Go, speed the stars of Thought
On to their shining goals;--
The sower scatters broad his seed;
The wheat thou strew'st be souls.

Be of good cheer, brave spirit; steadfastly
Serve that low whisper thou hast served; for know,
God hath a select family of sons
Now scattered wide thro' earth, and each alone,
Who are thy spiritual kindred, and each one
By constant service to, that inward law,
Is weaving the sublime proportions
Of a true monarch's soul. Beauty and strength,
The riches of a spotless memory,
The eloquence of truth, the wisdom got
By searching of a clear and loving eye
That seeth as God seeth. These are their gifts,
And Time, who keeps God's word, brings on the day
To seal the marriage of these minds with thine,
Thine everlasting lovers. Ye shall be
The salt of all the elements, world of the world.

Nor time nor all his minions
Of sorrow or of pain,
Shall dash with vulture pinions
The cup she fills again
Within the dream-dominions
Of life where she doth reign.

Clothed on with bright desire
And hope that makes her strong,
With limbs of frost and fire,
She sits above all wrong,
Her heart, a living lyre,
Her love, its only song.

And in the waking pauses
Of weariness and care,
And when the dark hour draws his
Black weapon of despair,
Above effects and causes
We hear its music there.

The longings life hath near it
Of love we yearn to see;
The dreams it doth inherit
Of immortality;
Are callings of her spirit
To something yet to be.

New days are dear, and cannot be unloved,
Though in deep grief we mourn, and cling to death;
Who has not known, in living on, a breath
Of infinite joy that has life's rapture proved?

If I have thought that in this rainbow world
The best we see was but a preface given
Of infinite greater tints in heaven,
And life or no, heaven yet would be unfurl'd, -

I did belie the soul-wide joys of earth,
And feelings deep as lights that dwell in seas.
Can heaven itself outlove such depths as these?
Live on! Life holds more than we dream of worth!

"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...

My soul beheld a vision of the Master:
    Methought He stood with grieved and questioning eyes,
Where Freedom drove its chariot to disaster
    And toilers heard, unheeding, toilers' cries.
Where man withheld God's bounties from his neighbour,
    And fertile fields were sterilised by greed;
Where Labour's hand was lifted against labour,
    And suffering serfs to despots turned when freed.

Majestic rose tall steeple after steeple;
    Imperious bells called worshippers to prayer;
But as they passed, the faces of the people
    Were marred by envy, anger and despair.
'Christ the Redeemer of the world has risen,
    Peace and good will,' so rang the major strain;
But forth from sweat-shops, tenement and prison
    Wailed minor protests, redolent with pain.

The Master stood upon the mount, and taught.
He saw a fire in his disciples’ eyes;
‘The old law’, they said, ‘is wholly come to naught!
Behold the new world rise!’

‘Was it’, the Lord then said, ‘with scorn ye saw
The old law observed by Scribes and Pharisees?
I say unto you, see ye keep that law
More faithfully than these!

‘Too hasty heads for ordering worlds, alas!
Think not that I to annul the law have will’d;
No jot, no tittle from the law shall pass,
Till all hath been fulfill’d.’

So Christ said eighteen hundred years ago.
And what then shall be said to those to-day,
Who cry aloud to lay the old world low
To clear the new world’s way?

‘Religious fervours! ardour misapplied!
Hence, hence,’ they cry, ’ye do but keep man blind!

Roughest roads, we often find,
Lead us on to th' nicest places;
Kindest hearts oft hide behind
Some o'th' plainest-lukkin faces.

Flaars whose colors breetest are,
Oft delight awr wond'ring seet;
But ther's others, humbler far,
Smell a thaasand times as sweet.

Burds o' monny color'd feather,
Please us as they skim along,
But ther charms all put together,
Connot equal th' skylark's song.

Bonny women - angels seemin, -
Set awr hearts an brains o' fire;
But its net ther beauties; beamin,
Its ther gooidness we admire.

Th' bravest man 'at's in a battle,
Isn't allus th' furst i'th' fray;
He best proves his might an' mettle,
Who remains to win the day.

Monkey's an vain magpies chatter,
But it doesn't prove 'em wis...

    When man from pure perfection fell,
        And bathed his life in grief and woe,
        His angel heart had overthrow
    From all the joys he loved so well,
    And only Hope of all the host
    Remained to comfort him when lost.

    And when the other passions throw
        Their phantoms in the arms of death,
        And pour their last remaining breath
    Within the dismal haunts of woe,
    Then Hope alone of all remains
    To soothe our sorrows and our pains.

