The Wild Knight and Other Poems/Eternities

by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
  Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head,
  Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in his own strange book.

I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
  Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
  Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees.

In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
  Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
  Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.