I one day in fancy stray'd,
O'er the land in sunny air,
Where sweet childhood ever play'd,
And where youth was ever fair.
And although I sometimes came
Where, by sin's all-blighting breath,
Much of life was touch'd for death,
And all marr'd, as Eden charr'd
By leaping flame,

Yet all gay with glitt'ring lights,
Out as far as eyes could scan,
There were many touching sights
Of the many works of man.
There were road and bridged ford,
And the house to shield his head,
And the field he till'd for bread,
And the tall church tow'rs that call
Him to the Lord.

And as there I chanced to look
Where outreach'd some higher lands,
I beheld sweet Love who shook
A bright sieve in his two hands;
Though he did not look about,
For, with Wisdom at his side,
He was working, as in pride,
There to lift, and briskly sift,
A something out.

And his golden sieve, and all
It kept back, was dazzling bright,
And whate'er its wires let fall
Was windwafted out of sight;
For through Memory's sieve the boy,
On the wind of Time, that flows
As a windstream, when it blows,
Sifts the sad, and all that's bad,
And keeps each joy.

Then beyond a swinging gate
On a waste of wilder lands,
Saw I everfrowning Hate
Shake a sieve in her dark hands;
And her looks were far from gay,
And with Folly at her side,
From the black sieve that she plied,
Something light, and dazzling bright,
Was swept away.

For the dismal sieve she had
Was the Mind that sifts amiss,
Keeping back the sad and bad,
And outshedding ev'ry bliss;
While on ever-flowing Time,
As on wind outflies the chaff,
Fall and fly the joy and laugh,
Leaving in the thought of sin
And wrong and crime.

Since to Love and Hate their meat
Is whiche'er they keep behind,
Love has soulfood ever sweet,
Hate has poison to the mind;
So let me not sift amiss,
But by Wisdom still be taught
To outsift each evil thought
From the mind, and keep behind
The food of bliss.