For she is so ungentle in her way That no host welcomes her or bids her stay; From THE ORDEAL BY FIRE EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN Thou, who dost feel Life's vessel strand Be strong and wait! nor let the strife, Anon thou shalt regain the shore, And walk-though naked, maimed, and sore— No lesser grief shall work thee ill; Of woes thy soul hath drunk its fill. Tempests that beat us to the clay, The fire, that every hope consumes, Roses of asbestos do we wear; The flame leaps backward everywhere. THE CELESTIAL SURGEON If I have faltered more or less, A WANDERER'S LITANY ARTHUR STRINGER When my life has enough of love, and my spirit enough of mirth, When the ocean no longer beckons me, when the roadway calls no more, Oh, on the anvil of Thy wrath, remake me, God, that day! When the lash of the wave bewilders, and I shrink from the sting of the rain, When I hate the gloom of Thy steel-gray wastes, and slink to the lamp-lit shore. Oh, purge me in Thy primal fires, and fling me on my way! When I house me close in a twilit inn, when I brood by a dying fire, When I kennel and cringe with fat content, where a pillow and loaf are sure, Oh, on the anvil of Thy wrath, remake me, God, that day! When I quail at the snow on the uplands, when I crawl from the glare of the sun, When the trails that are lone invite me not, and the half-way lamps allure, Oh, purge me in Thy primal fires, and fling me on my way! When the wine has all ebbed from an April, when the Autumn of life forgets, The call and the lure of the widening West, the wind in the straining rope, Oh, on the anvil of Thy wrath, remake me, God, that day! When I awaken to hear adventures strange throng valiantly forth by night, To the sting of the salt-spume dust of the plain, and width of the western slope, Oh, purge me in Thy primal fires and fling me on my way! When swarthy and careless and grim they throng out under my rose-grown sash, And I-I bide me there by the coals, and I know not heat nor hope, Then, on the anvil of Thy wrath, remake me, God, that day! IF ALL THE SKIES HENRY VAN DYKE If all the skies were sunshine, If all the world were music, Our hearts would often long If life were always merry, PISGAH WILLARD WATTLES By every ebb of the river-side Through desert sand I stumbling pass THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER To weary hearts, to mourning homes There's quiet in the angel's glance, C. BRAVERY IS ITS OWN CONSOLATION THE INEVITABLE SARAH K. BOLTON I like the man who faces what he must Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear, Nor loses faith in man; but does his best, But, with a smile and words of hope, gives zest Who by a life heroic conquers fate. COURAGE STOPFORD BROOKE Oft, as we run the weary way We deem our sorrows are unknown, Faithless and blind! We cannot trace Beyond our senses' ken; The mighty cloud of all who died |