Footsteps Across a Miracle: An anthology of poetry and cryptic philosophies

Footsteps Across A Miracle is a collection of poems about everyday life, people and situations, some funny, some tragic. There are also cryptic philosophies.
Table of contents

Messages from the Edge. Cries Of An Irish Caveman. Footsteps Across a Miracle. The Fringe Poetry Magazine ' Return of the Gift. Li'l Book o' Manchester. Newcastle Poetry at the Pub Anthology Poetry at the Pub Newcastle. Come scrivere un'ottima recensione. La recensione deve essere di almeno 50 caratteri. Il titolo dovrebbe essere di almeno 4 caratteri.

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Chi ama i libri sceglie Kobo e inMondadori. Valutazioni e recensioni 0 0 valutazioni con stelle 0 recensioni. Valutazione complessiva Ancora nessuna valutazione. Chiudi Segnala una recensione Noi di Kobo ci assicuriamo che le recensioni pubblicate non contengano un linguaggio scurrile e sgradevole, spoiler o dati personali dei nostri recensori. Vuoi dare un altro sguardo a questa recensione? Hai segnalato con successo questa recensione. When looking on the mother sod, Can I hold doubt that this be God? Or when a primrose smiles at me, Can I distrust Eternity? Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches And all of our poor selfish grief Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door And never put on again.

I wish we could come on it all unaware, Like the hunter who finds a lost trail; And I wish that the one whom our blindness had done The greatest injustice of all Could be there at the gates like an old friend that waits For the comrade he's gladdest to hail. We would find all the things we intended to do But forgot, and remembered too late, Little praises unspoken, little promises broken, And all of the thousand and one Little duties neglected that might have perfected The day for one less fortunate. For what had been hardest we'd know had been best, And what had seemed loss would be gain; For there isn't a sting that will not take wing When we've faced it and laughed it away And I think that the laughter is most what we're after In the Land of Beginning Again.

So I wish that there were some wonderful place Called the Land of Beginning Again, Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches, And all of our poor selfish grief Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door And never put on again. Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever Lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own! And yet he smiles so wistfully Once he has crept within, I wonder if he hopes to see The man I might have been.

Use Well the Moment Use well the moment; what the hour Brings for thy use is in thy power; And what thou best canst understand Is just the thing lies nearest to thy hand. But all men perish? Aye, and even so Beneath the grasses lay this body low; Forever close these eyes and still this breath; All this, yet I shall not have tasted death. Where are the lips that prattled infant lays? The eyes that shone with light of childhood's days? The heart that bubbled o'er with boyhood's glee? The limbs that bounded as the chamois free?

The ears that heard life's music everywhere? These, all, where are they now? Yet still I live. My love, my hate, my fear, my will, My all that makes life living firm abides. Death is my youth, and so my age must die; But I remain Imperishable I. Speed day and year! Fleet by the stream of time! Wing, birds of passage, to a sunnier clime. Come change, come dissolution and decay, To kill the very semblance of this clay! Yet, know the conscious, the unchanging I Through all eternity shall never die.

Willis Fletcher Johnson Beyond Electrons They who once probed and doubted now believe The Men of Science, for they humbly learn There is a Will that guides the atom's course; A Power that directs what they discern In light and air, in star and wave and sod; Beyond electrons they discover God! From research they derive a new faith that Sustains foundations of our ancient creeds; They grope through matter toward an utmost Light And find a living God behind His deeds. Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That rotting inward slowly moulders all.

It is not worth the keeping: And trust me not at all or all in all. No warder at the gate Can let the friendly in; But, like the sun, o'er all He will the castle win, And shine along the wall. Implacable is Love Foes may be bought or teased From their hostile intent, But he goes unappeased Who is on kindness bent. The poem I should like to write is written in the stars, Where Venus holds her glowing torch behind her gleaming bars; Where old Arcturus swings his lamp across the fields of space, And all his brilliant retinue is wheeling into place; Where unknown suns must rise and set, as ages onward fare The poem I should like to write is surely written there.

No human hand can write it, for with a pen divine, The Master Poet wrote it each burning word and line. Windes Life's Finest Things Life's finest things, the things that last, Are ours, but never fettered fast. The exodus of birds and fowls when blasts begin to blow, The fuzzy Spring buds peeping forth, at passing of the snow; Prolific Summer's teeming life, the omtone of the bee, Resplendent Autumn's full-toned leaves ablaze on every tree; 76 QUOTABLE POEMS The sorcery of Winter's moon, frost's leafage on the pane, The solemn forest's awful hush, the rhythm of the rain; A timid breeze that wakes a lake, the ocean's troubled breast, A storm-scourged mountain rearing high its chaste un- bending crest; Recall the tender words of love or long forgotten lays, The bonfire's spicy fragrant smoke on Indian-summer days.


