A little stream sprang from its distant source,
And through the peopled valley with a song
It held its smiling uneventful course,
Grateful with cooling draught the whole year long,
Till they who daily drank of it grew strong.
A little star shone softly in the night,
And in the many-gloried heavenly host
It shed a true and never-failing light;
So that for constancy ’twas loved the most
Because for lack of it no way was lost.
A little coin was passed from hand to hand,
And humbly served its mission day by day
In the life-needs its value could command;
Pure gold it was though small in currency,
And many a debt of want sufficed to pay.
A humble life was lived where others felt
Its truth and worth to hand and lip and eye;
And when ’twas spent its debtors mutely knelt
To thank the Giver for its ministry—
The stream, the star, the coin they travelled by,
The vanished life whose benison of grace
Was like the cup of water or the beam
Of friendly light or as the gold whose base
Of humanness, though it might dull the gleam,
Yet perisheth and leaves its worth supreme.