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Love Is Strength
Love alone is great in might,Makes the heavy burden light,Smooths rough ways to weary feet,Makes the bitter morsel sweet:Love alone is strength!Might that is not born of LoveIs not Might born from above,Has its birthplace down belowWhere they neither reap nor sow:Love alone is strength!Love is stronger than all force,Is its own eternal source;Might is always in decay,Love grows fresher every day:Love alone is strength!Little ones, no ill can chance;Fear ye not, but sing and dance;Though the high-heaved heaven should fallGod is plenty for us all:God is Love and Strength!
George MacDonald
The World's Day.
Dark was the world when from the bowers Of forfeit Eden man went forth,With aching heart and blighted powers, To till the sterile soil of earth;Yet, even then, a glimmering light Faintly illumed the eastern skies,And, struggling through the mists of night, Beamed soft on Abel's sacrifice.It shone on Abram's eager eyes Upon Moriah's lonely height,And Jacob, 'neath the midnight skies, In hallowed dreams beheld its light;And o'er Arabia's desert sand Where weary Israel wandered on,In doubt and fear toward Canaan's land, The hallowed dawning brighter shone.Ages roll on 'mid deep'ning day, And prophet-bard and holy seerWatch eagerly the kindling ray, To see the blessed sun appear -Wat...
Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)
Shrift.
I am not true, but you would pardon this If you could see the tortured spirit take Its place beside you in the dark, and break Your daily food of love and kindliness. You'd guess the bitter thing that treachery is, Furtive and on its guard, asleep, awake, Fearing to sin, yet fearing to forsake, And daily giving Christ the Judas kiss. But piteous amends I make each day To recompense the evil with the good; With double pang I play the double part Of all you trust and all that I betray. What long atonement makes my penitent blood, To what sad tryst goes my unfaithful heart!
Muriel Stuart
The White Man's Burden
Take up the White man's burdenSend forth the best ye breedGo bind your sons to exileTo serve your captives' need;To wait in heavy harnessOn fluttered folk and wildYour new-caught, sullen peoples,Half devil and half child.Take up the White Man's burdenIn patience to abide,To veil the threat of terrorAnd check the show of pride;By open speech and simple,An hundred times mad plain.To seek another's profit,And work another's gain.Take up the White Man's burdenThe savage wars of peaceFill full the mouth of FamineAnd bid the sickness cease;And when your goal is nearestThe end for others sought,Watch Sloth and heathen FollyBring all your hope to nought.Take up the White Man's burden
Rudyard
To A Child
Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,Thou gazest at the painted tiles,Whose figures grace,With many a grotesque form and face.The ancient chimney of thy nursery!The lady with the gay macaw,The dancing girl, the grave bashawWith bearded lip and chin;And, leaning idly o'er his gate,Beneath the imperial fan of state,The Chinese mandarin.With what a look of proud commandThou shakest in thy little handThe coral rattle with its silver bells,Making a merry tune!Thousands of years in Indian seasThat coral grew, by slow degrees,Until some deadly and wild monsoonDashed it on Coromandel's sand!Those silver bellsReposed of yore,As shapeless ore,Far down in the ...
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sonnet. To Hope.
How droops the wretch whom adverse fates pursue,While sad experience, from his aching sightSweeps the fair prospects of unproved delight,Which flattering friends and flattering fancies drew.When want assails his solitary shed,When dire distraction's horrent eye-ball glares,Seen 'midst the myriad of tumultuous cares,That shower their shafts on his devoted head.Then, ere despair usurp his vanquish'd heart,Is there a power, whose influence benignCan bid his head in pillow'd peace recline,And from his breast withdraw the barbed dart?There is--sweet Hope! misfortune rests on thee--Unswerving anchor of humanity!
Thomas Gent
The Charge Of The Heavy Brigade At Balaclava
IThe charge of the gallant three hundred, the HeavyBrigadeDown the hill, down the hill, thousands of Russians,Thousands of horsemen, drew to the valley ? andstayed;For Scarlett and Scarlett's three hundred were riding byWhen the points of the Russian lances arose in the sky;And he called ?Left wheel into line!? and they wheeledand obeyed.Then he looked at the host that had halted he knewnot why,And he turned half round and he bad his trumpetersoundTo the charge, and he rode on ahead, as he wavedhis bladeTo the gallant three hundred those glory will neverfade??Follow,? and up the hill, up the hill, up the hill,Followed the Heavy Brigade.IIThe trumpet, the gallop, the charge, and the mightof t...
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Hermione
On a mound an Arab lay,And sung his sweet regretsAnd told his amulets:The summer birdHis sorrow heard,And, when he heaved a sigh profound,The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.'If it be, as they said, she was not fair,Beauty's not beautiful to me,But sceptred genius, aye inorbed,Culminating in her sphere.This Hermione absorbedThe lustre of the land and ocean,Hills and islands, cloud and tree,In her form and motion.'I ask no bauble miniature,Nor ringlets deadShorn from her comely head,Now that morning not disdainsMountains and the misty plainsHer colossal portraiture;They her heralds be,Steeped in her quality,And singers of her fameWho is their Muse and dame.'Higher, dear...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Bull And The Mastiff.
