'O dreary life,' we cry, 'O dreary life!'

And still the generations of the birds

Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds

Serenely live while we are keeping strife

With Heaven's true purpose in us...

O thou God of old,

Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!--

But so much patience as a blade of grass

Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning ("Patience Taught by Nature")