Look around and see the great men
Who have risen from the poor
Some are judges, some are statesmen,
Ther's a chance for you I'm sure.
Don't give in because you're weary,
Pleasure oft is bought by pain;
If unlucky, still be cheery,
Up and at it! try again.

We come with peace and reason,
We come with love and light,
To banish black self-treason
And everlasting night.

We know no god nor devil,
We neither drive nor lead,
We come to banish evil
In thought as well as deed.

And this our grandest mission,
And this our purest worth;
To banish superstition,
The blackest curse on earth.

We come to pass no sentence,
For ours is not the power,
The coward’s vain repentance
But wastes the waiting hour.

’Tis not for us to lengthen
The years of wasted lives;
We come to help and strengthen
The goodness that survives.

We promise nought hereafter,
We cannot conquer pain,
But work, and rest, and laughter,
Will soothe the tortured brain.

That which is lost, ...

        1.

        LORD, I do choose the higher than my will.
        I would be handled by thy nursing arms
        After thy will, not my infant alarms.
        Hurt me thou wilt--but then more loving still,
        If more can be and less, in love's perfect zone!
        My fancy shrinks from least of all thy harms,
        But do thy will with me--I am thine own.

        2.

        Some things wilt thou not one day turn to dreams?
        Some dreams wilt thou not one day turn to fact?
        The thing that painful, more than should be, seems,
        Shall not thy sliding years with them retract--
        Shall fair realities not counteract?
        The thing that was well dreamed of bliss and joy--
        Wilt thou not breathe thy life int...

    I.

    A death-like dew was falling
        On the herbs and the grassy ground;
    The stars to their bournes prest forward,
        Night cloaked the hills around.

    He thought of a night long past, -
        Of the ladder that reached to heaven,
    The Face that shone above it,
        The pillar, his pillows of even.


    II.

    From out of the sleeve of the darkness
        Was thrust an arm of strength, -
    Long he wrestled for mastery,
        But begged for blessing at length.

    White fear fell on him at dawn,
        As the Nameless spake with him then;
    "Prevailer and Prince," called He him,
        "A power with God and with men."

    And, alone, the lame wrestler mused:
        ...

Mark how the bashful morn in vain
Courts the amorous marigold,
With sighing blasts and weeping rain,
Yet she refuses to unfold.
But when the planet of the day
Approacheth with his powerful ray,
The she spreads, then she receives
His warmer beams into her virgin leaves.

So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy;
If thy tears and sighs discover
Thy grief, thou never shalt enjoy
The just reward of a bold lover.
But when with moving accents thou
Shalt constant faith and service vow,
Thy Celia shall receive those charms
With open ears, and with unfolded arms.

        Politeness, perseverance and pluck,
        To their possessor will bring good luck.

This world is but the shadow
Of the world that is to be,
A ripple on the surface
Of a deep, unfathomed sea.
God's plans are always perfect,
But long ages intervene
From the planning of the temple
To the glow upon its sheen;
But we can be co-workers
In accomplishing his plan;
For in God's purpose is a place
For every son of man.

The germ may be developed
In a more salubrious clime,
All obstacles surmounted
In the onward march of time,
And nature's forces harnessed
Will their destiny fulfil,
And things now deemed supernal
Respond to human will;
For God has so adjusted
The laws of this earthly sphere,
That by man's help his plans unfold,
And order doth appear.

The words of God's own prophets
Concerning thes...

    Here's a song of cheer
    For the whole long year:

    We've only to do our best,
        Take up our part
        With a strong, true heart -
    The Lord will do all the rest.

    I.

    Who follows Jesus shall not walk
    In darksome road with danger rife;
    But in his heart the Truth will talk,
    And on his way will shine the Life.

    So, on the story we must pore
    Of him who lives for us, and died,
    That we may see him walk before,
    And know the Father in the guide.


    II.

    In words of truth Christ all excels,
    Leaves all his holy ones behind;
    And he in whom his spirit dwells
    Their hidden manna sure shall find.

    Gather wouldst thou the perfect grains,
    And Jesus fully understand?
    Thou must obey him with huge pains,
    And to God's will be as Christ's hand.


    III.

    What profits it to reason high
    And in hard q...

"Despairless? Hopeless? Join the cheerful hunt
Whose hounds are Science, high Desires the steeds,
And Misery the quarry. Use and Wont
No help to human anguish bring, that bleeds
For all two thousand years of Christian deeds.
Let Use and Wont in styes still feed and grunt,
Or, bovine, graze knee-deep in flowering meads.
Mount! follow! Onward urge Life's dragon-hunt!"
- So cries the sportsman brisk at break of day.
"The sound of hound and horn is well for thee,"
Thus I reply, "but I have other prey;
And friendly is my quest as you may see.
Though slow my pace, full surely in the dark
I'll chance on it at last, though none may mark."

In those vast forests dwelt a race of kings,
Free as the eagle when he spreads his wings -
His wings which never in their wild flight lag -
In mists which fly the fierce tornado's flag;
Their flight the eagle's! and their name, alas!
The eagle's shadow swooping o'er the grass,
Or, as it fades, it well may seem to be
The shade of tempest driven o'er the sea.

