Hymns of Modern Thought
Introduction
by George Jelliss (December 2007)
The following paragraph is from F. J. Gould's (1900) History of Leicester Secular Society.
Music has always been appreciated at Society meetings. A choir was formed for those at the Temperance Hall, and some kind of musical service has been maintained ever since. The present choir-master is Mr. Johnson Lowe, who was engaged by the Society in 1885, and re-engaged after an interval of some years in 1895. Sunday afternoon concerts were given at the Hall in 1881-2, and the help of a band was then (and occasionally since) enlisted. A hymn book specially designed for the use of the Society was compiled in 1882, the compilers being a little group of members with Positivist sympathies, viz. Messrs. Findley, Malcolm Quin and Berry. The book ran out of print in 1899 and a new selection, Hymns of Modern Thought (Houghton & Co), has been issued for the use of this and other societies edited by Miss E. J. Troup.
The LSS Library does not now contain any copy of the 1882 compilaton. It does however still contain a copy of the 1899 hymns and this is what has been reproduced here, with the aid of a scanner (with OCR — optical character recognition).
Hymns have not been sung at Secular Hall within the memory of any current members, and many of the verses, although they avoid explicit theology, would not now be considered appropriate expressions of modern secular humanism. For instance the use of the term "soul" is quite prevalent, the psychology of love found in many of the hymns is distinctly sentimental and pre-Freudian, and the emphasis on duty and work-ethic is redolent of an imperialistic and authoritarian period. The book is reproduced here mainly for the sake of the historical record.
The text has been reproduced verbatim, although the exact lay-out cannot be maintained in this web-page format. In the hymn book the hymn number (in bold and larger type) is in each case placed at the start of the first verse; however in the format used here the first verse is numbered 1 (unless it is the only verse) and the hymn number is moved up two lines, to precede the note that indicates the metre.
Some additions (such as dates of death of authors who were living in 1899) are shown by use of square brackets [thus]. An effort has been made to provide links to biographies of the authors of the hymns, although a number, particularly those with quite common names, have still not been traced. A substantial proportion of the authors are of the American "Transcendentalist" school who were popular at the time.
Opposite the title page there is an advertisement for an edition of Hymns of Modern Thought "With Music. Cloth 8vo, 260pp, Price 3s." from Houghton & Co, but this larger edition is not in the LSS Library.
This page was created by George Jelliss but there are more recent additions
Hymns of Modern Thought
v
"The end lies hid in future victory,
Won by the faithfulness of man to man"
v
Ent. Sta. Hall _________________ All Rights Reserved.
London:
HOUGHTON & Co.,
39 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET,
1900.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY A. BONNER, 1 & 2 TOOK'S COURT,
CHANCERY LANE, E.C.
PRINTED BY A. BONNER, 1 & 2 TOOK'S COURT,
CHANCERY LANE, E.C.
PREFACE
THIS book is issued in a somewhat tentative spirit; yet not without hope that in these days, when all religions (of the Western world at least) tend to become more practical and less dogmatic, a place may be found for a collection of hymns which contain no theological dogma, but are exclusively concerned with the spiritual aspirations of men in regard to daily life, character and conduct.
In a generation remarkable for the rapid assimilation of new thought, both as to man's personal relation to the universe and his responsibility for the evil in the world, the ideal of human service tends to become more and more dominant. Among distinguishing characteristics of the trend of modern thought are a growing faith in the capacities for good hidden within human nature, a conviction of the value of every hour of human life, and a poignant desire to make this life something happier and better than "a vale of tears."
An effort, therefore, has been made to adapt the present volume to this modern spirit. Spiritual aspiration there is much of in these pages; but it is aspiration towards the highest ideal of human goodness, and even the name of "God" as typifying this conception has been avoided. The gradual fading of the old ideas of heaven and hell has left untouched every worthy motive for striving towards goodness of heart and life; and no allusion to these ideas will be found among the selected poems.
No lines have been wantonly altered; where changes occur, they have been made either for metrical reasons or because the original carried with it some trace of the dogmatic and "omniscient" mental attitude which is now abandoned by most thoughtful men.
Sincere thanks are rendered for the unvarying generosity with which all the authors and owners of copyright applied to have granted the use of their poems; especially to
Dr. Felix Adler, for Nos. 34 and 72;
Mr. George Allen, for Nos. 27 (Wm. Cory) and 28 (Ruskin);
the late Mr. Grant Allen, for No. 82;
Mrs. Matthew Arnold, for Nos. 56, 101, 137, 138, 142, 144;
Messrs. George Bell and Sons, for Nos. 50, 53, 102 (Adelaide Procter) and 162 (Thomas Ashe);
Mrs. Bevington, for Nos. 16, 77 and 164 (Louisa S. Bevington, afterwards Guggenberger);
Messrs. Wm. Blackwood and Sons, for Nos. 22, 198 and 206 (George Eliot);
Rev. R. H. U. Bloor, for Nos. 69, 104, 114, 132 and 160 (poems written expressly for this book);
Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, for Nos. 128 (altered by his kind permission) and 165;
Mr. Horatio F. Brown for No. 76 (J. Addington Symonds);
Mrs. A. 0. Bullock, for No. 1 (Dean Alford);
Mr. Edward Carpenter, for No. 90;
Messrs. W. and R. Chambers, for Nos. 151 and 195;
Messrs. Chapman and Hall, for No. 148 (Carlyle);
Rev. T. W. Chignell, for Nos, 68 and 152;
Mrs. Arthur Clough, for Nos. 61 and 192;
Mr. Sydney C. Cockerell, for No. 74 (Wm. Morris);
Dr. Moncure D. Conway, for No. 97;
the Earl of Crewe, for No. 92 (Lord Houghton);
Miss Gaskell, for No. 187;
Mr. Edmund Gosse, for No. 170;
Mr. Clifford Harrison. for No. 126;
Mrs. Frederic Harrison, for Nos. 81, 156, 161, 178 and 188; also 35 and 173 from "The Service of Man";
Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, U.S.A., for all the included copyright poems of the American poets, Longfellow, Lowell, and Whittier;
Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Ltd., for Nos. 14, 78, 172, 180 and 184 (Tennyson);
Sir Lewis Morris, for Nos. 119, 134 and 196;
Mrs. Herbert New, for No. 133;
Messrs. James Nisbet and Co., Ltd., for Nos. 2, 3, 7, 46 and 174 (Dr. Bonar) and 150 (Frances Havergal);
Mrs. Coventry Patmore, for No. 185;
Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., Ltd., for Nos. 20, 181, 182 (Archbishop Trench) and 189 (Constance Naden);
Mr. A. T. Quiller-Couch, for No. 117;
Mr. Malcolm Quin, for Nos. 86, 93, 108 and 143;
Mr. Gustav Spiller, for No. 51;
Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., for Nos. 26, 64, 71, 85 and 111 (W. M. W. Call);
Mr. A. C. Swinburne, for Nos. 13, 75 and 116;
Mr. Arthur Symons, for No. 139;
Mrs. Elias Tozer, for No. 154;
Mr. William Watson and Mr. John Lane, for Nos. 105, 140 and 200.
Where the following sign occurs:— ||: :|| it is meant to show that the words so enclosed are repeated in the musical setting.
LIST OF SUBJECTS
Nos. [the numbers cited are those of the hymns, not the pages]
Truth ... 1-9.
Freedom ... 10-15
Fellowship ... 16-37
Work and Action ... 38 - 59
Hope and Progress ... 60-89
Patriotism ... 90-92
Encouragement ... 93-103
"The things that are more excellent" ... 104-107
The power of goodness ... 108-111
The influence of training ... 112
True victors ... 113, 114
Faith in the future ... 115
The Ethical "I am" ... 116
THE INNER LIFE.
Conscience, Duty ... 117-119
Happiness from within ... 120-125
Aspiration ... 126-131
The inspiration of life ... 132, 133
Self-control ... 134-136
Self-reliance ... 137, 138
Stoicism ... 139-142
Patience ...143-144
Our need ... 145
Innocence ... 146
Of harsh judgments ... 147
FOR SPECIAL TIMES.
Morning ... 148-153
Evening ... 154-161
Nature ... 162-166
Spring ... 167, 168
Summer ... 169
Autumn ... 170
Christmas ... 171
Close of the Year, New Year ... 172-175
Dedication ... 176
Welcoming of a Child ... 177
Marriage ... 178, 179
Loss at Friends ... 180-186
Burial of Friends ... 187-189
Hymns and Anthems (Miscellaneous subjects) ... 190-206
INDEX OF AUTHORS
Those poems marked (*) have not been previously published.
Nos.
Adams, Sarah Flower, altered (1805 - 1848) ... 158
Adler, Felix, Ph.D. (b.1851) ... *34, 72
Alford, Henry, D.D. (Dean), (1810 - 1871) ... 1
Allen, Grant (1848 - 1899) ... 82
Anon. ... 5, 9, 18, 39, 40, 42, 49, 83, 113, 125, 136, 151, 157, *169, 201, 203, 205
Arnold, Matthew (1822 - 1888) ... 56, 101, 137, 138, 142, 144
Ashe, Thomas (1836 - 1889) ... 162
Baker, Grace H. ... *197
Barton, Bernard (1784 - 1849) ... 124
Bevington, Louisa S., afterwards Guggenberger (1845 - 1895) ... 16, 77, 164
Blake, William (1757 - 1828) ... 24
Bloor, R. H. U. (b.1866) [Robert Henry Underwood Bloor author of The English novel from Chaucer to Galsworthy (1935)] ... *69, *104, *114, *132, *160
Bockett, F. W. [mentioned in The Hilltop Writers: "F.W. Bockett, cycling through the Surrey lanes in search of the homes of his literary heroes ..."] ... 35
Bonar, Horatius, D.D. (1808 - 1889) ... 2, 3, 7, 46, 174
Bowring, Sir John (1792 - 1872) ... 112
Brooke, Stopford Augustus (b.1832) [d.1916] ... 128, 165
Bulfinch, Stephen Greenleaf & (1809 - 1870) ... 44
Burges[s], J. J. Haldane [1862 - 1927]... 195
Burrington, Frederick ... 47
Call, Wathen Mark Wilks (1817 - 1890) [poem: Summer Days; correspondence with G. H. Lewes] ... 26, 64, 71, 85, 111
Campbell, Thomas & (1777 - 1844) .. 109
Campion, Thomas & & (c.1575 - 1620) ... 123
Carlyle, Thomas & & (1795 - 1881) ... 148
Carpenter, Edward & & & (b.1845) [1844 - 1929] ... 90
Chadwick, J. W. (b.1840) [John White Chadwick 1840 - 1904] ... 175
Chaucer &, after (1328 - 1400) [Geoffrey Chaucer c.1343 - 1400] ... 5
Cheney, John Vance [1848 - 1922] ... 58
Chignell, T. W. (b.1824) ... 68, 152
Clapp, Eliza Thayer (1812 - 1888) [American Transcendentalism: A History has: "Eliza Thayer Clapp, a Unitarian Sunday school teacher, integrated Transcendentalist ideas into girls' religious instruction"] ... 88
Clough, Arthur Hugh & & & (1819 - 1861) ... 61, 192
Conway, Dr. Moncure D & &, M.A. (b.1832) [d.1907] ... 97, 193
Coonley, L. A. ... 36
Cory, William Johnson (1823 - 1892) ... 27
Cowper, William & & (1731 - 1800) ... 21
Davis, E. ... 30
Doyan, (?) ... 12
Dwight, John Sullivan & (1813 - 1893) ... 55
Eliot, George (Marian Evans) (1819 - 1880) ... 22, 198, 206
Ellis, Dr. Alex J. (1814 - 1890) ... 6
Emerson, Ralph Waldo & & &, altered (1803 - 1882) ... 166
Fox, W. Johnson (1786 - 1864) ... 204
Gage, Frances Dana & (1808 - 1884) ... 95
Gaskell, William &, M.A. (1805 - 1884) ... 187
Goethe & &, after (1749 - 1832) [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe] ... 54, 65, 155
Gosse, Edmund & (b.1849) [d.1928] ... 170
Harris, John, D.D. ... 67
Harrison, Clifford ... 126
Harrison, E. B. (Mrs. Frederic) [Signatory of An Appeal AGAINST Female Suffrage 1889] ... 81, 156, 161, 178, *188
Hatch, Edwin & &, D.D. (1835 - 1889) ... 199
Havergal, Frances Ridley & & (1836 - 1879) ... 150
Herbert, George & (1579 - 1632) [most sources give 1593 - 1633] ... 106
Herrick, Robert & (1591 - 1674) ... 153
Higginson, C. G. ... [Possibly connected to T. W. Higginson?] 173
Hosmer, F. L. (b.1840) [Frederick Lucian Hosmer, d.1929] ... 92
Johnson, Samuel (1822 - 1882} [Note: not the lexicographer!] ... 176
Keble, John & & (1792 - 1866) ... 33
Kendall, Harriet [1848 - 1884] ... 171
Kingsley, Charles &, altered (1819 - 1875) ... 84
Landon, Letitia E. & (1802 - 1838) ... 121
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth & & & (1807 - 1882) ... 19, 32, 45, 66, 79, 87, 110, 141, 146
Longfellow, Samuel & (1819 - 1891) ... 73
Lowell, James Russell & & (1819 - 1891) ... 10, 52, 62, 80, 103, 130, 191, 194
Lyddon, Annie E. ... 48
Lynch, Thomas Toke (1818 - 1871) ... 59
Lyte, Henry Francis, M.A. (1793 - 1847) ... 131
Mackay, Charles &, LL.D. (1814 - 1890) [Author of: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841; and father of Marie Corelli.] ... 17, 127
Milnes, Monckton & & (Lord Houghton) (1809 - 1885) ... 89
Montgomery, James & & (1771 - 1854) ... 41
Morris, Sir Lewis (b.1833) [d.1907] ... 119, 134, 196
Morris, William (1834 - 1896) ... 74
Naden, Constance Caroline Woodhill & (1858 - 1889) ... 189
New, Herbert ... 133
Nicoll, Robert & (1814 - 1837) [Poems and Lyrics] ... 11
Patmore, Coventry Kearsey Deighton & & (1823 - 1896) ... 185
Perry, Nora [1841 - 1896] ... 186
Procter, Adelaide Anne & & & (1825 - 1864) ... 50, 53, 102
Prudhomme, Sully & [1839 - 1907], translated from ... 37
Quiller-Couch, A. T. & (b.1863) [d.1944] ... 117
Quin, Malcolm [LSS member cited by F. J. Gould in the passage quoted in the Introduction; Leeds University Library has some correspondence by him] ... 86, 93, 108, 143
Richardson, Charles F. [1851 - 1913, author of A Primer of American Literature 1607 - 1885] ... 122
Ruskin, John & & (1819 - 1890) [the websites say he died in 1900] ... 28
Sanscrit, from the (1200 - 200 B.C.) ... 29, 31, 107
[Sewall, Harriet Winslow; see Winslow]
Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) ... 8
Shelley, Percy Bysshe & (1792 - l822) ... 15
Spiller, Gustav [F. J. Gould mentions Spiller as involved with him in the East London Ethical Society 1889, and with the League of Nations in Geneva. He was author of an Ode to Joy, alternative words to the music by Beethoven. He was author of The Mind of Man 1902. He helped organise the Universal Races Congress 1911] ... 51
Spitta, Carl Johann Philipp (1801 - 1848) [according to the website he died 1859], translated from ... 23
Sterling, John (1806 - 1844) [Thomas Carlyle wrote a Life of John Sterling] ... 149
Sturges, Richard Yates ... 159, 202
Swain, Charles & (1809 - 1874) ... 120
Swinburne, Algernon Charles & (b.1837) [d.1909] ... 13, 75, 116
Symonds, John Addington & & (1840 - 1893) ... 76
Symons, Arthur (b.1865) [d.1945; author of The Symbolist Movement in Literature] ... 139
Taylor, Emily (1795 - 1872) [is included in this List of early-modern women poets] ... 168
Tennyson, Alfred & (1809 - 1892) ... 14, 78, 172, 180, 184
Tozer, Elias (1825 - 1873) ... 154
Trench, Richard Chenevix, Archbishop of Dublin (1807 - 1886) [author of On The Study of Words] ... 20, 181, 182
T., E. J. [evidently Miss E. J. Troup the compiler, see the quote from F. J. Gould in the Introduction] ... *177, *179
Underwood, Sara A. [cited in Madison Libraries as living 1838 - 1911; author of Automatic or Spirit Writing, with Other Psychic Experiences] ... 145
Very, Jones & & (1813 - 1880) ... 118
Watson, William (b.1858) [d.1935] ... 105, 140, 200
White, Frederick M. ... 38, 98
Whittier, John Greenleaf & & (1807 - 1892) ... 4, 25, 43, 60, 63, 70, 91, 94, 96, 99, 100, 115, 129, 147, 183
Winslow [Sewall], Harriet [1818 - 1889; not the missionary Harriet Winslow 1796 - 1833] ... 57
Wordsworth, William & & (1770 - 1850) ... 167, 190
Wotton, Sir Henry & & (1568 - 1639) ... 135
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
Nos.
