I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: ‘Swear not by thy head.
Thou knowest not the hairs,’ though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in His own strange book.
I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees,
In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth’s arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.
(Gilbert Keith Chesterton)
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