The Boy Who Frets

To Take The Leap

The boy who frets about his night and day
And wrings his sweaty hands in sad dismay
On clothes and food and work or time or strife
Ain’t half the man who loves and lives his life.

My son, how can you make a flower grow
Or a girl to love you through rain and snow?
Can the numbered beats of your drumming heart
Write the endless symphony we play part?

If you can find in every waking hour
A second to pause, consider how your
Life is not won by great brawn nor pure will,
But by prayer to him: “My soul be still.”

For has he not made you a blessed path
Of love that you may dance and sing and laugh?
If every step is praise, in this life, you run
In Kipling’s words: “You’ll be a man, my son!”

The man who worships with his days and nights
And hardens his hands working God’s delights,
Will be like Job with a harvest to reap,
For he’s twice the man that won’t take the leap.