Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ stars can only shine

      In the dark night.

      Be strong, O heart of mine,

      Look toward the light.

      Be strong to bear, O heart!

      Nothing is vain:

      Strive not, for life is care,

      And God sends pain.

      Heaven is above, and there

      Rest will remain.

      Be strong to love, O heart!

      Love knows not wrong;

      Didst thou love creatures even,

      Life were not long;

      Didst thou love God in heaven

      Thou wouldst be strong.

      ———

      Why comes temptation but for man to meet

      And master and make crouch beneath his foot,

      And so be pedestaled in triumph? Pray,

      "Lead us into no such temptation, Lord!"

      Yea, but, O thou whose servants are the bold,

      Lead such temptations by the head and hair,

      Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight,

      That so he may do battle and have praise.

      —Robert Browning.

      

      ———

      BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

      Speak thou the truth. Let others fence,

      And trim their words for pay:

      In pleasant sunshine of pretense

      Let others bask their day.

      Guard thou the fact; though clouds of night

      Down on thy watch tower stoop:

      Though thou shouldst see thine heart's delight

      Borne from thee by their swoop.

      Face thou the wind. Though safer seem

      In shelter to abide:

      We were not made to sit and dream:

      The safe must first be tried.

      Where God hath set His thorns about,

      Cry not, "The way is plain":

      His path within for those without

      Is paved with toil and pain.

      One fragment of His blessed Word,

      Into thy spirit burned,

      Is better than the whole half-heard

      And by thine interest turned.

      Show thou thy light. If conscience gleam,

      Set not thy bushel down;

      The smallest spark may send his beam

      O'er hamlet, tower, and town.

      Woe, woe to him, on safety bent,

      Who creeps to age from youth,

      Failing to grasp his life's intent

      Because he fears the truth.

      Be true to every inmost thought,

      And as thy thought, thy speech:

      What thou hast not by suffering bought,

      Presume thou not to teach.

      Hold on, hold on—thou hast the rock,

      The foes are on the sand:

      The first world tempest's ruthless shock

      Scatters their drifting strand:

      While each wild gust the mist shall clear

      We now see darkly through,

      And justified at last appear

      The true, in Him that's True.

      —Henry Alford.

      ———

      COURAGE DEFINED

      The brave man is not he who feels no fear,

      For that were stupid and irrational;

      But he whose noble soul its fear subdues,

      And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.

      As for your youth whom blood and blows delight,

      Away with them! there is not in their crew

      One valiant spirit.

      —Joanna Baillie.

      ———

      DEMAND FOR COURAGE

      Thy life's a warfare, thou a soldier art;

      Satan's thy foeman, and a faithful heart

      Thy two-edged weapon; patience is thy shield,

      Heaven is thy chieftain, and the world thy field.

      To be afraid to die, or wish for death,

      Are words and passions of despairing breath.

      Who doth the first the day doth faintly yield;

      And who the second basely flies the field.

      —Francis Quarles.

      ———

      When falls the hour of evil chance—

      And hours of evil chance will fall—

СКАЧАТЬ