A dreamer dropped a random thought ... 17
Again the flowers appear ... 169
Ah, happy they who feel their birth ... 82
Ah! how skilful grows the hand ... 19
A little sun, a little rain ... 165
All are architects of fate ... 45
All around us, fair with flowers ... 42
All before us lies the way ... 88
All common things, each days events ... 66
All good night! all good night! ... 203
All grim, and soiled, and brown with tan ... 63
"All grows," says Doubt, "all falls, decays and dies" ... 26
All truth is calm ... 3
"A merry Christmas!" how the old words waken ... 171
A nobler order yet shall be ... 64
An off'ring to the shrine of pow'r ... 11
Another year of setting suns ... 175
Arise my soul! nor dream tbe hours ... 40
As o'er his furrowed fields, which lie ... 99
As some most pure and noble face ... 200
A storm sped over sea and land ... 97, 193
As we wax older on this earth ... 105
Bear a lily in thy hand ... 146
Be noble, and the nobleness that lies ... 194
Be something in this living age ... 49
Be true to every inmost thought ... 1
Born in each heart is impulse strong ... 65
Bring snow-white lilies, pallid heart-flushed roses ... 189
Britain's first poet ... 5
Build now the house wherein thy soul would dwell ... 48
Calmly, calmly lay him down ... 187
Come! let us raise a joyful strain ... 178
Creep into thy narrow bed ... 142
Days past and gone, another year completing ... 173
Do not crouch to-day and worship ... 50
Dost thou despair, oh doubting soul ... 93
Earnest words must needs be spoken ... 147
England, arise! the long, long night is over ... 90
Entranced in sweet slumber ... 166
Faith comes in moments of heroic love ... 22
For me-to have made one soul ... 199
From common burdens no exemption ask ... 181
From th' eternal shadow rounding ... 183
Gently fall the evening shadows ... 154
Great truths are dearly bought. The common truth ... 7
Happy he whose spirit ear ... 115
Happy they who are not weary ... 68
Hast thou, 'midst life's empty noises ... 43
He liveth long who liveth well ... 46
He only does not live in vain ... 29
Here let us rest awhile, ere this day dies ... 177
He who has the truth, and keeps it ... 4
Higher than heaven they sit ... 140
Hope, wide of eye and wild of wing ... 75
Hours there will come of soul-less night ... 98
How happy is he born and taught ... 135
Hush now! in silence, reverence ... 188
I envy not in any moods ... 184
If dim the gold of life has grown ... 129
If fate love's dear ambition mar ... 185
If I were a voice, a persuasive voice ... 127
If peace be in the heart ... 122
If thou art blest ... 201
If we knew the heart was sore ... 37
I heard the bells on Christmas Day ... 32
In silence mighty things are wrought ... 59
I saw on earth another light ... 118
I sing the hymn of the conquered ... 113
Is Nature all to beautiful? ... 162
It fortifies my soul to know ... 192
It surely is a wasted heart ... 121
I wake this morn, and all my life ... 151
Let the fool recite the triumphs ... 114
Lie open, soul! around thee press ... 133
Life is a leaf of paper white ... 52
Life is onward—use it ... 39
Life may change, but it may fly not ... 15
Light of day is shining ... 34
Live thou thy life; nor take thou heed ... 139
Long ago did our forefathers ... 69
Looms there the new land ... 62
Make channels for the streams of love ... 20
"Make us a god," said man ... 204
May all the good deeds of the past ... 35
Men whose boast it is that ye ... 10
Morning breaketh on thee ... 152
Mother of man's time-travelling generations ... 116
Mountain gorses, ever golden ... 163
Must we feel day and night ... 138
Nay, bury not the past; it is not dead ... 174
No good is certain, but the steadfast will ... 198
Not with the flashing steel ...30
Now comes the light for which our souls have sought ... 86
Now the last petals leave the rose ... 170
O beautiful, my country ... 92
O brother man, fold to thy heart thy brother ... 25
O dew of life! 0 light of earth! ... 28
O Earth, thy past is crowned and consecrated ... 67
O'er silent field and lonely lawn ... 155
Of all the myriad moods of mind ... 130
Of old sat Freedom on the heights ... 14
O golden years, advance, advance! ... 71
O happy days, O months, O years! ... 182
O hearts that love and, yearning, trust ... 179
O help the prophet to be bold! ... 16
Oh, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem ... 8
Oh, if perchance a saddened heart ... 33
Oh, sometimes glimpses on my sight ... 60
Oh! speak not ye of power that builds its throne ... 12
O it is good to live and breathe ... 132
O may I join the choir invisible ... 206
O mountains, give me of your strength ... 126
One by one the sands are flowing ... 102
One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee ... 56
O pure reformers! not in vain ... 94
O star of strength! I see thee stand ... 141
O truth! O freedom! how ye still are born ... 103
Our tasks are many, and our wills ... 143
Our thought of thee is glad with hope ... 91
Out of the dark the circling sphere ... 73
Part in peace! the hour before us ... 158
Raise your standard, brothers ... 51
Riches we wish to get ... 137
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky ... 172
Rise! for the day is passing ... 53
Say not the struggle nought availeth ... 61
Say not they die, those martyr souls ... 108
So here hath been dawning ... 148
So should we live, that every hour ... 89
Sow in the morn thy seed ... 41
Spirit of charity, dispense ... 21
Strong human love! within whose steadfast will ... 128
Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright ... 106
Sweet evening hour! Sweet evening hour ... 157
Sweet is the pleasure ... 55
Sweet morn! from countless cups of gold ... 149
Tell me not in mournful numbers ... 79
Tell me the good of my neighbour ... 36
That foe repel not with a frown ... 31
That man is great, and he alone ... 136
The heart it hath its own estate ... 120
The law of right ... 124
The light pours down from heaven ... 83
The man of life upright ... 123
The man who every sin forsakes ... 107
The millions suffer still and grieve ... 101
The morning light flingeth ... 150
The outworn rite, the old abuse ... 70
There are lonely hearts to cherish ... 18
There are moments when life's shadows ... 95
There is a blessing in the air ... 167
There is a captain that commands ... 117
There is a song now singing ... 23
There is in every human heart ... 112
There is no death for that which dwells apart ... 111
There's a strife we all must wage ... 44
There's life abroad! from each green tree ... 168
The rose is for a day ... 104
These things shall be! a loftier race ... 76
The sun is sinking fast ... 156
The toil of day is now o'erpast ... 161
The wand'ring winds are silent on the sea ... 195
Thou must be true thyself ... 2
Thou who art victory and law ... 190
'Tis lovely, 'mid the cloudless skies ... 202
To hold an honest hand ... 9
To light, that shines in stars and souls ... 176
To mercy, pity, peace and love ... 24
True that when we would do good ... 85
"Truth is great and must prevail!" ... 6
Truth is not dumb, that it should speak no more ... 191
We cannot kindle when we will ... 144
We have not wings, we cannot soar ... 87
We may not think that all of good ... 81
We mix from many lands ... 13
We need it every hour ... 145
We shape ourselves the joy or fear ... 125
We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move ... 78
What hallows ground where heroes sleep? ... 109
What is it that the crowd requite ... 100
What is this the sound and rumour ... 74
What shall I frame my life to gain? ... 119
What shall we do to-day ... 77
What silences we keep year after year ... 186
When a deed is done for freedom ... 80
Whene'er a noble deed is wrought ... 110
When summer winds are laid asleep ... 159
When the day of toil is ended ... 160
When the dumb hour, clothed in black ... 180
When the funeral bell ... 205
When with the virgin morn ... 153
Where are last year's snows? ... 196
Where there are daisies, daisies will be white ... 164
Who drives the horses of the sun ... 58
Whoso can rule his soul ... 134
Who will say the world is dying? ... 84
Why do I sigh to find ... 131
Why thus longing, thus for ever sighing ... 57
"Why urge the long, unequal fight?" ... 96
Without haste and without rest ... 54
Work! it is thy highest mission ... 38
Worship the might-be in every being ... 197
Would you gain the golden city ... 72
Ye moments of eternal time ... 47
You promise heavens free from strife ... 27
Hymns of Modern Thought
TRUTH
1 C.M.
1 BE true to every inmost thought;
Be as thy thought, thy speech;
What thou hast not by suffering bought,
Presume thou not to teach.
2 Woe, woe to him on safety bent,
Who creeps to age from youth,
Failing to grasp his life's intent,
Because he fears the truth.
3 Show forth thy light! If conscience gleam,
Quench not the rising glow;
The smallest spark may shed its beam
O'er thousand hearts below.
4 Guard thou the fact! Though clouds of night
Down on thy watch-tower stoop;
Though thou shouldst see thine heart's delight
Borne from thee by their swoop.
5 Face thou the wind Though safer seem
In shelter to abide;
We were not made to sit and dream;
The true must first be tried.
Henry Alford
2 6.6.8.6.8.6.
1 THOU must be true thyself,
If thou the true wouldst teach;
Thy soul must overflow, if thou
Another's soul wouldst reach.
The overflow of heart it needs
To give the lips full speech.
2 Think truly, and thy thoughts
Shall the world's famine feed;
Speak truly, and each word of thine
Shall be a fruitful seed;
Live truly, and thy life shall be
A great and noble creed.
Horatius Bonar
3 4.6.8.6.
1 ALL truth is calm,
A refuge, rock and tower;
The more of truth the more of calm,
Its calmness is its power.
2 Truth is not strife,
Nor is to strife allied;
It is but error that is bred
Of storm, by rage and pride.
3 Calmness is truth,
And truth is calmness still;
Truth lifts its forehead to the storm,
Like some eternal hill.
Horatius Bonar
4 8.7.8.7.
1 HE who has the truth, and keeps it,
Keeps what not to him belongs,
But performs a selfish action
That his fellow-mortal wrongs.
2 He who seeks the truth, and trembles
At the dangers he must brave,
Is not fit to be a freeman,
He at best must be a slave.
3 He who hears the truth, and places
Its high promptings under ban,
Loud may boast of all that's manly,
But can never be a man.
4 Be thou like the noble ancient-
Scorn the threat that bids thee fear:
Speak! no matter what betide thee;
Let them strike, but make them hear.
5 Be thou like the first apostles-
Be thou like heroic Paul:
If a free thought seek expression,
Speak it boldly—speak it all!
John Greenleaf Whittier
5 5.5.5.4; 5.4.
1 BRITAIN'S first poet,
Famous old Chaucer,
Swan-like in dying,
Sung his last song,
When at his heart-strings
Death's hand was strong.
2 "From false crowds flying,
Dwell with soothfastness,
Prize more than treasure
Hearts true and brave;
Truth to thine own heart
Thy soul shall save."
3 "Trust not to fortune;
Be not o'er-meddling;
Thankful receive thou
Good which life gave;
Truth to thine own heart
Thy soul shall save."
4 Dead through long ages
Britain's first poet-
Still the monition
Sounds from his grave,
"Truth to thine own heart
Thy soul shall save."
Anon.
6 7.7.7.7.7.
1 "TRUTH is great, and must prevail!"-
Trite the adage—how and when?
Trial tells another tale,
Truth has failed, will fail again,
If not backed by truthful men.
2 Truth is man's maturest thought
That the earnest grasp and try.
Who for truth has never fought,
Who lets falsehood known go by,
Propagates himself the lie.
3 Truth through deserts leads the way,
Like the mythic fire of God;
Those who know its beam, and stray
Far from where they're signed to plod,
Keep the paths of truth untrod.
4 To the plough then lay your hand!
Truth is nought when not embraced!
Look not back, nor listless stand
Where your line of work is traced;
Falsehood vanishes when faced.
Alex. J. Ellis
7 10.10.10.10.
1 GREAT truths are dearly bought; the common truth,
Such as men give and take from day to day,
Comes in the common walk of easy life,
Blown by the careless wind across our way.
2 Great truths are dearly won: not found by chance,
Nor wafted on the breath of summer-dream;
But grasped in earnest struggle of the soul,
Hard buffeting with adverse wind and stream.
3 Wrung from the troubled spirit, in hard hours
Of weakness, solitude, perchance of pain,
Truth springs, like harvest from the well-plough'd field;
And the soul feels it has not wept in vain.
Horatius Bonar
8 10.10.10.10.
1 OH how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem,
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
2 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumèd tincture of the rose;
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer winds their maskèd buds disclose.
3 But, for their only virtue is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves: sweet roses do not so,-
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
Shakespeare
9 6.6.6.6.6.
1 TO hold an honest hand,
To own an honest name,
To keep an honest heart,
Is more than wealth or fame—
To thy best self be true.
2 Whate'er the world may say,
However pride may boast,
That thing is best for thee
That helpeth others most—
To thy best self be true.
3 Go face the future then;
Obey thy heart's best word;
'Twill lead thy steps to peace
Tho' hope be long deferred—
To thy best self be true.
Anon.
FREEDOM
10 7.7.7.7. D.
1 MEN whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,—
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?
2 Is true freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And with leathern hearts forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!
3 They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
James Russell Lowell
11 C.M.D.
1 AN off'ring to the shrine of pow'r
Our hands shall never bring;
A garland on the car of pomp
Our hands shall never fling;
Applauding in the conqueror's path
Our voices ne'er shall be;
But we have hearts to honour those
Who bade the world go free!
2 Then praise to the good, the pure, the great,
Who made us what we are!
Who lit the flame which yet shall glow
With radiance brighter far:
Glory to them in coming time,
And through eternity,
Who burst the captive's galling chain,
And bade the world go free!
Robert Nicoll
12 10.10.10.10.6.
1 O SPEAK not ye of power that builds its throne
On outraged rights, for it shall pass away;
Yea, though its empire stretch from zone to zone,
And bathe in shining day.
2 Weep, if thou wilt, sad seer, thy land's decay;
Weep, if thou wilt, the hopes that shall expire;
Weep, if thou wilt, the wearisome delay
Of earth's august desire.
3 But weep not that eternal truth has fled,
Though deserts howl where once her temples rose;
Nor weep for freedom, dreaming she is dead,
Fallen amidst her foes.
4 For right remaineth always, and to truth
Shall incense stream from many a grander fane;
And in the blinding glory of her youth
Freedom shall rise again.
Doyan
13 6.6.6.6.12.
1 WE mix from many lands,
We march for very far;
In hearts and lips and hands
Our staffs and weapons are;
The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star.
2 It doth not flame and wane
With years and spheres that roll,
Storms cannot shake nor stain
The strength that makes it whole,
The fire that moulds and moves it of the sov'reign soul.
3 O sorrowing hearts of slaves,
We heard you beat from far!
We bring the light that saves;
We bring the morning star;
And freedom's good we bring you, whence all good things are.
4 Rise, ere the dawn be risen,
Come, and be all souls fed;
From field and street and prison
Come, for the feast is spread.
Live! for the truth is living; wake! for night is dead.
Swinburne
14 L.M.
1 OF old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet;
Above her shook the starry lights,
She heard the torrents meet.
2 There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gathered in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.
3 Then stept she down through town and field
To mingle with the human race
And part by part to man revealed
The fulness of her face.
4 Her open eyes desire the truth:
The wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their light from tears;
5 That her fair form may stand and shine,
Make bright our days and light our dreams,
Turning to scorn with lips divine
The falsehood of extremes!
Tennyson
LIBERTY
15 8's and 7's (Mixed).
1 LIFE may change, but it may fly not;
Hope can vanish, hut can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth
Love repulsed, but it returneth.
2 Yet were life a charnel, where
Hope lay coffined with despair,
Truth and love a sacred lie—
Were it not for liberty;
3 Lending life its soul of light,
Hope its iris of delight,
Truth its prophet's robe to wear,
Love its power to give and bear.
Shelley
FELLOWSHIP
16 C.M.
O HELP the prophet to be bold
The poet to be true!
It yet remains for man to learn
What love to man may do.
2 With faith not pent within a book,
Or buried in a creed,
But growing with th'expanding thought,
And deep'ning with the need.
3 A faith that laughs in little joys
Of children at their play,
That weeps in every woman-grief,
And joins each noble fray.
4 A faith whose sacred strength is sure,
And needs no priest to tell;
Its law— "Be kind, be pure, be just,"
Its promise— "Thence be well."
5 For joy shall one with feeling be,
And feeling, planet-wide,
Where many men have done their best,
And doing it, have died.
6 O help the prophet to be bold,
The poet to be true!
It yet remains for man to learn
What love to man may do.
Louisa S. Bevington
(Slightly altered.)
17 C.M.
1 A DREAMER dropped a random thought;
'Twas old and yet 'twas new—
A simple fancy of the brain,
But strong in being true,
2 The thought was small, its issue great,
A watch-fire on the hill,
It shed its radiance far adown,
And cheers the valley still.
3 A nameless man, amid a crowd
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and love
Unstudied from the heart.
4 A whisper on the tumult thrown,
A transitory breath,
It raised a brother from the dust,
It saved a soul from death.
5 O germ, O fount, O word of love!
O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last.
Charles Mackay
18 8.7.8.7.7.7.7.7.
1 THERE are lonely hearts to cherish
While the days are going by;
There are weary souls who perish
While the days are going by:
If a smile we can renew
As our journey we pursue,
Oh the good we all may do
||:While the days are going by!:||
2 There's no time for idle scorning
While the days are going by;
Be our faces like the morning
While the days are going by;
Oh the world is full of sighs,
Full of sad and weeping eyes;
Help the fallen one to rise
||:While the days are going by:||
3 All the loving links that bind us
While the days are going by,
One by one we leave behind us
While the days are going by:
But the seeds of good we sow
Both in sun and shade will grow,
And will keep our hearts aglow
||:While the days are going by.:||
Anon.
19 7.7.7.7.
1 AH! how skilful grows the hand
That obeyeth love's command.
'Tis the heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain,
To the highest doth attain.
2 He that followeth love's behest
Far exceedeth all the rest.
Ah! how skilful grows the hand
That obeyeth love's command,
That obeyeth love's command.
Longfellow
20 C.M.
1 MAKE channels for the streams of love,
Where they may broadly run;
And love has overflowing streams
To fill them every one.
2 But if at any time we cease
Such channels to provide,
The very founts of love for us
Will soon be parched and dried.
3 For we must share, if we would keep.
That blessing all above;
Ceasing to give, we cease to have;
Such is the law of love.
R. C. Trench
21 8.6.8.6.7.7
1 SPIRIT of charity, dispense
Thy grace to every heart;
Expel all other spirits thence,
Drive self from every part;
Messenger of love, draw nigh,
Break the chains in which we lie.
2 All selfish souls, whate'er they feign,
Have still a slavish lot
They boast of liberty in vain,
Of love, and feel it not.
He whose bosom glows with thee,
He, and he alone, is free.
3 O blessedness all else above,
When thy pure fires prevail;
Love only teaches what is love,
All other lessons fail;
Messenger of peace, draw nigh,
Break the chains in which we lie.
Cowper
22 10.10.10.10.
