The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar/Equipment

EQUIPMENT

With what thou gavest me, O Master, I have wrought. Such chances, such abilities, To see the end was not for my poor eyes, Thine was the impulse, thine the forming thought.

Ah, I have wrought, And these sad hands have right to tell their story, It was no hard up striving after glory, Catching and losing, gaining and failing, Raging me back at the world's raucous railing. Simply and humbly from stone and from wood, Wrought I the things that to thee might seem good.

If they are little, ah God! but the cost, Who but thou knowest the all that is lost! If they are few, is the workmanship true? Try them and weigh me, whate'er be my due!