Part 2

The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in his heaven-- All's right with the world. --_Robert Browning._

SONG

Give me back my heart, fair child; To you as yet 'twere worth but little; Half beguiler, half beguiled, Be you warned, your own is brittle, I know it by your redd'ning cheeks, I know it by those two black streaks Arching up your pearly brows In a momentary laughter, Stretched in long and dark repose With a sigh the moment after.

"Hid it; dropt it on the moors! Lost it, and you can not find it"-- My own heart I want, not yours You have bound and must unbind it. Set it free then from your net, We will love, sweet--but not yet! Fling it from you--we are strong; Love is trouble, love is folly; Love, that makes an old heart young, Makes a young heart melancholy. --_Aubrey de Vere._

The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's, Is not to fancy what were fair in life, Provided it could be--but finding first What may be, then find how to make it fair Up to our means. --_Browning._

AT NIGHTFALL

I need so much the quiet of your love After the day's loud strife; I need your calm--all other things above After the stress of life.

I crave the haven that in your dear heart lies, After all toil is done; I need the star-shine of your heavenly eyes, After the day's great sun. --_Charles Harrison Towne._

AH, BE NOT FALSE

Ah, be not false, sweet Splendor! Be true, be good; Be wise as thou art tender; Be all that Beauty should.

Not lightly be thy citadel subdued; Not ignobly, not untimely. Take praise in solemn mood; Take love sublimely. --_Richard Watson Gilder._

Let us love so well Our work shall be sweeter for our love, And still our love be sweeter for our work. --_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._

MY CREED

I hold that Christian grace abounds Where charity is seen; that when We climb to heaven 'tis on the rounds Of love to men.

I hold all else named piety A selfish scheme, a vain pretense; Where center is not--can there be Circumference?

This I moreover hold, and dare Affirm where'er my ryme may go-- Whatever things be sweet or fair Love makes them so.

Whether it be the lullabies That charm to rest the nursling bird, Or the sweet confidence of sighs And blushes, made without a word.

Whether the dazzling and the flush Of softly sumptuous garden bowers, Or by some cabin door a bush Of ragged flowers.

'Tis not the wide phylactery, Nor stubborn fast, nor stated prayers, That makes us saints; we judge the tree By what it bears.

And when a man can live apart From works, on theologic trust, I know the blood about his heart Is dry as dust. --_Alice Cary._

VICTORY

How poor his triumph is whose venture pays Because strong friends of his have willed it so; Have pulled the strings and schemed in cunning ways To drag him up or boost him from below.

How evanescent his poor pride must be, How often he must nurse a vain regret, How often weakly wish that he were free To scorn those who have placed him in their debt.

How splendid in his triumph who has won Alone, unaided, honor and renown, Who owes no thanks and rises to his own, Despite the world's attempt to keep him down. --_Ellsworth Kaye._

A PRAYER

Now I get me up to work, I pray the Lord I may not shirk; If I should die before the night, I pray the Lord my work's done right. --_Amora Fitch._

A PSALM OF LIFE

Tell me not in mournful numbers Life is but an empty dream, For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act--act in the living present! Heart within and God o'erhead.

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. --_H. W. Longfellow._

High thoughts and noble in all lands Help me: my soul is fed by such But ah, the touch of life and hands, The human touch! Warm, vital, close, life's symbols dear, These need I most, and now, and here. --_Richard Burton._

O I will trudge with heart elate, And feet with courage shod, For that which men call chance and fate Is the handiwork of God. --_Alice Cary._

SERVICE

Yet, who, looking backward o'er his year, Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears, If he hath been Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, To cheer and aid in some ennobling cause His fellow men?

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in A ray of sunshine to a cell of sin-- If he hath lent Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, Over the suffering, mindless of his creed Or home, hath bent,

He hath not lived in vain, and while he gives The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives, With thankful heart; He gazes backward, and with hope before, Knowing that from his works he nevermore Can henceforth part. --_Whittier._

Whichever way the wind doth blow Some heart is glad to have it so; Then blow it east or blow it west, The wind that blows, that wind is best. --_Caroline A. Mason._

FAITH

We have but faith; we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam of darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock thee when we do not fear; But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seemed my sin in me; What seem'd my worth since I began; For merit lies from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee. --_Tennyson._

THE WORLD OVER

In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing. --_Lowell._

IT'S RAINING VIOLETS

It is not raining rain to me, It's raining daffodils; In every dimpled drop I see Wild flowers on the hills.

