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  • 1912
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Confound the woes of human-kind!
By Heaven we’re “well deceived,” I wot; Who hum, contented or resigned,
“Life’s more amusing than we thought”!

ENVOY
O nate mecum, worn and lined
Our faces show, but that is naught; Our hearts are young ‘neath wrinkled rind: Life’s more amusing than we thought!

Andrew Lang [1844-1912]

MIDDLE AGE

When that my days were fewer,
Some twenty years ago,
And all that is was newer,
And time itself seemed slow,
With ardor all impassioned,
I let my hopes fly free,
And deemed the world was fashioned
My playing-field to be.

The cup of joy was filled then
With Fancy’s sparkling wine;
And all the things I willed then
Seemed destined to be mine.
Friends had I then in plenty,
And every friend was true;
Friends always are at twenty,
And on to twenty-two.

The men whose hair was sprinkled
With little flecks of gray,
Whose faded brows were wrinkled –
Sure they had had their day.
And though we bore no malice,
We knew their hearts were cold,
For they had drained their chalice, And now were spent and old.

At thirty, we admitted,
A man may be alive,
But slower, feebler witted;
And done at thirty-five.
If Fate prolongs his earth-days,
His joys grow fewer still;
And after five more birthdays
He totters down the hill.

We were the true immortals
Who held the earth in fee;
For us were flung the portals
Of fame and victory.
The days were bright and breezy,
And gay our banners flew,
And every peak was easy
To scale at twenty-two.

And thus we spent our gay time
As having much to spend;
Swift, swift, that pretty playtime
Flew by and had its end.
And lo! without a warning
I woke, as others do,
One fine mid-winter morning,
A man of forty-two.

And now I see how vainly
Is youth with ardor fired;
How fondly, how insanely
I formerly aspired.
A boy may still detest age,
But as for me I know,
A man has reached his best age
At forty-two or so.

For youth it is the season
Of restlessness and strife;
Of passion and unreason,
And ignorance of life.
Since, though his cheeks have roses, No boy can understand
That everything he knows is
A graft at second hand.

But we have toiled and wandered
With weary feet and numb;
Have doubted, sifted, pondered, –
How else should knowledge come?
Have seen too late for heeding,
Our hopes go out in tears,
Lost in the dim receding,
Irrevocable years.

Yet, though with busy fingers
No more we wreathe the flowers,
An airy perfume lingers,
A brightness still is ours.
And though no rose our cheeks have, The sky still shines as blue;
And still the distant peaks have
The glow of twenty-two.

Rudolph Chambers Lehmann [1856-1929]

TO CRITICS

When I was seventeen I heard
From each censorious tongue,
“I’d not do that if I were you;
You see you’re rather young.”

Now that I number forty years,
I’m quite as often told
Of this or that I shouldn’t do
Because I’m quite too old.

O carping world! If there’s an age
Where youth and manhood keep
An equal poise, alas! I must
Have passed it in my sleep.

Walter Learned [1847-1915]

THE RAINBOW

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

LEAVETAKING

Pass, thou wild light,
Wild light on peaks that so
Grieve to let go
The day.
Lovely thy tarrying, lovely too is night: Pass thou away.

Pass, thou wild heart,
Wild heart of youth that still
Hast half a will
To stay.
I grow too old a comrade, let us part: Pass thou away.

William Watson [1858-1935]

EQUINOCTIAL

The sun of life has crossed the line; The summer-shine of lengthened light
Faded and failed, till, where I stand, ‘Tis equal day and equal night.

One after one, as dwindling hours,
Youth’s glowing hopes have dropped away, And soon may barely leave the gleam
That coldly scores a winter’s day.

I am not young; I am not old;
The flush of morn, the sunset calm, Paling and deepening, each to each,
Meet midway with a solemn charm.

One side I see the summer fields,
Not yet disrobed of all their green; While westerly, along the hills,
Flame the first tints of frosty sheen.

Ah, middle-point, where cloud and storm Make battle-ground of this my life!
Where, even-matched, the night and day Wage round me their September strife!

I bow me to the threatening gale:
I know when that is overpast,
Among the peaceful harvest days,
An Indian Summer comes at last!

Adeline D. T. Whitney [1824-1906]

“BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF YEARS”
From “Atalanta in Calydon”

Before the beginning of years,
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven;
And madness, risen from hell;
Strength, without hands to smite;
Love, that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light;
And life, the shadow of death.

