Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul

by Unknown

HEROISM

It takes great strength to train

To modern service your ancestral brain;

To lift the weight of the unnumbered years

Of dead men's habits, methods, and ideas;

To hold that back with one hand, and support

With the other the weak steps of the new thought.

It takes great strength to bring your life up square

With your accepted thought and hold it there;

Resisting the inertia that drags back

From new attempts to the old habit's track.

It is so easy to drift back, to sink;

So hard to live abreast of what you think.

It takes great strength to live where you belong

When other people think that you are wrong;

People you love, and who love you, and whose

Approval is a pleasure you would choose.

To bear this pressure and succeed at length

In living your belief—well, it takes strength,

And courage, too. But what does courage mean

Save strength to help you face a pain foreseen?

Courage to undertake this lifelong strain

Of setting yours against your grand-sire's brain;

Dangerous risk of walking lone and free

Out of the easy paths that used to be,

And the fierce pain of hurting those we love

When love meets truth, and truth must ride above.

But the best courage man has ever shown

Is daring to cut loose and think alone.

Dark are the unlit chambers of clear space

Where light shines back from no reflecting face.

Our sun's wide glare, our heaven's shining blue,

We owe to fog and dust they fumble through;

And our rich wisdom that we treasure so

Shines from the thousand things that we don't know.

But to think new—it takes a courage grim

As led Columbus over the world's rim.

To think it cost some courage. And to go—

Try it. It takes every power you know.

It takes great love to stir the human heart

To live beyond the others and apart.

A love that is not shallow, is not small,

Is not for one or two, but for them all.

Love that can wound love for its higher need;

Love that can leave love, though the heart may bleed;

Love that can lose love, family and friend,

Yet steadfastly live, loving, to the end.

A love that asks no answer, that can live

Moved by one burning, deathless force—to give.

Love, strength, and courage; courage, strength, and love.

The heroes of all time are built thereof.

—Charlotte Perkins Stetson.

———

TO TRUTH

O star of truth down shining

Through clouds of doubt and fear,

I ask but 'neath your guidance

My pathway may appear.

However long the journey

How hard soe'er it be,

Though I be lone and weary,

Lead on, I'll follow thee.

I know thy blessed radiance

Can never lead astray,

However ancient custom

May trend some other way.

E'en if through untried deserts,

Or over trackless sea,

Though I be lone and weary,

Lead on, I'll follow thee.

The bleeding feet of martyrs

Thy toilsome road have trod.

But fires of human passion

May light the way to God.

Then, though my feet should falter,

While I thy beams can see,

Though I be lone and weary,

Lead on, I'll follow thee.

Though loving friends forsake me,

Or plead with me in tears—

Though angry foes may threaten

To shake my soul with fears—

Still to my high allegiance

I must not faithless be.

Through life or death, forever,

Lead on, I'll follow thee.

—Minot J. Savage.

———

NOBLESSE OBLIGE

Not ours nobility of this world's giving

Granted by monarchs of some earthly throne;

Not this life only which is worth the living,

Nor honor here worth striving for alone.

Princes are we, and of a line right royal;

Heirs are we of a glorious realm above;

Yet bound to service humble, true, and loyal,

For thus constraineth us our Monarch's love.

And looking to the joy that lies before us,

The crown held out to our once fallen race;

Led by the light that ever shineth o'er us,

Man is restored to nature's noblest place.

Noblesse oblige—(our very watchword be it!)

To raise the fallen from this low estate,

To boldly combat wrong whene'er we see it,

To render good for evil, love for hate.

Noblesse oblige—to deeds of valiant daring

In alien lands which other lords obey,

And into farthest climes our standard bearing,

To lead them captive 'neath our Master's sway.

Noblesse oblige—that, grudging not our treasure,

Nor seeking any portion to withhold,

We freely give it, without stint or measure,

Whate'er it be—our talents, time, or gold.

Noblesse oblige—that, looking upward ever,

We serve our King with courage, faith, and love,

Till, through that grace which can from death deliver,

We claim our noble heritage above!

