Our Profession and Other Poems | Page 4

AND FAITH.
Courage and Faith are of heavenly birth,?Though sent down to our lowly earth?To cheer the heart of man;?They are only strong when the human soul?Yields perfect trust and full control?To heaven's benignant plan.
Nature expands when this God-sent pair?Finds a fertile heart that needs the care?Of a messenger divine,?And permits their strength to succor give?That truth may grow and honor live?To yield their fruit benign.

Who gives no sunshine from his soul?Must live in darkness ever,?For Nature scorns to such degree,?She blinds a sordid giver.
But he who scatters noble deeds,?And lives to bless mankind,?Shall see the beauties God reveals?To men with hearts refined.
INCOMPETENCE.
Sometimes our soul within us burns?To see dark Ignorance aspire?To move toward light a mind that yearns?For knowledge that may lift it higher?Upon the royal road of truth,?While every word and act and thought?Betrays an atmosphere so fraught?With lack of common sense and lore,?We plead for some almighty power?To save from such our precious youth.
No ray of truth can ever shine?To beautify and make divine?The heart and mind of anxious soul,?When doubts and fears have full control?Of him who knows he blindly leads.?If human minds and souls and hearts?May not command those who have arts?And power to waken, lead, inspire,?Then knowledge fails of her desire,?And Ignorance on Wisdom feeds.
Let science, art, didactic skill,?Be guided by unyielding will?Born in some earnest, patient one?Whose heart glows like the summer sun?And warms all by its ardent fire;?Whose interest is so intense?It readily itself imprints?Upon the tender minds of youths,?Precepts and scientific truths?Such as their yearning hearts desire.
Then there shall come a brighter day,?When darkness shall to light give way,?And Wisdom on her throne rejoice,?And speak with accent in her voice?That charms and cheers a hungry mind.?Then, students, beauty shall receive?Instead of ashes that deceive,?Their days and nights of earnest toil,?Their struggles by the midnight oil?Give recompense complete, refined.
FACT VERSUS FORM.
As shadows are to material forms,?As mists to the copious shower?As dead calms are to tornado storms?That in tropical region lower?So are educational fallacies?That ignore and decry as naught?The value and power that ever lie?In the scope of original thought.
No smooth device with a soulless form?Should obscure the living thought;?It smothers the mind, destroys the charm?That comes to him who has wrought?To discover new truth, by a truth well known,?On which he may safely build,?Till his mental strength by use has grown?To a giant strong and skilled.
When thought is secure, the reason clear,?And the language to tell is pure,?Abridgement comes like a friend sincere,?For it cannot the mind obscure.?The wasted time on a form-clad task?Steals gems from youth's precious years,?Leaves a wreck on life's shore, we cannot mask?With our sorrows and sighs and tears.
If what we have learned has given no power?To acquire what yet we must learn,?If all our past struggles leave not a dower?To which we may joyously turn?And feel that a strength within us is given?Through efforts already bestowed,?In vain have we lived, in vain have we striven,?Each task is the same weary load.
If task of to-day shall not lighten th' one?May come upon us to-morrow,?It is but a proof our work was ill done,?And bodes to us grief and sorrow.?Ev'ry effort of mind applied aright?Augments the mental perception,?For God aids the brave, and giveth a light?To shine away imperfection.
There's a magic power in a task well done,?There's a charm in solid reason,?There's a mighty force in a victory won,?Which an alert mind will seize on,?And with giant strength that is thus acquired?March on till the fields of science?And the zones of thought wherein man aspired?Shall be won by self-reliance.
INTEREST.
Who has not seen the inert mind,?Bowed down and sore oppressed,?Start into life, and vigor find?At touch of interest?Some sympathetic soul has shown,?By look in kindness given,?Or word whose accent, cadence, tone,?Gave joy akin to heaven?
No emanation from the heart?Has greater power to win,?Than that which lays aside all art?And quietly steps in?To soothe through sympathy, the cares?And sorrows, one by one,?Of timorous soul who scarcely dares?Go forward all alone,
But needs some word of magic power?To give him life and zest,?Some animating heart-given dower?Whose wealth is interest.?Few, few there are who know the force?That dormant lies in many a brain,?Who trace inertia to its source?Or see how mind o'er mind may reign.
MEMORY AND REASON.
Who stores the mind with richest truth?Gathered from sages of all lands,?May toil through days of sunny youth,?And on till Death gives his commands,?But fails to call to him the aid?Of Reason, Judgment, and Good Sense,?Will find himself at last dismayed?At smallness of his consequence.
The choicest gems must polish bear,?And metals must be purged from earth,?Before a lustre they can wear?That tells of their intrinsic worth.?The brain requires friction of thought,?Obtained through contact with the world,?With which may skillfully be wrought?The mental gems research unfurled.
Who builds alone on Memory?Will find he lacks a needed force?To fire and set