And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years;
And froth and drift of the sea,
And dust of the laboring earth;
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth; And wrought with weeping and laughter,
And fashioned with loathing and love, With life before and after,
And death beneath and above,
For a day and a night and a morrow, That his strength might endure for a span, With travail and heavy sorrow,
The holy Spirit of man.

From the winds of the north and the south They gathered as unto strife;
They breathed upon his mouth,
They filled his body with life;
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein,
A time for labor and thought,
A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,
And love, and a space for delight,
And beauty and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death; He weaves, and is clothed with derision
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

MAN

Weighing the steadfastness and state
Of some mean things which here below reside, Where birds, like watchful clocks, the noiseless date And intercourse of times divide.
Where bees at night get home and hive, and flowers, Early as well as late,
Rise with the sun, and set in the same bowers;

I would, said I, my God would give
The staidness of these things to man! for these To His divine appointments ever cleave,
And no new business breaks their peace; The birds nor sow nor reap, yet sup and dine, The flowers without clothes live,
Yet Solomon was never dressed so fine.

Man hath still either toys, or care;
He hath no root, nor to one place is tied, But ever restless and irregular
About this earth doth run and ride; He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where; He says it is so far,
That he hath quite forgot how to go there.

He knocks at all doors, strays and roams; Nay, hath not so much wit as some stones have, Which in the darkest nights point to their homes By some hid sense their Maker gave;
Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest And passage through these looms
God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.

Henry Vaughan [1622-1695]

THE PULLEY

When God at first made Man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by – Let us (said He) pour on him all we can; Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way,
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure: When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure, Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on My creature, He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness; Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.

George Herbert [1593-1633]

ODE ON THE INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

I
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; – Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II
The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose;
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

III
Now, while the Birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong.
The Cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep: No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng, The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay;
Land and Sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday; –
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy!

IV
Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel – I feel it all. O evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning
This sweet May morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the Babe leaps up on his Mother’s arm: – I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
– But there’s a Tree, of many, one, A single Field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone: The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the East Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision spendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

VI
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And even with something of a Mother’s mind, And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can,
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years’ darling of a pigmy size!
See, where ‘mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his Mother’s kisses, With light upon him from his Father’s eyes! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife: But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his “humorous stage” With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

VIII
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy Soul’s immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, –
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave: Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a master o’er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And Custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest – Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: – Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence, in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither
And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound!
We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

XI
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks, which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they: The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

THE WOMAN

WOMAN

Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung, Not she denied him with unholy tongue;
She, while apostles shrank, could dangers brave, Last at the cross and earliest at the grave.

Eaton Stannard Barrett [1786-1820]

WOMAN

There in the fane a beauteous creature stands, The first best work of the Creator’s hands, Whose slender limbs inadequately bear
A full-orbed bosom and a weight of care; Whose teeth like pearls, whose lips like cherries, show, And fawn-like eyes still tremble as they glow.

From the Sanskrit of Calidasa

SIMPLEX MUNDITIIS
From “Epicoene”

Still to be neat, still to be dressed As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powdered, still perfumed: Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Ben Jonson [1573?-1637]

DELIGHT IN DISORDER

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace, which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly:
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Robert Herrick [1591-1674]

A PRAISE OF HIS LADY

Give place, you ladies, and begone!
Boast not yourselves at all!
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.

The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone;
I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.

In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy;
It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.

I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could
So fair a creature make.

She may be well compared
Unto the Phoenix kind,
Whose like was never seen nor heard, That any man can find.

In life she is Diana chaste,
In truth Penelope;
In word and eke in deed steadfast.
What will you more we say?

If all the world were sought so far,
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.

Her roseal color comes and goes
With such a comely grace,
More ruddier, too, than doth the rose Within her lively face.

At Bacchus’ feast none shall her meet, Nor at no wanton play,
Nor gazing in an open street,
Nor gadding as a stray.

The modest mirth that she doth use
Is mixed with shamefastness;
All vice she doth wholly refuse,
And hateth idleness.

O Lord! it is a world to see
How virtue can repair,
And deck her in such honesty,
Whom Nature made so fair.

Truly she doth so far exceed
Our women nowadays,
As doth the gillyflower a weed;
And more a thousand ways.

How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?
For all the rest are plain but chaff, Which seem good corn to be.

This gift alone I shall her give:
When death doth what he can,
Her honest fame shall ever live
Within the mouth of man.

John Heywood [1497?-1580?]

