Lamps

God's lamps are we, To shine where God will say:

We may be placed in pleasant rooms To cheer a cloudy day;

Or in a rank and murky zone Where blind forms grope toward good unknown

Or where despair and crime have birth In labyrinthine-caverned earth.

And as sometimes a starlike gleam Shines clearly through a night

So dark the lamp is scarcely seen Only the golden light,

Where're we are, so may we shine.

—Anonymous and Faith Bowman