Eternities

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 hellEre I have thanked my God for all the grass.