The Foot-Path To Peace

    To be glad of life because it gives
you the chance to love and to work and
to play and to look up at the stars--
to be satisfied with your possessions
but not contented with yourself until
you have made the best of them--
to despise nothing in the world except
falsehood and meanness, and to fear
nothing except cowardice--
to be governed by your admirations
rather than by your disgusts; to covet
nothing that is your neighbor's except
his kindness of heart and gentleness of
manners--
to think seldom of your enemies, often
of your friends, and every day of Christ;
and to spend as much time as you can,
with body and with spirit, in God's out-
of-doors--
these are little guide-posts on the foot-
path to peace.

   ~ Henry Van Dyke

Address to the Ocean

O, lovely in repose! thy summer form
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves
Make music in earth's dark and wind-
    ing caves,
I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,
Marking the sunlight at the evening
    hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters
    teach,--
Eternity--Eternity--and Power.

    ~ Barry Cornwall [excerpt]

The Mountains Are A Lonely Folk

The mountains they are silent folk,
    They stand afar--alone;
And the clouds that kiss their brows
      at night
    Hear neither sigh or groan.
Each bears him in his ordered place
    As soldiers do, and bold and high
They fold their forests round their
      feet
    And bolster up the sky.

    ~ Hamlin Garland
 

Peace

With eager heart and will on fire,
I fought to win my great desire
"Peace shall be mine," I said; but life
Grew bitter in the weary strife.

My soul was tired, and my pride
Was wounded deep: to Heaven I cried,
"God grant me peace or I must die;"
The dumb stars glittered no reply.

Broken at last, I bowed my head,
Forgetting all myself, and said,
"Whatever comes, His will be done;"
And in that moment peace was won.

   ~ Henry Van Dyke

Lord of Power and Love

   Lord of Power and Love! I come, trusting in
Thine almighty strength, and Thine infinite
goodness, to beg from Thee what is wanting in
myself; even that grace which shall help me
such to be, and such to do, as Thou wouldst
have me.

   I will trust Thee, in Whom is everlasting
strength. Be Thou my Helper, to carry me on
beyond my own strength, and to make all that
I think, and speak, and do, acceptable in Thy
sight, through Jesus Christ.  Amen.

   ~ F.B. Meyer, Our Daily Walk; Prayer

The Salutation of the Dawn

Listen to the exhortation of the dawn!
Look to this day! For it is life,
    The very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the varieties
And realities of your existence.
    The bliss of growth,
    The glory of action,
    The splendor of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision;
    But today well lived
Makes every yesterday a dream of
    happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.

       ~ from the Sanskrit

St. Teresa's Book-Mark

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hills

I never loved your plains,
    Your gentle valleys,
Your drowsy country lanes
    And pleached alleys.

I want my hills--the trail
    That scorns the hollow--
Up, up the ragged shale
    Where few will follow.

Up, over wooded crest,
    And mossy boulder,
With strong thigh, heaving chest,
    And swinging shoulder.

So let me hold my way,
    By nothing halted,
Until, at close of day,
    I stand exalted.

High on my hills of dream--
    Dear hills that know me!
And then how fair will seem
    The land below me!

How pure, at vesper-time
    The far bells chiming!
God, give me hills to climb
    And strength for climbing!

    ~ Arthur Guiterman

Something To Do

Thank God every morning when you get up
that you have something to do that day which
must be done, whether you like it or not. Being
forced to work and forced to do your best will
breed in you temperance and self-control, dili-
gence and strength of will, cheerfulness and
content, and a hundred virtues which the idle
never know.

    ~ Charles Kingsley [1819-1875]

Builders

When we build, let us think that we build
forever. Let it not be for present delight nor
for present use alone. Let it be such work as
our descendants will thank us for, and let us
think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time
is to come when those stones will be held
sacred because our hands have touched them,
and that men will say as they look upon the
labor and wrought substance of them, "See!
This our Fathers did for us."

      ~ John Ruskin

Silence

I need not shout my faith. Thrice
     eloquent
   Are quiet trees and the green listen-
     ing sod;
Hushed are the stars, whose power is
   never spent;
   The hills are mute: yet how they
     speak of God!

     ~ Charles Hanson Towne

These Are the Gifts I Ask

     These are the gifts I ask
     Of Thee, Spirit serene:
     Strength for the daily task,
     Courage to face the road,
Good cheer to help me bear the travel-
   ler's load,
And, for the hours of rest that come
   between,
An inward joy in all things heard and
   seen.
     These are the sins I fain
     Would have Thee take away:
     Malice, and cold disdain,
     Hot anger, sullen hate,
Scorn of the lowly, envy of the great,
And discontent that casts a shadow
   gray
On all the brightness of a common day.