Fierce, too, this race, as mountain torrent wild,
With haughty hearts, where Mercy rarely smiled -
All their traditions - histories imbued
With tales of war and sanguinary feud,
Yet though they never couched the knightly lance,
The glowing songs of Europe's old romance
Can find their parallels amid the race,
Which, on this spot, met England face to face.
And when they met the white man, hand to hand,<...

What is the gold of mortal-kind
To that men find
Deep in the poet's mind!
That magic purse
Of Dreams from which
God builds His universe!
That makes life rich
With, many a vision;
Taking the soul from out its prison
Of facts with the precision
A wildflower dons
When Spring comes knocking at the door
Of Earth across the windy lawns;
Calling to Joy to rise and dance before
Her happy feet:
Or with the beat
And bright exactness of a star,
Hanging its punctual point afar,
When Night comes tripping over Heaven's floor,
Leaving a gate ajar.
That leads the Heart from all its aching
Far above where day is breaking;
Out of the doubts, the agonies,
The strife and sin, to join with these
Hope and Beauty and Joy that build
Their ...

Up from the templed city of the Jews,
The road ran straight and white
To Jericho, the City of the Palms,
The City of Delight.

Down that still road from far Judean hills
The shepherds drove their sheep
At silver dawn - at stirring of the birds -
When men were all asleep.

Full many went that weary way at noon,
Or rested by the trees,
Romans and slaves, Gentiles and bearded priests,
Sinners and Pharisees.

But when the pink clouds drifted far and high,
Like rose leaves blowing past,
When in the west where one star blessed the sky
The gates of day shut fast.

All travellers journeyed home, and the moonlight
Washed the road fresh and sweet,
Until it seemed a gleaming ivory path,
Waiting for royal feet.

*    *    *    ...

Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
And all the clouds are gone,
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on",
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree
Hath passed in discord and debate,
And,Hey then up go we!

A common people strove in vain
To shame us unto toil,
But they are spent and we remain,
And we shall share the spoil
According to our several needs
As Beauty shall decree,
As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
And, Hey then up go we!

And they that with accursed zeal
Our Service would amend,
Shall own the odds and come to heel
Ere worse befall their end:
For though no naked word be wrote
Yet plainly shall they see
What pinneth Orders on their coat,
And, Hey then up go we!
<...

The years go by, but they little seem
Like those within our dream;
The years that stood in such luring guise,
Beckoning us into Paradise,
To jailers turn as time goes by
Guarding that fair land, By-and-By,
Where we thought to blissfully rest,
The sound of whose forests' balmy leaves
Swaying to dream winds strangely sweet,
We heard in our bed 'neath the cottage eaves,
Whose towers we saw in the western skies
When with eager eyes and tremulous lip,
We watched the silent, silver ship
Of the crescent moon, sailing out and away
O'er the land we would reach some day, some day.

But years have flown, and our weary feet
Have never reached that Isle of the Blest;
But care we have felt, and an aching breast,
A lifelong struggle, grief, unrest,
That h...

        I plucked a fair flower that grew
In the shadow of summer's green trees -
                A rose petalled flower,
                Of all in the bower,
        Best beloved of the bee and the breeze
I plucked it, and kissed it, and called it my own -
        This beautiful, beautiful flower
That alone in the cool, tender shadow had grown,
        Fairest and first in the bower

        Then a murmur I heard at my feet -
        A pensive and sorrowful sound,
                And I stooped me to hear,
                While tear after tear
        Rained down from my eyes to the ground,
                As I, listening, heard
                This sorrowful word,
        So breathing of anguish profound: -

        "I have gathered the fairest...

Presentiments! they judge not right
Who deem that ye from open light
Retire in fear of shame;
All 'heaven-born' Instincts shun the touch
Of vulgar sense, and, being such,
Such privilege ye claim.

The tear whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,
Were mine in early days;
And now, unforced by time to part
With fancy, I obey my heart,
And venture on your praise.

What though some busy foes to good,
Too potent over nerve and blood,
Lurk near you, and combine
To taint the health which ye infuse;
This hides not from the moral Muse
Your origin divine.

How oft from you, derided Powers!
Comes Faith that in auspicious hours
Builds castles, not of air:
Bodings unsanctioned by the will
Flow from y...

If thou wouldst live the Truth in very deed,
Thou hast thy joy, but thou hast more of pain.
Others will live in peace, and thou be fain
To bargain with despair, and in thy need
To make thy meal upon the scantiest weed.
These palaces, for thee they stand in vain;
Thine is a ruinous hut, and oft the rain
Shall drench thee in the midnight; yea, the speed
Of earth outstrip thee, pilgrim, while thy feet
Move slowly up the heights. Yet will there come
Through the time-rents about thy moving cell,
Shot from the Truth's own bow, and flaming sweet,
An arrow for despair, and oft the hum
Of far-off populous realms where spirits dwell.