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The flaming death robes of the day, the marvel of its birth, The frozen green in the fissures that split the glacier's girth. The glint of gorgeous green-blue eyes in peacock's spread of tail, A sense of God's omnipotence when thunder rends the vale, Proud dreams and schemes of vibrant youth which surely must come true, That brave exalted purpose of the child that once was you; The nursing back a loved one from the verge of voiceless dust, The greatest boon to human kind, the great, great gift of trust.

Life's finest things, the things that last, Are ours, but never fettered fast. The finest things writ on the scroll Are only grappled by the soul. Bangs Burgess What of the Darkness? What of the darkness? Is it very fair? Are there great calms? Like soft-shut lilies, all your faces glow With some strange peace our faces never know, With some strange faith our faces never dare Dwells it in Darkness?

Do you find it there? Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry? Is it a Hand to still the pulse's leap? Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep? Day shows us not such comfort anywhere Dwells it in Darkness? Out of the Day's deceiving light we call Day that shows man so great, and God so small, That hides the stars, and magnifies the grass O is the Darkness too a lying glass!

Or undistracted, do you find truth there? What of the Darkness? Richard le Gallienne Christmas Eve The door is on the latch tonight, The hearth-fire is aglow, I seem to hear soft passing feet The Christ child in the snow.

My heart is open wide tonight For stranger, kith or kin; I would not bar a single door Where love might enter in. He answered my question in mild surprise: They sang their answer: I asked my question. The mother smiled And looked down into her baby's eyes: Davis Sonnet Be secret, heart; and if your dreams have come To nothingness, and if their weight was sweet Within you then be silent in def eat, Counting your lost imaginings as the sum Of destined joy. Lest men should call you dumb Sing still the songs that hold within their beat The hopes of every man, and the wild, sweet Predictions of what earth shall yet become.

The words that you would tell Of your own longing, and your keen distress Hold them to silence; kill, destroy, suppress That melody, although you love it well. And sing the songs that men have always sung Of love and sorrow, since the world was young. He dared not come by light of day To move where sinners trod: He must hold apart from the common heart, For he was a man of God.

But the honest Christ, He walked with men Nor held His ways apart With publicans talked, with harlots walked, And loved them all in His heart. Came Nicodemus to Christ by night; And long they reasoned, alone, Till the old man saw the sham of the law That turned his being to stone; He tore the formal husks from his life; He was born again, though gray. Reach your hand and take it.

You are The builder, And no one else can make it. Mary Carolyn Dames Miracles Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love, Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car.

Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a Summer forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in Spring ; These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me the sea is a continual miracle, The fishes that swim the rocks the motion of the waves the ships with men in them, What stranger miracles are there? Walt Whitman Faith " Must I submissive bow to earth my head? Restrain the restless daring of my mind? Bound by the palimpsests of men long dead, Live in the daylight as a man made blind? This pathway leads to kindled mysteries That none have ever seen except the meek. Bravely I go upon a lonely quest.

I will not fold my hands and close my eyes To gain an easy and ignoble rest. Thou shalt find Precipitous the pathways to be trod. Summon the utmost valiance of thy mind. Only the audacious ever win to God. Then might I know the purer ecstasy Of conquering Earth's test of alien tears And Life, perchance, her promise might redeem, And Love be more than a delusive dream! Corinne Roosevelt Robinson From Ode on Intimations of Immortality There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream, It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts, before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither; Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

William Wordsworth The World Is One The world is one; we cannot live apart, To earth's remotest races we are kin; God made the generations of one blood; Man's separation is a sign of sin. What though we solve the secret of the stars, Or from the vibrant ether pluck a song, Can this for all man's tyranny atone While Mercy weeps and waits and suffers long? Put up the sword, its day of anguish past; Disarm the forts, and then, the war-flags furled, Forever keep the air without frontiers, The great, free, friendly highway of the world.

Hinton White Riches What to a man who loves the air Are trinkets, gauds, and jewels rare? And what is wealth or fame to one Who is a brother to the sun; Who drinks the wine that morning spills Upon the heaven-kissing hills, And sees a ray of hope afar In every glimmer of a star? What to a man whose god is truth Are spoils and stratagems, forsooth Who looks beyond the doors of death For loftier life, sublimer breath; Who can forswear the state of kings In knowledge of diviner things, The dreams immortal that unroll And burst to blossoms in his soul?

There is no plan Transcending even a rose's timid glory, A cricket's summer song. The ways of man Are stupors of the flesh, and transitory. Only the dream will last. Some distant day The wheels will falter, and the silent sun Will see the last beam leveled to decay, And all man's futile clangor spent and done. Yet after brick and steel and stone are gone, And flesh and blood are dust, the dream lives on. It lies not in the past.