    Hope makes the fearful millions brave,
        The helpless and the weary strong,
        Gives courage to the fainting throng
    And whispers freedom to the slave,
    And unto each, where'er he lives,
    Unceasing cause to struggle gives.

    In heavy hour...

Not for thyself, but for the sake of Song,
Strive to succeed as others have, who gave
Their lives unto her; shaping sure and strong
Her lovely limbs that made them god and slave.

Not for thyself, but for the sake of Art,
Strive to advance beyond the others' best;
Winning a deeper secret from her heart
To hang it moonlike 'mid the starry rest.

No fear lest praise should make us proud!
We know how cheaply that is won;
The idle homage of the crowd
Is proof of tasks as idly done.

A surface-smile may pay the toil
That follows still the conquering Right,
With soft, white hands to dress the spoil
That sun-browned valor clutched in fight.

Sing the sweet song of other days,
Serenely placid, safely true,
And o'er the present's parching ways
The verse distils like evening dew.

But speak in words of living power, -
They fall like drops of scalding rain
That plashed before the burning shower
Swept o' er the cities of the plain!

Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale, -
Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring,
And, smitten through their leprous mail,
Strike right and left in...

There's a space for good to bloom in
Every heart of man or woman, -
And however wild or human,
Or however brimmed with gall,
Never heart may beat without it;
And the darkest heart to doubt it
Has something good about it
            After all.

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...

Thou Cherub fair! in whose blue, sparkling eye
New joys, anticipated, ever play;
Celestial Hope! with whose all-potent sway
The moral elements of life comply;
At thy melodious voice their jarrings cease,
And settle into order, beauty, peace;
How dear to memory that thrice-hallow'd hour
Which gave Thee to the world, auspicious Power!
Sent by thy parent, Mercy, from the sky,
Invested with her own all-cheering ray,
To dissipate the thick, black cloud of fate
Which long had shrouded this terrestrial state,
    What time fair Virtue, struggling with despair,
Pour'd forth to pitying heaven her saddest soul in prayer:
    Then, then she saw the brightening gloom divide,
    And Thee, sweet Comforter! adown thy rainbow glide.
    From the veil'd awful future, to her v...

O Thou, who art the source of joy and light,
The great Revealer of the will Divine;
Thyself Divine, all nature owns Thy might,
And bows in homage at a beck of Thine,
Afford me light to guide my unskilled hand,
And by Thy Spirit all my thoughts command.

To Thy great name I dedicate my powers,
Yielding to Thee what Thou with blood hast bought,
Resolved that Thou shalt have my days and hours,
And for Thy sake shall every work be wrought;
O deign to use me, if it be Thy will,
And my poor heart with love and gladness fill.

If this strange impulse which I feel within
To write this book proceeds, O Lord, from Thee,
Let it not die, nor be defiled by sin,
But let the work from self and sin be free,
And prove a guide to home and bliss above,
And help to...

I.

There breathes not a breath of the morning air,
But the spirit of Love is moving there;
Not a trembling leaf on the shadowy tree
Mingles with thousands in harmony;
But the Spirit of God doth make the sound,
And the thoughts of the insect that creepeth around.
And the sunshiny butterflies come and go,
Like beautiful thoughts moving to and fro;
And not a wave of their busy wings
Is unknown to the Spirit that moveth all things.
And the long-mantled moths, that sleep at noon,
And dance in the light of the mystic moon--
All have one being that loves them all;
Not a fly in the spider's web can fall,
But He cares for the spider, and cares for the fly;
And He cares for each little child's smile or sigh.
How it can be, I cannot know;
He is wiser than...

I

Nurture thyself, O Soul, from the clear spring
That wells beneath the secret inner shrine;
Commune with its deep murmur, - 'tis divine;
Be faithful to the ebb and flow that bring
The outer tide of Spirit to trouble and swing
The inlet of thy being. Learn to know
These powers, and life with all its venom and show
Shall have no force to dazzle thee or sting:

And when Grief comes thou shalt have suffered more
Than all the deepest woes of all the world;
Joy, dancing in, shall find thee nourished with mirth;
Wisdom shall find her Master at thy door;
And Love shall find thee crowned with love empearled;
And death shall touch thee not but a new birth.


II

Be strong, O warring soul! For very sooth
Kings are but wraiths, republics fa...

I like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowlèd churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,--
The canticles of love and woe:
The hand that rounded Peter's dome
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could...