1 FAITH comes in moments of heroic love,
Unjealous joy in joy not made for us;
In conscious triumph of the good within,
Making us worship goodness that rebukes.
2 Even our failures are a prophecy,
Even our yearnings and our bitter tears,
As patriots who may seem to die in vain
Make liberty more sacred by their pangs
3 Presentiment of better things on earth
Sweeps in with every force that stirs our souls
To admiration, self-renouncing love
Or thoughts, like light, that bind the world in one.
George Eliot
(Extract from "A Minor Prophet".)
23 7.7.8.7.7.8
1 THERE is a song now singing,
Catch but its sweet beginning,
And you will still its notes prolong;
For ever, ever learning,
Yet never quite discerning,
The deep full meaning of the song.
2 It tells of love undying,
Before which grief is flying,
Like mist swept by the sun along;
Oh how earth's sorrow leaveth
The heart that here receiveth
The holy music of the song!
Trans. from Carl Johann Philipp Spitta
24 C.M.
1 TO mercy, pity, peace and love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
2 For mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And love the human form divine,
And peace the human dress.
3 Then every man of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, mercy, pity, peace.
4 For mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And love the human fo:rn divine,
And peace the human dress.
William Blake
25 11.10.11.10.
1 O BROTHER man, fold to thy heart thy brother!
Where pity dwells, the soul of good is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,
Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.
2 Follow with rev'rent steps the great example
Of all whose holy work was doing good;
So shall the wide earth seem a human temple,
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude.
3 Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangour
Of wild war-music o'er the earth shall cease;
Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger,
And in its ashes plant the tree of peace.
John Greenleaf Whittier
26 10.10.10.10.
1 "ALL grows," says Doubt, "all falls, decays and dies;
There is no second life for flower or tree:
O suff'ring soul, be humble and be wise,
Nor dream new worlds have any need of thee!"
2 "And yet," cries Hope, "the world is deep and wide;
And the full circle of our life expands,
Broad'ning and bright'ning, on an endless tide
That ebbs and flows between these mystic lands."
3 Not endless life, but endless love I crave,
The gladness and the calm of holier springs,
The hope that makes men resolute and brave,
The joyful life in the great life of things.
4 The soul that loves and works will need no praise;
But, fed with sunlight and with morning breath,
Will make our common days eternal days,
And fearless greet the mild and gracious death.
W. M. W. Call
27 8.8.8.8.; 8.8.
1 YOU promise heavens free from strife,
Pure truth, and perfect change of will;
But ah! sweet is this human life,
So sweet I fain would breathe it still;
Your chilly stars I can forego,
This warm, kind world is all I know.
2 You say there is no substance here,
One great reality above:
Back from that void I shrink in fear,
And, childlike, hide myself in love:
Show me what angels feel.
Till then I cling, a mortal weak, to men.
3 You bid me lift my mean desires
From faltering lips and throbbing veins,
To seraph souls, ideal choirs,
Unwearied voices, wordless strains:
My mind with fonder welcome owns
One dear, dead friend's remembered tones.
4 Forsooth the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away?
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay;
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them is because they die.
William Johnson Cory
28 L.M.
1 OH dew of life! oh light of earth!
Fain would our hearts be filled with thee,
Because nor darkness comes, nor dearth,
About the home of Charity.
2 The violets light the lonely hill,
The fruitful furrows load the lea;
Man's heart alone is sterile still,
For lack of lowly Charity.
3 He walks a weary vale within,
No lamp of love in heart bath he;
His steps are death, his thoughts are sin,
For lack of gentle Charity.
4 Oh dew of life! oh light of earth!
Fain would our hearts be filled with thee,
Because nor darkness comes, nor dearth,
About the home of Charity.
John Ruskin
29 L.M.
1 HE Only does not live in vain,
Who all the means within his reach
Employs, his wealth, his thought, his speech,
T' advance the weal of other men.
2 His action no applause invites
Who simply good with good repays:
He only justly merits praise
Who wrongful deeds with kind requites.
3 To bad as well as good, to all,
A generous man compassion shows;
On earth no mortal lives, he knows,
Who does not oft thro' weakness fall.
Translated from the old Sanscrit metrical writings.
(12OO-2OO B.C.)
30 6.6.4.6.6.6.4.
1 NOT with the flashing steel,
Not with the cannon's peal,
Or stir of drum;
But in the bonds of love
Our white flag floats above,
Her emblem is the dove,
'Tis thus we come.
2 On, then, in love's great name!
Let each pure spirit's flame
Burn bright and clear;
Stand firmly in your lot,
Cry ye aloud, doubt not,
Be ev'ry fear forgot,
Love leads us here!
3 So shall earth's distant lands,
In happy holy bands—
One brotherhood—
In concert rise and sing,
Gifts to one altar bring,
And love, man's future king,
Proclaim it good.
E. Davis
31 L.M.
1 THAT foe repel not with a frown
Who claims thy hospitable aid;
A tree refuses not its shade
To him who comes to hew it down.
2 A hero hates not e'en the foe
Whose deadly bow is 'gainst him bent;
The sandal tree with fragrant scent
Imbues the axe which lays it low.
3 To men, however mean or vile,
The good extend their loving care;
The dwellings of the basest share
Tb'impartial moonbeam's silvery smile.
Translated from the old Sanscrit metrical writings.
(1200 - 200 B.C.)
32 8.8.4.4.8.
1 I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
2 Then from each black accurs&gravee;d mouth
The cannon thundered in the south,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
3 And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
4 Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
"Love is not dead nor doth it sleep!
The wrong shall fail,
The right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Longfellow
33 L.M.
1 OH, if perchance a saddened heart
That once was gay and felt the spring,
Cons slowly o'er its altered part,
In sorrow and remorse to sing;
2 Love's gracious care will send that way
Some spirit full of joy, yet taught
To bear the sight of dull decay,
And nurse it with all-pitying thought;
3 Cheerful as soaring lark, and mild
As evening blackbird's full-toned lay,
When the relenting sun has smiled
Bright through a whole December day.
4 These are the tones to brace and cheer
The lonely watcher of the fold,
When nights are dark and foemen near,
When visions fade and hearts grow cold.
5 How timely, then, a comrades song
Comes floating on the mountain air,
And bids thee yet be bold and strong;
Fancy may die, but faith is there.
John Keble
34 6.5.6.5.7.5.6.5
1 LIGHT of day is shining
O'er the eastern hills,
With its golden glory
Land and sea it fills.
Love in the home is shining,
Like a heavenly sun,
Fills us with its gladness,
Each and every one.
2 Light of day is dying
In the western sky;
'Reft of all their glory
Land and ocean lie.
Love in the home still shineth
An undying light,
Fills with peace our spirits,
Both by day and night.
Felix Adler, Ph.D.
35 C.M.
1 MAY all the good deeds of the past,
And those that every day
Are done without a selfish thought,
Teach us the perfect way.
2 There is an impulse in our hearts
That makes for righteousness;
For trustful, loving fellowship,
For truth and faithfulness.
3 Then if thou faintest by the way,
Let this thought give thee grace,
That in each heart, however cold,
Love hath a hiding-place.
And oh! my soul, a blessing fair,
Thou shalt most surely prove,
If thou wilt fan the dying flame
Of faith in human love.
F. W. Bockett
36 8.5.8.5.
1 TELL me the good of my neighbour,
Make me his lover;
What there is evil, unaided
I shall discover.
2 Better might I for his failings
Know only blindness;
For they may surely be hidden
Under his kindness.
Then over errors and weakness
Draw me a cover;
Tell me the good of my neighbour,
Make me his lover.
L. A. Coonley
37 7.8.8.4.
1 IF we knew the heart was sore,
That lives apart, without a home,
At times before some lonely door
Our feet might stray.
2 If we knew how thoughts are bright,
When trouble meets a tender glance,
Our eyes might shed some human light
As if by chance.
3 If we knew the healing cheer
A heart can to another bring,
We might, to soothe a list'ning ear,
Sit near and sing.
From the French of Sully Prudhomme.
WORK AND ACTION
38 8.7.8.7
1 WORK! it is thy highest mission,
Work! all blessing centres there
Work for culture, for the vision
Of the true, and good, and fair.
2 'Tis of knowledge the condition,
Opening still new fields beyond;
'Tis of thought the full fruition,
'Tis of love the perfect bond;
3 Our Bethesda-pool of sorrow;
Healer of the ills of life;
Prophet of a brighter morrow;
Door of hope and end of strife.
4 Work! by labour cOmes the unsealing
Of the thoughts that in thee burn;
Comes in action the revealing
Of the truths thou hast to learn.
5 Work! in helping loving union,
With thy brethren of mankind;
With the foremost hold communion,
Succour those who toil behind.
6 For true work can never perish;
And thy followers in the way
For thy works thy name shall cherish;
Work! while it is called to-day.
F. M. White
39 6.5.6.5.D.
1 LIFE is onward—use it
With a forward aim;
Toil is heavenly—choose it,
And its warfare claim.
Look not to another
To perform your will,
Let not your own brother
Keep your warm hand still.
2 Life is onward—heed it
In each varied dress,
Your own act can speed it
On to happiness.
His bright pinion o'er you
Time waves not in vain,
If hope chants before you
Her prophetic strain.
3 Life is onward—never
Look upon the past,
It would hold you ever
In its fetters fast.
Ne'er forbode new sorrow,
Bear that of to-day;
Thou shalt see the morrow
Chase the clouds away.
Life is onward—prize it
Sunlit or in storm;
Oh do not despise it
In its humblest form!
Hope and joy together
Standing at the goal,
Through life's darkest weather
Beckon on the soul!
Anon.
40 8.4.8.4.
1 ARISE, my soul! nor dream the hours
Of life away;
Arise! and do thy being's work
While yet 'tis day.
2 The doer, not the dreamer, breaks
The baleful spell
Which binds with iron hands the earth
On which we dwell.
3 Up, soul! or war, with fiery feet,
Will tread down men;
Up! or his bloody hands will reap
The earth again.
4 Oh, dreamer, wake! your brother man
Is still a slave;
And thousands go heart-crushed this morn
Unto the grave.
5 The brow of wrong is laurel-crowned,
Not girt with shame:
And love and truth and right as yet
Are but a name.
6 From out time's urn your golden hours
Flow fast away;
Then, dreamer, up! and do life's work
While yet 'tis day.
Anon.
41 S.M.
1 SOW in the morn thy seed,
At eve hold not thy hand;
To doubt and fear give thou no heed,
Broadcast it o'er the land.
2 Beside all waters sow,
The highway furrows stock;
Cast it where thorns and thistles grow,
Cast it upon the rock.
3 The good, the fruitful ground,
Expect not here nor there;
O'er hill and dale, by plots, 'tis found;
Go forth, then, everywhere.
4 And duly shall appear,
In verdure, beauty, strength,
The tender blade, the stalk, the ear,
And the full corn at length.
5 Thou canst not toil in vain;
Light, heat and moisture, all
Shall foster and mature the grain
For harvest in the fall.
James Montgomery
42 8.7.8.7.
1 ALL around us, fair with flowers,
Fields of beauty sleeping lie;
All around us clarion voices
Call to duty stern and high.
2 Following every voice of mercy
With a trusting, loving heart,
Let us in life's earnest labour
Still be sure to do our part.
3 Now, to-day, and not to-morrow,
Let us work with all our might,
Lest the wretched faint and perish
In the coming stormy night.
4 Now, to-day, and not to-morrow,
Lest, before to-morrow's sun,
We, too, mournfully departing,
Shall have left our work undone.
Anon.
43 8.7.8.5.
1 HAST thou, 'midst life's empty noises,
Heard the solemn steps of time,
And the low mysterious voices
Of another clime?
2 Early hath life's mighty question
Thrilled within thy heart of youth
With a deep and strong beseeching,—
What, and where, is truth?
3 Not to ease and aimless quiet
Doth the inward answer tend,
But to works of love and duty
As our being's end.
4 Earnest toil and strong endeavour
Of a spirit which within,
Wrestles with familiar evil
And besetting sin;
5 And without, with tireless vigour,
Steady heart and purpose strong,
In the power of truth assaileth
Every form of wrong.
John Greenleaf Whittier
44 7.7.7.7.
1 THERE'S a strife we all must wage,
From life's entrance to its close;
Blest the bold who dare engage,
Woe for him who seeks repose.
2 What our foes? Each thought impure;
Passions fierce that tear the soul;
Every ill that we can cure;
Every crime we can control;—
3 Every suffering which our hand
Can with soothing care assuage;
Ev'ry evil of our land;
Ev'ry error of our age.
S. G. Bulfinch
45 7.7.7.7.
1 ALL are architects of fate,
Working in these walls of time;
Some with massive deed and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
2 Nothing useless is or low,
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
3 For the structure that we raise
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
4 Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.
Longfellow
46 L.M.
1 HE liveth long, who liveth well,
All else is life but flung away;
He liveth longest who can tell
Of true things truly done each day.
2 Be wise and use thy wisdom well,
Who wisdom speaks, must live it too;
He is the wisest, who can tell
How first he lived, then spake the true.
3 Sow truth, if thou the true wouldst reap,
Who sows the false shall reap the vain;
Erect and sound thy conscience keep,
From hollow words and deeds refrain.
4 Sow love and taste its fruitage pure,
Sow peace and reap its harvest bright;
Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor,
And find a harvest home of light.
Horatius Bonar
47 C.M.
1 YE moments of eternal time
That ever come and go,
And bear to every coast and clime
Your freights of weal and woe;
2 Ye reap what former moments sowed,
And as ye onward sweep,
Drop in your course the seeds abroad
Which after-moments reap.
3 And while ye singly troop along,
Unchecked, relentless, fast,
The eternal spirit of your song
Is future-present-past.
4 With eye of sense we only see
The present moment's scope
The past exists in memory,
The future lives in hope.
5 Seize on the present, earnest mind!
Call up your noblest pow'rs,
Dare to be swift,—we can but find
The passing moment ours.
Frederick Burrington
48 10.6.10.6.
1 BUILD now the house wherein thy soul would dwell
When sunny days are past;
Do now the gracious work; the message tell,
Whose memory sweet shall last.
2 Heed well each moment as it speeds away
In time's mysterious flight;
Fill up with golden deeds the golden day,
Ere fall the shades of night.
3 And when the sorrows of a world in pain
Fall heavy on thy heart,
When fades life's brightness, so of joy again
Thou yet shalt hold a part.
4 For the veiled past shall show a smiling face
And comfort shall not cease;
To all who work the works of truth and grace
Life's memories shall bring peace.
Annie E. Lyddon
49 C.M.D.
1 BE something in this living age,
And prove your right to be,
A light upon some darken'd page,
A pilot on some sea.
Find out the place where you may stand,
Beneath some burden low;
Take up the task with willing hand;
Be something, somewhere, now!
2 Be something in this throbbing day
Of busy hands and feet,
A spring beside some dusky way,
A shadow from the heat.
Be found upon the workers' roll;
Go sow, go reap or plough;
Bend to some task with heart and soul;
Be something, somewhere, now!
Anon.
50 8.7.8.7.D.
1 DO not crouch to-day, and worship
The old Past whose life is fled;
Hush your voice to tender rev'rence,
Crowned he lies, but cold and dead.
For the Present reigns our monarch,
With an added weight of hours;
Honour her, for she is mighty!
Honour her, for she is ours!
2 See the shadows of his heroes
Girt about her cloudy throne,
Ev'ry day her ranks are strengthen'd
By great hearts to him unknown;
Noble things the great Past promised,
Holy dreams both strange and new;
But the Present shall fulfil them,
What he promised, she shall do.
3 She inherits all his treasures,
She is heir to all his fame,
And the light that lightens round her
Is the lustre of his name;
She is wise with all his wisdom,
Living, on his grave she stands,
On her brow she bears his laurels,
And his harvest in her hands.
Adelaide Anne Procter
51 6.5.6.5.6.5.
1 RAISE your standard, brothers,
Higher still and higher!
Let the thought of justice
All your deeds inspire!
Let your eyes be kindling
With a love-lit fire!
Virtue for our armour,
Justice for our sword,
Human love our master,
Human love our lord;
So shall we be marching,
Fighting in accord.
2 Work for man's salvation,
Work with might and main;
Lift the poor and fallen
To a higher plane;
Purge from law and custom
Each and every stain.
Virtue for our armour, &c.
3 Rest not till within you
Strength of virtue grow,
Till with streams of kindness
Heart and mind o'erflow,
Till a sense of kindred
Bindeth high and low.
Virtue for our armour, &c.
4 Fight till you have silenced
All the rebel throng,
Silenced lawless passions
Luring men to wrong—
Fight till all things human
To the right belong.
Virtue for our armour, &c.
Gustav Spiller
52 8.8.8.
1 LIFE is a leaf of paper white,
Whereon each one of us may write
His word or two, and then comes night.
2 Muse not which way the pen to hold,
Luck hates the slow and loves the bold,
Soon comes the darkness and the cold.
3 Greatly begin! though thou have time
But for a line, be that sublime,—
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
James Russell Lowell
53 7.6.8.6.8.6.8.6. (Irregular.)
1 RISE! for the day is passing,
And you lie dreaming on;
The others have buckled their armour
And forth to the fight are gone:
A place in the ranks awaits you,
Each man has some part to play,
The past and the future are nothing
In the face of the stern to-day!
2 Rise! if the past detains you,
Her sunshine and storms forget;
No chains so unworthy to hold you
As those of a vain regret.
Sad or bright, she is lifeless ever;
Cast her phantom arms away,
Nor look back, save to learn the lesson
Of a nobler strife to-day!
3 Rise! for the day is passing;
The sound that you scarcely hear
Is the enemy marching to battle—
Arise! for the foe is here!
Stay not to sharpen your weapons,
Or the hour will strike at last
When, from dreams of a coming battle,
You may wake to find it past.
Adelaide Anne Procter
54 7.7.7.7.7.7.
1 WITHOUT haste and without rest:
Bind the motto to thy breast,
Bear it with thee as a spell;
Storm or sunshine, guard it well!