———

OUR HEROES

The winds that once the Argo bore

Have died by Neptune's ruined shrines,

And her hull is the drift of the deep sea floor,

Though shaped of Pelion's tallest pines.

You may seek her crew in every isle,

Fair in the foam of Ægean seas,

But out of their sleep no charm can wile

Jason and Orpheus and Hercules.

And Priam's voice is heard no more

By windy Illium's sea-built walls;

From the washing wave and the lonely shore

No wail goes up as Hector falls.

On Ida's mount is the shining snow,

But Jove has gone from its brow away,

And red on the plain the poppies grow

Where Greek and Trojan fought that day.

Mother Earth! Are thy heroes dead?

Do they thrill the soul of the years no more?

Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red

All that is left of the brave of yore?

Are there none to fight as Theseus fought,

Far in the young world's misty dawn?

Or teach as the gray-haired Nestor taught?

Mother Earth! Are thy heroes gone?

Gone?—in a nobler form they rise;

Dead?—we may clasp their hands in ours,

And catch the light of their glorious eyes,

And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers.

Whenever a noble deed is done,

There are the souls of our heroes stirred;

Whenever a field for truth is won,

There are our heroes' voices heard.

Their armor rings in a fairer field

Than Greek or Trojan ever trod,

For Freedom's sword is the blade they wield,

And the light above them the smile of God!

So, in his Isle of calm delight,

Jason may dream the years away,

But the heroes live, and the skies are bright,

And the world is a braver world to-day.

—Edna Dean Proctor.

———

The hero is not fed on sweets,

Daily his own heart he eats;

Chambers of the great are jails,

And head winds right for royal sails.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

———

TRIUMPH OF THE MARTYRS

They seemed to die on battle-field,

To die with justice, truth, and law;

The bloody corpse, the broken shield,

Were all that senseless folly saw.

But, like Antæus from the turf,

They sprung refreshed, to strive again,

Where'er the savage and the serf

Rise to the rank of men.

They seemed to die by sword and fire,

Their voices hushed in endless sleep;

Well might the noblest cause expire

Beneath that mangled, smouldering heap;

Yet that wan band, unarmed, defied

The legions of their pagan foes;

And in the truths they testified,

From out the ashes rose.

———

WORTH WHILE

I pray thee, Lord, that when it comes to me

To say if I will follow truth and Thee,

Or choose instead to win, as better worth

My pains, some cloying recompense of earth—

Grant me, great Father, from a hard-fought field,

Forspent and bruised, upon a battered shield,

Home to obscure endurance to be borne

Rather than live my own mean gains to scorn.

—Edward Sandford Martin.

———

WILL

O, well for him whose will is strong!

He suffers, but he will not suffer long;

He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong.

For him nor moves the loud world's random mock,

Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound,

Who seems a promontory of rock,

That, compassed round with turbulent sound,

In middle ocean meets the surging shock,

Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned.

—Alfred Tennyson.

———

NOBLE DEEDS

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,

Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,

Our hearts in glad surprise,

To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls

Into our inmost being rolls,

And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds

Thus help us in our daily needs,

And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low!

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

———

GOD'S HEROES

Not on the gory field of fame

Their noble deeds were done;

Not in the sound of earth's acclaim

Their fadeless crowns were won.

Not from the palaces of kings,

Nor fortune's sunny clime,

Came the great souls, whose life-work flings

Luster o'er earth and time.

For truth with tireless zeal they sought;

In joyless paths they trod—

Heedless of praise or blame they wrought,

And left the rest to God.

The lowliest sphere was not disdained;

Where love could soothe or save,

They went, by fearless faith sustained,

Nor knew their deeds were brave.

The foes with which they waged their strife

Were passion, self, and sin;

The victories that laureled life

Were fought and won within.

Not names in gold emblazoned here,

And great and good confessed,

In Heaven's immortal scroll appear

As noblest and as best.

