I

This profit yet remains Of exile and the hour That life in losing gains Perhaps a fuller flower.

Not less the prunèd shoot, Not less the barren year, Which yields the perfect fruit, Which makes the meaning clear.

For on this desert soil A blessing comes unsought— Space for a single toil, Time for a single thought.

When in distractions tost, Since oft distractions claim For moments never lost Of each its higher aim,

We live, we learn the wealth The joyous hours may bring, But jealous time by stealth Puts all of it to wing;

Pursuing empty arts We gain no noble goal, And lose, in learning parts, The grandeur of the whole.

If Patience, pouring tears— She cannot but lament The long unfruitful years Of exile, idly spent—

Have patience, she will find They were not all in vain, But each has left behind A little store of gain—

A wider wisdom bought With labour; problems solved; The themes of inner thought More thoroughly revolved.

So one who entertain’d The prosperous of the earth; No good from any gain’d, But lost his wealth and worth;

In wrath he gather’d round The indigent and old; Each wretch, amazed he found, Had left a gift of gold.

So one who sought a land Where all the earth is ore; But had he sifted sand He would have gather’d more.