1
God's own best will bide the test,
And God's own worst will fall;
But, best or worst or last or first,
He ordereth it all.

2
For all is good, if understood,
(Ah, could we understand!)
And right and ill are tools of skill
Held in His either hand.

3
The harlot and the anchorite,
The martyr and the rake,
Deftly He fashions each aright,
Its vital part to take.

4
Wisdom He makes to form the fruit
Where the high blossoms be;
And Lust to kill the weaker shoot,
And Drink to trim the tree.

5
And Holiness that so the bole
Be solid at the core;
And Plague and Fever, that the whole
Be changing evermore.

6
He strews the microbes in the lung,
The blood-clot in the brain;
With test an...

I need no assurances--I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul;
I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of--calm and actual faces;
I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world;
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless-- in vain I try to think how limitless;
I do not doubt that the orbs, and the systems of orbs, play their swift sports through the air on purpose--and that I shall one day be eligible to do as much as they, and more than they;
I do not doubt that temporary affairs keep on and on, millions of years;
I do not doubt interiors have their interiors, and exteriors have their exteriors--and that the eye-sight has another eye-sight, and...

Nor shall the eternal roll of praise reject
Those Unconforming; whom one rigorous day
Drives from their Cures, a voluntary prey
To poverty, and grief, and disrespect.
And some to want, as if by tempests wrecked
On a wild coast how destitute! did They
Feel not that Conscience never can betray,
That peace of mind is Virtue's sure effect.
Their altars they forego, their homes they quit,
Fields which they love, and paths they daily trod,
And cast the future upon Providence;
As men the dictate of whose inward sense
Outweighs the world; whom self-deceiving wit
Lures not from what they deem the cause of God.

Out of the body for ever,
Wearily sobbing, “Oh, whither?”
A Soul that hath wasted its chances
Floats on the limitless ether.

Lost in dim, horrible blankness;
Drifting like wind on a sea,
Untraversed and vacant and moaning,
Nor shallow nor shore on the lee!

Helpless, unfriended, forsaken;
Haunted and tracked by the Past,
With fragments of pitiless voices,
And desolate faces aghast!

One saith “It is well that he goeth
Naked and fainting with cold,
Who worshipped his sweet-smelling garments,
Arrayed with the cunning of old!

“Hark! how he crieth, my brothers,
With pain for the glittering things
He saw on the shoulders of Rulers,
And the might in the mouths of the Kings!

“This Soul hath been one of the idlers
W...

Of all the gifts thine hand bestows,
Thou Giver of all good!
Not heaven itself a richer knows
Than my Redeemer’s blood.


Faith too, the blood-receiving grace,
From the same hand we gain;
Else, sweetly as it suits our case,
That gift had been in vain.


Till thou thy teaching power apply,
Our hearts refuse to see,
And weak, as a distemper’d eye,
Shut out the view of thee.


Blind to the merits of thy Son,
What misery we endure!
Yet fly that hand from which alone
We could expect a cure.


We praise thee, and would praise thee more,
To thee our all we owe;
The precious Saviour, and the power
That makes him precious too.

Sometimes the Saviour sleeps, and it is dark;
For, oh! His eyes are this world's only light,
And when they close wild waves rush on His bark,
And toss it through the dead hours of the night.

So He slept once upon an eastern lake,
In Peter's bark, while wild waves raved at will;
A cry smote on Him, and when He did wake,
He softly whispered, and the sea grew still.

It is a mystery: but He seems to sleep
As erst he slept in Peter's waved-rocked bark;
A storm is sweeping all across the deep,
While Pius prays, like Peter, in the dark.

The sky is darkened, and the shore is far,
The tempest's strength grows fiercer every hour:
Upon the howling deep there shines no star --
Why sleeps He still? Why does He hide His power?

Fear not! a holy hand i...

If you are sighing for a lofty work,
    If great ambitions dominate your mind,
Just watch yourself and see you do not shirk
    The common little ways of being kind.

If you are dreaming of a future goal,
    When, crowned with glory, men shall own your power,
Be careful that you let no struggling soul
    Go by unaided in the present hour.

If you are moved to pity for the earth,
    And long to aid it, do not look so high,
You pass some poor, dumb creature faint with thirst -
    All life is equal in the eternal eye.

If you would help to make the wrong things right,
    Begin at home:    there lies a lifetime's toil.
Weed your own garden fair for all men's sight,
    Before you plan to till another's soil.

God chooses His own leaders i...

When on my day of life the night is falling,
And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown,
I hear far voices out of darkness calling
My feet to paths unknown,

Thou who hast made my home of life so pleasant,
Leave not its tenant when its walls decay;
O Love Divine, O Helper ever present,
Be Thou my strength and stay!

Be near me when all else is from me drifting
Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of shade and shine,
And kindly faces to my own uplifting
The love which answers mine.

I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy spirit
Be with me then to comfort and uphold;
No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit,
Nor street of shining gold.

Suffice it if my good and ill unreckoned,
And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace
I find mys...

"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 2 TIMOTHY ii. 15.

My youthful brother, oft I long
To write to you in prose or song;
With no pretence to judgment strong,
But warm affection,
May truest friendship rivet long
Our close connection!

With deference, what I impart
Receive with humble grateful heart,
Nor proudly from my counsel start,
I only lend it,
A friend ne'er aims a poisoned dart,
He wounds, to mend it.