God ever keeps the good wine till the last. Beyond are nobler work and sweeter rest. The straight path Wearies us with the never-varying lines, And we grow melancholy. I would make Reason my guide, but she should sometimes sit Patiently by the wayside, while I traced The mazes of the pleasant wilderness Around me. She should be my counsellor, But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs Impulses from a deeper source than hers; And there are notions, in the mind of man, That she must look upon with awe. Mine was the boat, And mine the air, And mine the sea, Not mine a care.

MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN

My boat became my place of nightly toil, I sailed at sunset to the fishing ground; At morn the boat was freighted with the spoil That my all-conquering work and skill had found. Mine was the boat, And mine the net, And mine the skill And power to get. One day there passed along the silent shore, While I my net was casting in the sea, A Man, who spoke as never man before; I followed Him new life began in me.

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Ah, 'twas a fearful night out on the lake, And all my skill availed not at the helm, Till Him asleep I waken, crying, " Take, Take Thou command, lest waters overwhelm! Once from His boat He taught the curious throng, Then bade me let down nets out in the sea; I murmured, but obeyed, nor was it long Before the catch amazed and humbled me. Joseph Addison Richards Slaves They are slaves who fear to speak, For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose, Hatred, scoffing and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink, From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be, In the right with two or three.

And all the men each drags a golden chain, As though he walked in freedom. And yet, perhaps, in this assemblage vast, In some poor heart sounds the enraptured chord, And staggering homeward from a hopeless quest The God-anointed touched me, meanly dressed, And, like a second Peter, I have passed Without salute the vessel of the Lord. Do you fear the force of the wind, The slash of the rain?

Go face them and fight them, Be savage again. Go hungry and cold like the wolf, Go wade like the crane: The palms of your hands will thicken, The skin of your cheek will tan, You'll grow ragged and weary and swarthy, But you'll walk like a man! Hamlin Garland What Is Good? Between the seed time and the golden sheaf, For hate and spite.

We have no time for malice and for greed; Therefore, with love make beautiful the deed; Fast speeds the night. Life is too swift Between the blossom and the white snow's drift, Between the silence and the lark's uplift, For bitter words. In kindness and in gentleness our speech Must carry messages of hope, and reach The sweetest chords. Vories Chiaroscuro Beauty growing on a thorn, Love victorious on a tree Conquer every cynic's scorn, Prove life's immortality! Else earth is darkness at the core, And dust and ashes all that is This round of green, this orb of flame, Fantastic beauty; such as lurks In some wild poet, when he works Without a conscience or an aim.

What then were God to such as I? Alfred Tennyson From " In Memoriam " Miracle Yesterday the twig was brown and bare; Today the glint of green is there Tomorrow will be leaflets spare; I know no thing so wondrous fair No miracle so strangely rare. I wonder what will next be there! Bailey Humanity There is a soul above the soul of each, A mightier soul, which yet to each belongs There is a sound made of all human speech, And numerous as the concourse of all songs: And in that soul lives each, in each that soul, Though all the ages are its lifetime vast; Each soul that dies, in its most sacred whole Receiveth life that shall for ever last.

And thus for ever with a wider span Humanity o'erarches time and death: Give me the grace to stand alone, Give me the strength to be a man. As mighty trains on shining rails Haste onward through the night and day: Send me on work that never fails Because of indolent delay. As planes that plunge into the sky To find themselves upborne on air: Teach me the life of trust to try, And find the soul upheld through prayer. From distant places voices speak They fill the mind with mystery: Then may I now Thy message seek, O, let me keep in tune with Thee.

Amid the motion of machine, The whirl of wheel, the rush of wings: Help me to live the life serene, Because victorious over things. May something of the vast designs That motivate and move our days, Be but inevitable signs Which call life into lordlier ways. But now the shadows on me lie, Deep-cut the channel of the years; And prayer is but a sobbing cry Through whitened lips and falling tears. Lord, for the wicked will Betrayed and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept. For ignorant hopes that were Broken to our blind prayer: For pain, death, sorrow sent Unto our chastisement: For all loss of seeming good, Quicken our gratitude.

Light to discover the way, Power to follow it long. Let me have light to see, Light to be sure and know; When the road is clear to me Willingly I go. Let me have power to do, Power of the brain and nerve, Though the task is heavy and new Willingly I will serve. My prayers are lesser than three, Nothing I pray but two Let me have light to see, Let me have power to do.

These, in the name of Jesus, Against the dark gods stand, They gird the earth with valor, They heed their King's command. No bloodshed in the wrestling, But souls new-born arise The nations growing kinder, The child-hearts growing wise. What is the final ending? The issue, can we know? Will Christ outlive Mohammed?

