Rolling planet, flaming sun, Stand in nobler man complete; Frame the shrine for Godhead meet. Homeward led, the wondering eye In the touch of earth it thrilled; Consecrating art and song, Holy book and pilgrim track, From the sacred limits back,— Life of Ages, richly poured, Love of God, unspent and free, Samuel Johnson [1822-1882] I IN THEE, AND THOU IN ME I AM but clay in thy hands; but thou art the all-loving artist; Passive I lie in thy sight, yet in my selfhood I strive So to embody the life and love thou ever impartest That in my spheres of the finite I may be truly alive. Knowing thou needest this form, as I thy divine inspiration, Knowing thou shapest the clay with a vision and purpose divine, So would I answer each touch of thy hand in its loving creation, That in my conscious life thy power and beauty may shine. Reflecting the noble intent thou hast in forming thy crea tures; Waking from sense into life of the soul, and the image of thee; Working with thee in thy work to model humanity's features Into the likeness of God, myself from myself I would free. One with all human existence, no one above or below me; Lit by thy wisdom and love, as roses are steeped in the morn; Growing from clay to statue, from statue to flesh, till thou know me Wrought into manhood celestial, and in thine image reborn. So in thy love will I trust, bringing me sooner or later Past the dark screen that divides these shows of the finite from thee. Thine, thine only, this warm dear life, O loving Creator! Thine the invisible future, born of the present, must be. Christopher Pearse Cranch [1813-1892] GNOSIS THOUGHT is deeper than all speech, Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught We are spirits clad in veils; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails Heart to heart was never known; Mind with mind did never meet; We are columns left alone Of a temple once complete. Like the stars that gem the sky, What is social company But a babbling summer stream? What our wise philosophy But the glancing of a dream? Only when the sun of love Melts the scattered stars of thought, Only when we live above What the dim-eyed world hath taught, Only when our souls are fed By the fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led Which they never drew from earth, We, like parted drops of rain, Swelling till they meet and run, Shall be all absorbed again, Melting, flowing into one. Christopher Pearse Cranch [1813-1892] THE FUTURE WHAT may we take into the vast Forever? Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor, What can we bear beyond the unknown portal? No gold, no gains Of all our toiling: in the life immortal No hoarded wealth remains, Nor gilds, nor stains. Naked from out that far abyss behind us No word came with our coming, to remind us No hope, no fear. Into the silent, starless Night before us, No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us, No chart, no guide. Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow, Our footsteps fare; The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow His love alone is there, No curse, no care. Edward Rowland Sill [1841-1887] A MIND CONTENT JOG ON, JOG ON" From The Winter's Tale " JOG on, jog on the foot-path way, William Shakespeare [1564-1616] ON A CONTENTED MIND WHEN all is done and said, In the end this shall you find: To deem can be content The sweetest time in all his life The body subject is To fickle Fortune's power, And to a million of mishaps Is casual every hour; And Death in time doth change It to a clod of clay; When as the mind, which is divine, Runs never to decay. Companion none is like Unto the mind alone, For many have been harmed by speech,— Through thinking, few, or none. |