Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul. Various

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ CHOIR INVISIBLE

      O may I join the choir invisible

      Of those immortal dead who live again

      In minds made better by their presence; live

      In pulses stirred to generosity,

      In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

      For miserable aims that end with self,

      In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

      And with their mild persistence urge man's search

      To vaster issues.

      So to live is heaven:

      To make undying music in the world,

      Breathing as beauteous order that controls

      With growing sway the growing life of man.

      So we inherit that sweet purity

      For which we struggled, failed and agonized,

      With widening retrospect that bred despair.

      Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,

      A vicious parent shaming still its child

      Poor, anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;

      Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,

      Die in the large and charitable air.

      And all our rarer, better, truer, self,

      That sobbed religiously in yearning song,

      That watched to ease the burden of the world,

      Laboriously tracing what must be,

      And what may yet be better—saw within

      A worthier image for the sanctuary,

      And shaped it forth before the multitude

      Divinely human, raising worship so

      To higher reverence more mixed with love—

      That better self shall live till human Time

      Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky

      Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb,

      Unread forever.

      This is life to come,

      Which martyred men have made more glorious

      For us who strive to follow. May I reach

      That purest heaven, be to other souls

      The cup of strength in some great agony,

      Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,

      Beget the smiles that have no cruelty—

      Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,

      And in diffusion ever more intense.

      So shall I join the choir invisible

      Whose music is the gladness of the world.

      —George Eliot.

      ———

      MY TASK

      To love some one more dearly ev'ry day,

      To help a wandering child to find his way,

      To ponder o'er a noble thought, and pray,

      And smile when evening falls.

      To follow truth as blind men long for light,

      To do my best from dawn of day till night,

      To keep my heart fit for His holy sight,

      And answer when He calls.

      —Maude Louise Ray.

      

      ———

      "IT IS MORE BLESSED"

      Give! as the morning that flows out of heaven;

      Give! as the waves when their channel is riven;

      Give! as the free air and sunshine are given;

      Lavishly, utterly, joyfully give!

      Not the waste drops of thy cup overflowing;

      Not the faint sparks of thy hearth ever glowing;

      Not a pale bud from the June roses blowing:

      Give as He gave thee who gave thee to live.

      Pour out thy love like the rush of a river,

      Wasting its waters, forever and ever,

      Through the burnt sands that reward not the giver:

      Silent or songful, thou nearest the sea.

      Scatter thy life as the summer's shower pouring;

      What if no bird through the pearl rain is soaring?

      What if no blossom looks upward adoring?

      Look to the life that was lavished for thee!

      So the wild wind strews its perfumed caresses:

      Evil and thankless the desert it blesses;

      Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses;

      Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing.

      What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses?

      What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes?

      Sweeter is music with minor-keyed closes,

      Fairest the vines that on ruin will cling.

      Almost the day of thy giving is over;

      Ere from the grass dies the bee-haunted clover

      Thou wilt have vanished from friend and from lover:

      What shall thy longing avail in the grave?

СКАЧАТЬ