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