In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
THE QUIET LIFE
HAPPY the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire ;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.
Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years, slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die ;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
A WEAPON that comes down as still
As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman's will,
As lightning does the will of God.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from Pole to Pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbow'd.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate :
I am the captain of my soul.
UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie;
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be ;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
GOD of our fathers, known of old-
Lord of our far-flung battle line
Beneath Whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart :
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law -
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard —
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!
THE LAST CAMP-FIRE
SCAR not earth's breast that I may have
Somewhere above her heart a grave;
Mine was a life whose swift desire
Bent ever less to dust than fire;
Then through the swift white path of flame
Send back my soul to whence it came ;
From some great peak, storm challenging,
My death-fire to the heavens fling;
The rocks my altar, and above
The still eyes of the stars I love ;
No hymn, save as the midnight wind
Comes whispering to seek his kind.
Heap high the logs of spruce and pine,
Balsam for spices and for wine;
Brown cones, and knots a golden blur
Of hoarded pitch, more sweet than myrrh;
Cedar, to stream across the dark
Its scented embers spark on spark;
Long, shaggy boughs of juniper,
And silvery, odorous sheaves of fir;
Spice-wood, to die in incense smoke
Against the stubborn roots of oak,
Red to the last for hate or love
As that red stubborn heart above.
Watch till the last pale ember dies,
Till wan and low the dead pyre lies,
Then let the thin white ashes blow
To all earth's winds a finer snow;
There is no wind of hers but I
Have loved it as it whistled by;
No leaf whose life I would not share,
No weed that is not some way fair;
Hedge not my dust in one close urn,
It is to these I would return,—
The wild, free winds, the things that know
No master's rule, no ordered row.
To be, if Nature will, at length
Part of some great tree's noble strength;
Growth of the grass; to live anew
In many a wild-flower's richer hue;
Find immortality indeed,
In ripened heart of fruit and seed.
Time grants not any man redress
Of his broad law, forgetfulness;
I parley not with shaft and stone,
Content that in the perfume blown
From next year's hillsides something sweet
And mine, shall make earth more complete.
WHY fear to-morrow, timid heart?
Why tread the future's way?
We only need to do our part
To-day, dear child, to-day.
The past is written! Close the book
On pages sad and gay;
Within the future do not look,
But live to-day-to-day.
"T is this one hour that God has given ;
His Now we must obey;
And it will make our earth his heaven
To live to-day-to-day.
LYDIA AVERY COONLEY WARD.
EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE
A FIRE-MIST and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And a cave where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,
A face turned from the clod,Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite tender sky,
The ripe rich tint of the corn-fields,
And the wild geese sailing high,
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden-rod,—
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in-
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod,—
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood, Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood:
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod,—
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.
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