ON A CERTAIN LADY AT COURT

I know a thing that’s most uncommon;
(Envy, be silent and attend!)
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warped by passion, awed by rumor; Not grave through pride, nor gay through folly; An equal mixture of good-humor
And sensible soft melancholy.

“Has she no faults then, (Envy says), Sir?” Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her, The woman’s deaf, and does not hear.

Alexander Pope [1688-1744]

PERFECT WOMAN

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath, A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

THE SOLITARY-HEARTED

She was a queen of noble Nature’s crowning, A smile of hers was like an act of grace; She had no winsome looks, no pretty frowning, Like daily beauties of the vulgar race:
But if she smiled, a light was on her face, A clear, cool kindliness, a lunar beam
Of peaceful radiance, silvering o’er the stream Of human thought with unabiding glory;
Not quite a waking truth, not quite a dream, A visitation, bright and transitory.

But she is changed, – hath felt the touch of sorrow, No love hath she, no understanding friend; O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow What the poor niggard earth has not to lend; But when the stalk is snapped, the rose must bend. The tallest flower that skyward rears its head Grows from the common ground, and there must shed Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely, That they should find so base a bridal bed, Who lived in virgin pride, so sweet and purely.

She had a brother, and a tender father, And she was loved, but not as others are From whom we ask return of love, – but rather As one might love a dream; a phantom fair Of something exquisitely strange and rare, Which all were glad to look on, men and maids, Yet no one claimed – as oft, in dewy glades, The peering primrose, like a sudden gladness, Gleams on the soul, yet unregarded fades; – The joy is ours, but all its own the sadness.

‘Tis vain to say – her worst of grief is only The common lot, which all the world have known; To her ’tis more, because her heart is lonely, And yet she hath no strength to stand alone, – Once she had playmates, fancies of her own, And she did love them. They are passed away As Fairies vanish at the break of day;
And like a spectre of an age departed, Or unsphered Angel wofully astray,
She glides along – the solitary-hearted.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1849]

OF THOSE WHO WALK ALONE

Women there are on earth, most sweet and high, Who lose their own, and walk bereft and lonely, Loving that one lost heart until they die, Loving it only.

And so they never see beside them grow Children, whose coming is like breath of flowers; Consoled by subtler loves the angels know Through childless hours.

Good deeds they do: they comfort and they bless In duties others put off till the morrow; Their look is balm, their touch is tenderness To all in sorrow.

Betimes the world smiles at them, as ’twere shame, This maiden guise, long after youth’s departed; But in God’s Book they bear another name – “The faithful-hearted.”

Faithful in life, and faithful unto death, Such souls, in sooth, illume with lustre splendid That glimpsed, glad land wherein, the Vision saith, Earth’s wrongs are ended.

Richard Burton [1861-

“SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY”

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

PRELUDES
From “The Angel in the House”

I
UNTHRIFT

Ah, wasteful woman, she that may
On her sweet self set her own price, Knowing man cannot choose but pay,
How has she cheapened paradise;
How given for nought her priceless gift, How spoiled the bread, and spilled the wine, Which, spent with due, respective thrift, Had made brutes men, and men divine.

II
HONOR AND DESERT

O Queen, awake to thy renown,
Require what ’tis our wealth to give, And comprehend and wear the crown
Of thy despised prerogative!
I, who in manhood’s name at length
With glad songs come to abdicate
The gross regality of strength,
Must yet in this thy praise abate,
That, through thine erring humbleness And disregard of thy degree,
Mainly, has man been so much less
Than fits his fellowship with thee.

High thoughts had shaped the foolish brow, The coward had grasped the hero’s sword, The vilest had been great, hadst thou,
Just to thyself, been worth’s reward. But lofty honors undersold
Seller and buyer both disgrace;
And favors that make folly bold
Banish the light from virtue’s face.

III
THE ROSE OF THE WORLD

Lo, when the Lord made North and South, And sun and moon ordained, He,
Forthbringing each by word of mouth In order of its dignity
Did man from the crude clay express By sequence, and all else decreed,
He formed the woman; nor might less Than Sabbath such a work succeed.

And still with favor singled out,
Marred less than man by mortal fall, Her disposition is devout,
Her countenance angelical:
The best things that the best believe Are in her face so kindly writ
The faithless, seeing her, conceive Not only heaven, but hope of it;
No idle thought her instinct shrouds, But fancy chequers settled sense,
Like alteration of the clouds
On noonday’s azure permanence.

