Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul Part 11

The chivalry That dares the right and disregards alike The yea and nay o' the world.

--Robert Browning.

G.o.d has his best things for the few Who dare to stand the test; He has his second choice for those Who will not have his best.

Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie; A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.

--George Herbert.

INDEPENDENCE

MANHOOD, FIRMNESS, EARNESTNESS, RESOLUTION

WANTED

G.o.d give us men! A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands; Men whom the l.u.s.t of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor--men who will not lie.

Men who can stand before a demagogue And d.a.m.n his treacherous flatteries without winking; Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty and in private thinking; For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, Their large professions and their little deeds, Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps, Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps.

--Josiah Gilbert Holland.

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

By thine own soul's law learn to live, And if men thwart thee take no heed; And if men hate thee have no care; Sing thou thy song, and do thy deed; Hope thou thy hope, and pray thy prayer, And claim no crown they will not give, Nor bays they grudge thee for thy hair.

Keep thou thy soul-won, steadfast oath, And to thy heart be true thy heart; What thy soul teaches learn to know, And play out thine appointed part, And thou shalt reap as thou shalt sow, Nor helped nor hardened in thy growth, To thy full stature thou shalt grow.

Fix on the future's goal thy face, And let thy feet be lured to stray Nowhither, but be swift to run, And nowhere tarry by the way, Until at last the end is won, And thou mayst look back from thy place And see thy long day's journey done.

--Pakenham Beatty.

LORD OF HIMSELF

How happy is he born and taught That serveth not another's will; Whose armor is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill.

Whose pa.s.sions not his masters are, Whose soul is still prepared for death; Not tied unto the world with care Of public fame or private breath.

Who envies none that chance doth raise, Or vice; who never understood How deepest wounds are given by praise, Nor rules of state but rules of good.

Who hath his life from rumors freed, Whose conscience is his strong retreat; Whose state can neither flatterers feed, Nor ruin make accusers great.

Who G.o.d doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend; And entertains the harmless day With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands, Of hope to rise or fear to fall; Lord of himself, though not of lands, And having nothing, yet hath all.

--Henry Wotton.

High above hate I dwell; O storms, farewell!

UNCONQUERED

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever G.o.ds may be For my unconquerable soul.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid.

In the fell clutch of circ.u.mstance I have not winced nor cried aloud; Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is b.l.o.o.d.y, but unbowed.

It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll; I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

--William Ernest Henley.

RELIGION AND DOCTRINE

He stood before the Sanhedrim: The scowling rabbis gazed at him.

He recked not of their praise or blame; There was no fear, there was no shame, For one upon whose dazzled eyes The whole world poured its vast surprise.

The open heaven was far too near His first day's light too sweet and clear, To let him waste his new-gained ken On the hate-clouded face of men.

But still they questioned, Who art thou?

What hast thou been? What art thou now?

Thou art not he who yesterday Sat here and begged beside the way, For he was blind.

"_And I am he; For I was blind, but now I see._"

He told the story o'er and o'er; It was his full heart's only lore; A prophet on the Sabbath day Had touched his sightless eyes with clay, And made him see who had been blind, Their words pa.s.sed by him like the wind Which raves and howls, but cannot shock The hundred-fathom-rooted rock.

Their threats and fury all went wide; They could not touch his Hebrew pride.

Their sneers at Jesus and his band, Nameless and homeless in the land, Their boasts of Moses and his Lord, All could not change him by one word.

"_I know not what this man may be, Sinner or saint; but as for me One thing I know: that I am he Who once was blind, and now I see._"

They were all doctors of renown, The great men of a famous town With deep brows, wrinkled, broad, and wise Beneath their wide phylacteries; The wisdom of the East was theirs, And honor crowned their silvery hairs.

The man they jeered, and laughed to scorn Was unlearned, poor, and humbly born; But he knew better far than they What came to him that Sabbath day; And what the Christ had done for him He knew, and not the Sanhedrim.

--John Hay.

THE OLD STOIC

Riches I hold in light esteem, And Love I laugh to scorn; And l.u.s.t of fame was but a dream, That vanished with the morn.