Will Kali's altar go? This is our faith tremendous, Our wild hope, who shall scorn, That in the name of Jesus The world shall be reborn! Vachel Lindsay Ships That Pass in the Night Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and silence. God must have deeply loved the silences, For is there one of us who has not heard Promptings to silence that he speaks not of?

What of an old remorse; a hope that is Too deeply hoped; what of a grief outgrown; And silent, old, unconquerable love? A sometime residence in Hell, The nailprints in the hands. All those who pledge themselves, And to its terms agree Must chance an unexclusive cross, A common Calvary!

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Each separate star Means nothing, but a myriad scattered stars Break up the night and make it beautiful. Said a friend from afar. This is a wretched little place Where people talk about tawdry things And plant cabbages in the moonlight. But I do not live in Goshen, I answered. I live in Greece Where Plato taught and Phidias carved.

Do not think my world is small Because you find me in a little village. I have my books, my pictures, my dreams, Enchantments that transcend Time and Space. I do not live in Goshen at all, I live in an unbounded universe With the great souls of all the ages For my companions. So clear I see that things I thought Were right or harmless were a sin; So clear I see that I have sought, Unconscious, selfish aims to win. In outskirts of Thy kingdom vast, Father, the humblest spot give me; Set me the lowliest task Thou hast; Let me, repentant, work for Thee!

No more Thy miracle withhold; To us in tents give palaces of gold. And while we stumble among things that are Give us the solace of a guiding-star! It has no eyes, But it can see through dark earth And beyond blue skies. The heart has no hands, But, knowing Love's touch, All the hands of the world Cannot do as much. Sometimes it may live again After long dead.

He plants a friend of sun and sky; He plants the flag of breezes free; The shaft of beauty, towering high; He plants a home to heaven anigh For song and mother-croon of bird In hushed and happy twilight heard The treble of heaven's harmony These things he plants who plants a tree. What does he plant who plants a tree? He plants cool shade and tender rain, And seed and bud of days to be, And years that fade and flush again; He plants the glory of the plain; He plants the forest's heritage; The harvest of a coining age ; The joy that unborn eyes shall see These things he plants who plants a tree.

A little warmth, a little light Of love's bestowing and so, good-night! A little fun, to match the sorrow Of each day's growing and so, good-morrow! A little trust that when we die We reap our sowing! Help me, Lord, to stand approved In faithfulness to every task. Thus, in Thy sight I will be great. McCracken Builders When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, " See!

This our Fathers did for us. More than two crosses stand on either side The Cross today on more than one dark hill; More than three hours a myriad men have cried, And they are crying still. Before Him now no mocking faces pass; Heavy on all who built the cross, it lies; Pilate is hanging there, and Caiaphas, Judas without his price. All are needed by each one Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it cheers not now; For I did not bring home the river and sky; He sang to my ear they sang to my eye. I wiped away the weeds and foam I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. The lover watched his graceful maid, As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; The gay enchantment was undone A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, " I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth. The other gifts Thou gavest me I long have spilled. And some I broke upon these stones, And some are bled Until they died, because my thoughts To strangeness wed. Dear God, I would have other gifts Within my hands. Seal them upon me in Thy wrath With golden bands; That I may never lose again A love, but free My heart, in deepening loneliness, To ecstasy. Mary Edgar Comstock For Transient Things Let us thank God for unfulfilled desire, For beauty that escapes our clutch and flies; Let us thank God for loveliness that dies, For violet leapings of a dying fire, For ebbing lives and seas, the fading choir Of quiet stars, the momentary guise That love assumes within a lover's eyes Before it fades with other things that tire.

McPeek Simon and Judas How dare we look askance at these two men, Toy with unspoken thoughts, " Were I there then " Venture to pity, blame, or mildly scoff? We, who have struck not once with any sword, Who have so many times betrayed our Lord, Nor followed even at a great way off! I was hanged at dawn for a crime Flesh dies, but the soul knows no death; I piped to great Shakespeare's chime The witches' song in Macbeth.

I am part of the sea and stars And the winds of the South and North, Of mountain and moon and Mars, And the ages sent me forth! John Richard Moreland Faith I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea Come drifting home with broken masts and sails; I shall believe the Hand which never fails From seeking evil worketh good for me; And though I weep because those sails are battered, Still will I cry, while my best hopes lie shattered, " I trust in Thee. I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain, And troubles swarm like bees about a hive; I shall believe the heights for which 1 strive Are only reached by anguish and by pain; And though I groan and tremble with my crosses, I yet shall see, through my severest losses, The greater gain.

I will not doubt; well anchored in the faith, Like some stanch ship, my soul braves every gale, So strong its courage that it will not fail To breast the mighty unknown sea of Death.

