Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul Part 141

The lily's lips are pure and white without a touch of fire; The rose's heart is warm and red and sweetened with desire.

In earth's broad fields of deathless bloom the gladdest lives are those Whose thoughts are as the lily and whose love is like the rose.

--Nixon Waterman.

We shape ourselves the joy or fear Of which the coming life is made, And fill our future's atmosphere With sunshine or with shade.

The tissue of the life to be We weave with colors all our own, And in the field of destiny We reap as we have sown.

--John Greenleaf Whittier.

THE ROUND OF THE WHEEL

The miller feeds the mill, and the mill the miller; So death feeds life, and life, too, feeds its killer.

--John Sterling.

If I were dead I think that you would come And look upon me, cold and white, and say, "Poor child! I'm sorry you have gone away."

But just because my body has to live Through hopeless years, you do not come and say, "Dear child, I'm glad that you are here to-day."

Who heeds not experience, trust him not; tell him The scope of our mind can but trifles achieve; The weakest who draws from the mine will excel him-- The wealth of mankind is the wisdom they leave.

--John Boyle O'Reilly.

A pious friend one day of Rabia asked How she had learned the truth of Allah wholly; By what instructions was her memory tasked?

How was her heart estranged from the world's folly?

She answered, "Thou who knowest G.o.d in parts Thy spirit's moods and processes canst tell: I only know that in my heart of hearts I have despised myself and loved him well."

There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

--William Shakespeare.

THE DESERT'S USE

Why wakes not life the desert bare and lone?

To show what all would be if she were gone.

--John Sterling.

So live that, when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry slave at night Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.

--William Cullen Bryant.

The time is short.

If thou wouldst work for G.o.d it must be now.

If thou wouldst win the garlands for thy brow, Redeem the time.

I sometimes feel the thread of life is slender; And soon with me the labor will be wrought; Then grows my heart to other hearts more tender; The time is short.

The man who idly sits and thinks May sow a n.o.bler crop than corn; For thoughts are seeds of future deeds, And when G.o.d thought, the world was born.

--George John Romanes.

Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught.

--Christopher Pea.r.s.e Cranch.

That thou mayst injure no man dovelike be, And serpentlike that none may injure thee.

The poem hangs on the berry bush When comes the poet's eye.

The street begins to masquerade When Shakespeare pa.s.ses by.

--William C. Gannett.

Be thou a poor man and a just And thou mayest live without alarm; For leave the good man Satan must, The poor the Sultan will not harm.

--From the Persian.

Diving, and finding no pearls in the sea, Blame not the ocean; the fault is in thee!

--From the Persian.

All habits gather by unseen degrees; As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

--John Dryden.

Habits are soon a.s.sumed, but when we strive To strip them off 'tis being flayed alive.

--William Cowper.