Pure dignity, composure, ease,
Declare affections nobly fixed,
And impulse sprung from due degrees Of sense and spirit sweetly mixed.
Her modesty, her chiefest grace,
The cestus clasping Venus’ side,
How potent to deject the face
Of him who would affront its pride!

Wrong dares not in her presence speak, Nor spotted thought its taint disclose
Under the protest of a cheek
Outbragging Nature’s boast, the rose. In mind and manners how discreet;
How artless in her very art;
How candid in discourse; how sweet
The concord of her lips and heart!

How simple and how circumspect;
How subtle and how fancy-free;
Though sacred to her love, how decked With unexclusive courtesy;
How quick in talk to see from far
The way to vanquish or evade;
How able her persuasions are
To prove, her reasons to persuade.

How (not to call true instinct’s bent And woman’s very nature, harm),
How amiable and innocent
Her pleasure in her power to charm; How humbly careful to attract,
Though crowned with all the soul desires, Connubial aptitude exact,
Diversity that never tires!

IV
THE TRIBUTE

Boon Nature to the woman bows;
She walks in earth’s whole glory clad, And, chiefest far herself of shows,
All others help her and are glad:
No splendor ‘neath the sky’s proud dome But serves her for familiar wear;
The far-fetched diamond finds its home Flashing and smouldering in her hair;
For her the seas their pearls reveal; Art and strange lands her pomp supply
With purple, chrome, and cochineal, Ochre, and lapis lazuli;
The worm its golden woof presents;
Whatever runs, flies, dives, or delves, All doff for her their ornaments,
Which suit her better than themselves; And all, by this their power to give,
Proving her right to take, proclaim Her beauty’s clear prerogative
To profit so by Eden’s blame.

V
NEAREST THE DEAREST

Till Eve was brought to Adam, he
A solitary desert trod,
Though in the great society
Of nature, angels, and of God.
If one slight column counterweighs
The ocean, ’tis the Maker’s law,
Who deems obedience better praise
Than sacrifice of erring awe.

VI
THE FOREIGN LAND

A woman is a foreign land,
Of which, though there he settle young, A man will ne’er quite understand
The customs, politics, and tongue.
The foolish hie them post-haste through, See fashions odd and prospects fair,
Learn of the language, “How d’ye do,” And go and brag they have been there.
The most for leave to trade apply,
For once, at Empire’s seat, her heart, Then get what knowledge ear and eye
Glean chancewise in the life-long mart. And certain others, few and fit,
Attach them to the Court, and see
The Country’s best, its accent hit, And partly sound its polity.

Coventry Patmore [1823-1896]

A HEALTH

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air, ‘Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music’s own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burdened bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns, – The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace A picture on the brain,
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life’s, but hers.

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon –
Her health! and would on earth there stood Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.

Edward Coote Pinkney [1802-1828]

OUR SISTER

Her face was very fair to see,
So luminous with purity: –
It had no roses, but the hue
Of lilies lustrous with their dew – Her very soul seemed shining through!

Her quiet nature seemed to be
Tuned to each season’s harmony.
The holy sky bent near to her;
She saw a spirit in the stir
Of solemn woods. The rills that beat Their mosses with voluptuous feet,
Went dripping music through her thought. Sweet impulse came to her unsought
From graceful things, and beauty took A sacred meaning in her look.

In the great Master’s steps went she
With patience and humility.
The casual gazer could not guess
Half of her veiled loveliness;
Yet ah! what precious things lay hid Beneath her bosom’s snowy lid: –
What tenderness and sympathy,
What beauty of sincerity,
What fancies chaste, and loves, that grew In heaven’s own stainless light and dew!

True woman was she day by day
In suffering, toil, and victory.
Her life, made holy and serene
By faith, was hid with things unseen. She knew what they alone can know
Who live above but dwell below.

Horatio Nelson Powers [1826-1890]

FROM LIFE

Her thoughts are like a flock of butterflies. She has a merry love of little things,
And a bright flutter of speech, whereto she brings A threefold eloquence – voice, hands and eyes. Yet under all a subtle silence lies
As a bird’s heart is hidden by its wings; And you shall search through many wanderings The fairyland of her realities.

She hides herself behind a busy brain – A woman, with a child’s laugh in her blood; A maid, wearing the shadow of motherhood – Wise with the quiet memory of old pain,
As the soft glamor of remembered rain Hallows the gladness of a sunlit wood.

Brian Hooker [1880-

THE ROSE OF THE WORLD

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died.

We and the laboring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place, Like the pale waters in their wintry race, Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode: Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat; He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.

