Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ help us in our daily needs,

      And by their overflow

      Raise us from what is low!

      —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

      ———

      GOD'S HEROES

      Not on the gory field of fame

      Their noble deeds were done;

      Not in the sound of earth's acclaim

      Their fadeless crowns were won.

      Not from the palaces of kings,

      Nor fortune's sunny clime,

      Came the great souls, whose life-work flings

      Luster o'er earth and time.

      For truth with tireless zeal they sought;

      In joyless paths they trod—

      Heedless of praise or blame they wrought,

      And left the rest to God.

      The lowliest sphere was not disdained;

      Where love could soothe or save,

      They went, by fearless faith sustained,

      Nor knew their deeds were brave.

      The foes with which they waged their strife

      Were passion, self, and sin;

      The victories that laureled life

      Were fought and won within.

      Not names in gold emblazoned here,

      And great and good confessed,

      In Heaven's immortal scroll appear

      As noblest and as best.

      No sculptured stone in stately temple

      Proclaims their rugged lot;

      Like Him who was their great example,

      This vain world knew them not.

      But though their names no poet wove

      In deathless song or story,

      Their record is inscribed above;

      Their wreaths are crowns of glory.

      —Edward Hartley Dewart.

      ———

      WORLDLY PLACE

      "Even in a palace, life may be led well!"

      So spoke the imperial sage, purest of men,

      Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den

      Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

      Our freedom for a little bread we sell,

      And drudge under some foolish master's ken,

      Who rates us if we peer outside our pen—

      Matched with a palace, is not this a hell?

      "Even in a palace!" On his truth sincere,

      Who spoke these words no shadow ever came;

      And when my ill-schooled spirit is aflame

      Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,

      I'll stop and say: "There were no succor here!

      The aids to noble life are all within."

      —Matthew Arnold.

      ———

      THE VICTORY

      To do the tasks of life, and be not lost;

      To mingle, yet dwell apart;

      To be by roughest seas how rudely tossed,

      Yet bate no jot of heart;

      To hold thy course among the heavenly stars,

      Yet dwell upon the earth;

      To stand behind Fate's firm-laid prison bars,

      Yet win all Freedom's worth.

      —Sydney Henry Morse.

      ———

      'Twere sweet indeed to close our eyes

      with those we cherish near,

      And wafted upward by their sighs soar

      to some calmer sphere;

      But whether on the scaffold high or

      in the battle's van

      The fittest place where man can die

      is where he dies for man.

      —Michael Joseph Barry.

      

      ———

      A TRUE HERO

      (James Braidwood of the London Fire

       Brigade; died June, 1861.)

      Not at the battle front, writ of in story,

      Not in the blazing wreck, steering to glory;

      Not while in martyr-pangs soul and flesh sever,

      Died he—this Hero now; hero forever.

      No pomp poetic crowned, no forms enchained him;

      No friends applauding watched, no foes arraigned him;

      Death found him there, without grandeur or beauty.

      Only an honest man doing his duty;

      Just a God-fearing man, simple and lowly,

      Constant at kirk and hearth, kindly as holy;

      Death СКАЧАТЬ