No longer forward or behind I look in hope or fear;

but, grateful, take the good I find, the best of now and here.

I break my pilgrim staff, I lay aside the toiling oar;

the angel sought so far away I welcome at my door.

For all the jarring notes of life seem blending in a psalm,

and all the angles of its strife slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart, and so the west winds play,

and all the windows of my heart I open to the day.

(John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807 – 1892)