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