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!

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