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Ella Wheeler Wilcox Fortune There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat; And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.

And India's mystics sang aright Of the One Life pervading all One Being's tidal rise and fall In soul and form, in sound and sight - Eternal outflow and recall. Guilt shapes by Terror: And what is He? The ripe grain nods, The sweet dews fall, the flowers blow; But darker signs His presence show: The earthquake and the storm are God's And good and evil interflow.

O souls that turn Like sunflowers to the pure and best!


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To you the truth is manifest: For they the mind of Christ discern Who lean like John upon his breast! They are so old, I think they have forgotten What bitter words were spoken, long ago. I hate the cold, stern faces of new Sorrows Who stand and watch, and catch me all alone. I should be braver if I could remember How different the older ones have grown. Karle Wilson Baker Wages Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song, Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea!

Nay, but she aimed not at glory, no lover of glory she: Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. The wages of sin is death: She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky: Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. There I heard No voice of love low calling to its own, And found nor joy nor beauty; but alone I lived, till through the silence, like a bird Full-throated, came the music of a friend. Ledoux Peace and Joy Peace does not mean the end of all our striving, Joy does not mean the drying of our tears; Peace is the power that comes to souls arriving Up to the light where God Himself appears.

Joy is the wine that God is ever pouring Into the hearts of those who strive with Him, Lightening their eyes to vision and adoring, Strength'ning their arms to warfare glad and grim. And " God keep watch 'tween thee and me," This is my prayer; He looks thy way, He looketh mine, And keeps us near. Yet " God keep watch 'tween thee and me. He holds thy hand, He daspeth mine, And keeps us near. Should wealth and fame perchance be thine, And my lot lowly be; Or you be sad and sorrowful And glory be for me, Yet " God keep watch 'tween thee and me.

One arm round thee and one round me Will keep us near. I sigh sometimes to see thy face, But since this may not be, leave thee to the care of Him Who cares for thee and me. And though our paths be separate And thy way is not mine, Yet, coming to the mercy-seat, My soul will meet with thine. And " God keep watch 'tween thee and me " I'll whisper here; He blesseth thee, He blesseth me, And we are near. That it be well done, unrepented of, And not to loss. Elizabeth Barrett Browning The Song of the Unsuccessful We are the toilers whom God hath barred The gifts that are good to hold, We meant full well and we tried full hard, And our failures were manifold.

And we are the clan of those whose kin Were a millstone dragging them down, Yea, we had to sweat for our brother's sin, And lose the victor's crown. The seeming-able, who all but scored, From their teeming tribe we come: What was there wrong with us, Lord, That our lives were dark and dumb? The men, ten-talented, who still Strangely, missed the goal, Of them we are: We are the sinners, too, whose lust Conquered the higher claims, We sat us prone in the common dust, And played at the devil's games.

We are the doubles of those whose way Was festal with fruits and flowers, Body and brain we were sound as they, But the prizes were not ours. A mighty army our full ranks make, We shake the graves as we go; The sudden stroke and the slow heart-break, They both have brought us low. And while we are laying life's sword aside, Spent and dishonored and sad, Our Epitaph this, when once we have died: The grace to see, and wonder at the sight; The grace to take, and use Thy gift aright; The grace to share with him in poorer plight.

Go softly, you who have no loss to weep, Who sink at night to deep, untroubled rest, And envy the defeated who must keep The ghost of beauty in an empty breast. Frost Glory To Them Glory to them, the toilers of the earth, Who wrought with knotted hands, in wood and stone, Dreams their unlettered minds could not give birth And symmetries their souls had never known. Glory to them, the artisans, who spread Cathedrals like brown lace before the sun, Who could not build a rhyme, but reared instead The Doric grandeur of the Parthenon.

I never cross a marble portico, Or lift my eyes where stained glass windows steal From virgin sunlight moods of deeper glow, Or walk dream-peopled streets, except to feel A hush of reverence for that vast dead Who gave us beauty for a crust of bread. The days I labored at a task not mine? The days I yielded to a wild pursuit?

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The days I cast my pearls before the swine? The days I hoarded every golden hour? The days I laughed? The days I bore in pain? The days when all my honey had turned sour? The days I gathered in another's gain? The days I studied and the days I wrought? The days I loafed and only trusted God? The days when whispered dreamings came unsought, And I drew wisdom as I turned the sod? How shall I know which ones of all the days Shall on the last day bring me blame or praise?

Whence came the world? What Hand flung out the light Of yonder stars? How could a God of right Ordain for earth an ebbless tide of woe? But this I know: It is enough that life means this to me; What death shall mean, some sunny Morn shall see. For silent sober-colored things I bless the Lord of dreams This Heron standing motionless, More shade than bird he seems For this grey, ghostly fisherman Of lonely pools and streams. The Way of Sacrifice He who hath watched, not shared, the strife, Knows how the day hath gone. He only lives with the world's life Who hath renounced his own.

