| All are architects of Fate, |
| Working in these walls of Time; |
| Some with massive deeds and great, |
| Some with ornaments of rhyme. |
| |
| Nothing useless is, or low; |
| Each thing in its place is best; |
| And what seems but idle show |
| Strengthens and supports the rest. |
| |
| For the structure that we raise, |
| Time is with materials filled; |
| Our to-days and yesterdays |
| Are the blocks with which we build. |
| |
| Truly shape and fashion these; |
| Leave no yawning gaps between; |
| Think not, because no man sees, |
| Such things will remain unseen. |
| |
| In the elder days of Art, |
| Builders wrought with greatest care |
| Each minute and unseen part; |
| For the Gods see everywhere. |
| |
| Let us do our work as well, |
| Both the unseen and the seen! |
| Make the house, where Gods may dwell, |
| Beautiful, entire, and clean. |
| |
| Else our lives are incomplete, |
| Standing in these walls of Time, |
| Broken stairways, where the feet |
| Stumble as they seek to climb. |
| |
| Build to-day, then, strong and sure, |
| With a firm and ample base; |
| And ascending and secure |
| Shall to-morrow find its place. |
| |
| Thus alone can we attain |
| To those turrets, where the eye |
| Sees the world as one vast plain, |
| And one boundless reach of sky. |
| |
| Henry W. Longfellow. |
| There's a merry brown thrush sitting up in the tree, |
| He's singing to me! He's singing to me! |
| And what does he say, little girl, little boy? |
| "Oh, the world's running over with joy! |
| Don't you hear? don't you see? |
| Hush! Look! In my tree, |
| I'm as happy as happy can be!" |
| |
| And the brown thrush keeps singing, "A nest do you see, |
| And five eggs hid by me in the juniper tree? |
| Don't meddle! don't touch! little girl, little boy, |
| Or the world will lose some of its joy! |
| Now I'm glad! now I'm free! |
| And I always shall be, |
| If you never bring sorrow to me." |
| |
| So the merry brown thrush sings away in the tree, |
| To you and to me, to you and to me; |
| And he sings all the day, little girl, little boy, |
| "Oh, the world's running over with joy; |
| But long it won't be, |
| Don't you know? don't you see? |
| Unless we are as good as can be!" |
| |
| Lucy Larcom. |
| The quality of mercy is not strain'd. |
| It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven |
| Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless'd: |
| It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. |
| 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes |
| The throned monarch better than his crown. |
| His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, |
| The attribute to awe and majesty, |
| Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; |
| But mercy is above this sceptred sway; |
| It is enthroned in the hearts of kings; |
| It is an attribute to God himself; |
| And earthly power doth then show likest God's |
| When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, |
| Though justice be thy plea, consider this, |
| That, in the course of justice, none of us |
| Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; |
| And that same prayer doth teach us all to render |
| The deeds of mercy. |
| |
| William Shakespeare. |