Deem you to train your son and heir, For his preceptor then take care; To sound his mind your cares employ, E'er you commit to him your boy. Once on a time on native plain A bull enjoyed a native reign. A mastiff, stranger there, with ire Beheld the bull, with eyes of fire. The bovine monarch, on his part, Spurned up the dust with dauntless heart, Advised the mastiff to think twice, And asked - if lust or avarice, From which, in main, contention springs, Caused him to break the peace of kings? The mastiff answered him, 'twas glory - To emulate the sons of story; Told him that Cæsar was his sire, And he a prince ba...
John Gay
What The Voice Said
Maddened by Earth's wrong and evil,"Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,"From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder,Shake the bolted fire!"Love is lost, and Faith is dying;With the brute the man is sold;And the dropping blood of laborHardens into gold."Here the dying wail of Famine,There the battle's groan of pain;And, in silence, smooth-faced MammonReaping men like grain."'Where is God, that we should fear Him?'Thus the earth-born Titans say'God! if Thou art living, hear us!'Thus the weak ones pray.""Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding,"Spake a solemn Voice within;"Weary of our Lord's forbearance,Art thou free from sin?"Fearless brow to Him uplifting,Canst thou for His thunders call,Kno...
John Greenleaf Whittier
Miriam Fay's Letter
Elenor Murray asked to go in training And came to see me, but the school was full, We could not take her. Then she asked to stand Upon a list and wait, I put her off. She came back, and she came back, till at last I took her application; then she came And pushed herself and asked when she could come, And start to train. At last I laughed and said: "Well, come to-morrow." I had never seen Such eagerness, persistence. So she came. She tried to make a friend of me, perhaps Since it was best, I being in command. But anyway she wooed me, tried to please me. And spite of everything I grew to love her, Though I distrusted her. But yet again I had belief in her best self, though doubting The girl some...
Edgar Lee Masters
God In Growth.
I said, I will arise and work some thing,Nor be content with growth, but cause to growA life around me, clear as yes from no,That to my restless hand some rest may bring,And give a vital power to Action's spring:Thus, I must cease to be! I cried; when, lo!An angel stood beside me on the snow,With folded wings that came of pondering."God's glory flashes on the silence hereBeneath the moon," he cried, and upward threwHis glorious eyes that swept the utmost blue,"Ere yet his bounding brooks run forth with cheerTo bear his message to the hidden yearWho cometh up in haste to make his glory new."
The Last Word
Before the April night was lateA rider came to the castle gate;A rider breathing human breath,But the words he spoke were the words of Death."Greet you well from the King our lord,He marches hot for the eastward ford;Living or dying, all or one,Ye must keep the ford till the race be run.Sir Alain rose with lips that smiled,He kissed his wife, he kissed his child:Before the April night was lateSir Alain rode from the castle gate.He called his men-at-arms by name,But one there was uncalled that came:He bade his troop behind him ride,But there was one that rode beside. "Why will you spur so fast to die? Be wiser ere the night go by. A message late is a message lost; For all your...
Henry John Newbolt
Caution In Counsel.
Know when to speak; for many times it bringsDanger to give the best advice to kings.
Robert Herrick
Maceo.
Maceo dead! a thrill of sorrow Through our hearts in sadness ranWhen we felt in one sad hour That the world had lost a man.He had clasped unto his bosom The sad fortunes of his land -Held the cause for which he perished With a firm, unfaltering hand.On his lips the name of freedom Fainted with his latest breath.Cuba Libre was his watchword Passing through the gates of death.With the light of God around us, Why this agony and strife?With the cross of Christ before us, Why this fearful waste of life?Must the pathway unto freedom Ever mark a crimson line,And the eyes of wayward mortals Always close to light divine?Must the hearts of fearless valor Fa...
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Camp Followers
In the old wars of the world there were camp followers,Women of ancient sins who gave themselves for hire,Women of weak wills and strong desire.And, like the poison ivy in the woodsThat winds itself about tall virile treesUntil it smothers them, so theseRuined the bodies and the souls of men.More evil were they than Red War itself,Or Pestilence, or Famine. Now in this war -This last most awful carnage of the world -All the old wickedness exists as then:But as a foul stream from a festering fenIs met and scattered by a mountain brookLeaping along its beautiful, bright course,So now the forceOf these new Followers of the camp has comeStraight from God's SourceTo cleanse the world and cleanse the minds of men.Good women, of gr...
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Arms And The Man. - The New England Group.
At Plymouth Rock a handful of brave souls,Full-armed in faith, erected home and shrine,And flourished where the wild Atlantic rollsIts pyramids of brine.There rose a manly race austere and strong,On whom no lessons of their day were lost,Earnest as some conventicle's deep song,And keen as their own frost.But that shrewd frost became a friend to thoseWho fronted there the Ice-King's bitter storm,For see we not that underneath the snowsThe growing wheat keeps warm?Soft ease and silken opulence they spurned;From sands of silver, and from emerald boughsWith golden ingots laden full, they turnedLike Pilgrims under vows.For them no tropic seas, no slumbrous calms,No rich abundance generously unrolled:In place of Cr...
James Barron Hope
Captain Orlando Killion
Oh, you young radicals and dreamers, You dauntless fledglings Who pass by my headstone, Mock not its record of my captaincy in the army And my faith in God! They are not denials of each other. Go by reverently, and read with sober care How a great people, riding with defiant shouts The centaur of Revolution, Spurred and whipped to frenzy, Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea Over the precipice they were nearing, And fell from his back in precipitate awe To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being. Moved by the same sense of vast reality Of life and death, and burdened as they were With the fate of a race, How was I, a little blasphemer, Caught in the drift of a natio...