Inspirational

Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;

Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;

So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.

As my little pot doth boil,
We will keep this level-coil,
That a wave and I will bring
To my God a heave-offering.

Jesu! bless our slender Boat,
By the current swept along;
Loud its threatenings, let them not
Drown the music of a song
Breathed thy mercy to implore,
Where these troubled waters roar!

Saviour, for our warning, seen
Bleeding on that precious Rood;
If, while through the meadows green
Gently wound the peaceful flood,
We forgot Thee, do not Thou
Disregard thy Suppliants now!

Hither, like yon ancient Tower
Watching o'er the River's bed,
Fling the shadow of thy power,
Else we sleep among the dead;
Thou who trod'st the billowy sea,
Shield us in our jeopardy!

Guide our Bark among the waves;
Through the rocks our passage smooth;
Where the whirlpool frets and raves
Let thy love its anger soothe:
All our hope is placed in ...

There once was a Shah had a second son
Who was very unlike his elder one,
For he went about on his own affairs,
And scorned the mosque and the daily prayers;
When his sire frowned fierce, then he cried, "Ha, ha!"
        Noureddin, the son of the Shah.

But worst of all of the pranks he played
Was to fall in love with a Christian maid,
An Armenian maid who wore no veil,
Nor behind a lattice grew thin and pale;
At his sire's dark threats laughed the youth, "Ha, ha!"
        Noureddin, the son of the Shah.

"I will shut him close in an iron cage,"
The monarch said, in a fuming rage;
But the prince slipped out by a postern door,
And away to the mountains his loved one bore;
Loud his glee rang back on the winds, "Ha, ha!"
        Noureddin, the son ...

Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down
We, before the night upon his grave be sealed.
Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town,
High before us heaves the steep rough silent field.
Breach by ghastlier breach, the cliffs collapsing yield:
Half the path is broken, half the banks divide;
Flawed and crumbled, riven and rent, they cleave and slide
Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of girdling sand
Deep beneath, whose furrows tell how far and wide
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down.
Golden spear-points glance against a silver shield.
Over banks and bents, across the headland’s crown,
As by pulse of gradual plumes through twilight wheeled,
Soft as sleep, the waking wind awakes the weald.

Thou bud of early promise, may the rose
Which time, methinks, will rear in envied bloom,
By friendship nurs'd, its grateful sweets disclose,
Nor e'er be nipt in life's disast'rous gloom.
For much thou ow'st to him whose studious mind
Rear'd thy young years, and all thy wants supplied;
Whose every precept breath'd affection kind,
And to the friend's, a father's love allied.
Oh! how 'twill glad him in life's evening day,
To see that mind, parental care adorn'd,
With grateful love the debt immense repay,
And realize each hope affection form'd.
The deed be thine 'twill many a care assuage,
Exalt thy worth, and blunt the thorns of age.

The sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clang city to city, joining, sounding, passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.

Among these tempests great and manifold
My ship has here one only anchor-hold;
That is my hope, which if that slip, I'm one
Wildered in this vast wat'ry region.

Look in the eyes of trouble with a smile,
    Extend your hand and do not be afraid.
    'Tis but a friend who comes to masquerade.
And test your faith and courage for awhile.

Fly, and he follows fast with threat and jeer.
    Shrink, and he deals hard blow on stinging blow,
    But bid him welcome as a friend, and lo!
The jest is off - the masque will disappear.

Now, Tudens, you sit on this knee - and 'scuse
It having no side-saddle on; - and, Jeems,
You sit on this - and don't you wobble so
And chug my old shins with your coppertoes; -
And, all the rest of you, range round someway, -
Ride on the rockers and hang to the arms
Of our old-time splint-bottom carryall! -
Do anything but squabble for a place,
Or push or shove or scrouge, or breathe out loud,
Or chew wet, or knead taffy in my beard! -
Do anything almost - act anyway, -
Only keep still, so I can hear myself
Trying to tell you "just one story more!"

One winter afternoon my father, with
A whistle to our dog, a shout to us -
His two boys - six and eight years old we were, -
Started off to the woods, a half a...

There’s music wafting on the air,
The evening winds are sighing
Among the trees and yonder stream
Is mournfully replying,
Lamenting loud the sunny light
That in the west is dying.

The moon is rising o’er the hill,
Her slanting rays are creeping
Where Nature lies profoundly still
In happy quiet sleeping,
And resting on her face, they’ll find
The earth is wet with weeping.

