A meditation on service

With all the talk of greed and riches and who deserves what, I thought you might appreciate the poem “Meditation,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), printed in Studies in Reading:

The sweetest lives are those to duty wed,
Whose deeds, both great and small,
Are close-knit strands of an unbroken thread,
Where love ennobles all.
The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells,
The book of life the shining record tells.
Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes
After its own life-workings. A child’s kiss
Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad;
A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich ;
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong ;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thou renderest.