William Butler Yeats [1865-

DAWN OF WOMANHOOD

Thus will I have the woman of my dream. Strong must she be and gentle, like a star Her soul burn whitely; nor its arrowy beam

May any cloud of superstition mar:
True to the earth she is, patient and calm. Her tranquil eyes shall penetrate afar

Through centuries, and her maternal arm Enfold the generations yet unborn;
Nor she, by passing glamor nor alarm,

Will from the steadfast way of life be drawn. Gray-eyed and fearless, I behold her gaze Outward into the furnace of the dawn.

Sacred shall be the purport of her days, Yet human; and the passion of the earth
Shall be for her adornment and her praise.

She is most often joyous, with a mirth That rings true-tempered holy womanhood, She cannot fear the agonies of birth,

Nor sit in pallid lethargy and brood
Upon the coming seasons of her pain: By her the mystery is understood

Of harvest, and fulfilment in the grain. Yea, she is wont to labor in the field,
Delights to heap, at sunset, on the wain

Festoons and coronals of the golden yield. A triumph is the labor of her soul,
Sublime along eternity revealed.

Lo, everlastingly in her control,
Under the even measure of her breath, Like crested waves the onward centuries roll.

Nor to far heaven her spirit wandereth, Nor lifteth she her voice in barren prayer, Nor trembleth at appearances of death.

She, godlike in her womanhood, will fare Calm-visaged and heroic to the end.
The homestead is her most especial care;

She loves the sacred hearth: she will defend Her gods from desecration of the vile.
Fierce, like a wounded tigress, she can rend

Whatever may have entered to defile.
I see her in the evening by the fire, And in her eyes, illumined from the pile

Of blazing logs, a motherly desire
Glows like the moulded passion of a rose; Beautiful is her presence in the bower:

Her spirit is the spirit of repose.
Mankind shall hold her motherhood in awe: Woman is she indeed, and not of those

That he with sacramental gold must draw Discreetly to his chamber in the night,
Or bind to him with fetters of the law.

He holds her by a spiritual right.
With diamond and with pearl he need not sue; Nor will she deck herself for his delight:

Beauty is the adornment of the true.
She shall possess for ornament and gem A flower, the glowworm, or the drop of dew:

More innocently fair than all of them, It will not even shame her if she make
A coronal of stars her diadem.

Though she is but a vision, I can take Courage from her. I feel her arrowy beam Already, for her spirit is awake,

And passes down the future like a gleam, – Thus have I made the woman of my dream.

Harold Monro [1879-1932]

THE SHEPHERDESS

She walks – the lady of my delight –
A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; She guards them from the steep.
She feeds them on the fragrant height, And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,
Dark valleys safe and deep.
Into that tender breast at night
The chastest stars may peep.
She walks – the lady of my delight – A shepherdess of sheep.

She holds her little thoughts in sight, Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
She has her soul to keep.
She walks – the lady of my delight – A shepherdess of sheep.

Alice Meynell [1853-1922]

A PORTRAIT

Mother and maid and soldier, bearing best Her girl’s lithe body under matron gray, And opening new eyes on each new day
With faith concealed and courage unconfessed; Jealous to cloak a blessing in a jest,
Clothe beauty carefully in disarray, And love absurdly, that no word betray
The worship all her deeds make manifest:

Armored in smiles, a motley Britomart – Her lance is high adventure, tipped with scorn; Her banner to the suns and winds unfurled, Washed white with laughter; and beneath her heart, Shrined in a garland of laborious thorn, Blooms the unchanging Rose of all the World.

Brian Hooker [1880-

THE WIFE

The little Dreams of Maidenhood –
I put them all away
As tenderly as mother would
The toys of yesterday,
When little children grow to men
Too over-wise for play.

The little dreams I put aside –
I loved them every one,
And yet since moon-blown buds must hide Before the noon-day sun,
I close them wistfully away
And give the key to none.

O little Dreams of Maidenhood –
Lie quietly, nor care
If some day in an idle mood
I, searching unaware
Through some closed corner of my heart, Should laugh to find you there.

Theodosia Garrison [1874-

“TRUSTY, DUSKY, VIVID, TRUE”

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel true and blade straight
The great Artificer made my mate.

Honor, anger, valor, fire,
A love that life could never tire,
Death quench, or evil stir,
The mighty Master gave to her.

Teacher, tender comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life,
Heart-whole and soul-free,
The August Father gave to me.

Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]

THE SHRINE

There is a shrine whose golden gate
Was opened by the Hand of God;
It stands serene, inviolate,
Though millions have its pavement trod; As fresh, as when the first sunrise
Awoke the lark in Paradise.

‘Tis compassed with the dust and toil Of common days, yet should there fall
A single speck, a single soil
Upon the whiteness of its wall,
The angels’ tears in tender rain
Would make the temple theirs again.

Without, the world is tired and old,
But, once within the enchanted door, The mists of time are backward rolled,
And creeds and ages are no more;
But all the human-hearted meet
In one communion vast and sweet.

I enter – all is simply fair,
Nor incense-clouds, nor carven throne; But in the fragrant morning air
A gentle lady sits alone;
My mother – ah! whom should I see
Within, save ever only thee?

Digby Mackworth Dolben [1848-1867]

THE VOICE

As I went down the hill I heard
The laughter of the countryside;
For, rain being past, the whole land stirred With new emotion, like a bride.
I scarce had left the grassy lane,
When something made me catch my breath: A woman called, and called again,
Elizabeth! Elizabeth!

It was my mother’s name. A part
Of wounded memory sprang to tears,
And the few violets of my heart
Shook in the wind of happier years. Quicker than magic came the face
That once was sun and moon for me;
The garden shawl, the cap of lace,
The collie’s head against her knee.

Mother, who findest out a way
To pass the sentinels, and stand
Behind my chair at close of day,
To touch me – almost – with thy hand, Deep in my breast, how sure, how clear,
The lamp of love burns on till death! – How trembles if I chance to hear
Elizabeth! Elizabeth!

Norman Gale [1862-

MOTHER

I have praised many loved ones in my song, And yet I stand
Before her shrine, to whom all things belong, With empty hand.

Perhaps the ripening future holds a time For things unsaid;
Not now; men do not celebrate in rhyme Their daily bread.

Theresa Helburn [1888-

AD MATREM

Oft in the after days, when thou and I Have fallen from the scope of human view, When, both together, under the sweet sky, We sleep beneath the daisies and the dew, Men will recall thy gracious presence bland, Conning the pictured sweetness of thy face; Will pore o’er paintings by thy plastic hand, And vaunt thy skill and tell thy deeds of grace. Oh, may they then, who crown thee with true bays, Saying, “What love unto her son she bore!” Make this addition to thy perfect praise, “Nor ever yet was mother worshipped more!” So shall I live with Thee, and thy dear fame Shall link my love unto thine honored name.

Julian Fane [1827-1870]

C. L. M.

In the dark womb where I began,
My mother’s life made me a man.
Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth.
I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her.

Down in the darkness of the grave
She cannot see the life she gave.
For all her love, she cannot tell
Whether I use it ill or well,
Nor knock at dusty doors to find
Her beauty dusty in the mind.

If the grave’s gates could be undone, She would not know her little son,
I am so grown. If we should meet,
She would pass by me in the street, Unless my soul’s face let her see
My sense of what she did for me.

What have I done to keep in mind
My debt to her and womankind?
What woman’s happier life repays
Her for those months of wretched days? For all my mouthless body leeched
Ere Birth’s releasing hell was reached?

What have I done, or tried, or said
In thanks to that dear woman dead?
Men triumph over women still,
Men trample women’s rights at will, And man’s lust roves the world untamed. . . O grave, keep shut lest I be shamed.

John Masefield [1878-

STEPPING WESTWARD

STEPPING WESTWARD

“What, you are stepping westward?” – “Yea.” – ‘Twould be a wildish destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange Land, and far from home, Were in this place the guests of Chance: Yet who would stop, or fear to advance
Though home or shelter he had none, With such a sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold;
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny:
I liked the greeting; ’twas a sound Of something without place or bound;
And seemed to give me spiritual right To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake Was walking by her native lake:
The salutation had to me
The very sound of courtesy:
Its power was felt; and while my eye Was fixed upon the glowing Sky,
The echo of the voice enwrought
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay Before me in my endless way.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

A FAREWELL TO ARMS
(To Queen Elizabeth)

His golden locks Time hath to silver turned; O Time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing! His youth ‘gainst time and age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing: Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen; Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees; And lovers’ sonnets turned to holy psalms, A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms: But though from court to cottage he depart, His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart.

And when he saddest sits in homely cell, He’ll teach his swains this carol for a song, – “Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well, Curst be the souls that think her any wrong.” Goddess, allow this aged man his right
To be your beadsman now that was your knight.