     ~ Henry Van Dyke

Ellis Park

Little park that I pass through,
I carry off a piece of you
Every morning hurrying down
To my work-day in the town;
Carry you for country there
To make the city ways more fair.
I take your trees,
And your breeze,
Your greenness,
Your cleanness,
Some of your shade, some of your sky,
Some of your calm as I go by;
Your flowers to trim
The pavements grim;
Your space for room in the jostled street
And grass for carpet to my feet.
Your fountains take and sweet bird calls
To sing me from my office walls.
All that I can see
I carry off with me.

But you never miss my theft,
So much treasure you have left.
As I find you, fresh at morning,
So I find you, home returning--
Nothing lacking from your grace.
All your riches wait in place
For me to borrow
On the morrow.

Do you hear this praise of you,
Little park that I pass through?

    ~  Helen Hoyt

Needs

I want a little house
   Upon a little hill,
With lilacs laughing at the door
   When afternoons are still.

I want an apple tree
   Laden with drifts of bloom;
I want blue china all about
   In every little room.

I want a little path
   Bordered with brilliant phlox,
And on each windowsill I want
   A painted flower box.

And then--I want you there
   In sun, and frost, and rain,
To smile when I come trudging home
   Through a dim, scented lane.

For what's a little house
   Upon a little hill,
Unless you light the fire for me
   When nights are strangely still?

     ~ Charles Hanson Towne

Song of the Rabbits Outside the Tavern

We who play under the pines,
We who dance in the snow
That shines blue in the light of the
      moon
Sometimes halt as we go,
Stand with our ears erect,
Our noses testing the air,
To gaze at the golden world
Behind the windows there.

Suns they have in a cave,
And stars each on a tall white stem
And the thought of fox or of owl
Seems never to bother them.
They laugh and eat and are warm,
Their food is ready at hand
While hungry out in the cold
We little rabbits stand.

But they never dance as we dance
They have not the speed nor the grace,
We scorn both the cat and the dog
Who lie by their fireplace,
We scorn them, licking their paws
Their eyes on an upraised spoon--
We who dance hungry and wild
Under a winter's moon!

       ~ Elizabeth Coatsworth

The Mustang

A darkened hill, and a crimson West,
   And silhouetted against the light
A black mustang on a tawny crest
   Rears aloft in a sudden fright.

Startled perhaps by a coyote's cry,
   Or a scent on the wind; a moment
      there
He is a marble chiseled on the sky;
   He is a motion captured on the air.

Sinewed power and strength and grace,
   And wild, wild beauty, and the hill
Is only a canvas on whose face
   An upreared muscled form stands
      still.

A moment only, and then a hand
   Has swept the canvas clean, to leave
A lonely barren space, a hush--
   And something lost for which I
      grieve.

       ~ Grace Noll Crowell

          

Leisure

What is this life, if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare,

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass,

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

        ~ W. H. Davies

All Men Are Pioneers

All men are pioneers inside their hearts.
They are forever seeking wilderness.
Behind strong teams they ride in hooded carts,
Avid for life, and masterless.

They would take their women west or north,
They would invade a country terrible with peril,
They would eternally be riding forth
Out of the cities they have found so sterile.

In their hearts they are forever cutting clover,
They are forever drawing water from a well.
In their dreams they are observing, over and over,
The ground they would clear, the forests they would fell.

They are dreaming of lands uncivilized that sprawl
Unfound, or unimagined or forgot. . .
Knowing they will not leave the town at all,
As like as not.

       ~ Lionel Wiggam

The Bird Let Loose

The bird let loose in eastern skies,
   When hastening fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
   Where idle warblers roam;
But high she shoots through air and
       light,
   Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her
       flight,
   Nor shadow dims her way.

So grant me, God, from every care
   And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through Virtue's purer air,
   To hold my course to Thee!
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay
   My soul, as home she springs;--
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
   Thy freedom in her wings!

        ~ Thomas Moore

Beautiful Thoughts

The thought that is beautiful is the thought
to cherish. The word that is beautiful is
worthy to endure. The act that is beautiful
is eternally and always true and right. Only
beware that your appreciation of beauty is
just and true; and to that end, I urge you to
live intimately with beauty of the highest
type, until it has become a part of you,
until you have within you that fineness,
that order, that calm, which puts you in
tune with the finest things of the universe,
and which links you with that spirit that is
the enduring life of the world.