Heed not flow'rs that round thee bloom,
Bear it onward to the tomb!
2 Haste not—let no thoughtless deed
Mar the spirit's steady speed;
Ponder well and know the right,
Onward then with all thy might;
Haste not—years can ne'er atone
For one reckless action done!
3 Rest not—life is sweeping by,
Do and dare before you die;
Something worthy and sublime
Leave behind to conquer time:
Glorious 'tis to live for aye
When these forms have passed away.
4 Haste not—rest not—calmly wait,
Meekly bear the storms of fate;
Duty be thy polar guide,
Do the right whate'er betide;
Haste not—rest not—conflicts past,
Peace shall crown thy work at last
After Goethe
TRUE REST
55 5.4.5.4.D. (Irregular.)
1 SWEET is the pleasure
Itself cannot spoil!
Is not true leisure
One with true toil?
Thou that wouldst taste it,
Still do thy best;
Use it, not waste it—
Else 'tis no rest.
2 Would'st behold beauty
Near thee, all around?
Only hath duty
Such a sight found.
Rest is not quitting
The busy career;
Rest is the fitting
Of self to its sphere.
3 'Tis the brook's motion,
Clear without strife,
Fleeing to ocean
After its life.
Deeper devotion
Nowhere hath knelt;
Fuller emotion
Heart never felt.
4 Sweet is the pleasure
Itself cannot spoil!
Is not true leisure
One with true toil?
'Tis loving and serving
The highest and best,
'Tis onwards, unswerving—
That is true rest.
J. Sullivan Dwight
QUIET WORK
56 10.10.10.10.
1 ONE lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee,
One lesson which in every wind is blown,
One lesson of two duties kept at one,
Though the loud world proclaim their enmity.
2 Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity;
Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows
Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose—
Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.
3 Still do thy quiet ministers move on,
Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting!
Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil;
Labourers that shall not fail, when man is gone.
Matthew Arnold
57 10.9.10.9.
1 WHY thus longing, thus for ever sighing,
For the far-off, unattained and dim;
While the beautiful, around thee lying,
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?
2 Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching,
All thy restless yearnings it would still
Leaf and flower and laden bee are preaching,
Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill.
3 Poor indeed thou must be, if around thee
Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw;
If no silken cord of love hath bound thee
To some little world through weal and woe.
4 Not by deeds that win the crowd's applauses,
Not by works that give thee world-renown,
Not by martyrdom or vaunted crosses
Canst thou win and wear th'immortal crown.
5 Daily struggling, though unloved and lonely,
Every day a rich reward will give;
Thou wilt find, by hearty striving only
And true loving, thou canst truly live.
Harriet Winslow [Sewall]
58 C.M.
1 WHO drives the horses of the sun
Shall lord it for a day;
See thou the lowly deed is done,
And kept the humble way.
2 The rust will find the sword of fame;
The dust will hide the crown;
And none shall nail so high his name
Time will not tear it down.
3 The happiest heart that ever beat
Was in some quiet breast,
That found the common daylight sweet,
And earned, at evening, rest.
John Vance Cheney
SILENT GROWTH
59 8.8.6.8.8.6.
1 IN silence mighty things are wrought,
Silently builded, thought on thought,
Truth's temple greets the sky;
And, like a citadel with towers,
The soul with her subservient powers
Is strengthened silently.
2 Soundless as chariots on the snow
The saplings of the forest grow
To trees of mighty girth;
Each mighty star in silence burns,
And every day in silence turns
The axle of the earth.
3 The silent frost with mighty hand
Fetters the rivers, binds the land
With universal chain;
And smitten by the silent sun
The chain is loosed, the rivers run,
The lands are free again.
T. T. Lynch
HOPE AND PROGRESS
60 L.M.
1 OH sometimes glimpses on my sight,
Through present wrong, th'eternal right;
And step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man.
2 That all of good the past hath had
Remains to make our own time glad;
Our common daily life divine,
And every land a Palestine.
3 For still the new transcends the old
In signs and tokens manifold;
Slaves rise up men, the olive waves
With roots deep set in battle-graves,
4 Through the harsh noises of our day,
A low sweet prelude finds its way:
Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear
A light is breaking, calm and clear.
John Greenleaf Whittier
61 9.8.9.8.
1 SAY not, the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain;
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been, they remain.
2 For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
3 And not by eastern windows only
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look! the land is bright.
Arthur Hugh Clough
62 5.5.5.5.4.
1 LOOMS there the new land,
Slim as a cloud-streak;
It shall fold peoples
E'en as a shepherd
Foldeth his flock.
2 Men from the North land,
Men from the South land,
Haste, empty-handed;
No more than Manhood
Bring they, and hands.
3 There lies the new land,
Yours to behold it,
Not to possess it;
Slowly Fate's perfect
Fulness shall come.
4 Stronger and sweeter
New gods shall seek it,
Fill it with man folk
Wise for the future,
Wise from the past.
5 Here shall a realm rise
Mighty in Manhood,
Justice and Mercy;
Here set a stronghold
Safe without spear.
6 Weak was the old world,
Wearily war-fenced;
Out of its ashes,
Strong as the morning,
Springeth the new.
7 Lowly shall love thee,
Thee open-handed!
Stalwart shall shield thee,
Thee, worth their best love,
Land of our song!
James Russell Lowell
63 8.8.8.4.
1 ALL grim, and soiled, and brown with tan,
I saw a strong one, in his wrath,
Smiting the godless shrines of man
Along his path.
2 The Church, beneath her trembling dome,
Essayed in vain her ghostly charm,
Wealth shook within his gilded home
With strange alarm.
3 Grey-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind,
Groped from his old accustomed stone,
Leaned on his staff, and wept to find
His seat o'erthrown.
4 Yet louder rang the strong one's stroke,
Yet nearer flashed his axe's gleam!
Shudd'ring and sick of heart I woke
As from a dream.
5 I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled—
The waster seemed the builder too;
Upspringing from the ruined old,
I saw the new.
6 'Twas but the ruin of the bad—
The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate'er of good the old time had
Was living still.
John Greenleaf Whittier
64 L.M.
1 A NOBLER order yet shall be
Than any that the world hath known,
When men obey, and yet are free,
Are loved, and yet can stand alone.
2 Oh boldly speak thy secret thought,
And tell thy want, and by the wise
Be unto nobler action brought,
And breathe the air of purer skies.
3 Strive less to bring the lofty down
Than raise the low to be thy peers;
Love is the only golden crown
That will not tarnish with the years.
4 Soon the wild days of war shall end,
And days of happier work begin,
When love and toil shall man befriend,
And help to free the world from sin.
W. M. W. Call
65 L. M.
1 BORN in each heart is impulse strong,
Aloft t'wards light its path to trace,
E'en as the lark its thrilling song
Sings till all lost in azure space;
2 As eagle soaring sweeps amain
O'er bleak untrodden pine-ciad height,
As struggling homeward still the crane
Urges o'er plain and marsh her flight.
3 Up, then, my soul, and never flag!
Soaring the marsh of error past,
Through clouds of doubt, o'er trial's crag,
Struggle to home in Truth at last
After Goethe.
66 L. M.
1 ALL common things, each day's events
That with the hour begin and end;
Our pleasures and Our discontents
Are steps by which we may ascend.
2 The longing for ignoble things,
The strife for triumph more than truth;
The hard'ning of the heart that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth:
3 All thoughts of iii; all evil deeds
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes
The action of the nobler will;-
4 All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.
Longfellow
67 11.10.11.10.
1 O EARTH! thy past is crowned and consecrated
With its reformers, speaking yet, though dead;
Who unto strife and toil and tears were fated,
Who unto fiery martyrdoms were led.
2 O Earth! the present too, is crowned with splendour,
By its reformers, battling in the strife;
Friends of humanity, stern, strong and tender,
Making the world more hopeful with their life.
3 O Earth! thy future shall be great and glorious
With its reformers, toiling in the van;
Till truth and love shall reign o'er all victorious,
And earth be giv'n to freedom and to man.
John Harris, D.D.
68 8.7.8.7.D.
1 HAPPY they who are not weary
Of this life's perpetual round,
Who at each fresh task and duty
Feel their pow'rs in gladness bound;
Who are bent on winning knowledge,
Bent on living true and high,
And on some good work achieving,
Serving men before they die.
2 Voices from behind, before us,
From within and round us roll;
Firm to truth and love, and loyal
Be with lip and hand and soul;
O what triumphs are before you
As the years and ages move,
Error banish'd by true knowledge,
Coldness by the breath of love.
3 Noble thought becoming freer,
Uttered whole in word and deed,
Bigotry and thraldom dying,
Of the state and of the creed;
Till of man a nobler pattern
Sun and earth at length behold,
Broader-minded, broader-hearted,
Tender, manly, reverent, bold.
T. W. Chignell
69 8.7.8.7.D.
1 LONG ago did our forefathers bow the head and bend the knee,
Hearing voices in the water, seeing shapes in cloud and tree;
In the forest, on the mountain, worshipped they the dim unknown,
Carved them gods of wood and hewed them rude divinities of stone.
2 Slowly on the dark horizon, wisdom came and knowledge brought,
Piercing as a ray of sunlight through the avenues of thought;
And the gods were recreated, by the opening brain and heart,
Glorious in the light of science, beauteous in the love of art.
3 Out of Greece there came a message, from the city of the free,
From the slopes of Himalaya, from the lake of Galilee,—
'Twas the heart-strings of the noble strung Apollo's golden lyre;
'Twas the passion of the martyr heard the song of heaven's choir.
4 For the dream that dies at waking, for the fable, will ye sigh?
Barren now is fair Olympus, silent now is Sinai;
Empty are the sacred places, void of all the shining ones—
And the darkness that is darkest always follows setting suns.
5 Nay, but it was that which made them, drove them after to the night;
Hope forgot its dream, but only when the hoped-for came in sight;
And the faith that first had fashioned, found them wanting as it grew,
And the love that ceased to love them, to the lovely still was true.
6 They were but the signs and tokens of the man's expanding powers;
On the mighty dial of progress they but marked the passing hours;
For the thought of good in man, that breathed in them its living breath,
Is the spirit that all gods must bring to birth and bear to death.
R. H. U. Bloor
70 8.8.8-4.
1 THE out-worn rite, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown;
The good held captive in the use
Of wrong alone;
2 These wait their doom from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day;
Ah! fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.
3 For life shall on and upward go;
The eternal step of progress beats
To that great anthem, calm and slow,
Which time repeats.
4 Take heart—the waster builds azain—
A charmèd life old goodness hath;
The tares may perish, but the grain
Is not for death.
John Greenleaf Whittier
71 8.8.8.8; 8.8.8.12.
1 O GOLDEN years, advance, advance!
O years of regal work and thought!
Ye doubting hearts, the child's romance
Shall into splendid fact be wrought;
By laughing years, in choral dance
The world's great summer shall be brought,
And cradled hours shall wake and sing
An autumn rich in fruits as once in buds the spring.
2 Then science, reconciled wlih song,
Shall throb with life's melodious beat:
Then song, through science wise and strong,
Shall her impassioned tale repeat;
Then right shall reign, discrowning wrong,
Then old compliance shall be sweet,
Then star to kindred star shall call,
And soul to soul shall answer: Love is lord of all.
W. M. W. Call
72 8.7.8.7.D. (with 2 lines repeated).
1 WOULD you gain the golden city
Pictured in the legends old?
Everlasting light shines o'er it,
Wondrous tales of it are told;
Only righteous men and women
Dwell within its gleaming wall,
||: Wrong is banished from its borders,
Justice reigns supreme o'er all.:||
2 We are builders of that city,
All our joys and all our groans
Help to rear its shining ramparts,
All our lives are building stones;
But the work that we have builded,
Oft with bleeding hands and tears,
And in error and in anguish,
Will not perish with our years,
But the work that we have builded
Will not perish with our years.
3 It will be, at last, made perfect,
In the universal plan,
It will help to crown the labours
Of the toiling hosts of man;
It will last and shine transfigured
In the final reign of right,
||:It will merge into the splendours
Of the City of the Light.:||
Felix Adler, Ph.D.
73 L.M.
1 OUT of the dark the circling sphere
Is rounding onward to the light;
We see not yet the full day here,
But we do see the paling night;
2 And hope, that lights her fadeless fires,
And faith, that shines as spotless will,
And love, that courage re-inspires—
These stars have been above as still.
3 O sentinels, whose tread we heard
Through long hours when we could not see,
Pause now; exchange with cheer the word—
Th'unchanging watchword, Liberty!
4 Look backward, how much has been won,
Look round, how much is yet to win!
The watches of the night are done,
The watches of the day begin.
Samuel Longfellow
74 P.M.
1 WHAT is this the sound and rumour?
What is this that all men hear?
Like the wind in hollow valleys,
When the storm is drawing near
Like the rolling on of ocean
In the eventide of fear?
'Tis the people marching on.
Whither go they, and whence come they?
What are these of whom ye tell?
In what country are they dwelling,
'Twixt the gates of heaven and hell?
Are they mine or thine for money?
Will they serve a master well?
||:Still the rumour's marching on.:||
Hark! the rolling of the thunder,
Lo the sun! and lo thereunder
Riseth wrath and hope and wonder,
And the host comes marching on.
2 Forth they come from grief and torment,
On they wend toward health and mirth;
All the wide world is their dwelling,
Every corner of the earth.
Buy them, sell them, for thy service!
Try the bargain what 'tis worth,
For the days are marching on.
These are they who build thy houses,
Weave thy raiment, win thy wheat,
Smooth the rugged, fill the barren,
Turn the bitter into sweet,
All for thee this day and ever,
What reward for them is meet?
||:Still the host comes marching on.:||
Hark! the rolling, &c.
3 Is it war, then? Will ye perish
As the dry wood in the fire?
Is it peace? The be ye of us,
Let your hope be our desire.
Come and live! For life awaketh,
And the world shall never tire,
And your hope is marching on.
"On we march, then, we, the workers
And the rumour that ye hear
Is the blended sound of battle,
And deliverance drawing near;
For the hope of every creature
Is the banner that we bear."
||:And the world is marching on.:||
Hark! the rolling, &c.
William Morris
75 8.8.8.8.6.
1 HOPE, wide of eye and wild of wing,
Rose with the sun-dawn of a reign
Whose grace should make the rough ways plain,
And fill the worn old world with spring,
And heal its heart of pain.
2 Peace was to be on earth; men's hope
Was holier than their fathers had,
Their wisdom not more wise than glad;
They saw the gates of promise ope,
And heard what love's lips bade.
3 War after war, change after change,
Hath shaken thrones and towers to dust,
And hopes austere and faiths august
Have watched in patience stern and strange
Man's works, unjust and just.
4 As from some Alpine watch-tower's height
Night, living yet, looks forth for dawn,
So from time's mistier mountain-lawn
The spirit of man, with inward sight,
Yearns toward a hope withdrawn.
The morning comes not, yet the night
Wanes, and men's eyes win strength to see
Where twilight is, where light shall be
When conquered wrong and conquering right
Acclaim a world set free.
Swinburne
76 L.M.
1 THESE things shall be! a loftier race
Than e'er the world hath known, shall rise
With flame of freedom in their souls,
And light of science in their eyes.
2 They shall be gentle, brave, and strong,
To spill no drop of blood, but dare
All that may plant man's lordship firm
On earth, and fire, and sea, and air.
Nation with nation, land with land,
Unharmed shall live as comrades free;
In every heart and brain shall throb
The pulse of one fraternity.
4 New arts shall bloom of loftier mould
And mightier music thrill the skies
And every life shall be a song,
When all the earth is paradise.
5 These things—they are no dreams—shall be
For happier men when we are gone;
Those golden days for them shall dawn,
Transcending aught we gaze upon.
J. Addington Symonds
77 6.7.7.7; 15. (Irregular)
1 WHAT shall we do to-day
To lessen the total strife,
To forward the total life,
To help the worlds on their way?
To live by the last-learnt law is more than to praise or to pray.
2 From stars in the solemn sky,
From the tender flow'r at my feet,
Certain, and grave, and sweet,
Comes the eternal reply:—
Upward! O child of man! for progress doth never die."
3 "Then lend thy will and thy song
To the thing that must surely be;
For so shall thy life be free,
And so shall thy speech be strong,
And thy will be one with the law that beckons the worlds along."
Louisa S. Bevington
78 10.10.10.10.10.
1 WE sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move;
The sun flies forward to his brother sun;
The dark earth follows wheeled in her ellipse;
And human things returning on themselves
Move onward, leading up the golden year.
2 Ah, though the times when some new thought can bud
Are but as poets' seasons when they flower,
Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore,
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march,
And slow and sure comes up the golden year.
3 When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt
In many streams to feed the lower lands;
And light shall spread, and man be liker man
Through all the seasons of the golden year.
4 But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Through all the circle of the golden year?
Tennyson
79 8.7.8.7.
1 TELL me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream;"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
2 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
3 Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Foot-prints on the sands of time.
4 Foot-prints tnat perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing shall take heart again.
5 Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
Longfellow
80 8.7s. (10 lines).
1 WHEN a deed is done for Freedom,
Through the broad earth's aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic
Trembling on from east to west;
And the slave, where'er he cowers,
Feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood,
As the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full blossom'd
On the thorny stem of time.
2 For mankind are one in spirit,
And an instinct bears along,
Round the earth's electric circle,
The swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious,
Yet humanity's vast frame
Through its ocean~sunder'd fibres
Feels the gush of joy or shame;—
In the gain or loss of one race
All the rest have equal claim.
3 Once to every man and nation
Comes the moment to decide
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some new Messiah,
Offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand,
And the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by for ever
'Twixt that darkness and that light.
4 Then to side with Truth is noble
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses
While the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit,
Till the Right is justified,
And the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.
5 They have rights who dare maintain them;
We are traitors to our sires,
Smothering in their holy ashes
Freedom's new-lit altar fires;
Shall we make their creed our jailer?
Shall we, in our haste to slay,
From the tombs of the old prophets
Steal the funeral lamps away,
To light up the martyr-fagots
Round the prophets of to-day?
