tho startled and afraid
Man must dare all--
And by his daring show
He looks
To greater force for aid.
Out of the past--
Today's events must flow;
Out of today--
Tomorrow shall arise.
Then, in some distant dawn,
Mankind shall know
That all men
Tread the way to paradise.
And black, white, brown
Each gain the self-same prize!