No sculptured stone in stately temple

Proclaims their rugged lot;

Like Him who was their great example,

This vain world knew them not.

But though their names no poet wove

In deathless song or story,

Their record is inscribed above;

Their wreaths are crowns of glory.

—Edward Hartley Dewart.

———

WORLDLY PLACE

"Even in a palace, life may be led well!"

So spoke the imperial sage, purest of men,

Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den

Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,

Our freedom for a little bread we sell,

And drudge under some foolish master's ken,

Who rates us if we peer outside our pen—

Matched with a palace, is not this a hell?

"Even in a palace!" On his truth sincere,

Who spoke these words no shadow ever came;

And when my ill-schooled spirit is aflame

Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,

I'll stop and say: "There were no succor here!

The aids to noble life are all within."

—Matthew Arnold.

———

THE VICTORY

To do the tasks of life, and be not lost;

To mingle, yet dwell apart;

To be by roughest seas how rudely tossed,

Yet bate no jot of heart;

To hold thy course among the heavenly stars,

Yet dwell upon the earth;

To stand behind Fate's firm-laid prison bars,

Yet win all Freedom's worth.

—Sydney Henry Morse.

———

'Twere sweet indeed to close our eyes

with those we cherish near,

And wafted upward by their sighs soar

to some calmer sphere;

But whether on the scaffold high or

in the battle's van

The fittest place where man can die

is where he dies for man.

—Michael Joseph Barry.

———

A TRUE HERO

(James Braidwood of the London Fire
Brigade; died June, 1861.)

Not at the battle front, writ of in story,

Not in the blazing wreck, steering to glory;

Not while in martyr-pangs soul and flesh sever,

Died he—this Hero now; hero forever.

No pomp poetic crowned, no forms enchained him;

No friends applauding watched, no foes arraigned him;

Death found him there, without grandeur or beauty.

Only an honest man doing his duty;

Just a God-fearing man, simple and lowly,

Constant at kirk and hearth, kindly as holy;

Death found—and touched him with finger in flying—

Lo! he rose up complete—hero undying.

Now all men mourn for him, lovingly raise him,

Up from his life obscure, chronicle, praise him;

Tell his last act; done 'midst peril appalling,

And the last word of cheer from his lips falling;

Follow in multitudes to his grave's portal;

Leave him there, buried in honor immortal.

So many a Hero walks unseen beside us,

Till comes the supreme stroke sent to divide us.

Then the Lord calls his own—like this man, even,

Carried, Elijah-like, fire-winged, to heaven.

—Dinah Maria Mulock Craik.

———

Unless above himself he can

Erect himself, how poor a thing is man.

—Samuel Daniel.

———

BATTLES

Nay, not for place, but for the right,

To make this fair world fairer still—

Or lowly lily of the night,

Or sun topped tower of a hill,

Or high or low, or near or far,

Or dull or keen, or bright or dim,

Or blade of grass, or brightest star—

All, all are but the same to him.

O pity of the strife for place!

O pity of the strife for power!

How scarred, how marred a mountain's face!

How fair the face of a flower!

The blade of grass beneath your feet

The bravest sword—aye, braver far

To do and die in mute defeat

Than bravest conqueror of war!

When I am dead, say this, but this:

"He grasped at no man's blade or shield.

Or banner bore, but helmetless,

Alone, unknown, he held the field;

He held the field, with sabre drawn,

Where God had set him in the fight;

He held the field, fought on and on,

And so fell, fighting for the right!"

—Joaquin Miller.

———

While thus to love he gave his days

In loyal worship, scorning praise,

How spread their lures for him in vain,

Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!

He thought it happier to be dead,

To die for Beauty than live for bread.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

———

Whether we climb, whether we plod,

Space for one task the scant years lend,

To choose some path that leads to God,

And keep it to the end.

—Lizette Woodworth Reese.

———

Bravely to do whate'er the time demands,

Whether with pen or sword, and not to flinch,

This is the task that fits heroic hands;

So are Truth's boundaries widened, inch by inch.

—James Russell Lowell.

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