6 New occasions teach new duties
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward,
Who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo! before us gleam her fires!
We ourselves must "Pilgrims" be,
Launch our boat and steer us boldly,
Through the stormy winter sea
Nor attempt the Future's portal,
With the dim Past's rusty key.
James Russell Lowell
81 C.M.
1 WE may not think that all of good
Lies plain to our dim sight,
For the horizon parts her veil,
And glows with golden light.
2 And on the wings of liberty
Soaring we may behold
Where, far away, pale mountains lift
Their summits fold on fold.
E. B. Harrison
82 L.M. D.
1 AH happy they who feel their birth
Has loftier origin than earth
But he who has resigned the dream
To take his rank in Nature's scheme,
He need not yet behind him cast
The gathered greatness of the past;
He well may nurse each nobler thrill,
Each holier deed, each purer will.
2 Since earlier men have raised their race
So high above its former place,
Why may not he as well aspire
To lift our place and purpose higher?
To feel within his hungry breast
Some goading spur of grand unrest,
Some glorious aim, in impulse rife,
That urges on to fuller life;
3 To love the right, eschew the wrong,
Defend the weaker from the strong;
Teach other, after men to be
Nobler and better far than he;
In spite of calumny and scorn,
Mould younger ages yet unborn
To loftier thoughts and loftier still,
Beyond all human hope or will!
Grant Allen
83 7.6.7.6.
1 THE light pours down from heaven,
And enters where it may;
The eyes of all earth's children
Are cheered by one bright day.
2 So let the mind's true sunshine
Be spread o'er earth as free,
And fill men's waiting spirits
As waters fill the sea.
3 The soul can shed a glory
On every work well done;
And even things most lowly
Are radiant in the sun.
4 Then let each human spirit
Enjoy the vision bright,
The peace of inward purity
Shall spread like heaven's own light:
5 Till earth becomes love's temple;
And every human heart
Shall join in one great service,
Each happy in his part.
Adapted from the German.
84 8.7.8.7.8.7.8.5.
1 WHO will say the world is dying?
Who will say our prime is past?
Sparks of good within us lying
Flash, and will flash to the last.
Fools! who fancy Hope mistaken;
Man a tool to buy and sell;
Earth a failure all forsaken,
Ante-room of hell.
2 Still the race of hero-spirits
Pass the lamp from hand to hand;
Age from age the world inherits,
"Wife and child and fatherland."
Still the youthful hunter gathers
Fiery joy from wold and wood;
He will dare as dared his fathers,
Give him cause as good!
3 While a slave bewails his fetters,
While an orphan pleads in vain,
While an infant lisps his letters,
Heir of all the ages' gain;
While a love is still confessing,
While a moan from man is wrung,
Know by every want and blessing
That the world is young.
Charles Kingsley (slightly altered)
85 7.6.7.6. D.
1 TRUE that when we would do good
Evil often follows;
True that green leaves quit the wood,
Summers lose their swallows.
Evil comes and evil goes,
But it moves me never;
For the good, the good, it grows,
Buds and blossoms ever.
Let in light—the holy light,
Brothers, fear it never,
Darkness smiles and wrong grows right,
Let in light for ever!
2 Winter still succeeds to Spring,
But fresh Springs are coming,
Blither birds are on the wing,
Brighter bees are humming.
What if cherished creeds must fade?
Faith will never leave us;
Light still falls where falls the shade,
Nor can truth deceive us.
Let in light—the holy light, &c.
3 Let in light—the holy light,
Brothers, fear it never;
Darkness smiles and wrong grows right.
Let in light for ever.
Let in light! When this shall be
Joy at once and duty,
Men in common things shall see
Goodness, truth and beauty.
Let in light—the holy light, &c.
4 I will hope and work and love,
Singing to the hours,
While the stars are bright above,
And below the flowers.
Who in such a world as this
Could not heal his sorrow?
Welcome this sweet hour of bliss,
Sunrise comes to-morrow.
Let in light—the holy light, &c. />
5 Nor deem the unrelenting Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.
Longfellow
88 7.7.7.7.
1 ALL before us lies the way;
Give the past unto the wind:
All before us is the day;
Night and darkness are behind.
2 Not where long past ages sleep
Seek we Eden's golden trees;
In the future, folded deep,
Are its mystic harmonies.
3 Eden, with its angels bold,
Trees and flowers and coolest sea,
Is less an ancient story told
Than a glowing prophecy.
4 In the spirit's perfect air,
In the passions tame and kind,
Innocence from selfish care,
The true Eden shall we find.
5 It is coming, it shall come
To the patient in the strife;
To the quiet heart at home,
And the wise and faithful life.
6 When the soul to sin hath died,
True and beautiful and sound,
Then all earth is sanctified,
Up springs Paradise around.
Eliza T. Clapp
89 8.8.8.
1 SO should we live that every hour
May die as dies the natural flow'r,
A self-reviving thing of pow'r;
2 That every thought and every deed
May hold within itself the seed
Of future good and future meed;
3 Esteeming sorrow, whose employ
Is to develop, not destroy,
Far better than a barren joy.
Lord Houghton (Monckton Milnes)
PATRIOTISM
90 11.10.11.10.5.5.10.
1 ENGLAND, arise! the long, long night is over,
Faint in the east behold the dawn appear;
Out of your evil dream of toil and sorrow
Arise, O England, for the day is here;
From your fields and hills,
Hark! the answer swells—
Arise, O England, for the day is here!
2 People of England! all your valleys call you,
High in the rising sun the lark sings clear;
Will you dream on, let shameful slumber thrall you?
Will you disown your native land so dear?
Shall it die unheard—
That sweet pleading word?
Arise, O England, for the day is here!
3 Forth, then, ye heroes, patriots, and lovers;
Comrades of danger, poverty, and scorn!
Mighty in faith of freedom, your great mother,
Like giants strong in joy's new rising morn!
Come and swell the song,
Silent now so long:
England is risen!—and the day is here!
Edward Carpenter
91 L.M.
1 OUR thought of thee is glad with hope,
Dear country of our love and pray'rs,
The way is down no fatal slope,
But up to freer sun and airs.
2 Great, without seeking to be great
By fraud or conquest—rich in gold,
But richer in the large estate
Of virtue which thy children hold;
3 With peace that comes of purity,
And strength to simple justice due,—
So runs our loyal dream of thee,
Land of our fathers! make it true.
4 O land of lands! to thee we give
Our love, our trust, our service free;
For thee thy sons shall nobly live,
And at thy need, shall die for thee.
John Greenleaf Whittier
92 7.6.7.6. D.
[This may have been sung to the tune Missionary by L Mason (Words - From Greenland's icy mountains by Reginald Heber). However, Jill Perry explains: ... individual noncomformist churches have their own particular mix of the tunes they fit their hymns to. ... I can point ... to 28 other tunes in the old Methodist hymnbook which fit the metre of the hymn! (FF)]
1 O BEAUTIFUL, my country!
Be thine a nobler care
Than all thy wealth of commerce,
Thy harvests waving fair;
Be it thy pride to lift up
The manhood of the poor;
Be thou to the oppressèd
Fair freedom's open door!
2 For thee our fathers suffered,
For thee they toiled and prayed,
Upon thy holy altar
Their willing lives they laid;
Thou hast no common birthright,
Grand memories on thee shine;
The blood of hardy nations
Commingled flows in thine.
3 O beautiful, my country!
Round thee in love we draw;
Thine be the grace of freedom,
The majesty of law.
Be righteousness thy sceptre,
Justice thy diadem;
And on thy shining forehead
Be peace the crowning gem.
F. L. Hosmer
ENCOURAGEMENT
93 8.8.8.8; 8.8.
1 DOST thou despair, oh doubting soul,
That battlest with thy warring will?
Lift up thine eyes; regard the whole,
And bid the mocking shapes be still
Which now, between thee and the light,
Do cast the darkness of deep night.
2 That fair great day of hard-won rest
Which now thy doom of woe conceals,
That day which faith, to souls opprest,
In finer moments still reveals—
Its law is on thee; be thou brave;
Endure, and thou thy life shalt save.
3 One with the souls of all the past
Who strove for man, who strove for thee;
One with the spirit calm and vast
Of all great souls that are to be;
Thou too, who Love's true life hast sought,
Shalt know the peace her grace hath brought.
Malcolm Quin
94 C.M.
1 O PURE reformers! not in vain
Your trust in human-kind;
The good which bloodshed could not gain,
Your peaceful zeal shall find.
2 The truths ye urge, the good ye plan,
Are served by wind and tide;
The voice of nature and of man
Speaks out upon your side.
3 The weapons which your hands have found
Are those which time bath wrought;
Light, truth, and love,—your battle-ground
The free broad field of thought.
4 Oh may no selfish purpose break
The beauty of your plan,
Nor lie from throne or altar shake
Your steady faith in man.
John Greenleaf Whittier
95 8.7.8.7. D.
1 THERE are moments when life's shadows
Fall all darkly on the soul,
Hiding stars of hope behind them
In a black impervious scroll;
When we walk with trembling footsteps,
Scarcely knowing how or where
The dim paths we tread are leading,
||:In our midnight of despair.:||
2 Stand we firm in that dread moment,
Stand we firm nor shrink away;
Looking boldly thro' the darkness,
Wait the coming of the day;
Gathering strength while we are waiting
For the conflict still to come;
Fear not, faint not, light will lead us
||:Yet in safety to our home.:||
3 Firmly stand, though sirens lure us;
Firmly stand, though falsehood rail;
Holding justice, truth, and mercy,
Die we may, but cannot fail;
Fail! it is the word of cowards,
Fail! the language of the slave;
Firmly stand till duty beckons;
||:Onward then, e'en to thy grave.:||
Frances Dana Gage
96 L.M.
1 "WHY urge the long unequal fight,
Since truth has fallen in the street,
Or lift anew the trampled light,
Quench'd by the heedless millions' feet?"
2 "Give o'er the thankless task; forsake
The fools who know not ill from good;
Eat, drink, enjoy thine own, and take
Thine ease among the multitude."
3 So spake the tempter, when the light
Of sun and stars had left the sky.
I listened through the cloud and night,
And heard, methought, a voice reply:—
4 "The meal unshared is food unblest;
Thou hoard'st in vain what love should spend;
Self-ease is pain; thy only rest
Is labour for a worthy end."
John Greenleaf Whittier
97 L.M.
1 A STORM sped over sea and land;
Harvest and bloom are beaten low,
And many a treasure on the strand
Marks the wild track with loss and woe.
2 Where in the solitude it search'd,
A child hath hung his one harpstring;
The blast to melody is touched,
And sings of blessings it might bring.
3 O heart, my heart, when thy fair life
Darkens, and tempests on thee beat,
To thine own aim subdue their strife,
Win from each storm thy music sweet.
Moncure D. Conway
98 8.8.4.8.8.4.
1 HOURS there will come of soulless night,
When all thats holy, all that's bright,
Seems gone for aye:
When truth and love, and hope and peace,
All vanish into nothingness,
And fade away.
2 Fear not the cloud that veils the skies,
'Tis out of darkness light must rise,
As e'er of old:
The true, the good, the fair endure,
And thou, with eyes less dim, more pure,
Shalt them behold.
F. M. White
99 L.M.
1 AS o'er his furrow'd fields, which lie
Beneath a coldly dropping sky,
Yet chill with winters melted snow,
The husbandman goes forth to sow:
2 Thus freedom! on the bitter blast,
The ventures of thy seed we cast,
And trust to warmer sun and rain
To swell the germ and fill the grain.
3 It may not he our lot to wield
The sickle in the ripened field;
Nor ours to hear, on summer eves,
The reapers' song among the sheaves:
4 Yet, where our duty's task is wrought
In unison with noblest thought,
The near and future blend in one,
And whatsoe'er is willed, is done.
John Greenleaf Whittier
100 L.M.
1 WHAT is it that the crowd requite
Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies,
And but to faith, and not to sight,
The walls of freedom's temple rise?
2 Yet do thy work; it shalt succeed
In thine or in another's day;
And if denied the victor's meed,
Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay.
3 Faith shares the future's promise; Love's
Self-off'ring is a triumph won;
And each good thought or action moves
The dark world nearer to the sun.
4 Then faint not, falter not, nor plead
Thy weakness; truth itself is strong;
The lion's strength, the eagle's speed
Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong.
5 Thy nature which through fire and flood
To peace again finds out its way,
Hath power to seek the highest good,
And duty's holiest cause obey!
John Greenleaf Whittier
101 C.M.
1 The millions suffer still and grieve,
And what can helpers heal
With old-world cures men half believe
For woes they wholly feel?
2 And yet men have such need of joy!
But joy whose grounds are true;
And joy that should all hearts employ
As when the past was new.
3 Ah! not the emotion of that past
Its common hope, were vain!
Some new such hope must dawn at last,
Or man must toss in pain.
4 What though there still need effort, strife?
Though much be still unwon?
Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life!
Death's frozen hour is done!
5 The world's great order dawns in sheen
After long darkness rude,
Divinelier imaged, clearer seen,
With happier zeal pursued.
6 What still of strength is left, employ
That end to help attain:
One common wave of thought and joy
Lifting mankind again.
Matthew Arnold
102 8.7.8.7.
1 ONE by one the sands are flowing,
One by one the moments fall,
Some are coming, some are going,
Do not strive to grasp them all.
2 One by one thy duties wait thee,
Let thy whole strength go to each;
Let no future dreams elate thee,
Learn thou first what these can teach.
3 One by one thy griefs shall meet thee,
Do not fear an armèd band;
One will fade as others greet thee,
Shadows passing through the land.
4 Do not linger with regretting,
Or for passing hours despond;
Nor, the daily toil forgetting,
Look too eagerly beyond.
5 Every hour that fleets so slowly,
Has its task to do or bear;
Luminous the crown and holy,
When each gem is set with care.
Adelaide Anne Procter
103 10.10.10.10.
1 O TRUTH! O freedom! how ye still are born
In the rude stable, in the manger nursed!
What humble hands unbar those gates of morn
Through which the splendours of the new day burst!
2 We stride the river daily at its spring,
Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness foresee
What myriad vassal-streams shall tribute bring,
How like an equal it shall greet the sea.
3 O small beginnings, ye are great and strong,
Based on a faithful heart and tireless brain!
Ye build the future fair, ye conquer wrong,
Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in vain.
James Russell Lowell
THE THINGS THAT ARE MORE EXCELLENT
104 6.6.4.6.6.4.
1 THE rose is for a day,
The lily fades away
In one short noon;
The sudden blush of dawn,
The cloudless face of morn,
Pass all too soon.
2 The lark's song in the sky,
The thrush's soft reply,
Die with the flower;
Things that immortal seem
Are dreams about a dream,
Gone in an hour.
3 Let not my soul be mute;
String me a larger lute,
With iron strings;
And with my spirit's might,
I'll sing, in time's despite,
Eternal things.
4 It is the soul that gives
Life unto all that lives,
Sun-ray or song;
The beauty of the hour,
The glory and the power
To her belong.
5 Though form and fashion pass
As light winds in the grass,
As ebbing tides,
Fixed in enduring state,
With power to re-create,
The soul abides.
6 Bring, death, thy wint'ry blight,
The darkness of the night
That hath no star!
'Tis not of life the length,
It is the depth and strength
Eternal are!
R. H. U. Bloor
105 L.M. D.
1 AS we wax older on this earth,
Till many a toy that charmed us seems
Empty of beauty, stripped of worth,
And mean as dust, and dead as dreams—
For gauds that perished, shows that passed.
Some recompense the Fates have sent:
Thrice lovelier shine the things that last,
||:The things that are more exceiient.:||
2 Nought nobler is than to be free:
The stars of heaven are free because
In amplitude of liberty
Their joy is to obey the laws.
From servitude to freedom's name
Free thou thy mind in bondage pent;
Depose the fetich, and proclaim
||:The things that are more excellent.:||
3 To hug the wealth ye cannot use,
And lack the riches all may gain—
O blind, and wanting wit to choose,
Who house the chaff and burn the grain!
And still doth life, with starry tow'rs
Lure to the bright, divine ascent!—
Be yours the things ye would; be ours
||:The things that are more exceilent.:||
4 The grace of friendship—mind and heart
Linked with their fellow heart and mind,
The gains of science, gifts of art;
The sense of oneness with our kind;
The thirst to know and understand—
A large and lib'ral discontent:
These are the goods in life's rich hand,
||:The things that are more excellent.:||
5 In faultless rhythm the ocean rolls,
A rapturous silence fills the skies;
And on this earth are lovely souls,
That softly look with aidful eyes.
Though dark, O world, thy course and track,
I think fate must at least have meant
That nought which lives should wholly lack
||:The things that are more excellent:||
William Watson
106 8.8.8.4.
1 SWEET day! so cool, so calm, so bright!
The bridal of the earth and sky,—
The dew shall weep thy fail to-night:
For thou must die!
2 Sweet rose! whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die!
3 Sweet Spring! of days and roses made,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
Thy days depart, thy roses fade,
For thou must die!
4 Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
George Herbert (slightly altered)
107 L.M.
1 THE man who every sin forsakes,
Whose heart with love of goodness glows,
He nature's primal essence knows,
And all the changing forms she takes.
2 A purer, sweeter bliss he knows,
Whom quell'd desire no more annoys,
Than springs from earth's exciting joys,
Or any paradise bestows.
3 With daily, scrutinizing ken,
Let every man his actions try,
Enquiring, "What with brutes have I
In common, what with noble men?"
4 Two things for men's regard contend—
The good, the pleasant—he who woos
The good is blest, whilst they who choose
The pleasant miss the highest end.
Translated from old Sanscrit metrical writings.
(1200 - 200 B.C.)
THE POWER OF GOODNESS
108 L.M.
1 SAY not they die, those martyr souls
Whose life is wing'd with purpose fine;
Who leave us, pointing to the goals;
Who learn to conquer and resign.
2 Such cannot die; they vanquish time,
And fill the world with glowing light,
Making the human life sublime,
With memories of their sacred might.
