E'en so-but why the tale reveal Of those, whom year by year unchanged, Astounded, soul from soul estranged? At dead of night their sails were filled, To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, But O blithe breeze! and O great seas, One port, methought, alike they sought, "WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING" (From the same) It fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so: SAY NOT, THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH (From the same) Say not, the struggle nought availeth, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, And not by eastern windows only, Where daylight comes, comes in the light, In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright. THE STREAM OF LIFE (From the same) O stream descending to the sea, In garden plots the children play, O life descending unto death, Strong purposes our minds possess, We toil and earn, we seek and learn, O end to which our currents tend, To which we flow, what do we know, A roar we hear upon thy shore, Scarce we divine a sun will shine James Thomson 1834-1882 (From Sunday up the River, written 1865) Give a man a horse he can ride, Give a man a boat he can sail; And his rank and wealth, his strength and health On sea nor shore shall fail. Give a man a pipe he can smoke, Give a man a book he can read; Give a man a girl he can love, As I, O my Love, love thee; And his hand is great with the pulse of Fate, (From Sunday at Hampstead, written 1863-1865) O mellow moonlight warm, Weave round my Love a charm; O countless, starry eyes Shield her within thy might: How my heart shrinks with fear, Frederic William Henry Myers 1843-1901 THE INNER LIGHT (From Saint Paul, 1867) Lo, if some pen should write upon your rafter MENE and MENE in the folds of flame, Think you could any memories thereafter Wholly retrace the couplet as it came? Lo, if some strange intelligible thunder Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing, Whoso has felt the Spirit of the Highest Cannot confound nor doubt Him nor deny: Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I. Rather the earth shall doubt when her retrieving Ay, though thou then shouldst strike him from his glory Blind and tormented, madden'd and alone, Even on the cross would he maintain his story, Henry Austin Dobson 1840 A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL (From Old World Idylls, 1883) He lived in that past Georgian day, He held some land, and dwelt thereon,— |