Rare strength, which through dark storm will safely last Until my souPs dire need of it is past Because its main pilasters reach so deep; Initiative, with eager, circling sweep Of wings. High courage, of the keen enthusiast Who even in his dreams can hear the blast Of trumpet calls that urge him up the steep. Dynamic power these give and self-release. With them, the world's great inner citadels Are mine. Gunderson Whence Cometh War? Bring the foul thing to bar.

Out of the hatreds of the ages long; Out of the greed and blood-lust of the strong; Out of the strutting swagger of the proud; Out of the mad hysterias of the crowd; Out of the lying honor of the State; Out of the coward meanness of the great; Out of the toll that profit takes from toil, Of surplus spoil, piled up on surplus spoil, Choking to idleness the workman's wheel, Or raping all the earth with ruthless steel; Out of a devil's smoke-screen of defense, That turns to foolishness the things of sense, QUOTABLE POEMS Makes virtue's garden a vast swamp of vice, And sells the Son of Man at Judas 7 price, Nor has the grace to cast away the pelf But makes of God an infidel himself.

France, Russia, Britain, America The four republics are sworn brothers to kill the kaiser. Yes, this is the great man-hunt; And the sun has never seen till now Such a line of toothed and tusked man -killers. Eating to kill, Sleeping to kill, Asked by their mothers to kill, Wished by four-fifths of the world to kill To cut the kaiser's throat, To hack the kaiser's head, To hang the kaiser on a high-horizon gibbet. And is it nothing else than this? Three times ten million men asking the blood Of a half-cracked one-armed child of the German kings? If this were all, God, I would go to the far timbers And look on the gray wolves Tearing the throats of moose: I would ask a wilder drunk of blood.

It is four brothers in joined hands together. The people of bleeding France, The people of bleeding Russia, The people of Britain, the people of America These are the four brothers, these are the four republics. This is your land, within your power. We break the rock; you pluck the flower. We build the roads on which you speed. And when we strike for what we need We learn at once how well you own The press, the courts and every stone Of every structure that we rear.

Say, what invaders shall we fear? Why should we care out on the job If you or others drive and rob? We have no land for which to fight Though all the world is ours by right. We workers grimed with soot and mud Have shed enough and more of blood. We have no quarrel across the foam But here within our jail, your home! We give our pledge we shall not kill. For ours the braver, kinder will. But if you force us till we do, It will be you, it will be you! Russia, in danger, needed every man To save her from the Teuton; and was slain.

I gave my life for freedom This I know; For those who bade me fight had told me so. There came a sudden word of wars declared, Of Belgium peaceful, helpless, unprepared, Asking our aid: I joined the ranks, and died. Ewer War Did the rose-bush or the oak Thrill at Trenton's battle-smoke? Did the earthworm in the mould Shout when Gettysburg unrolled Its tawny thunders over him? Did corn-grains buried in the dim Terrible creative ground Cease growing at the shaken sound Of Grant's gaunt thousands marching by?

Well, pondering their conduct, I Think their aloof indifference Was most amazing commonsense! Is there no greater good than health and ease? Is there no deadlier enemy than death? Is God a dream to deal with as we please And life only the drawing of our breath? Duty a fever-phantom that misleads The sick confusion of a wandering brain? Let the King's Highroad choke with tangled weeds If they but barricade our paths from pain! Give us this day our daily bread that prayer We all remember!

The cry " Deliver us from sorrow and from loss, " Who were not made to suffer and to bear! Her hills and shores were shaped for lovely things, Yet all our years are spent in bickerings Beneath the astonished stars. April by April laden with beauty comes, Autumn by Autumn turns our toil to gain, But hand at sword-hilt, still we start and strain To catch the beat of drums. Knowledge to knowledge adding, skill to skill, We strive for others' good as for our own And then, like cavemen snarling with a bone, We turn and rend and kill.

Nay, love and trust, Not blood and thunder shall redeem our dust. Let us have peace! But still the thought: Somewhere upon the hills, Or where the vales ring with the whip-poor-wills, Sad wistful eyes and broken hearts that beat For the loved sound of unreturning feet, And, when the oaks their leafy banners wave, Dream of the battle and an unmarked grave! Go raze your temples from the hills Red death is in the plain.

Look not for Christ upon the hills He lies among the slain. Alice Corbin Love Comes And who will lead the way? The good and wise must lead. He that loves most is the best and wisest, and he it is that leads already. Violence will not yield to violence. Tell the great secret to the people.

