Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul. Various
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they, 'mongst those whose names have grown sublime,
Who worked for human liberty are greatest.
—John Boyle O'Reilly.
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It is enough—
Enough—just to be good;
To lift our hearts where they are understood;
To let the thirst for worldly power and place
Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!
—James Whitcomb Riley.
———
He who ascends to mountain tops shall find
Their loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head.
—George Gordon Byron.
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Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
—William Shakespeare.
———
That man may last, but never lives,
Who much receives but nothing gives;
Whom none can love, whom none can thank;
Creation's blot; creation's blank!
But he who marks, from day to day,
In generous acts his radiant way
Treads the same path his Saviour trod:
The path to glory and to God.
———
The eye with seeing is not filled,
The ear with hearing not at rest;
Desire with having is not stilled,
With human praise no heart is blest.
Vanity, then, of vanities,
All things for which men grasp and grope!
The precious things in heavenly eyes
Are love, and truth, and trust, and hope.
———
A gem which falls within the mire will still a gem remain;
Men's eyes turn downward to the earth and search for it with pain.
But dust, though whirled aloft to heaven, continues dust alway,
More base and noxious in the air than when on earth it lay.
—Saadi, tr. by James Freeman Clarke.
———
It was not anything she said;
It was not anything she did;
It was the movement of her head,
The lifting of her lid.
And as she trod her path aright
Power from her very garments stole;
For such is the mysterious might
God grants a noble soul.
———
True worth is in being, not seeming;
In doing, each day that goes by,
Some little good, not in dreaming,
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.
—Alice Cary.
———
The wisest man could ask no more of Fate
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true,
Safe from the Many, honored by the Few;
To count as naught in world of church or state
But inwardly in secret to be great.
—James Russell Lowell.
———
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees it, for the God of Things as they are.
—Rudyard Kipling.
———
In life's small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained; knowest thou when Fate
Thy measure takes? or when she'll say to thee,
"I find thee worthy; do this deed for me"?
—James Russell Lowell.
———
'Tis a lifelong toil till our lump be leaven.
The better! What's come to perfection perishes.
Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven.
Work done least rapidly Art most cherishes.
—Robert Browning.
———
Let come what will, I mean to bear it out,
And either live with glorious victory
Or die with fame, renowned in chivalry.
He is not worthy of the honey-comb
That shuns the hive because the bees have stings.
—William Shakespeare.
———
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.
—Adelaide Anne Procter.
———
Give me heart-touch with all that live
And