3 They cannot die whose lives are part
Of that great life which is to be,
Whose hearts beat with the world's great heart,
And throb with its high destiny.
4 Then mourn not those who, dying, gave
To man a gift of greater light:
Death stands abashed before the brave,
And owns them victors in the fight.
Malcolm Quin
109 8.8.8.4.8.4.
1 WHAT hallows ground where heroes sleep?
'Tis not the sculptured piles you heap!
In dews that heavens far distant weep
Their turf may bloom;
Or seaweed twine beneath the deep
Their coral tomb.
2 But strew his ashes to the wind
Whose sword or voice has served mankind,
And is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
3 What's hallow'd ground? 'Tis what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!
Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth
Earth's compass round
And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground.
Th. Campbell
110 8.8.6.6.
1 WHENE'ER a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise.
2 The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all deeper cares.
3 Eonour to those whose words and deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low.
Longfellow
111 10.10.10.10.
1 THERE is no death for that which dwells apart;
'Mid changing forms a secret strength remains:
All work endures, strong mind and noble heart
Touch to fine issues nobler hearts and brains.
2 True word, kind deed, sweet song shall vibrate still,
In rings that wander through celestial air;
And human will shall build for human will
Fair basement to a palace yet more fair.
W. M. W. Call
THE INFLUENCE OF TRAINING
112 8.8.8.8.; 8.8.
1 THERE is in every human heart
Some not completely barren part,
Where seeds of love and truth might grow,
And flowers of gen'rous virtue blow;
To plant, to watch, to water there,
This be our duty, this our care.
2 And sweet it is the growth to trace
Of worth, of intellect, of grace,
In natures where our labours first
Bid the young seed of springtime burst,
And lead it on from hour to hour
To ripen into perfect flow'r.
The heart of man's a soil which breeds
Or sweetest flowers or vilest weeds,
Flowers lovely as the morning's light;
Weeds deadly as the aconite:
Just as his heart is trained to bear
The poisonous weed or flow'ret fair.
John Bowring
TRUE VICTORS
113 I.M.
1 I sing the hymn of the conquer'd, who fell in the battle of life—
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelm'd in the strife;
Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the triumphant acclaim
Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of fame—
But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart,
Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part.
2 While the voice of the world sounds its chorus, its paean for those who have won,
While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the breeze and the sun
Gay banners are waving, hands clapping, and thousands of hurrying feet
Thronging after the laurel-crown'd victors—I stand on the field of defeat,
Hold the hand that is helpless and whisper, "They only the victory win
Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquish'd the demon that tempts us within."
3 "Who have held to their faith unattracted by the prize that the world holds on high;
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight—if need be, to die."
Speak, History! who are life's victors? Unroll thy long annals and say—
Are they those whom the world calls the victors—who won the success of the day?—
I sing the hymn of the conquer'd, who died overwhelm'd in the strife:
May some thrill from their resolute pulses nerve us on to more strenuous life!
Anon.
114 8.7.8.7. D.
1 LET the fool recite the triumphs, turning over history's page,
'Tis the record of the failure that instructs the saint and sage;
In their hearts, the shout of victory, thundering upward to the sky,
Rarely finds so true an echo as the sob of those who die.
2 'Tis not always in the battle they who overcome are best,
And to die is often better than to gain the victor's rest;
For when Freedom is sore wounded it is brave her wounds to share,
And when Truth unlocks Death's portal it is right to enter there.
3 Hast thou found thy life's fulfilment? Is thy triumph now complete?
Look across life's dreary desert, see the mark of weary feet;
Follow in those failing footprints, and this lesson they will teach:
They who lead mankind the farthest their ideals never reach.
4 When the rushing flood of waters drowned the last heroic word,
When the story hath no ending, for the tears that fell and blurred,
When the fight was fought and lost against such overwhelming odds—
It is then thy mind shall measure men, and find them more than gods.
R. H. U. Bloor
FAITH IN THE FUTURE
115 7.7.6.; 7.7.6.
1 HAPPY he whose spirit ear
Inward comfortings can hear
O'er the rabble's laughter;
And, while hatred's faggots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter.
2 Knowing this, that never yet
Share of truth was vainly' set
In the world's wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.
3 Thus, with somewhat of the seer
Must the moral pioneer
From the future borrow:
Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
And, on midnight's sky of rain,
Paint the golden morrow!
John Greenleaf Whittier
THE ETHICAL "I AM"
116 11.10.11.10.
1 MOTHER of man's time-trav'lling generations,
Breath of his nostrils, heartblood of his heart,
God above all gods worshipp'd of all nations,
Light above light, law over law thou art.
2 Thy face is as a sword that smites in sunder
Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder
Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.
3 All old grey hist'ries hiding thy clear features,
O secret sov'reign spirit, all men's tales,
Creeds wov'n of men, thy children and thy creatures,
They weave for vestures of thee and for veils.
4 Thou say'st "Well done," and all a century kindles;
Again thou say'st "Depart from sight of me,"
And all the light of face of all men dwindles,
And the age is as the broken glass of thee.
Swinburne
CONSCIENCE, DUTY
117 L.M. D.
1 THERE is a captain that commands
And never but to victory:
The counsel of thine heart it stands,
No man so faithful unto thee.
Though seven senses watch the wall,
And all thy courage leap at call,
He is thine ark and arsenal,
Thine armour and artillery.
2 Yea, while the armour'd sentries tramp
And challenge with a deep "All's well!"
He lists the sappers from the camp
Encroaching on thy citadel.
Invisible he tries the guns,
And, leaning o'er the bastions,
Discerns the tented foe, and knows
The traitor that thy walls enclose.
3 O man! in vain they creep and mine;
Thy keep remains inviolate.
But if by folly or design
Thou force thy friend to abdicate,
A broken pole, a trodden keep,
The standard of thy soul shall weep,
And all her trophies lie a heap
That owls and satyrs desecrate.
A. T. Quiller-Couch
118 C.M.
1 I SAW on earth another light
Than that which lit my eye
Come forth, as from my soul within,
And from a higher sky.
2 Its beams still shone unclouded on,
When in the distant west
The sun I once had known had sunk
For ever to his rest.
3 And on I walked—though dark the night,
Nor rose his orb by day,—
As one to whom a surer guide
Was pointing out the way.
4 'Twas brighter far than noonday's beam,
'Twas duty shone within
And lit, as with a flood of light,
The world's dark track of sin.
Jones Very
119 L.M.
1 WHAT shall I frame my life to gain?
Not riches; lower mundane things
Spread wide their fickle treach'rous wings,
And who pursues them strives in vain.
2 Nor fame; for she fleets faster yet,
Or comes not ere the closing tomb;
The sun of glory sets in gloom,
And all men hasten to forget.
3 To Duty only let me kneel,
Her painful circlet on my brow!
To her, my queen, my head shall bow,
Not knowing, but content to feel!
4 All faint, all fade, all pass, but she
Shines clear for young and agèd eyes;
High as the peaks that kiss the skies,
Profound as the unfathomed sea!
Lewis Morris
HAPPINESS FROM WITHIN
120 L.M.
1 THE heart it hath its own estate,
The mind it hath its wealth untold;
It needs not fortune to be great,
While there's a coin surpassing gold.
2 No matter which way fortune leans,
Wealth makes not happiness secure;
A little mind hath little means,
A narrow heart is always poor.
3 'Tis not the house that honour makes,
True honour is a thing divine;
It is the mind precedence takes,
It is the spirit makes the shrine.
Ch. Swain
121 C.M.
1 IT surely is a wasted heart,
It is a wasted mind,
That seeks not in the inner world
Its happiness to find:
2 For happiness is like the bird
That broods above its nest,
And finds beneath its folded wings
Life's dearest and its best.
Letitia E. Landon
122 6.6.7.; 6.7.6.
1 IF peace be in the heart,
The wildest winter storm
Is full of solemn beauty,
The midnight's lightning flash
But shows the path of duty,
If peace be in the heart—be in the heart.
2 If peace be in the heart,
Each living creature tells
Some new and joyous story,
The very trees and stones
All catch a tint of glory,
If peace be in the heart—be in the heart.
Ch. F. Richardson
123 6.6.6.6.
1 THE man of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds
Or thought of vanity;
2 The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude
Nor sorrow discontent:
3 That man needs neither towers
Nor armour for defence,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder's violence.
4 Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
The earth his sober inn
And quiet pilgrimage.
Thomas Campion
124 4.10.4.10.
1 THE law of right
Is ever with thee, not afar removed;
Its glorious light
Would fill thy heart, were it but sought and loved.
2 Soar not on high,
Nor ask who thence shall bring it down to earth;
That vaulted sky
Hath no such star, didst thou but know its worth.
3 Nor launch thy bark
In search thereof upon a shoreless sea,
Which has no ark,
No dove to bring this olive-branch to thee.
4 Then do not roam
In search of that which wand'ring cannot win,
At home! at home!
That law is found thy very heart within.
Bernard Barton
MAN HIS OWN FATE
125 8.8.8.6.
1 WE shape ourselves the joy or fear
Of which our coming life is made,
And fill our future atmosphere
With sunlight or with shade.
2 The tissues of our life to be
We weave with colours all our own,
And in the field of destiny,
We reap as we have sown.
3 For so the past must ever make
The future either dark or fair,
And what we shall be, form shall take
From that which once we were.
Anon.
ASPIRATION
126 8.6.8.6.8.6.
1 O MOUNTAINS, give me of your strength,
Above the clouds ye rise,
A huge impact of Titan force,
I look on you; my eyes
Draw in strong thought; may I that thought
In action realize.
2 O miracle of nature, wrought
All round us every day,
Touch me with wonder more and more;
To darkness bring the ray
Whereby to read the open book
And find the secret way.
3 O stars unseen, but ever there,
Grant your beneficence;
Let me lie open to all rays
Of upward influence,
Nor fret myself with questioning
How they may come or whence.
4 O ache of heart unsatisfied,
Give me no lower rest
Than that the dim mind apprehends
As Highest and as Best;
Live like a searching melody
Within me, unexpressed.
Clifford Harrison
127 P.M.
1 IF I were a voice, a persuasive voice,
That could travel the wide world thro',
I would fly on the wings of the morning light,
And speak to men with a gentle might,
And tell them to be true.
2 I'd fly, I'd fly o'er land and sea,
Wherever a human heart might be,
Telling a tale or singing a song,
In praise of the right, in blame of the wrong,
Wherever a human heart might be.
Ch. Mackay
128 10.4.10.4.10.10.
1 STRONG human Love! within whose steadfast will
Is always peace;
O stay with me, storm-toss'd on waves of ill,
Let passion cease;
Come thou in pow'r within my heart to reign,
For I am weak, and struggle has been vain.
2 The days are gone when far and wide my will
Drove me astray;
And now I fain would climb the arduous hill,
That narrow way
Which leads thro' mist and rocks to Truth and Good,
Be with me, Love, thou fount of fortitude.
3 Whate'er of pain the passing years allot
I gladly bear;
With thee I triumph, whatsoe'er my lot,
Nor can despair.
Freedom from storms thou hast, immortal song;
Peace from the fierce oppression of all wrong.
4 So may I, far away, when night shall fall
On light and love,
Rejoicing, hear the quiet, solemn call
All life must prove;
Wounded yet healed, by man beloved, forgiven,
And sure that goodness is my only heaven.
Stopford A. Brooke
(Altered by kind permission.)
129 C.M.
1 IF dim the gold of life has grown
I will not count it dross,
Nor turn from treasures still my own
To sigh for lack or loss.
2 How softly ebb the tides of will!
How fields, once lost or won,
Now lie behind me green and still
Beneath a level sun!
3 But barks by tempest vainly tossed
May founder in the calm,
And he who braved the polar frost
Faint by the isles of balm.
4 Ah! better than self-centred years
The outflung heart of youth,
Than pleasant songs in idle ears
The tumult of the truth.
5 Rest for the weary hands is good,
And love for hearts that pine,
But let the manly habitude
Of upright souls be mine.
John Greenleaf Whittier
130 8.7.8.7. D.
1 OF all the myriad moods of mind
That through the soul come thronging,
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind,
So beautiful as longing?
The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment,
Before the Present, poor and bare,
Can make its sneering comment.
2 Still, through our paltry stir and strife,
Glows down the wished Ideal,
And longing moulds in clay what life
Carves in the marble Real;
But, would we learn that heart's full scope
Which we are hourly wronging,
Our lives must climb from hope to hope,
And realise our longing.
James Russell Lowell
131 6.10.10.5.
1 WHY do I sigh to find
Life's evening shadows gath'ring round my way?
The keen eye dimming, and the buoyant mind
Unhinging day by day.
2 I ask not vulgar fame;
I seek not to survive in brass or stone;
Hearts may not kindle when they hear my name,
Nor tears my value own.
3 But may I leave behind
Some blessing for my fellows, some fair trust
To guide, to elevate, to cheer my kind,
When I am in the dust!
4 Within my narrow bed
May I not wholly mute or useless be;
But live that they who trample o'er my head,
Draw still some good from me!
H. T. Lyte
INSPIRATION OF LIFE
132 C.M.D.
1 O IT is good to breathe and live,
To feel the brain and heart,
To think, to care, to work, to give,
To suffer and take part;
To be of this great vital whole
And of its strength to draw,
To labour in its dread control,
And carry out its law.
2 I hear the music of the plain,
The music of the sea,
The day, it hath a glad refrain,
The night, soft melody;
I hear sweet music ev'rywhere,
Around, above, beyond,
The chant of earth and sea and air,—
O mind and heart, respond!
3 Let mind and heart the parts unite,
And so complete the song,
To cheer, to comfort and delight,
To waken and make strong;
That all the wand'ring notes may blend,
Until at last there be
Through all the world, from end to end,
One perfect harmony. ant song.
4 Silence all discord loud
Within the breast!
Fly from the troubled crowd
To peace and rest!
And let th'enfranchised soul
From self set free,
Find in Right's dread control
True liberty.
Lewis Morris
135 L.M.
1 HOW happy is he born and taught
Who serveth not another's will—
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
2 Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied to this vain world by care
Of public fame or private breath!
3 This man is freed from servile band
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.
Sir Henry Wotton
136 8.8.6.8.4.
1 THAT man is great, and he alone,
Who serves a greatness not his own
For neither praise nor pelf;
Content to know and be unknown,
Whole in himself.
2 Strong is that man, he only strong,
To whose well-ordered will belong
For service and delight
All powers that, in face of wrong,
Establish right.
3 And free he is, and only he,
Who, from his tyrant passion free,
By fortune undismayed,
Hath power upon himself to be
By self obeyed.
4 If such a man there be, where'er
Beneath the sun and moon he fare,
He cannot fare amiss;
Great Nature hath him in her care,
Her cause is his.
Anon.
SELF-RELIANCE
137 6.6.6.6.12.
1 RICHES we wish to get,
Yet remain spendthrifts still;
We would have health, and yet
Still use our bodies ill;
Bafflers of our own prayers, from youth to life's last scenes.
2 We would have inward peace,
Yet will not look within;
We would have misery cease,
Yet will not cease from sin;
We want all pleasant ends, but will use no harsh means.
3 We do not what we ought,
What we ought not, we do,
And lean upon the thought
That chance will bring us through;
But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.
4 What were the wise man's plan?—
Through this sharp, toil-set life
To work as best he can,
And win what's won by strife.—
Because thou must not dream, thou need'st not then despair!
Matthew Arnold
138 6.6.6.6.12.
1 MUST we feel, day and night,
The burden of ourselves?—
Ah, then the wiser wight
In his own bosom delves,
And asks what ails him so, and gets what cure he can.
2 Once read thy own breast right,
And thou hast done with fears;
Man gets no other light,
Search he a thousand years.
Sink in thyself! there ask what ails thee, at that shrine.
3 We mortals are no kings,
For each of whom to sway
A new-made world upsprings,
Meant merely for his play;
No, we are strangers here; the world is from of old.
4 No eye could be too sound
To scan a world so vast,
No patience too profound
To sort what's here amassed:
How man may here best live no care too great to explore.
Matthew Arnold
STOICISM
139 L.M.
1 LIVE thou thy life; nor take thou heed
Of shades or shapes of threatening ill;
Walk thou where nature's footsteps lead,
And work in lowliness her will.
2 Let duty to thy soul be dear;
In doubt and weakness scorn to grope;
Be steadfast, having nought to fear;
Be joyful, having much to hope.
3 What though the skies are dark to see,
The ways are dim before thy feet:
If thine own soul be firm in thee,
No harm there is that thou canst meet.
4 For courage treads a thornless road,
While shadows fright the fearful soul;
And hope will ease thee of thy load,
And faith will bring thee to thy goal.
5 Live thou thy life, and ere it end
Some grace acquire, some good bestow;
When death shall come, thy final friend,
Nor long to leave, nor fear to go.
Arthur Symons
140 6.6.6.6.6.6.6.6.; 12.
1 HIGHER than heav'n they sit,
Life and her consort Law;
And one whose countenance lit
In mine more perfect awe,
I fain had deem'd their peer,
Beside them thron'd above:
E'en him who casts out fear,
Unconquerable Love.
Ah! 'twas on earth alone that I his beauty saw:
2 On earth, in homes of men,
In hearts that crave and die.
"Dwells he not also, then,
With Godhead throned on high?"
This and but this I know,
His face I see not there;
Here find I him below,
Not find him otherwhere;
Born of an aching world, Pain's bridegroom, Death's ally.
3 Sweet are the tales Hope tells,
Who trusts, the happier he:
But nought of virtue dwells
In that felicity.
I think the harder feat
Were his who should withstand
A voice so passing sweet,
And so profuse a hand.—
Hope, I forego the wealth thou fling'st abroad so free!
4 Carry thy largesse hence,
Light giver! let me learn
To shun the opulence
I have done nought to earn;
And on this world no more
To cast ignoble slight,
Counting it but the door
Of other worlds more bright.
Here, where I fail or conquer, here is my concern!