Clear the way, ye institutions, ye laws and customs of ages of hate! The glance of his eyes would wither you. The quiet thrill of his voice would palsy your deepest foun- dations. Ye do well to tremble at his name. For he is the Revolution at last the true, long-deferred Revolution. Love is the true Revolution, for Love alone strikes at the very root of ill. Let the people love, and they will lead, Let the people love and theirs is the power! Ernest Crosby Tear Down the Walls! Tear down the walls!

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God made of one All men who live upon the earth; He is our Father, we his sons, Whatever be our human birth. Edgar Cooper Mason The Final Armistice Christ of the glowing heart and golden speech, Drawn by the charm divine of Thy sweet soul, The nations tend unto that far-off goal Whereof the sages dream, the prophets preach. We shall not always fail; we yet shall reach Through toil and time that shining tableland To which Thou beckonest with wounded hand.

Forevermore Thy goodness doth beseech A warring world to lay its weapons down. So shall we rest and songs of plenty drown The wail of hunger, and our bitter tears, Streaming unstanched through all the dreadful years, And freely flowing still, shall yet be dried, When Thou art King who once wast crucified. Cowgill The Torch " To you the torch we fling "; The challenge yet is heard, Bequest of fullest sacrifice, A life-demanding word.

Yet this thought with it comes, A question tinged with doubt: Shall we the torch to others pass Whose light we've let go out? Our youth has stormed the hosts of hell and won; Yet we who pay the price of their oblation Know that the greater war is just begun Which makes humanity the nations' Nation. Willard Wattles Heart Heart, that beats with every human heart, Heart, that weeps with every human tear, O Heart, that sings with every human song, Fill our slow hearts with flood-tides of Thy love; That they may beat with every human heart, That they may weep with every human tear, That they may sing with every human song, And thus, through Thee, unite with all mankind.

Nor ever on any running stream Nor on the unclouded main But sometimes, through the Soul of Man, Slow moving o'er his pain, The moonlight of a perfect peace Floods heart and brain. And how mankind Thirsted and cried for joy it could not find, His heart made quick reply, " Men shall know happiness before I die! His deeds are graven in a place apart, On the enduring tablet of the human heart. But for friendship's feast Compliments demean us; Rock for seat and sky for roof And the truth between us. On the maps of the world you will find it not: It was fought by the Mothers of Men.

Not with cannon or battle shot. With sword or nobler pen; Not with eloquent word or thought From the wonderful minds of men; But deep in a walled up woman's heart; A woman that would not yield; But bravely and patiently bore her part; Lo! No marshalling troops, no bivouac song, No banner to gleam and wave; But Oh these battles they last so long From babyhood to the grave!

But faithful still as a bridge of stars She fights in her walled up town; Fights on, and on, in the endless wars; Then silent, unseen goes down! Thank God for fools! The trails that ring the world Are dark with blood and sweat where they have passed. There are the flags of every crag unfurled; Theirs ashes and oblivion at last. We rear our temples on the stones they laid; Ours is the prize their tired souls might not wait; Theirs the requiem of the unafraid.

The heaven that hides Him from our sight Knows neither near nor far: Its rafters come from the woods of Praise, Its walls from the quarry of Prayer, And not one echo, on stormy days, Can trouble the stillness there. The floor is bare, but the joists are strong With Faith from the heavenly hill; My lamp is Love, and the whole year long It burns unquenchable still. With sweet Content is my hearth well lit, And there, in the darkest weather, Hope and I by the fire can sit, And sing, and keep house together.

Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell: And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky, Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die, Lift not your hands to It for help for It As impotently moves as you or I. Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! The Nightingale that in the branches sang, Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows! Would but some winged Angel ere too late Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate, And make the stern Recorder otherwise Enregister, or quite obliterate!

In vain to sorrow! Only the key of yesterday Unlocks tomorrow. Priscilla Leonard The Knapsack Trail I like the wide and common road Where all may walk at will, The worn and rutted country road That runs from hill to hill; I like the road through pastures green Worn by home-coming feet Of lowing kine and barefoot boy Where twilight shadows meet. The lonely Trail through forests dim That leads to God-knows-where, That winds from tree to spotted tree Till sudden we are there!

Jean Ingelow Thanks Thank you very much indeed, River, for your waving reed; Hollyhocks, for budding knobs; Foxgloves, for your velvet fobs; Pansies, for your silky cheeks; Chaffinches, for singing beaks; Spring, for wood anemones Near the mossy toes of trees; Summer, for the fruited pear, Yellowing crab, and cherry fare; Autumn, for the bearded load, Hazelnuts along the road; Winter, for the fairy-tale, Spitting log and bouncing hail. But, blest Father, high above, All these joys are from Thy love; And Your children everywhere, Born in palace, lane, or square, Cry with voices all agreed, " Thank You very much indeed.