The clouds of gray engulf the day, And overwhelm the town; It is not raining rain to me, It's raining roses down.

It is not raining rain to me, But fields of clover bloom, Where any bucanneering bee May find a bed and room.

A health unto the happy! A fig for him who frets; It is not raining rain to me, It's raining violets. --_Robert Loveman._

ACTION

Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter garment of repentance fling; The bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the bird is on the wing. --_Omar Khayyam._

Westward the star of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last. --_George Bishop Berkeley._

CLEAR THE WAY

Men of thought! be up and stirring Night and day; Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain, Clear the way! Men of action, aid and cheer them, As ye may! There's a fount about to stream, There's a light about to beam, There's a warmth about to glow, There's a flower about to blow; There's midnight blackness changing Into gray! Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way!

Once the welcome light has broken, Who shall say What unimagined glories Of the day? What the evil that shall perish In its ray? Aid it, hopes of honest men; Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, paper, aid it, type, Aid it, for the hour is ripe; And our earnest must not slacken Into play. Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way!

Lo! a cloud's about to vanish From the day; And a brazen wrong to crumble Into clay. Lo! the Right's about to conquer, Clear the way! With the Right shall many more Enter, smiling, at the door; With the giant Wrong shall fall Many others great and small, That for ages long have held us For their prey. Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way! --_Charles Mackay._

"If you have gracious words to say Oh, give them to our hearts to-day, But if your words will cause us sorrow, Pray keep them till the last to-morrow."

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE

How sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blessed! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mold, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung; Their Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell a weeping hermit there. --_William Collins._

WARREN'S ADDRESS

Stand! the ground's your own, my braves! Will ye give it up to slaves? Will ye look for greener graves? Have ye mercy still? What's the mercy despots feel? Hear it in that battle peal! Read it on yon bristling steel! Ask it--ye who will!

Fear ye foes who kill for hire? Will ye to your homes retire? Look behind you! they're afire! And before you, see Who have done it! From the vale On they come! and will ye quail? Leaden rain and iron hail Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust! Die we may--and die we must; But, O, where can dust to dust Be consigned so well As where heaven its dews shall shed On the martyred patriot's bed, And the rocks shall raise their head Of his deeds to tell. --_John Pierpont._

WORTH

Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies. Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobbler aproned and the parson gowned, The friar hooded and the monarch crowned. "What differ more," you cry, "than crown and cowl?" I'll tell you, friend: a wise man and a fool. You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobbler, like, the parson will be drunk. Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather and prunella. --_Alexander Pope._

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main-- The venturous bark that flings On the sweet Summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, And the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed-- Its iris ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free. Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. --_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Into his nest again I shall not live in vain. I shall not live in vain. --_Emily Dickinson._

He taught us To hold In loving reverence Poor men and their work Great men and their work God and His work. --_John Ruskin._

THE TASK OF HAPPINESS

If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:-- Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose Thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart run them in! --_Robert Louis Stevenson._

THREE KINDS OF COURAGE

There's the courage that nerves you in starting to climb The mount of success rising sheer; And when you've slipped back there's the courage sublime That keeps you from shedding a tear.

These two kinds of courage, I give you my word, Are worthy of tribute--but then, You'll not reach the summit unless you've the third-- The courage of try-it-again! --_Roy Farrell Greene._

FRIENDSHIP

A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays. I fancied he was fled, And, after many a year, Glowed unexhausted kindliness Like daily sunrise there. My careful heart was free again, O friend, my bosom said, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose is red, All things through thee take nobler form, And look beyond the earth, The mill-round of our fate appears A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despair; The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair. --_Emerson._

Joyous day! O! Smile of God To hearten all who toil and plod; We hail thee, Conqueror and King! We hug our golden chains and sing: "Good morning!" --_Thomas Augustin Daly._

FRIENDS

Friend after friend departs; Who hath not lost a friend? There is no union here of hearts That finds not here an end; Were this frail world our only rest, Living or dying, none were blest.