A graduate you've just been made,
And lately passed the Mitred Head;
I trust, by the Blest Spirit, led,
And Shepherd's care:
And not a wolf, in sheepskin clad,
As numbers are.

The greatest office you sustain
For love of souls, and n...

When by Jabbok the patriarch waited
    To learn on the morrow his doom,
And his dubious spirit debated
    In darkness and silence and gloom,
    There descended a Being with whom
He wrestled in agony sore,
    With striving of heart and of brawn,
And not for an instant forbore
    Till the east gave a threat of the dawn;
And then, as the Awful One blessed him,
    To his lips and his spirit there came,
Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him,
The cry that through questioning ages
Has been wrung from the hinds and the sages,
    "Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"

Most fatal, most futile, of questions!
    Wherever the heart of man beats,
    In the spirit's most sacred retreats,
It comes with its sombre suggestions,
    Unanswered for e...

Grey-cowled monk, whose faith so earnest
Guides these Indians' childlike hearts,
As their hands to toil thou turnest,
Teaching them the Builder's arts,
Speak thy thought! as now they gather
Round the white walls on the plain,
Rearing them for God the Father,
And the glory of New Spain.

"Thou, St. Gabriel, knowest only
Why thy holy bells I raise,
To no turret proud and lonely,
There to sound the hours of praise;--
Why I keep them close beside me,
Framed within the church's walls,
Here where heathen lands shall hide me
Until death to judgment calls."

Then St Gabriel in high heaven
Told the saints this mortal's lot,
As the Angelus at even
Rose to day that dieth not;
And from out the nightly wonder
Of the darkened world would f...

All who have toiled for Art, who've won or lost,
Sat equal priests at her high Pentecost;
Only the chrism and sacrament of flame,
Anointing all, inspired not all the same.

Three saints, for their salvation jealous,
Pursued, with hearts alike most zealous,
By routes diverse, their common aim.
All highways lead to Rome: the same
Of heaven our rivals deeming true,
Each chose alone his pathway to pursue.
Moved by the cares, delays, and crosses
Attach'd to suits by legal process,
One gave himself as judge, without reward,
For earthly fortune having small regard.
Since there are laws, to legal strife
Man damns himself for half his life.
For half? - Three-fourths! - perhaps the whole!
The hope possess'd our umpire's soul,
That on his plan he should be able
To cure this vice detestable. -
The second chose the hospitals.
I give him praise: to solace pain
Is charity not spent in vain,
While men in part are animals.
The...

Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,
From strife and tumult far;
From scenes where Satan wages still
His most successful war.


The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree;
And seem by thy sweet bounty made
For those who follow thee.


There, if thy Spirit touch the soul,
And grace her mean abode,
Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her God!


There like the nightingale she pours
Her solitary lays;
Nor asks a witness of her song,
Nor thirsts for human praise.


Author and Guardian of my life,
Sweet source of light divine,
And (all harmonious names in one)
My Saviour, thou art mine!


What thanks I owe thee, and what love,
A boundless, endless st...

Methinks there is no greater work in life
Than making beauty.    Can the mind conceive
One little corner in celestial realms
Unbeautiful, or dull or commonplace?
Or picture ugly angels, illy clad?
Beauty and splendour, opulence and joy,
Are attributes of God and His domain,
And so are worth and virtue.    But why preach
Of virtue only to the sons of men,
Ignoring beauty, till they think it sin?
Why, if each dweller on this little globe
Could know the sacred meaning of that word
And understand its deep significance,
Men's thoughts would form in beauty, till their dreams
Of heaven would find expression in their lives,
However humble; they themselves would grow
Godlike, befitting such a fair estate.
Let us be done with what is only good,
Demanding here ...

Oft have I seen, ere Time had ploughed my cheek,
Matrons and Sires who, punctual to the call
Of their loved Church, on fast or festival
Through the long year the house of Prayer would seek:
By Christmas snows, by visitation bleak
Of Easter winds, unscared, from hut or hall
They came to lowly bench or sculptured stall,
But with one fervour of devotion meek.
I see the places where they once were known,
And ask, surrounded even by kneeling crowds,
Is ancient Piety for ever flown?
Alas! even then they seemed like fleecy clouds
That, struggling through the western sky, have won
Their pensive light from a departed sun!

I.

Pessimist

There is never a thing we dream or do
But was dreamed and done in the ages gone;
Everything's old; there is nothing that's new,
And so it will be while the world goes on.

The thoughts we think have been thought before;
The deeds we do have long been done;
We pride ourselves on our love and lore
And both are as old as the moon and sun.

We strive and struggle and swink and sweat,
And the end for each is one and the same;
Time and the sun and the frost and wet
Will wear from its pillar the greatest name.

No answer comes for our prayer or curse,
No word replies though we shriek in air;
Ever the taciturn universe
Stretches unchanged for our curse or prayer.

With our mind's small light in the dark we crawl,<...

The sunlight that makes of the heaven
A pathway for sylphids to throng;
The wind that makes harps of the forests
For spirits to smite into song,
Are the image and voice of a vision
That comforts my heart and makes strong.

I look in one's face, and the shadows
Are lifted: and, lo, I can see,
Through windows of evident being,
That open on eternity,
The form of the essence of Beauty
God clothes with His own mystery.

I lean to one's voice, and the wrangle
Of living hath pause: and I hear
Through doors of invisible spirit,
That open on light that is clear,
The radiant raiment of Music
In the hush of the heavens sweep near.