Eternal mind, who rules the fates
Of dy­ing realms and ris­ing states,
With one un­changed de­cree,
While we ad­mire Thy vast af­fairs,
Say, can our lit­tle trif­ling cares
Afford a smile to Thee?

Thou scat­ter hon­ors, crowns, and gold;
We fly to seize, and fight to hold
The bub­bles and the oar:
So em­mets stru­ggle for a grain;
So boys their pet­ty wars main­tain
For shells up­on the shore.

Here a vain man his scep­ter breaks,
The next a brok­en scep­ter takes,
And war­ri­ors win and lose;
This roll­ing world will ne­ver stand
Plundered and snatched from hand to hand,
As pow­er de­cays or grows.

Earth’s but an atom: gree­dy swords
Carve it amongst a thou­sand lords,
And yet they can’t agree;
Let gree­dy swords still fight and slay,
I can be poor; but Lord, I pray
To sit and smile with Thee.