What Is Our Duty Here? Poem by John Bowring

What is our duty here? to tend
From good to better, thence to best:
Grateful to drink life's cup-then bend
Unmurmuring to our bed of rest;
To pluck the flowers that round us blow,
Scattering sweet fragrance as we go.


And so to live, that when the sun
Of our existence sinks in night,
Memorials sweet of mercies done
May shrine our names in mem'ry's light:
And the blest seeds we scattered, bloom
A hundred-fold in days to come.