5, Here, where perhaps alone
I conquer or I fail,
Here, o'er the dark deep blown,
I ask no perfumed gale;
I ask the unpampering breath
That fits me to endure
Chance and victorious Death,
Life, and my doom obscure,
Who know not whence I am sped, nor to what port I sail.
Wm. Watson
141 (Addressed to Mars.) C.M.
1 O STAR of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailèd hand,
And I am strong again.
2 The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.
3 And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
That chantest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.
O fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
Longfellow
(From "The Light of Stars".}
142 7.7.7.7.
1 CREEP into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset! all stands fast,
Thou thyself must break at last!
2 They out-talk'd thee, hiss'd thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot, and pass'd,
Hotly charged—and sank at last.
3 Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body near the wall.
Matthew Arnold
PATIENCE
143 L.M.
1 OUR tasks are many, and our wills
Are weak beneath the weight of woe;
And often all we see and know
Seems but the seed of further ills.
2 The gracious promise of the past,
The living hope that fills us now,
The dreams of love and faith that show
The future kingdom calm and vast;—
3 These oft are lost in sudden fear,
That speaks our failures to our hearts,
And makes us shun the nobler parts,
And claim the gladness which is here.
4 Oh, may our faith be strong, as still
The task of human life is great:
And may we have the strength to wait
Our dreams of gladness to fulfil.
Malcolm Quin
144 8.8.8.8.8.8.
1 WE cannot kindle when we will
The fire that in the heart resides,
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides:
But tasks in hours of insight will'd
Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.
2 With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of life's long day, and wish 'twere done.
Not till the hours of light return,
All we have built do we discern.
Matthew Arnold
OUR NEED
145 6.4.6.4. D.
1 WE need it every hour—
A purpose high,
To give us strength and power
To do or die.
We need it every hour—
A firm, brave will,
That, though thick clouds may lower,
Shall conquer still.
2 We need it every hour—
A calm, strong mind,
Enriched by reason's dower,
Not warped or blind.
We need it every hour—
A faithful love,
To stand where sin doth cower
And patient prove.
3 We need it every hour—
A conscience clear,
That shall be as a tower
Of strength and cheer.
We need it every hour—
A true, pure life,
Which failure cannot sour
Or turn to strife.
Sara A. Underwood
INNOCENCE
146 7.7.7.
1 BEAR a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
2 Bear through sorrow, wrong and ruth
In thy heart the dew of youth,
On thy lips the smile of truth.
3 Oh, that dew, like balm, shall steal
Into wounds that cannot heal,
E'en as sleep our eyes doth seal.
Longfellow
OF HARSH JUDGMENTS
147 8.7.8.5.
1 EARNEST words must needs be spoken
When the warm heart bleeds or burns
With its scorn of wrong, or pity
For the wronged, by turns.
2 For thyself, while wrong and sorrow
Make to thee their strong appeal,
Coward wert thou not to utter
What the heart must feel.
3 But, by all thy nature's weakness,
Hidden faults and follies known,
Be thou, in rebuking evil,
Conscious of thine own.
4 Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty
To thy lips her trumpet set,
But with harsher blasts shall mingle
Wailings of regret.
John Greenleaf Whittier
MORNING
148 6.5.6.5. D. (with refrain).
1 SO here hath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Out of eternity
This new day is born;
Into eternity
At night will return.
So here, &c.
2 So here bath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did;
So soon it for ever
From all eyes is hid.
So here, &c.
Thomas Carlyle
149 8.8.8.4.
1 SWEET morn! from countless cups of gold
Thou liftest reverently on high
More incense high than Earth can hold,
To fill the sky.
2 Where'er the vision's boundaries glance
Existence swells with living power,
And all th'illumined earth's expanse
Inhales the hour.
3 In man, O morn, a loftier good
With conscious blessing fills the soul,
A life by reason understood
Which metes the whole.
4 To thousand tasks of fruitful hope
With skill against his toil he bends,
And finds his work's determined scope
Where'er he wends.
5 From self, and selfish toil and strife,
To glorious aims his soul may rise;
Each dawn may wake to better life,
With purer eyes.
John Sterling
150 6.5.6.5.6.5.
1 THE morning light flingeth
Its wakening ray,
And as the day bringeth
The work of the day,
The happy heart singeth,
Awake and away!
2 No life can be dreary
When work is delight;
Though evening be weary,
Rest cometh at night;
And all will be cheery
If faithful and right.
3 When duty is treasure,
And labour is joy,
How sweet is the leisure
Of ended employ!
Then only can pleasure
Be free from alloy.
Frances R. Havergal
151 C.M.
1 I WAKE this morn, and all my life
Is freshly mine to live;
The future, with sweet promise rife,
Has crowns of joy to give:
2 New words to speak, new thoughts to hear,
New love to give and take;
Perchance new burdens I may bear
To-day, for love's sweet sake:
3 New hopes to open in the sun;
New efforts worth the will;
Or tasks, with yesterday begun,
More bravely to fulfil.
4 Fresh seeds for all the time to be
Are in my hand to sow,
Whereby, for others and for me,
Undreamed-of fruit may grow.
Anon.
152 6.5.6.5.D.
1 MORNING breaketh on thee,
Fresh life's pulses beat,
Earth and sky new kindled
Once again to greet:
With a thousand voices
Woods and valleys sound,
Leaf and flower with dewdrops
Sparkle all around.
2 Day is all before thee,
Vanished is the night;
Wouldst thou aught accomplish—
Look toward the light;
Let a mighty purpose
In thee stir and live,
After highest being
Ever more to strive.
3 As through mist and vapour
Breaks the morning sun,
Shine and work, thou spirit,
Till thy task is done:
When from farthest hilltop
Fades the fire of day,
Blest in blessing others
Shalt thou pass away.
T. W. Chignell
153 6.4.6.4.
1 WHEN with the virgin morn
Thou dost arise,
Come thou in sober joy
To sacrifice.
2 Wash thou in innocence
Thy heart, and bring
Pure hands, pure habits, pure,
Pure everything.
3 Then do thou humbly kneel,
And kneeling, thence
Give up thy soul in clouds
Of frankincense.
4 Love's golden censers filled
With odours sweet
Shall make thy acts with all
Their ends to meet.
Robert Herrick (a1tered)
EVENING
154 8.7.8.7.
1 GENTLY fall the evening shadows
O'er the hills and o'er the plains,
Cattle slumber in the meadows,
Hushed are now the wild bird's strains.
2 Whispering leaves in light winds quiver,
Moonbeams flush the silent grove,
Stars gleam on the brimming river,
Earth is wrapt in folds of love.
3 Have we in the day just going
Breathed pure thoughts and purpose high,
Used the hours now past us flowing
Wisely, ere the night draws nigh?
4 On our hearts sweet peace is falling
Softly like the shades of night,
And to each a voice is calling,
"Be thou faithful to the right."
Elias Tozer
155 L.M.
1 O'ER silent field and lonely lawn
Her dusky mantle night hath drawn;
At twilight's holy heartfelt hour
In man his better self hath power.
2 To aching brow and throbbing breast
The darkness brings its deep full rest,
And silence grants a sweet release,
And all is hushed in perfect peace.
3 The passions are at peace within,
And still each stormy thought of sin—
The grateful mind with joy doth fill,
With love for all, for all goodwill.
After Goethe.
156 6.4.6.4.
1 "THE sun is sinking fast,
The daylight dies,
Let love awake, and pay
Her sacrifice."
2 For all the tender care
That on us smiled,
Wherein a mother's love
Breathed o'er her child;
3 And for the gracious dower
The ages give,
And for the blessèd hope
In which we live;
4 For faithful love that cheers
The darkest night,
For our poor struggles made
Toward the light;
5 For all we owe—as fast
The daylight flies,
Bid love awake, and pay
Her sacrifice.
E. B. Harrison
157 C.M.
1 SWEET evening hour! sweet evening hour!
That calms the air and shuts the flower,
That brings the wild bee to its nest,
The infant to its mother's breast.
2 O season of soft sounds and hues,
Of twilight walks among the dews,
Of feelings calm and converse sweet,
And thoughts too sacred to repeat:
3 Sweet evening hour! thou art the time
When hearts expand and wishes climb;
O may thy gentle influence give
New strength a nobler life to live!
Anon.
158 8.7.8.7.
1 PART in peace! the hour before us
Closes one more day of light;
Now—the shadows lengthening oer us—
Be our hearts at rest this night!
2 Part in peace! with deep thanksgiving,
Rendering, as we homeward tread,
Gracious service to the living,
Tender memory to the dead.
3 Part in peace! the days before us
Call on us for deeds of right;
Now—the shadows length'ning oer us—
May sweet sleep be ours to-night!
Sarah Flower Adams (altered)
159 C.M.
1 WHEN summer winds are laid asleep,
And flowers are still in rest,
And all things mute in reverence keep
And bless from being blest:
2 Then is the time of growing calm,
That, slowly swelling on,
O'erfloods the spirit, like a psalm
That joins all worlds in one.
3 Then let us drink that living stream,
That in the strife of day,
Our souls may rest, as in a dream
Of something past decay.
Richard Yates Sturges
160 8.7.8.7.7.7.
1 WHEN the day of toil is ended,
And night cometh cool and still,
Clad in starry spangled raiment,
Trailing softly o'er the hill,
Hand and heart and aching brain
In her peace forget their pain.
2 Grateful presence of the night-time
Soft restraint of sleep so sweet,
Holding still our fervent fingers,
Gently chaining restless feet;—
They who labour in the light
Hail the holy, holy night.
3 May we rise with hearts more hopeful
For to-morrow and its strife,
With a stronger aspiration
And resolve for nobler life,
Consecrated all anew,
To the good, the pure, the true.
R. H. U. Bloor
161 8.8.8.8.8.8.
1 THE toil of day is now o'erpast,
And fall the curtains of the night;
With quiet, grave, and tender thought
Of human needs, we would unite
In purpose high, that all we owe
In thought and deed of love may flow.
2 By all that we have failed to be,
By every loss, and every stain,
By fault of brain and heart, and all
That makes our hope of service vain,
Oh may we strive that more and more
Our lives may yield a fruitful store.
3 But now swift visions press and throng,
With mem'ries of past joy and pain;
And silent thought of love now lost,
That once was ours, creeps back again;
Great Human Heart! so bound to thee
Our hearts shall ever faithful be.
E. B. Harrison
(1st verse altered by kind permission.)
NATURE
162 L.M.
1 IS Nature all so beautiful?
The human feeling makes it so:
The sounds we love, the flowers we cull,
Are hallowed with man's joy or woe.
2 The little speedwell's tender blue
Is not so pure and delicate,
As is the simple wish in you
That will its tardy advent wait.
3 The tiny drops of dew, that shine
Upon the leaflets new and rare,
Are scarcely half so crystal-fine
As your delight to watch them there.
4 The wishing for the green of trees
Is fresher than the leaves that come:
The blowing of a scented breeze
Is sweetest round a happy home.
5 The ripple of a tranquil bay,
The water-lisp in curve or creek,
Are softest on the welcome day
We trust to find some friend we seek.
Thomas Ashe
163 P.M. 8.7.8.7.; 8.7.7.7; 15.
1 MOUNTAIN gorses, ever golden,
Cankered not the whole year long,
Mountain gorses, ever golden,
Do ye teach us to be strong?
Howsoever pricked and holden
Like your thorny blooms, and so
Trodden on by rain and snow,
Trodden on by rain and snow,
Up the hillside of this life, as bleak as where ye grow.
2 Mountain gorses, do ye teach us
From your academic chair?
Mountain gorses, do ye teach us
From your world of azure air,
That the wisest word man reaches
Is the humblest he can speak?
Ye who live on mountain peak,
Ye who live on mountain peak,
Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses meek!
3 Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms,
Do ye teach us to be glad,
Blooming in our inward sunshine
When no summer can be had?
Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms,
Ye whom tempests cannot kill,
Set as lights upon a hill,
Set as lights upon a hill,
Tokens to the wintry earth that
Beauty liveth still.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
164 10.10.10.10.
1 WHERE there are daisies, daisies will be white;
No human fear can turn them ashen grey,
Nor human sobbing send one note astray
Of singing larks aloft in heaven's light.
2 Yet birds mean little by their minstrelsy,
Flowers wait, accept, but never feel the sun;
Thy peace, ere yet it comes, must be hard won
That thou mayst know a finer ectasy.
3 O weary soul! world-driven, passion-torn,—
Falter and fail, repent and strive anew,
Envy not thou the fair field-flowers their dew,
Nor little larks their song, thou human-born!
4 Daisies of very helplessness are white;
Birds chant an idle chorus in the skies;
Higher than innocence must virtue rise,
Clear-eyed, grave-hearted, for a loftier flight.
5 Brace thou thine inmost spirit to its strife,
Clear thine own wilderness to ordered fields,
And from the fruit the tree of knowledge yields,
See that thou raise a noble tree of life.
Louisa S. Bevington (slightly altered)
165 C.M. D.
1 A LITTLE sun, a little rain,
A soft wind blowing from the west—
And woods and fields are sweet again,
And warmth within the mountain's breast.
So simple is the earth we tread,
So quick with love and light her frame,
Ten thousand years have dawned and fled,
And still her magic is the same.
2 A little love, a little trust,
A soft impulse, a sudden dream,
And life as dry as desert dust
Is fresher than a mountain stream.
So simple is the heart of man,
So ready for new hope and joy;
Ten thousand years since it began
Have left it younger than a boy.
Stopford A. Brooke
NATURE AND THE IDEAL
166 6.5.6.5 D.
1 ENTRANCED in sweet slumber
Earth, sea, and sky seem,
The cloud of soft purple,
The moon's silver beam,
The spiral flame golden,
The flower's blossom red,
The ocean wave foaming,
The mountain's lone head.
2 Upspringeth in glory
The tall forest tree;
Undaunted, beneath it
The deer wanders free;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
Your silence he sings.
3 The waves unashamèd,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
Sea, earth, sound and silence,
The plant and the bird,
By one song enchanted,
One harmony stirred.
4 The babe by its mother
Lies crooning in joy,
Its hours glide uncounted,
The sun is its toy;
The peace of all being
Shines clear in its eyes.
The sum of the world
In soft miniature lies.
5 But man— he is goaded
By love of the Best;
'Mid sadness and gladness
It grants him no rest:
No Lethe of Nature
Can trance him again,
Whose soul sees the Perfect
His eyes seek in vain.
6 Profounder, profounder,
Man's spirit must dive
To his rolling orbit
No goal will arrive;
The heavens that draw him
With sweetness untold,
Once found,—for new heavens
He spurneth the old.
Emerson (altered)
SPRING
167 8.8.8.6. and 8.7.8.7. (mixed).
1 THERE is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.
2 Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth,
It is the hour of feeling,
3 Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey;
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.
Wordsworth
168 C.M. D.
1 THERE'S life abroad!
From each green tree
A busy murmur swells:
The bee is up at early dawn,
Stirring the cowslip bells.
There's motion in the lightest leaf
That trembles on the stream;
The insect scarce an instant rests,
Light dancing in the beam.
2 There's life abroad!
The silvery threads
That float about in air,
Where'er their wanton flight they take,
Proclaim that life is there,
And bubbles on the quiet lake,
And yonder music sweet,
And stirrings in the rustling leaves,
The selfsame tale repeat.
3 All speak of life!
And louder still
The spirit speaks within,
O'erpowering with its strong deep voice
The world's incessant din:
There's life without; and better far,
Within there's life and power,
And energy of heart and will
To glorify each hour.
Emily Taylor
SUMMER
169 6.6.6.6. 6.6.6.8.
1 AGAIN the flowers appear,
The nightingale is come,
About the clover field
There floats the wild bee's hum.
The rain is past and gone,
And Earth has decked her floor,
Sweet joy is newly born,
And summer, summer's at the door.
2 Shall ancient ill not wane
As night in morning gold,
As winter on dark wing
Away has slowly rolled?
The rain, &c.
3 The seed was lost to view
But ah! the sower knows
The beautiful and true
Shall blossom as the rose.
The rain, &c.
Anon.
AUTUMN
170 8.8.8.8.8.
1 NOW the last petals leave the rose,
The latest swallows preen for flight,
The summers gone where no one knows,
With dead men's love and spent years' light,
And warm hearts buried out of sight.
2 Cling to the flying hours, and yet
Let one pure hope, one firm desire,
Like song on dying lips be set—
That ere we fall in scattered fire,
Our hearts may lift the world's heart higher.
3 Here in the autumn months of time,
Before the great new year can break,
Some little way our feet should climb,
Some little mark our words should make
For liberty and manhood's sake.
Edmund Gosse
CHRISTMAS
171 11.10.11.10.
1 "A MERRY Christmas!" how the old words waken
A thrill and throb for many a Christmas fled,
For hopes fulfilled not, that the years have taken,
Into their keeping, like the tears we shed.
2 "A merry Christmas!" Let the happy chorus
Bring a new thrill, new freedom, new delight;
Past pain makes present joy but sweeter for us
E'en as the dawn of morning after night.
3 "A merry Christmas!" Be ye thankful ever
For friendship that is left warm, sure and strong,
For love that fills your hearts with high endeavour;
Live life anew; ye do the past no wrong.
4 "A merry Christmas!" Life has halting-places,
Where ye may pause in all the busy strife
To comfort those whose sorrow-stricken faces
Tell their own story in the book of life.
5 "A merry Christmas!" Peace and love be stealing
O'er spirits answering to the sound of mirth
And sorrow known shall bring the human feeling
That sheds "good-will" and gladness o'er the earth.
Harriet Kendall
FOR THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR
172 L.M.
1 RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night:
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind, to all mankind.
4 Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws, with purer laws.
5 Ring out false pride, in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good, the love of good.
6 Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace, the years of peace.
7 Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be, that is to be!
Tennyson
173 11.1O.11.1O.5.4.(9).12.
1 DAYS past and gone, another year completing,
Days that enriched us, days that made us poor,
Days of our progress, days of our retreating,
Days that have changed the doubtful for the sure;
Days that were joyful, days that were drear,
Come back to memory at the closing of the year.
