DAILY THOUGHTS
Selected from the Writings
of
CHARLES KINGSLEY
BY HIS WIFE
second edition
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1885
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.
This little Volume, selected from the MS. Note-books, Sermons and Private Letters, as well as from the published Works of my Husband, is dedicated to our children, and to all who feel the blessing of his influence on their daily life and thought.
F. E. K.
July 10, 1884.
January.
Welcome, wild North-easter!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr:
Ne’er a verse to thee.
. . . . .
Tired we are of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming
Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter
Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild-fowl;
Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir forest
Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snow-flakes
Off the curdled sky.
. . . . .
Come; and strong within us
Stir the Viking’s blood;
Bracing brain and sinew:
Blow, thou wind of God!
Ode to North-east Wind.
New Year’s Day. January 1. [3]
Gather you, gather you, angels of God—
Freedom and Mercy and Truth;
Come! for the earth is grown coward and old;
Come down and renew us her youth.
Wisdom, Self-sacrifice, Daring, and Love,
Haste to the battlefield, stoop from above,
To the day of the Lord at hand!
The Day of the Lord. 1847.