George Peele [1558?-1597?]

THE WORLD

The World’s a bubble, and the life of Man Less than a span:
In his conception wretched, – from the womb, So to the tomb;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years With cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

Yet whilst with sorrow here we live oppressed, What life is best?
Courts are but only superficial schools To dandle fools:
The rural parts are turned into a den Of savage men;
And where’s a city from foul vice so free, But may be termed the worst of all the three?

Domestic cares afflict the husband’s bed, Or pains his head:
Those that live single, take it for a curse, Or do things worse:
Some would have children; those that have them moan Or wish them gone:
What is it, then, to have, or have no wife, But single thraldom, or a double strife?

Our own affections still at home to please Is a disease;
To cross the seas to any foreign soil, Peril and toil;
Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease, We are worse in peace:
– What then remains, but that we still should cry For being born, or, being born, to die?

Francis Bacon [1561-1626]

“WHEN THAT I WAS AND A LITTLE TINY BOY” From “Twelfth Night”

When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, ‘Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate, For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, With toss-pots still had drunken heads;
For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.

William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

OF THE LAST VERSES IN THE BOOK

When we for age could neither read nor write, The subject made us able to indite;
The soul, with nobler resolutions decked, The body stooping does herself erect.
No mortal parts are requisite to raise Her that, unbodied, can her Maker praise.

The seas are quiet when the winds give o’er; So calm are we when passions are no more. For then we know how vain it was to boast Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made: Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become
As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Edmund Waller [1606-1687]

A LAMENT
The Night Before His Execution

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares; My feast of joy is but a dish of pain;
My crop of corn is but a field of tares; And all my good is but vain hope of gain; The day is fled, and yet I saw no sun;
And now I live, and now my life is done!

The spring is past, and yet it is not sprung; The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves be green; My youth is gone, and yet I am but young; I saw the world, and yet I was not seen; My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun; And now I live, and now my life is done!

I sought my death, and found it in my womb; I looked for life, and saw it was a shade; I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb; And now I die, and now I am but made;
The glass is full, and now my glass is run; And now I live, and now my life is done!

Chidiock Tichborne [1558?-1586]

TOMORROW

In the down-hill of life, when I find I’m declining, May my fate no less fortunate be
Than a snug elbow-chair will afford for reclining, And a cot that o’erlooks the wide sea;
With an ambling pad-pony to pace o’er the lawn, While I carol away idle sorrow,
And blithe as the lark that each day hails the dawn, Look forward with hope for Tomorrow.

With a porch at my door, both for shelter and shade too, As the sunshine or rain may prevail,
And a small spot of ground for the use of the spade too, With a barn for the use of the flail:
A cow for my dairy, a dog for my game, And a purse when a friend wants to borrow; I’ll envy no Nabob his riches or fame,
Nor what honors may wait him Tomorrow.

From the bleak northern blast may my cot be completely Secured by a neighboring hill;
And at night may repose steal upon me more sweetly By the sound of a murmuring rill.
And while peace and plenty I find at my board, With a heart free from sickness and sorrow, With my friends may I share what Today may afford, And let them spread the table Tomorrow.

And when I at last must throw off this frail covering, Which I’ve worn for three-score years and ten, On the brink of the grave I’ll not seek to keep hovering, Nor my thread wish to spin o’er again;
But my face in the glass I’ll serenely survey, And with smiles count each wrinkle and furrow; And this old worn-out stuff, which is threadbare Today, May become everlasting Tomorrow.

John Collins [1742?-1808]

LATE WISDOM

We’ve trod the maze of error round,
Long wandering in the winding glade; And now the torch of truth is found,
It only shows us where we strayed:
By long experience taught, we know – Can rightly judge of friends and foes;
Can all the worth of these allow,
And all the faults discern in those.

Now, ’tis our boast that we can quell The wildest passions in their rage,
Can their destructive force repel,
And their impetuous wrath assuage. – Ah, Virtue! dost thou arm when now
This bold rebellious race are fled? When all these tyrants rest, and thou
Art warring with the mighty dead?

George Crabbe [1754-1832]

YOUTH AND AGE

Verse, a breeze ‘mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding like a bee, –
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy
When I was young!

