The Tempted Soul

Weak soul, by sense still led astray,
    Why wilt thou parley with the foe?
    He seeks to work thine overthrow,
And thou, poor fool! dost point the way.

Hast thou forgotten many a day,
    When thou exulting forth didst go,
    And ere the noon wert lying low,
A broken and defenceless prey?

If thou wouldst live, avoid his face;
    Dwell in the wilderness apart,
            And gather force for vanquishing,
Ere thou returnest to his place.
    Then arm, and with undaunted heart
            Give battle, till he own thee king.

Robert Fuller Murray

Robert Fuller Murray was a Scottish poet known for his lyrical and expressive poetry. Born on December 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he moved to Scotland at a young age. Despite a short life, ending on April 15, 1894, Murray left a significant mark with his works, which often reflected themes of nature and human emotion. His poetry is characterized by its elegance and depth of feeling. Murray's influence remained through posthumous publications and collections of his poetry.

Robert Fuller Murray

The Solitary

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

Cyclamen

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

A Lost Opportunity

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

A May-Day Madrigal

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Garden Of Sin

I know the garden-close of sin,
    The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,
    I long have roamed the walks and bowers,
Desiring what no man shall win:

A secret place to shelter in,
    When soon or late the angry powers
    Come down to seek the wretch who cowers,
Expecting judgment to begin.

The pleasure long has passed away
    From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread
            My doom will find me where I lie.
I dare not go, I dare not stay.
    Without the walks, my hope is dead,
            Within them, I myself must die.

Robert Fuller Murray

Undesired Revenge

Sorrow and sin have worked their will
    For years upon your sovereign face,
    And yet it keeps a faded trace
Of its unequalled beauty still,
    As ruined sanctuaries hold
    A crumbled trace of perfect mould
In shrines which saints no longer fill.

I knew you in your splendid morn,
    Oh, how imperiously sweet!
    I bowed and worshipped at your feet,
And you received my love with scorn.
    Now I scorn you.    It is a change,
    When I consider it, how strange
That you, not I, should be forlorn.

Do you suppose I have no pain
    To see you play this sorry part,
    With faded face and broken heart,
And life lived utterly in vain?
    Oh would to God that you once more
    Might scorn me as you did of yore,
And I might wo...

Robert Fuller Murray

To The Prophetic Soul

What are these bustlers at the gate
Of now or yesterday,
These playthings in the hand of Fate,
That pass, and point no way;

These clinging bubbles whose mock fires
For ever dance and gleam,
Vain foam that gathers and expires
Upon the world's dark stream;

These gropers betwixt right and wrong,
That seek an unknown goal,
Most ignorant, when they seem most strong;
What are they, then, O Soul,

That thou shouldst covet overmuch
A tenderer range of heart,
And yet at every dreamed-of touch
So tremulously start?

Thou with that hatred ever new
Of the world's base control,
That vision of the large and true,
That quickness of the soul;

Nay, for they are not of thy kind,
But in a rarer clay
God dowered thee with ...

Archibald Lampman

Temptation.

The greatest glory consists, not in never falling, but in getting up every time you fall. - CONFUCIUS.


The raging force of passion's storm,
Say who can check at will.
Or cope with sin, in ev'ry form,
With ever conquering skill?

How oft we've tried, and hop'd and pray'd
To conquer in the right;
But still, how oft our hearts, dismay'd,
Have fail'd amid the fight.

But still we fought the wrong we loath'd,
And though we fought in vain,
Our wills in fleshly weakness cloth'd,
Would try the fight again.

And He, I apprehend, who sees,
And knows our struggles here.
Will lead us onward, by degrees,
To triumph, though we fear.

And even tho' we're never quit
Of these sharp earthly thorns,
In black despair we'll never sit,...

Thomas Frederick Young

The Diary Of An Old Soul. - September.

        1.

        WE are a shadow and a shining, we!
        One moment nothing seems but what we see,
        Nor aught to rule but common circumstance--
        Nought is to seek but praise, to shun but chance;
        A moment more, and God is all in all,
        And not a sparrow from its nest can fall
        But from the ground its chirp goes up into his hall.

        2.

        I know at least which is the better mood.
        When on a heap of cares I sit and brood,
        Like Job upon his ashes, sorely vext,
        I feel a lower thing than when I stood
        The world's true heir, fearless as, on its stalk,
        A lily meeting Jesus in his walk:
        I am not all mood--I can judge betwixt.

        3.

   ...

George MacDonald

Of Anticipation. from Proverbial Philosophy

Thou hast seen many sorrows, travel-stained pilgrim of the world.
But that which hath vexed thee most hath been the looking for evil;
And though calamities have crossed thee, and misery been heaped on thy head,
Yet ills, that never happened, have chiefly made thee wretched.
The sting of pain and the edge of pleasure are blunted by long expectation,
For the gall and the balm alike are diluted in the waters of patience:
And often thou sippest sweetness, ere the cup is dashed from thy lip;
Or drainest the gall of fear, while evil is passing by thy dwelling.
A man too careful of danger liveth in continual torment,
But a cheerful expecter of the best hath a fountain of joy within him:
Yea, though the breath of disappointment should chill the sanguine heart,
Speedily gloweth it again, warme...

Martin Farquhar Tupper