Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ his sight.

      ———

      Better to stem with heart and hand

      The roaring tide of life than lie,

      Unmindful, on its flowery strand,

      Of God's occasions drifting by!

      ———

      TRUTH

      Truth will prevail, though men abhor

      The glory of its light;

      And wage exterminating war

      And put all foes to flight.

      Though trodden under foot of men,

      Truth from the dust will spring,

      And from the press—the lip—the pen—

      In tones of thunder ring.

      Beware—beware, ye who resist

      The light that beams around,

      Lest, ere you look through error's mist,

      Truth strike you to the ground.

      —D. C. Colesworthy.

      ———

      TO A REFORMER

      Nay, now, if these things that you yearn to teach

      Bear wisdom, in your judgment, rich and strong,

      Give voice to them though no man heed your speech,

      Since right is right though all the world go wrong.

      The proof that you believe what you declare

      Is that you still stand firm though throngs pass by;

      Rather cry truth a lifetime to void air

      Than flatter listening millions with one lie!

      —Edgar Fawcett.

      ———

      TEACH ME THE TRUTH

      Teach me the truth, Lord, though it put to flight

      My cherished dreams and fondest fancy's play;

      Give me to know the darkness from the light,

      The night from day.

      Teach me the truth, Lord, though my heart may break

      In casting out the falsehood for the true;

      Help me to take my shattered life and make

      Its actions new.

      Teach me the truth, Lord, though my feet may fear

      The rocky path that opens out to me;

      Rough it may be, but let the way be clear

      That leads to thee.

      Teach me the truth, Lord. When false creeds decay,

      When man-made dogmas vanish with the night,

      Then, Lord, on thee my darkened soul shall stay,

      Thou living Light.

      —Frances Lockwood Green.

      ———

      HEROISM

      It takes great strength to train

      To modern service your ancestral brain;

      To lift the weight of the unnumbered years

      Of dead men's habits, methods, and ideas;

      To hold that back with one hand, and support

      With the other the weak steps of the new thought.

      It takes great strength to bring your life up square

      With your accepted thought and hold it there;

      Resisting the inertia that drags back

      From new attempts to the old habit's track.

      It is so easy to drift back, to sink;

      So hard to live abreast of what you think.

      It takes great strength to live where you belong

      When other people think that you are wrong;

      People you love, and who love you, and whose

      Approval is a pleasure you would choose.

      To bear this pressure and succeed at length

      In living your belief—well, it takes strength,

      And courage, too. But what does courage mean

      Save strength to help you face a pain foreseen?

      Courage to undertake this lifelong strain

      Of setting yours against your grand-sire's brain;

      Dangerous risk of walking lone and free

      Out of the easy paths that used to be,

      And the fierce pain of hurting those we love

      When love meets truth, and truth must ride above.

      But the best courage man has ever shown

      Is daring to cut loose and think alone.

      Dark are the unlit chambers of clear space

      Where light shines back from no reflecting face.

      Our sun's wide glare, our heaven's shining blue,

      We owe to fog and dust they fumble through;

      And our rich wisdom that we treasure so

      Shines from the thousand things that we don't know.

      But to think new—it takes a courage grim

      As led Columbus over the world's rim.

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