        ~ Bertha Bailey

Victory

Ye that have faith to look with fearless eyes
    Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife,
And know that out of death and night shall rise
    The dawn of ampler life:
Rejoice, whatever anguish rend the heart,
    That God has given you the priceless dower
To live in these great times and have your part
    In Freedom's crowning hour,
That ye may tell your sons who see the light
    High in the heavens--their heritage to take--
"I saw the powers of darkness take their flight;
    I saw the morning break."

            ~ Owen Seaman

Letter to Saint Peter

Let them in, Peter, they are very tired;
Give them the couches where the angels sleep.
Let them wake whole again to new dawns fired
With sun, not war. And may their peace be deep.
Remember where the broken bodies lie . . .
And give them things they like. Let them have noise.
God knows how young they were to have to die!
Give swing bands, not gold harps, to these our boys.
Let them love, Peter--they have had no time--
Girls sweet as meadow wind, with flowering hair. . .
They should have trees and bird song, hills to climb--
The taste of summer in a ripened pear.
Tell them how they are missed. Say not to fear;
It's going to be all right with us down here.

                 ~ Elma Dean

The Little Spring Flows Clear Again

The little spring flows clear again
    While I stand watching close to see
What clouded it. If wings were here
    To splash the silver merrily
They flew before I came too near.

And if a fawn had rubbed its nose,
    Thrust deep in silver running cool,
Upon the bottom of the spring,
    It heard me wading in the pool
Of shadow where the thrushes sing.

The little spring flows clear again,
    But now is clouded in my mind
The flight of wings that went away--
    And something that I came to find
Was loveliness afraid to stay.

     ~ Glenn Ward Dresbach

Every Child

Every child should know a hill,
And the clean joy of running down its
       long slope
With the wind in his hair.
He should know a tree--
The comfort of its cool lap of shade,
And the supple strength of its arms
Balancing him between earth and sky
So he is the creature of both.
He should know bits of singing water--
The strange mysteries of its depths,
And the long sweet grasses that
       border it.
Every child should know some scrap
Of uninterrupted sky, to shout against;
And have one star, dependable
       and bright,
For wishing on.

       ~ Edna Casler Joll

Old Ships

There is a memory stays upon old ships,
   A weightless cargo in the musty hold,--
Of bright lagoons and prow-caressing lips,
   Of stormy midnights,--and a tale untold.
They have remembered islands in the dawn,
   And windy capes that tried their slender spars,
And tortuous channels where their keels have gone,
   And calm blue nights of stillness and the stars.
Oh, never think that ships forget a shore,
   Or bitter seas, or winds that made them wise;
There is a dream upon them, evermore;
   And there be some who say that sunk ships rise
To seek familiar harbors in the night,
   Blowing in mists, their spectral sails like light.

                                           ~ David Morton

For Transient Things

Let us thank God for unfulfilled desire,
For beauty that escapes our clutch and flies;
Let us thank God for loveliness that dies,
For violet leapings of a dying fire,
For ebbing lives and seas, the fading choir
Of quiet stars, the momentary guise
That love assumes within a lover's eyes
Before it fades with other things that tire.
Better that beauty wear into the night
An inky garment of uncandled hours
Than stay forever robed in festal white,
And so, familiar grown, like flowers
One counts as common weeds, begin to pall--
Better that beauty should not be at all.

                          ~ James A.S. McPeek

Sometimes

SOMETIMES, looking deep into the eyes of a child,
you are conscious of meeting a glance full of wisdom.
The child has known nothing yet but love and beauty--
all this piled-up world knowledge you have acquired
is unguessed at by him. And yet you meet this wonder-
ful look that tells you in a moment more than all the
years of experience have seemed to teach.

                                     ~ Hildegarde Hawthorne

These I've Loved

These I've loved since I was little:
Wood to build with or to whittle,
Wind in the grass and falling rain,
First leaves along an April lane,
Yellow flowers, cloudy weather,
River-bottom smell, old leather,
Fields newly plowed, young corn in
       rows,
Back-country roads and cawing crows,
Stone walls with stiles going over,
Daisies, Queen Anne's lace, and clover,
Night tunes of crickets, frog songs, too,
Starched cotton cloth, the color blue,
Bells that ring from white church
       steeple,
Friendly dogs and friendly people.

            ~ Elizabeth-Ellen Long