"A Tiller of the Soil --"

"A Tiller of the Soil --" This is the place where Thou didst bid me stand; And work and wait; I thought it; was a plot of fertile land, To tend and cultivate: Flowers and fruit, I said, are surely there, In rich earth stored, And I will make of it a garden fair, For Thee, my Lord! Lo! it is set where only bleak skies frown, With rank weeds sown, And over it the vagrant thistle-down Like dust is blown; Long have I laboured, but the barren soil No crop will yield: This have I won for all my ceaseless toil -- A bare ploughed field! Nay, even here, where thou didst strive and weep, Some sunny morn Others shall come with joyous hearts and reap The full-eared corn; Yet is their harvest to thy labour due; On Me 'twas spent -- Are not the furrows driven straight and true? Be thou content