Mustard Tree

Beside me in the road an acorn fell

And rolled into a hole beside its peers.

A hard and rocky place in which to dwell

Beneath the mighty oak of endless years.

If it had fallen on the other side

Where earth and grass had cushioned its descent

It might perhaps have lived rather than died.

The work of growing would be better spent.

The meaning of its span is hard to see;

A grinding wheel, a squirrel's winter lunch.

So bleak and short its prospects seem to be.

They cannot all become pick of the bunch.

And why should one take root and grow an oak?

The luckiness of where they fell is all.

The circumstance of life conspired to choke;

A great life never beckoned, but a small.

And so it is with men like us the same

When looking down on others from on high.

Though our oak grew, our wisdom and our fame,

There but for God's grace struggle you and I.