I thank thee, Lord, that I am straight and strong,
With wit to work and hope to keep me brave;
That two score years, unfathomed, still belong
To the allotted life thy bounty gave.
I thank thee that the sight of sunlit lands
And dipping hills, the breath of evening grass—
That wet, dark rocks and flowers in my hands
Can give me daily gladness as I pass.
I thank thee that I love the things of earth—
Ripe fruits and laughter lying down to sleep,
The shine of lighted towns, the graver worth
Of beating human hearts that laugh and weep.
I thank thee that as yet I need not know,
Yet need not fear, the mystery of the end;
But more than all, and though all these should go—
Dear Lord, this on my knees!—I thank thee for my friend.
RUTHLESS TIME.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
(From “Troilus and Cressida.”)
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great sized monster of ingratitudes;
Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour’d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honor bright; to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. Take th’ instant way;
For honor travels in a straight so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast; keep, then, the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue: if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter’d tide, they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;
Or like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O’errun and trampled on.
A DEED AND A WORD.
BY CHARLES MACKAY.
Charles Mackay was born at Perth In 1814. He was, from 1844 to 1847, the editor of the Glasgow Argus, and later of the Illustrated London News. During the civil war he was the New York correspondent for the London Times. He died at London in 1889. Several of his writings are “The Salamandrine, or Love and Immortality,” “Voices from the Crowd,” “Voices from the Mountains,” and “History of the Mormons.”
A little stream had lost its way
Amid the grass and fern;
A passing stranger scooped a well,
Where weary men might turn;
He walled it in, and hung with care
A ladle at the brink;
He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that all might drink.
He passed again, and lo! the well,
By summer never dried,
Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues,
And saved a life beside.
A nameless man, amid a crowd
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and love,
Unstudied, from the heart;
A whisper on the tumult thrown,
A transitory breath—
It raised a brother from the dust,
It saved a soul from death.
O germ! O fount! O word of love!
O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last.