When I was young? – Ah, woful When!
Ah, for the change ‘twixt Now and Then! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong,
O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands, How lightly then it flashed along: –
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide! Naught cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in’t together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree;
Oh! the joys that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty
Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? Ah, woful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here! O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
‘Tis known that Thou and I were one. I’ll think it but a fond conceit –
It cannot be that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled: – And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size:
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dewdrops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life’s a warning
That only serves to make us grieve
When we are old:

That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismissed,
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834]

THE OLD MAN’S COMFORTS
And How He Gained Them

“You are old, Father William,” the young man cried; “The few locks which are left you are gray; You are hale, Father William, – a hearty old man: Now tell me the reason, I pray.”

“In the days of my youth,” Father William replied, “I remembered that youth would fly fast, And abused not my health and my vigor at first, That I never might need them at last.”

“You are old, Father William,” the young man cried, “And pleasures with youth pass away;
And yet you lament not the days that are gone: Now tell me the reason, I pray.”

“In the days of my youth,” Father William replied, “I remembered that youth could not last; I thought of the future, whatever I did, That I never might grieve for the past.”

“You are old, Father William,” the young man cried, “And life must be hastening away;
You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death: Now tell me the reason, I pray.”

“I am cheerful, young man,” Father William replied; “Let the cause thy attention engage;
In the days of my youth, I remembered my God, And He hath not forgotten my age.”

Robert Southey [1774-1843]

TO AGE

Welcome, old friend! These many years Have we lived door by door:
The Fates have laid aside their shears Perhaps for some few more.

I was indocile at an age
When better boys were taught,
But thou at length hast made me sage, If I am sage in aught.

Little I know from other men,
Too little they from me,
But thou hast pointed well the pen
That writes these lines to thee.

Thanks for expelling Fear and Hope,
One vile, the other vain;
One’s scourge, the other’s telescope, I shall not see again:

Rather what lies before my feet
My notice shall engage. –
He who hath braved Youth’s dizzy heat Dreads not the frost of Age.

Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]

LATE LEAVES

The leaves are falling; so am I;
The few late flowers have moisture in the eye; So have I too.
Scarcely on any bough is heard
Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird
The whole wood through.

Winter may come: he brings but nigher His circle (yearly narrowing) to the fire Where old friends meet.
Let him; now heaven is overcast,
And spring and summer both are past, And all things sweet.

Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]

YEARS

Years, many parti-colored years,
Some have crept on, and some have flown Since first before me fell those tears
I never could see fall alone.

Years, not so many, are to come,
Years not so varied, when from you
One more will fall: when, carried home, I see it not, nor hear Adieu.

Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864]

THE RIVER OF LIFE

The more we live, more brief appear
Our life’s succeeding stages:
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals, lingering like a river smooth Along its grassy borders.

But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow’s shafts fly thicker,
Ye Stars, that measure life to man, Why seem your courses quicker?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath, And life itself is vapid,
Why, as we reach the Falls of Death, Feel we its tide more rapid?

It may be strange – yet who would change Time’s course to slower speeding,
When one by one our friends have gone And left our bosoms bleeding?

Heaven gives our years of fading strength Indemnifying fleetness;
And those of youth, a seeming length, Proportioned to their sweetness.

Thomas Campbell [1777-1844]

“LONG TIME A CHILD”

Long time a child, and still a child, when years Had painted manhood on my check, was I, – For yet I lived like one not born to die; A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears, No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.
But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep; and waking, I waked to sleep no more; at once o’ertaking The vanguard of my age, with all arrears Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is gray, For I have lost the race I never ran:
A rathe December blights my lagging May; And still I am a child, though I be old: Time is my debtor for my years untold.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1849]

THE WORLD I AM PASSING THROUGH

Few, in the days of early youth,
Trusted like me in love and truth.
I’ve learned sad lessons from the years; But slowly, and with many tears;
For God made me to kindly view
The world that I was passing through.

How little did I once believe
That friendly tones could e’er deceive! That kindness, and forbearance long,
Might meet ingratitude and wrong!
I could not help but kindly view
The world that I was passing through.

And though I’ve learned some souls are base, I would not, therefore, hate the race;
I still would bless my fellow men,
And trust them, though deceived again. God help me still to kindly view
The world that I am passing through!

Through weary conflicts I have passed, And struggled into rest at last;
Such rest as when the rack has broke A joint, or nerve, at every stroke.
The wish survives to kindly view
The world that I am passing through.

From all that fate has brought to me
I strive to learn humility,
And trust in Him who rules above,
Whose universal law is love.
Thus only can I kindly view
The world that I am passing through.

When I approach the setting sun,
And feel my journey nearly done,
May earth be veiled in genial light, And her last smile to me seem bright!
Help me till then to kindly view