Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul Part 14

If thou _hast_ something, bring thy goods; A fair exchange be thine!

If thou _art_ something, bring thy soul, And interchange with mine.

--Schiller, tr. by Edward Bulwer Lytton.

However others act toward thee, Act thou toward them as seemeth right; And whatsoever others be, Be thou the child of love and light.

This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

--William Shakespeare.

My time is short enough at best, I push right onward while I may; I open to the winds my breast, And walk the way.

--John Vance Cheney.

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves are triumph and defeat.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

It becomes no man to nurse despair, But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms To follow up the worthiest till he die.

--Alfred Tennyson.

GREATNESS

FAME, SUCCESS, PROGRESS, VICTORY

A GREAT MAN

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.

Strong is that man, he only strong, To whose well-ordered will belong, For service and delight, All powers that, in the face of Wrong, Establish Right.

And free is he, and only he, Who, from his tyrant pa.s.sions free, By Fortune undismayed, Hath power upon himself, to be By himself obeyed.

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;

Who holds by everlasting law Which neither chance nor change can flaw, Whose steadfast course is one With whatsoever forces draw The ages on;

Who hath not bowed his honest head To base Occasion; nor, in dread Of Duty, shunned her eye; Nor truckled to loud times; nor wed His heart to a lie;

Nor feared to follow, in the offense Of false opinion, his own sense Of justice unsubdued; Nor shrunk from any consequence Of doing good;

He looks his Angel in the face Without a blush; nor heeds disgrace Whom naught disgraceful done Disgraces. Who knows nothing base Fears nothing known.

Not morseled out from day to day In feverish wishes, nor the prey Of hours that have no plan, His life is whole, to give away To G.o.d and man.

For though he live aloof from ken, The world's unwitnessed denizen, The love within him stirs Abroad, and with the hearts of men His own confers.

The judge upon the justice-seat; The brown-backed beggar in the street; The spinner in the sun; The reapers reaping in the wheat; The wan-cheeked nun

In cloisters cold; the prisoner lean In lightless den, the robed queen; Even the youth who waits, Hiding the knife, to glide unseen Between the gates--

He nothing human alien deems Unto himself, nor disesteems Man's meanest claim upon him.

And where he walks the mere sunbeams Drop blessings on him.

Because they know him Nature's friend, One whom she doth delight to tend With loving kindness ever: Helping and heartening to the end His high endeavor.

--Edward Bulwer Lytton.

FAME AND DUTY

What shall I do lest life in silence pa.s.s?

"And if it do, And never prompt the bray of noisy bra.s.s, What need'st thou rue?

Remember, aye the ocean-deeps are mute-- The shallows roar; Worth is the ocean--fame is but the bruit Along the sh.o.r.e."

What shall I do to be forever known?

"Thy duty ever!"

This did full many who yet slept unknown.

"O never, never!

Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown Whom thou know'st not?

By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown-- Divine their lot."

What shall I do, an heir of endless life?

"Discharge aright The simple dues with which each day is rife, Yea, with thy might.

Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise Will life be fled, While he who ever acts as conscience cries, Shall live, though dead."

--Johann C. F. Schiller.

n.o.bLE LIVES

There are hearts which never falter In the battle for the right; There are ranks which never alter Watching through the darkest night; And the agony of sharing In the fiercest of the strife Only gives a n.o.bler daring, Only makes a grander life.

There are those who never weary Bearing suffering and wrong; Though the way is long and dreary It is vocal with their song, While their spirits in G.o.d's furnace, Bending to His gracious will, Are fas.h.i.+oned in a purer mold By His loving, matchless skill.

There are those whose loving mission 'Tis to bind the bleeding heart; And to teach a calm submission When the pain and sorrow smart.

They are angels, bearing to us Love's rich ministry of peace, While the night is nearing to us When life's bitter trials cease.

There are those who battle slander, Envy, jealousy and hate; Who would rather die than pander To the pa.s.sions of earth's great; No earthly power can ever crush them, They dread not the tyrant's frown; Fear or favor cannot hush them, Nothing bind their spirits down.