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For she is so ungentle in her way

That no host welcomes her or bids her stay;
Yet, though men bolt and bar their house from thee,
To every door, O Pain, thou hast a key!

From THE ORDEAL BY FIRE

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

Thou, who dost feel Life's vessel strand
Full length upon the shining sand,
And hearest breakers close at hand,

Be strong and wait! nor let the strife,
With which the winds and waves are rife,
Disturb the sacred inner life:

Anon thou shalt regain the shore,

And walk-though naked, maimed, and sore—
A nobler being than before!

No lesser grief shall work thee ill;
No malice shall have power to kill:

Of woes thy soul hath drunk its fill.

Tempests that beat us to the clay,
Drive many a lowering cloud away,
And bring a clearer, holier day.

The fire, that every hope consumes,
Either the inmost soul entombs,
Or evermore the face illumes!

Roses of asbestos do we wear;
Before the memories we bear,

The flame leaps backward everywhere.

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

If I have faltered more or less,
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain :-
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake!
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose Thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin
And to my dead heart run them in!

A WANDERER'S LITANY

ARTHUR STRINGER

When my life has enough of love, and my spirit enough of mirth,

When the ocean no longer beckons me, when the roadway calls

no more,

Oh, on the anvil of Thy wrath, remake me, God, that day!

When the lash of the wave bewilders, and I shrink from the sting of the rain,

When I hate the gloom of Thy steel-gray wastes, and slink to the lamp-lit shore.

Oh, purge me in Thy primal fires, and fling me on my way!

When I house me close in a twilit inn, when I brood by a dying fire,

When I kennel and cringe with fat content, where a pillow and loaf are sure,

Oh, on the anvil of Thy wrath, remake me, God, that day!

When I quail at the snow on the uplands, when I crawl from the glare of the sun,

When the trails that are lone invite me not, and the half-way lamps allure,

Oh, purge me in Thy primal fires, and fling me on my way!

When the wine has all ebbed from an April, when the Autumn of life forgets,

The call and the lure of the widening West, the wind in the straining rope,

Oh, on the anvil of Thy wrath, remake me, God, that day!

When I awaken to hear adventures strange throng valiantly forth by night,

To the sting of the salt-spume dust of the plain, and width of the western slope,

Oh, purge me in Thy primal fires and fling me on my way!

When swarthy and careless and grim they throng out under my rose-grown sash,

And I-I bide me there by the coals, and I know not heat nor hope,

Then, on the anvil of Thy wrath, remake me, God, that day!

IF ALL THE SKIES

HENRY VAN DYKE

If all the skies were sunshine,
Our faces would be fain
To feel once more upon them
The cooling plash of rain.

If all the world were music,

Our hearts would often long
For one sweet strain of silence,
To break the endless song.

If life were always merry,
Our souls would seek relief,
And rest from weary laughter
In the quiet arms of grief.

PISGAH

WILLARD WATTLES

By every ebb of the river-side
My heart to God hath daily cried;
By every shining shingle-bar
I found the pathway of a star;
By every dizzy mountain height
He touches me for cleaner sight.
As Moses' face hath shined to see
His intimate divinity;

Through desert sand I stumbling pass
To death's cool plot of friendly grass,
Knowing each painful step I trod
Hath brought me daily home to God.

THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

To weary hearts, to mourning homes
God's meekest angel gently comes:
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet in tenderest love, our dear
And Heavenly Father sends him here.

There's quiet in the angel's glance,
There's rest in his still countenance !
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure.

C. BRAVERY IS ITS OWN CONSOLATION

THE INEVITABLE

SARAH K. BOLTON

I like the man who faces what he must
With step triumphant and a heart of cheer;
Who fights the daily battle without fear;
Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust
That God is God,-that somehow, true and just
His plans work out for mortals; not a tear

Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear,
Falls from his grasp-better, with love, a crust
Than loving in dishonor; envies not,

Nor loses faith in man; but does his best,
Nor ever murmurs at his humbler lot;

But, with a smile and words of hope, gives zest
To every toiler. He alone is great

Who by a life heroic conquers fate.

COURAGE

STOPFORD BROOKE

Oft, as we run the weary way
That leads thro' shadows unto day,
With trial sore amazed,

We deem our sorrows are unknown,
Our battle joined and fought alone,
Our victory unpraised.

Faithless and blind! We cannot trace
The witnesses above our race,

Beyond our senses' ken;

The mighty cloud of all who died
With faithful rapture, humble pride,
For love of God and man..

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