Beyond the flight of Time, Beyond this vale of death, There surely is some blessed clime Where life is not a breath, Nor life's affections transient fire Whose sparks fly upward to expire. --_James Montgomery._

We just shake hands at meeting With many that come nigh; We nod the head in greeting To many that go by--

But welcome through the gateway Our old friends and true; Then hearts leap up, and straightway There's open house for you, Old friends, There's open house for you! --_Gerald Massey._

THE ROSARY OF MY YEARS

Some reckon their age by years, Some measure their life by art, But some of their days by the flow of their tears, And their life by the moans of their heart. The dials of earth may show The length, not the depth of years-- Few or many may come, few or many may go; But our time is best measured by tears. Ah! not by the silver gray That creeps through the sunny hair, And not by the scenes we pass on our way-- And not by the furrows the finger of Care In forehead and face has made; Not so do we count our years; Not by the sun of the earth--but by the shade Of our souls--and the fall of our tears. For the young are ofttimes old, Though their brow be bright and fair, While their blood beats warm, their hearts lie cold-- O'er them the Springtime--but Winter is there, And the old are ofttimes young, When their hair is thin and white; And they sing in age as in youth they sung, And they laugh, for their cross was light. But bead by bead I tell The rosary of my years, From a cross, a crown they lead--'tis well! And they are blessed with a blessing of tears. Better a day of strife, Than a century of sleep; Give me instead of a long stream of life The tempest and tears of the deep. A thousand joys may foam On the billows of all the years; But never the foam brings the brave bark home-- It reaches the haven through tears. --_Father Ryan._

MERCY

The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the earth beneath; it is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The tribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings, But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the heart of kings, It is an attribute of God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this-- That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy. And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy. --_Shakespeare._

HASTE NOT, REST NOT

Without haste! Without rest! Bind the motto to thy breast; Bear it with thee as a spell; Storm or sunshine, guard it well! Heed not the flowers that round thee bloom, Bear it onward to the tomb.

Haste not! Let no thoughtless deed Mar for aye the spirit's speed! Ponder well and know the right, Onward, then, with all thy might! Haste not! Years can ne'er atone For one reckless action done.

Rest not! Life is sweeping by, Go and dare before you die Something mighty and sublime Leave behind to conquer time! Glorious 'tis to live for aye, When these forms have passed away.

Haste not! Rest not! Calmly wait; Meekly bear the stones of fate! Duty be thy polar guide-- Do the right whate'er betide! Haste not! Rest not! Conflicts past, God shall crown thy work at last. --_Goethe._

FREEDOM

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. --_James Russell Lowell._

CHARACTER OF A HAPPY LIFE

How happy is he born and taught That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are, Whose soul is still prepared for death, Not tied unto the world with care Of public fame or private breath;

Who envies none that chance doth raise Or vice; who never understood How deepest wounds are given by praise Nor rules of state, but rules of good;

Who hath his life from rumors freed, Whose conscience is his strong retreat; Whose state can neither flatterers feed, Nor ruin make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend; And entertains the harmless day With a well-chosen book or friend;

--This man is freed from servile bands Of hope to rise or fear to fall; Lord of himself, though not of lands; And having nothing, yet hath all. --_Sir N. Wotton._

THE SPLENDOR FALLS

The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes And the wild cataract leaps in glory, Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark! O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying; Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river; Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever, Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying dying dying. --_Alfred Tennyson._

LEAD KINDLY LIGHT

Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead thou me on! The night is dark and I am far from home, Lead thou me on! Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene--one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou Shouldst lead me on; I loved to see and choose my path, but now Lead thou me on! I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still Will lead me on; O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent till The night is gone; And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile. --_John Henry (Cardinal) Newman._

THE ROSARY

"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, ev'ry one apart, My rosary; my rosary.

"Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer, To still a heart in absence wrung; I tell each bead unto the end, and there-- A cross is hung!

"O memories that bless and burn! O barren gain and bitter loss! I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn To kiss the cross ... to kiss the cross."

THE SPRING OF LOVE

A little sun, a little rain, O soft wind blowing from the West, And woods and fields are sweet again And Warmth within the mountain's breast.

A little love, a little trust, A soft impulse, a sudden dream, And life as dry as desert dust, Is fresher than a mountain stream. --_Stopford A. Brooks._

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