Vi

The leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives only the worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight. That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty Which runs through, ail and doth all unite,-- The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, The heart outstretches its eager palms, For a god goes with it and makes it store To the soul that was starving in darkness before."