Poems (Sharpless)/Epictetus

by Frances M. Sharpless

EPICTETUS

Dare to look up to God, and say: Make use of me for the future as Thou wilt. I am of the same mind; I am one with Thee; I refuse nothing which seems good to Thee. Lead me whither thou wilt. . . What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God.—Discourses of Epictetus.

From beyond thy Olympus, O Greek! comes the wisdom that brightens
 Thy stern abnegation of self with faith in a purpose divine;
Firmly thou facest the grisly phantom that frightens
 Spirits who claim the support of truths more mighty than thine.

Self-poised, in serenity smiling, thou stand'st in the vista of ages
 Of all fate's arrows defiant, singing thy thanksgiving hymn;
Offering thy wild bitter herb, that the hunger of living assuages,
 Gathered on rocky peaks, whence the world looks barren and dim.

We who have listened the words of a Voice beyond man's that hath spoken,
 We who dare gather the fulness of all the treasures of love,
Knowing the promise of One whose covenant cannot be broken,
 We faint, and we question! oh pagan, how doth thy submission reprove!

How were this daily life illumed with a splendor supernal,
 If a faith as staunch as was thine, were lit with a Christian glow!
No stoic refusal of joy, but a trust in "Our Father" eternal
 Would transfigure the treadmill of earth to a heaven of love below.