I count this thing to be grandly true: We rise by the things that are under feet; By what we have mastered of good and gain; By the pride deposed and the passion slain, And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet. We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust, When the morning calls us to life and light, But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night, Our lives are trailing the sordid dust. We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray, And we think that we mount the air on wings Beyond the recall of sensual things, While our feet still cling to the heavy clay. Wings for the angels, but feet for men! We may borrow the wings to find the way— We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray; But our feet must rise, or we fall again. Only in dreams is a ladder thrown From the weary earth to the sapphire walls; But the dreams depart, and the vision falls, And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone. Heaven is not reached at a single bound; But we build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit, round by round. Josiah Gilbert Holland [1819-1881] THE OTHER WORLD Ir lies around us like a cloud- The Other World Its gentle breezes fan our cheeks And mingle with our prayers. Sweet hearts around us throb and beat, The silence-awful, sweet, and calm So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide, And, in the hush of rest they bring, 'Tis easy now to see How lovely and how sweet a pass To close the eye and close the ear, Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep, To feel all evil sink away, All sorrow and all care. Sweet souls around us! watch us still, Press nearer to our side, Into our thoughts, into our prayers, With gentle helping glide. 3463 Let death between us be as naught, A dried and vanished stream; Our suffering life the dream. Harriet Beecher Stowe [1811-1896] SONG OF AN ANGEL At noon a shower had fallen, and the clime A gold harp had he, and was singing there He sang of joys to which the earthly heart Hath never beat; he sang of deathless Youth, And by the throne of Love, Beauty, and Truth Meeting, no more to part; He sang lost Hope, faint Faith, and vain Desire Crowned there; great works, that on the earth began, Accomplished; towers impregnable to man Scaled with the speed of fire; Of Power, and Life, and winged Victory He sang of bridges strown 'twixt star and star And hosts all armed in light for bloodless war Pass, and repass on high; Lo! in the pauses of his jubilant voice He leans to listen: answers from the spheres, Down the empyreal skies: Then suddenly he ceased-and seemed to rest Of that fair cloud, and with soft eyes of hope And shed on me a smile of beams, that told Frederick Tennyson [1807-1898] HOME THERE lies a little city in the hills; White are its roofs, dim is each dwelling's door, There the pure mist, the pity of the sea, Unstirred and calm, amid our shifting years, O heart that prayest so for God to send And lead the way to where thy longings end, Be sure, be very sure, that soon will come Edward Rowland Sill [1841-1887] CHARTLESS I NEVER saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given. Emily Dickinson [1830-1886] "IT CANNOT BE" IT cannot be that He who made And know on earth no life but this, With only one finite survey Of all its beauty and its bliss. It cannot be that all the years Of toil and care and grief we live And every unattained desire Were given only to deceive. It cannot be that, after all The mighty conquests of the mind, Our thoughts shall pass beyond recall And leave no record here behind; That all our dreams of love and fame, And hopes that time has swept away,— All that enthralled this mortal frame,— Shall not return some other day. It cannot be that all the ties Of kindred souls and loving hearts And the immortal mind departs; David Banks Sickels [1837 |