Alfred Tennyson From " Sir Galahad " Forever Those we love truly never die Though year by year the sad memorial wreath, A ring and flowers, types of life and death, Are laid upon their graves. For death the pure life saves, And life all pure is love; and love can reach From heaven to earth, and nobler lessons teach Than those by mortals read. Well blest is he who has a dear one dead; A friend he has whose face will never change A dear communion that will not grow strange; The anchor of a love is death.

John Boyle O'Reilly The Street They pass me by like shadows, crowds on crowds, Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro, Hugging their bodies around them, like thin shrouds Wherein their souls were buried long ago: James Russell Lowell Orisons He placed a prayer wheel where the wild winds dance, And some complained his piety was lazy; But then his thoughts on prayer were rather hazy.

Yet God attended to his suppliance. He knelt on scarlet plush before his lord, And mumbled words of ancient litanies But felt uncomfortable on his knees; And God, lost in the gloomy nave, was bored. Silent, she raised her eyes that burned and glistened Like fresh lit tapers in a shadowy crypt; No raptured praise, no murmuring, tight lipped, But God stopped stars in flight an hour, and listened.

The Silent Places I have come back from the mountains, And the beauty of forest ways, From the pine-trail winding at sunset To the crags in the purple haze. I have come back to the city, With its clang and its screech and its din; Its halls are filled with madness, And its eyes are blind with sin. I think of the peaks white-crested, And the sage on the sweeping plain, And the vastness, and the silence, And the whisper of God again. I will go back to my mountains, Back to the prairies I've trod; Some day I shall stand in that silence And speak once more with my God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Sonnet I am in love with high far-seeing places That look on plains half-sunlight and half-storm, In love with hours when from the circling faces Veils pass, and laughing fellowship glows warm. Life has no walls. Oh, take me to your breast! Take me be with me for a moment's span! I am in love with all unveiled faces. I seek the wonder at the heart of man; I would go up to the far-seeing places. While youth is ours, turn toward me for a space The marvel of your rapture-lighted face! Arthur Damson Ficke The Vision You are the vision, you are the image of the dream, The voice among the stars, the silence in the stream; A breath of the infinite poise, where space and time are spun, And the circling orbits wheel their planets round the sun.

Beyond the outer margin where nothing calls to God Leaps the fiery symbol to bloom where your feet have trod; Here is the earth resurgent with color and bloom of Spring, Glorying the dream and the vision in the song you bring. And grim frustration I have known Of cherished plans, Met Thomas-doubts instead of trust In many lands. But oh, I've reached the heights sublime At dawn of day, Known glorious triumph when the stone Was rolled away.

But ah, the touch of lips and hands The human touch! Warm, vital, close, life's symbols dear These need I most, and now, and here. Richard Burton Today Today, new-born from all my yesterdays, Lies in my cupped hand, a fragile, prophetic thing Just broken from its chrysalis with wings aflutter. What far flight shall it make with buoyant pinions?

What fateful tomorrows shall it breed Before it folds its worn wings In the last twitchings of its dreamless sleep? I hold today in my hand and watch its unfolding. Then in faith I release it and wait the will of God. But keep thou thine a holy solitude, For He who would walk there, would walk alone; He who would drink there, must be first endued With single right to call that stream his own; Keep thou thine heart, close fastened, unrevealed, A fenced garden, and a fountain sealed. Richard Chenevix Trench God As the bee through the garden ranges, From world to world the godhead changes; As the sheep go feeding in the waste, From form to form He maketh haste; This vault which glows immense with light Is the inn where He lodges for a night.

What recks such Traveller if the bowers Which bloom and fade like meadow flowers A bunch of fragrant lilies be, Or the stars of eternity? Alike to Him the better, the worse The glowing angel, the outcast corse. Thou metest Him by centuries, And lo! He is the axis of the star; He is the sparkle of the spar; He is the heart of every creature; He is the meaning of each feature; And His mind is the sky, Than all it holds more deep, more high.

Ah Christ, that it were possible For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be. His was my body, born of me, Born of my bitter travail pain, And it lies broken on the field, Swept by the wind and the rain. I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within; I hear, with groan and travail-cries, Hie world confess its sin. Robert Browning From " Francis Turin! Thy soul must overflow, if thou Another's soul wouldst reach; It needs the overflow of heart To give the lips full speech. Think truly, and thy thoughts Shall the world's famine feed; Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed; Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed.

Horatio Bonar Woman and Man The woman's cause is man's: If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, How shall men grow? The man be more of woman, she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at the last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble words; And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, Dispensing harvests, sowing the To-be, QUOTABLE POEMS Self-reverent each and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities, But like each other, ev'n as those who love.

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men; Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm: Then springs the crowning race of human-kind.