Poems of Sentiment | Page 7

great lever, Will.
However deeply bedded in propensity,?However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet
Is that vast power that comes from Truth's immensity.
Thou art a part of that strange world, I say.
Its forces lie within thee, stronger far?Than all thy mortal sins and frailties are,?Believe thyself divine, and watch, and pray.
There is no noble height thou canst not climb.
All triumphs may be thine in Time's futurity,?If whatso'er thy fault, thou dost not faint or halt,
But lean upon the staff of God's security.
Earth has no claim the soul can not contest.
Know thyself part of that Eternal Source,?And naught can stand before thy spirit's force.?The soul's divine inheritance is best.
INSIGHT
On the river of life, as I float along,
I see with the spirit's sight?That many a nauseous weed of wrong
Has root in a seed of right.?For evil is good that has gone astray,
And sorrow is only blindness,?And the world is always under the sway
Of a changeless law of kindness.
The commonest error a truth can make
Is shouting its sweet voice hoarse,?And sin is only the soul's mistake
In misdirecting its force.?And love, the fairest of all fair things
That ever to man descended,?Grows rank with nettles and poisonous things
Unless it is watched and tended.
There could not be anything better than this
Old world in the way it began;?And though some matters have gone amiss
From the great original plan,?And however dark the skies may appear,
And however souls may blunder,?I tell you it all will work out clear,
For good lies over and under.
A WOMAN'S LOVE
So vast the tide of love within me surging,
It overflows like some stupendous sea,?The confines of the Present and To-be;?And 'gainst the Past's high wall I feel it urging,
As it would cry, "Thou, too, shalt yield to me!"
All other loves my supreme love embodies;
I would be she on whose soft bosom nursed?Thy clinging infant lips to quench their thirst;?She who trod close to hidden worlds where God is,
That she might have, and hold, and see thee first.
I would be she who stirred the vague, fond fancies
Of thy still childish heart; who through bright days?Went sporting with thee in the old-time plays,?And caught the sunlight of thy boyish glances
In half-forgotten and long-buried Mays.
Forth to the end, and back to the beginning,
My love would send its inundating tide,?Wherein all landmarks of thy past should hide.?If thy life's lesson MUST be learned through sinning,
My grieving virtue would become thy guide.
For I would share the burden of thy errors,
So when the sun of our brief life had set,?If thou didst walk in darkness and regret,?E'en in that shadowy world of nameless terrors,
My soul and thine should be companions yet.
And I would cross with thee those troubled oceans
Of dark remorse whose waters are despair:?All things my jealous, reckless love would dare,?So that thou mightst not recollect emotions
In which it did not have a part and share.
There is no limit to my love's full measure,
It's spirit-gold is shaped by earth's alloy;?I would be friend and mother, mate and toy,?I'd have thee look to me for every pleasure,
And in me find all memories of joy.
Yet though I love thee in such selfish fashion,
I would wait on thee, sitting at thy feet,?And serving thee, if thou didst deem it meet.?And couldst thou give me one fond hour of passion,
I'd take that hour and call my life complete.
THE PAEAN OF PEACE
With ever some wrong to be righting,
With self ever seeking for place,?The world has been striving and fighting
Since man was evolved out of space.?Bold history into dark regions
His torchlight has fearlessly cast,?He shows us tribes warring in legions,
In jungles of ages long passed.
Religion, forgetting her station,
Forgetting her birthright from God,?Set nation to warring with nation
And scattered dissension abroad.?Dear creeds have made men kill each other,
Fair faith has bred hate and despair,?And brother has battled with brother
Because of a difference in prayer.
But earth has grown wiser and kinder,
For man is evolving a soul:?From wars of an age that was blinder,
We rise to a peace-girdled goal.?Where once men would murder in treason
And slaughter each other in hordes,?They now meet together and reason,
With thoughts for their weapons, not swords.
The brute in humanity dwindles
And lessens as time speeds along,?And the spark of Divinity kindles
And blazes up brightly and strong.?The seer can behold in the distance
The race that shall people the world -?Strong men of a godlike existence
Unarmed, and with war banners furled.
No longer the bloodthirsty savage
Man's vast spirit strength shall unfold;?And tales of red warfare and ravage
Shall seem like ghost stories of old.?For the booming of guns and the rattle
Of carnage and conflict shall cease,?And the bugle-call, leading to battle,
Shall change to a paean of peace.
"HAS BEEN"
That melancholy phrase "It might have been,"
However sad, doth in its heart enfold?A hidden germ of promise! for I hold?WHATEVER MIGHT HAVE BEEN SHALL BE.
Though in?Some other realm and life, the soul must win
The goal that erst was possible. But cold?And cruel as