Onward and Upward

ONWARD AND UPWARD

I pass the vale.  I breast the steep.

I bear the cross: the cross bears me.

Light leads me on to light.  I weep

For joy at what I hope to see

When, scaled at last the arduous height,

For every painful step I trod,

I traverse worlds on worlds of light,

And pierce some deeper depth of God.

--by John Charles Earle, 1917