2 Lives past and gone, but in remembrance dwelling,
Friends in whose eyes we looked awhile ago,
Come to our hearts, in silent language telling
All that your deeds among us used to show;
Friends now departed, friends ever dear,
Stay in our sacred thoughts as year succeds to year.
3 Times past and gone, all full of human striving,
Times that have given all blessings that we own,
Nations have grown and perished in contriving
How what is worthiest should reign alone.
Times of the promise, now dawning clear,
Old times, we bless you in the closing of the year.
C. G. Higginson
THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW
174 10.10.10.12; 6.6.
1 NAY, bury not the past; it is not dead.
Its suns are set, its days and years are gone,
But still it liveth, full of deathless breath.
Its fields are not yet reaped, its harvests not yet done.
Oh, bury not the past,
Let it live on and on.
2 Fruitful in all things good and true and great,
We turn to it, and bid it teach us still;
Teacher and lesson both in one it is.
Oh, seek thou only good, and shun thou only ill!
Oh, bury not, &c.
3 Past years of life, though moving out of sight,
No distance can from memory destroy;
With all your sorrows, all your discipline,
Ye still shall be to me a heritage of joy.
Oh, bury not, &c.
4 And thou, new year, upon whose threshold dim
I plant my silent footsteps tremblingly,
What thou shalt be to me I know not now,
But I shall know ere long, when thou art passed away.
Oh, bury not, &c.
Horatius Bonar
NEW YEAR
175 C.M.
1 ANOTHER year of setting suns,
Of stars by night revealed,
Of springing grass, of tender buds,
By winter's snows concealed.
2 Another year of summer's glow,
Of autumn's golden brown,
Of waving fields, and ruddy fruit
The branches weighing down.
3 Another year of happy work,
That better is than play,
Of simple cares, and love that grows
More sweet from day to day.
4 Another year of baby mirth,
And childhood's blessed ways,
Of thinker's thought and prophet's dream,
And poet's tender lays.
5 Another year at beauty's feast,
At every moment spread;
Of silent hours when grow distinct
The voices of the dead.
6 Another year to follow hard
Where better souls have stood,
Another year of life's delight,
Another year for good!
J. W. Chadwick
DEDICATION
176 8.8.8.8.8.8.
1 TO light, that shines in stars and souls;
To law, that rounds the world with calm;
To love, whose equal triumph rolls
Through martyr's prayer and prophet's psalm;
These walls are wed with unseen bands,
In holier shrines not built with hands.
2 May purer sacrament be here
Than ever dwelt in rite or creed;
Inspired the hour with vow sincere,
To serve the time's all pressing need,
And rear, its heaving seas above,
Strongholds of freedom, folds of love.
3 Here be the wanderer homeward led;
Here living streams in fulness flow;
And every hung'ring soul be fed
That yearns the truer life to know,
And sow, 'mid patient toils and tears,
For harvest in serener years.
Samuel Johnson
WELCOMING OF A CHILD
177 10.10.10.10.
1 HERE let us rest awhile, ere this day dies:
Strong be our inner light, clearer our eyes
What can we give to thee, pure little child?
Must our world sully thee, leave thee defiled?
2 Love we would plant in thee, selfless and pure!
Peace we would promise thee, deep and secure,
Hope for each darkness and strength for each day,
Trust in humanity: these be thy stay.
3 Be our aim steadfast in striving towards worth,
That we may help thee to gladden the earth.—
Duty, our strengthener! Duty, our rest!
Help us to make this new life truly blest!
Should the ceremony take place in the morning the following
may be substituted for the first verse.
1 Frail, unknown blossom! whose petals may hold,
Hid in the heart of thee, sweetness untold,
Rich is the blessing thy young life may give;
How shall we train thee in beauty to live?
E. J. T[roup].
MARRIAGE
178 L.M.
1 COME! let us raise a joyful strain,
For joy, and hope, and purest gain
Are theirs, who here as man and wife
To duty consecrate their life.
2 A perfect love expelleth fear,
It giveth strength and purpose clear;
If self we seek, from love we fall,
For love would fain be lord of all.
3 So may ye live—that love's pure light
May glow and stir in action bright:
May peace and hope their wings unclose
To guard you till the long repose.
E. B. Harrison
179 8.8.8.8.8.8.
1 O HEARTS that love and, yearning, trust
That closer still love's wings may fold
About your home, and ever hold
You to the high, the true, the just—
We lift our hearts with yours this day,
May peace for ever with you stay!
2 Each burden that the years may bear
Is lighter, shared in sympathy,
And joy makes sweetest melody
When fellow-lives are glad and fair;
O let no narrow aim expel
The angels that may with you dwell!
3 As from a fortress calm within
And guarded from the heat of strife,
So may you daily bring to life
The eager aim fresh good to win—
The watchful step, the steady will,
The love of right that conquers ill.
4 And so, in mutual service bound
To service of a wider scope,
May each morn bring you some new hope,
Each evening know some sweetness found
We lift our hearts with yours this day,
May love for ever with you stay!
E. J. T[roup].
LOSS OF FRIENDS
180 7.7.7.7.8.7.
1 WHEN the dumb hour, clothed in black,
Brings the dreams about my bed,
Call me not so often back,
Silent voices of the dead,
Toward the lowland ways behind me,
And the sunlight that is gone!
2 Call me not so often back,
Silent voices of the dead!
Call me rather, silent voices,
Forward to the starry track
Glimmering up the heights beyond me,
On, and always on!
Tennyson
181 10.10.10.10.
1 FROM common burdens no exemption ask,
But in sustaining them best comfort find;
As knowing life has evermore a task
Which must be done, with glad or sorrowing mind.
2 Day follows day, and even so departs,
But duty, life's true star, doth fixed remain;
This be the lesson graven on our hearts,
Which in our sorrow shall bring strength again.
R. C. Trench (altered)
182 L.M.
1 O HAPPY days, O months, O years,
Which ev'n in this dim hour of woe,
'Tis now impossible can show
The print of grief, the stain of tears!
2 O blessed times, which now no more
Exposed to chance or change remain;
Which having been, no after stain
Can dim the brightness that ye wore!
3 Dark shadows of approaching ill,
Fall thick upon life's forward track;
But on its past they stream not back,
What once was bright abides so still.
R. C. Trench
183 8.7.8.7.8.7.
1 FROM the eternal shadow rounding
All unsure and starlight here,
Voices of our lost ones sounding
Bid us be of heart and cheer,
Through the silence, down the spaces,
Falling on the inward ear.
2 Let us draw their mantles o'er us,
Which have fallen in the way,
Let us do the work before us
Calmly, bravely, while we may;
Ere the long night-silence cometh,
And with us it is not day.
John Greenleaf Whittier
184 L.M.
1 I ENVY not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage
That never knew the summer woods:
2 Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth,
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth,
Nor any want-begotten rest.
3 I hold it true, whate'er befall,
I feel it when I sorrow most:
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Tennyson
185 L.M.
1 IF fate love's dear ambition mar,
And load his breast with hopeless pain,
And seem to blot out sun and star—
Love, lost or won, is countless gain.
2 Love's sorrow boasts a secret bliss
Which sorrow of itself beguiles,
And love in tears too noble is
For pity, save of love in smiles.
3 But, looking backward through his tears,
With vision of maturer scope,
How often one dead joy appears
The platform of some better hope!
4 And, let us own, the sharpest smart
Which human patience may endure
Pays light for that which leaves the heart
More generous, dignified and pure.
Coventry Patmore
186 10.10.10.10.10.10.
1 WHAT silences we keep year after year
With those who are most near to us and dear!
We live beside each other day by day,
And speak of myriad things, but seldom say
The full sweet word that lies just in our reach
Beneath the commonplace of common speech.
2 Then out of sight and out of reach they go—
Those close familiar friends who loved us so;
And sitting in the shadow they have left,
Alone with memory, and sore bereft,
We think with vain regret of some fond word
That once we might have said, and they have heard.
3 For weak and poor the love that we expressed
Seems now beside that hidden, unexpressed:
And slight the deeds we did to those undone,
And small the service spent to treasure won,
And undeserved the praise for word or deed
That should have overflowed the simple need.
4 This is the cruel fault of life—to be
Full visioned only when the ministry
Of Death has been fulfilled, and in the place
Of some dear presence is but empty space.
What recollected services can then
Give consolation for the might-have-been?
Nora Perry
BURIAL OF FRIENDS
187 7.7.7.7.
1 CALMLY, calmly lay him down!
He hath fought the noble fight;
He hath battled for the right;
He hath won the unfading crown.
2 Memories, all too bright for tears,
Crowd around us from the past,
Faithful toiled he to the last—
Faithful through unflagging years.
3 All that makes for human good,
Freedom, righteousness and truth,
Objects of aspiring youth,
Firm to age he still pursued.
4 Kind and gentle was his soul,
Yet it glowed with glorious might;
Filling clouded minds with light,
Making wounded spirits whole.
5 Dying, he can never die!
To the dust his dust we give;
In our hearts his heart shall live;
Moving, guiding, working aye.
William Gaskell
188 8.4.8.4.
1 HUSH now! in silence, reverence,
As round the bier
Ye take the last farewell of her
Who slumbers here.
2 The hands that ever moved to bless
Now folded lie:
The feet that trod the ways of love
Rest peacefully.
3 None now may rouse her from her sleep
To joy or pain,
Nor lay the burden of our years
On her again.
4 But all of her is shining peace
Serene and still,
As yonder sunset-fires that crown
That western hill.
5 Darkness for us! but through the gloom
Thrill memories dear,
And starlike rises on our night
A vision clear:
6 More crystal-clear than when in life
Beside us still,
We felt the throbbings of that heart,
The steadfast will.
7 The flame of love-enkindling love
Nought shall abate,
And thus our hearts new-born to Love
Are consecrate.
E. B. Harrison
189 11.10.11.10.
1 BRING snow-white lilies, pallid heart-flushed roses,
Enwreathe her brow with heavy-scented flowers;
In soft, undreaming sleep her head reposes,
While, unregretted, pass the sunlit hours.
2 Look in her face, and lose thy dread of dying;
Weep not, that rest will come, that toil will cease:
Is it not well to lie as she is lying,
In utter silence, and in perfect peace?
3 What though thy name by no sad lips be spoken,
And no fond heart shall keep thy memory green?
Yet thou shalt leave thine own enduring token,
For earth is not as though thou ne'er hadst been.
4 See yon broad current, hasting to the ocean,
Its ripples glorious in the western red:
Each wavelet passes, trackless; yet its motion
Has changed for evermore the river bed.
5 Then shrink no more from Death, though life be gladness,
Nor seek him, restless in thy lonely pain;
The law of joy ordains each hour of sadness,
And firm or frail, thou canst not live in vain.
Constance C. W. Naden
HYMNS AND ANTHEMS
190 8.8.8.12: 8.8.8.6.8.6.
1 THOU who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe,
From vain temptations dost set free,
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity:
Full oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred
The task, in smoother walks to stray,
In smoother walks to stray,
But thee, but thee I now would serve
More strictly if I may.
2 Me this unchartered freedom tires,
I feel the weight of chance desires;
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens
Thro' thee, thro' thee are fresh and strong,
Thro' thee are fresh and strong.
3 To humbler functions, awful Power,
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
O let my weakness, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light, the light
Of truth, thy bondman let me live,
Thy bondman let me live!
Wordsworth
(Selected from the "Ode to Duty".)
191 10.10.10.10.10.10.10.
1 TRUTH is not dumb, that it should speak no more:
If thou hast wand'rings in the wilderness
And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor:
There towers the mountain of the voice no less,
Which whoso seeks shall find; but he who bends
Intent on manna still, and meaner ends,
Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore.
2 Slowly the Bible of the race is writ,
And not on paper leaves, nor leaves of stone;
Each age, each kindred, adds a verse to it,
Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan.
While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud,
While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud,
Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit.
James Russell Lowell
192 8.8.8.8.8.8; 12.12.
IT fortifies my soul to know
That though I perish, Truth is so;
That howsoe'er I stray and range,
Whate'er I do, thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That if I slip, thou dost not fall.
Arthur Hugh Clough
193 L.M.
1 A STORM spread over sea and land;
Harvest and bloom are beaten low,
And many a treasure on the strand
Marks the wild track with loss and woe.
2 Where in the solitude it searched
A child hath hung his one harp string:
The blast to melody is touched,
And sings of blessings it might bring.
3 O heart, my heart, when thy fair life
Darkens, and tempests on thee beat,
To thine own aim subdue their strife,
Win from each storm thy music sweet.
Moncure D. Conway
194 10.10.10.10.10.10.
BE noble, and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead.
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own,
Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes,
Then will pure light about thy path be shed,
And thou wilt never more be sad and lone.
James Russell Lowell
195 10.10.10.10; 10.10.
1 THE wand'ring winds are silent on the sea,
That sleeps in sunlight, smiling in its sleep:
No wavelet stirs the bosom of the deep:
No cloudlet mars the blue immensity.
And yet anon the storm will lash the main,
And dash the azure black with wintry rain.
2 There is no staying peace in outward things,
Yet through them ever moves the unknown will,
From silence into silence touching still
The lyre of nature with its twanging strings.
Thou art a part of the eternal whole;
Live thou true life in restfulness of soul.
J. J. Haldane Burges
196 5.5,5.5.
1 WHERE are last year's snows,
Where the summer rose,—
Who is there who knows?
2 Or the glorious note
Of some singer's throat
Heard in years remote?
3 The snows are sweet spring rain,
The dead rose blooms again,
Young voices keep the strain.
4 Where the love they bore,
Who, in days of yore,
Loved, but are no more?
5 The old affection mild
Still springs up undeflled,
For love and friend and child.
6 Where the faiths men knew,
When, before mind grew,
All strange things seemed true?
7 The old faiths grown more wide,
Purer and glorified,
Are still our lifelong guide.
Lewis Morris
197 [10.10.4.8.10.10.10.9.]
WORSHIP the Might-be in every being.
Worship it hidden, wait not the seeing,
Love shall reveal!
If it be Love besieges the city,
Love, with its angels of reverence and pity,
Lo! the besieged will requite the appeal.
Worship the Might-be in every being,
Wait not the seeing! Love shall reveal.
Grace H. Baker
198
NO good is certain, but the steadfast mind,
The undivided will to seek the good,
'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings
A human music from the indifferent air;
The greatest gift the hero leaves his race
Is to have been a hero. Say we fail,
We feed the high tradition of the world,
And leave our spirits in our children's breasts.
George Eliot
199
FOR me—to have made one soul
The better for my birth
To have added but one flower
To the garden of the earth:
To have struck one blow for truth
In the daily fight with lies:
To have done one deed of right
In the face of calumnies:
To have sown in the souls of men
One thought that will not die—
To have been a link in the chain of life:
Shall be immortality.
Edwin Hatch
THE FUGITIVE IDEAL
200
1 AS some most pure and noble face
Seen in the thronged and hurrying street,
Sheds o'er the world a sudden grace,
A flying odour sweet,
Then, passing, leaves the cheated sense
Baulked with a phantom excellence:
2 So on our souls the visions rise
Of that fair life we never led;
They flash a splendour past our eves,—
We start, and they are fled:
They pass, and leave us with blank gaze
Confronting our ignoble days.
William Watson
IF THOU ART BLEST
201
IF thou art blest,
Then let the sunshine of thy gladness rest
On the dark edge of every cloud that lies
Black in thy brother's skies,
If thou art sad,
Still be thou in thy brother's gladness glad;
Let thy heart share in joy that is not thine,
And love shall round thee twine.
Anon.
SPRING
202 8.8.6.8.8.6.
1 'TIS lovely, 'mid the cloudless skies,
When through the air the swallow flies
And love begins to sing,
By Nature's scenes to muse and think,
And from her bounteous chalice drink
The rapture of the Spring.
2 With forms of beauty all around,
And breezes laden with sweet sound,
By meadows, groves and streams;
And shapes that catch the spirit's sight,
Compact of clouds, and leaves, and light,
The prophets of new dreams.
R. Yates Sturges
[NIGHT]
203 P.M. (6.7.8.8.7.6.)
1 ALL good night! all good night!
Now is labour ended quite.
Now the day is softly closing,
Busy hands from toil reposing,
Till new morning wakes in light;
All good night! all good night!
2 Gently rest! gently rest!
Weary eyelids downward pressed;
Silence lies on field and mountain,
Softly murmur brook and fountain,
Every bird has sought its nest;
Gently rest! gently rest!
3 Softly sleep! softly sleep!
Sleep till morning's dawn doth peep,
Sleep until another morrow
Brings its duty, joy or sorrow;
May no evil near us creep;
Softly sleep! softly sleep!
Anon.
[GODS]
204 6.6.6.6.10.10.
1 "MAKE us a god," said man:
Fear first the voice obeyed;
And soon a monstrous form
Its worshippers dismayed;
Uncouth and huge, by nations rude adored,
With savage rites and sacrifice abhorred.
2 "Make us a god," said man:
Art next the voice obeyed;
Lovely, serene and grand,
Uprose the Athenian maid;
The perfect statue Greece, with wreathèd brows,
Adores in festal rites and iyric vows.
3 "Make us a god," said man:
Then Reason followed Art
And answered, "Look within:
God is in thine own heart—
Within that temple is the holiest shrine:
Silent revere, and be thyself divine."
W. Johnson Fox
FOR A FUNERAL SERVICE
205
WHEN the funeral bell
Tolls for the dead, there's nothing left of all
That decks the scutcheon and the velvet pall,
Save this—the coronet is empty show,
The strength and loveliness are hid below,
The shifting wealth to others hath accrued,
And learning cheers not the grave's solitude.
What's done is what remains. Ah! blessèd they
Who leave completed tasks of love to stay
And answer mutely for them, being dead;
Life was not purposeless, though life be fled.
[Anon.]
OH, MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE
206
OH may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence: live
In pulses stirr'd to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self;
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues. So to live is heaven.
May I reach that purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty;
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible,
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
George Eliot
Page updated 15/2/2020.