She mourneth for the lovely day,
Now deep in darkness shaded;
She sheds the dewy tear because
Of morning’s mantle faded;
She misses from her breast the garb
In which the moon array’d it.

The evening queen will strive in vain
To break the spell which bound her;
A million stars can never throw
Departed warmth around her;
They all must pass away and...

On summer nights when moonbeams flow
And glisten o’er the high, white tips,
And winds make lamentation low,
As through the ribs of shattered ships,
And steal about the broken brace
Where pendant timbers swing and moan,
And flitting bats give aimless chase,
Who dares to seek the mine alone?

The shrinking bush with sable rims
A skeleton forlorn and bowed,
With pipe-clay white about its limbs
And at its feet a tattered shroud;
And ghostly figures lurk and groan,
Shrill whispers sound from ghostly lips,
And ghostly footsteps start the stone
That clatters sharply down the tips.

The engine-house is dark and still,
The life that raged within has fled;
Like open graves the boilers chill
That once with glowing fires were red;
Above the s...

    Northland of our birth and rearing,
    Bound to us by ties endearing, -
    Forward ever, nothing fearing!
            Forward, Canada!

    Hear thy children's acclamations!
    Vanquish trials and vexations!
    Higher rise among the nations!
            Forward, Canada!

    Not by battles fierce and gory,
    Not by conquest's hollow glory,
    Need'st thou live in deathless story:
            Forward, Canada!

    Not by might and not by power, - -
    Truth shall be thy fortress tower;
    Arts of peace shall be thy flower:
            Forward, Canada!

    Yet if tyrant foe should ever
    'Gainst thee come with base endeavor,
    Strike, and yield thy freedom never:
            Forward, Canada!

Would you hear a wild tale of adventure
Of a hero who tackled the sea,
A super-man swimming the ocean,
Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee.

Our Channel, our own Straits of Dover
Had heen swum by an alien lot:
Our British-born swimmers had tried it,
But that was as far as they'd got.

So great was the outcry in England,
Darts Players neglected their beer,
And the Chanc'Ior proclaimed from the Woolsack
As Joe Lee were the chap for this 'ere.

For in swimming baths all round the country
Joe were noted for daring and strength;
Quite often he'd dived in the deep end,
And thought nothing of swimming a length.

So they wrote him, care of Workhouse Master,
Joe were spending the summer with him,
And promised him two Christmas puddings
I...

Mother 's gone a-visitin' to spend a month er two,
An', oh, the house is lonesome ez a nest whose birds has flew
To other trees to build ag'in; the rooms seem jest so bare
That the echoes run like sperrits from the kitchen to the stair.
The shetters flap more lazy-like 'n what they used to do,
Sence mother 's gone a-visitin' to spend a month er two.

We 've killed the fattest chicken an' we've cooked her to a turn;
We 've made the richest gravy, but I jest don't give a durn
Fur nothin' 'at I drink er eat, er nothin' 'at I see.
The food ain't got the pleasant taste it used to have to me.
They 's somep'n' stickin' in my throat ez tight ez hardened glue,
Sence mother's gone a-visitin' to spend a month er two.

The hollyhocks air jest ez pink, they 're double ones at that,<...

I saw a city filled with lust and shame,
Where men, like wolves, slunk through the grim half-light;
And sudden, in the midst of it, there came
One who spoke boldly for the cause of Right.

And speaking, fell before that brutish race
Like some poor wren that shrieking eagles tear,
While brute Dishonour, with her bloodless face
Stood by and smote his lips that moved in prayer.

"Speak not of God! In centuries that word
Hath not been uttered! Our own king are we."
And God stretched forth his finger as He heard
And o'er it cast a thousand leagues of sea.

There was a sound of music low--
    An undertone of laughter;
The song was done, and can't you guess
    The words that followed after?

Like autumn leaves sometimes they fall--
    The words that burn and falter;
And is it true they too must fade
    Upon Love's sacred alter?

From memory each one of us
    Can cull some sweetest treasure;
Yet golden days, like golden leaves,
    Give pain as well as pleasure.

There was a sound of music low--
    An undertone of laughter:
The sun was gone--yet heaven knew
    The stars that followed after.

Night and vast caverns of rock and of iron;
Voices like water, and voices like wind;
Horror and tempests of hail that environ
Shapes and the shadows of two who have sinned.

Wan on the whirlwind, in loathing uplifting
Faces that loved once, forever they go,
TRISTAM and ISOLT, the lovers, go drifting,
The sullen laughter of Hell below.