Univ. of 111. Library 
 51 
 
 1762 
 
A SENTIMENT 
 IN VERSE 
 
 For Every Day in the Year 
 
 Compiled by 
 
 WALTER L. SHELDON 
 
 Lecturer of the Ethical Society 
 of St. Louis 
 
 J 
 
 Btbical lear JSoofi fllo. 1 1 
 
 S. BURNS WESTON 
 Publisher 
 
 1415 Locust St., Philadelphia, Pa. 
 igo6 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/sentimentinverseOOshel 
 
A# s 
 
 Pr ef atory Note. 
 
 In issuing this little volume the one who has made the collec- 
 tion feels as if he were parting with something out of his own life. 
 He has hesitated long in regard to the matter and now takes the 
 step with much reluctance. He began making the compilation 
 already in his High School days, over thirty years ago. It is still 
 growing and will probably continue to do so. From this material 
 he has been accustomed to make his selections for closing read- 
 ings, following his discourses given under the auspices of the 
 Ethical Society in St. Louis, on Sunday mornings. A strong de- 
 sire has been expressed many times by those present on such 
 occasions to have a collection of this kind. He has thought best 
 therefore to yield to the wish — although the material thus brought 
 together had been compiled wholly for himself and with no 
 thought of the outside public. The selections are meant as uplifts 
 for the spirit. Those who would expect merely to read the 
 volume through and then lay it aside, had better let it alone alto- 
 gether. It is not intended for miscellaneous perusal. The collec- 
 tion is designed rather for those who would like to have Scrip- 
 tures in verse, which they might commit to memory and preserve 
 . for a life time. The volume therefore is adapted only for a spec- 
 ial class of persons, and the compiler hopes that just these per- 
 sons may find it and know how to value it. He trusts that some 
 «*/ will be inclined to commit all the selections to memory and know 
 ^“them by heart. Only in this way will the book serve its true pur- 
 J;pose. This is not a “calendar,” to be read and discarded at the 
 end of a year. Some families, however, may perhaps like to use 
 it for readings once a day at the dinner table as a kind of “grace 
 "^before meat.” In that case it is urged very strongly that each 
 6 selection always be read twice. One must first get the sense, and 
 / then hear the lines a second time in order to be able to appreciate 
 the sentiment and the music without any strain or effort. As for 
 the “Nature” thread which appears repeatedly, there may be some 
 rf who feel that in the cramped conditions of city life this would 
 jHiave no meaning for them. But they are to be reminded that 
 
 3 iii 
 
from the standpoint of the poet, the flowers growing in their gar- 
 dens, the dandelion by the wayside, the grass springing up along 
 the pavements, the trees standing in the parks — these are all 
 “Nature; ” quite as much as big lakes, thick forests or high moun- 
 tains. Wlords worth can be enjoyed even by those who never get 
 more than a few miles outside the city limits. Ethical piety may 
 also include the cosmic element. As for the religious terms ap- 
 pearing in the selections, it has to be remembered that these are 
 always far more elastic in their meaning when voiced in the music 
 of verse than when found in prose literature. The language of 
 religion in poetry expresses feeling and not philosophy and has 
 a universal significance. Even those who rarely use these words 
 in the form of a creed or as the abstractions of theology, may still 
 cherish and value them as expressive of feelings or a faith uni- 
 versal in the human heart quite irrespective of sects, doctrines, 
 or any one specific religion. In poetry each man is free to in- 
 terpret “God” in his own way and to give to that name as wide 
 or as narrow a meaning as he pleases. Hence it is that we may 
 all be able to respond to certain language in the form of verse, 
 when we may not be able to do this in the form of creeds. The 
 art of poetry like that of music speaks for the sentiments natural 
 to the human soul. We all have feelings which seem to go further 
 than our thinking will carry us. It should be said that 
 the compiler has taken the greatest care not to print anything 
 from living authors without first getting their consent — except 
 when it proved wholly impossible to locate them or communicate 
 with them. He has thought best to let each selection, however, 
 stand by itself without any name, and to give the author and the 
 title of the full poem in an index at the end of the volume. The 
 subjects attached to the various lines are of his own choosing, 
 as suggesting what they mean to him , and do not come from the 
 respective poets. He hopes that these selections may impart to 
 others something of the comfort and strength and inspiration 
 which they have given to him. 
 
 Walter L. Sheldon, 
 
 4533 Westminster Place, St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 IV 
 
Sentiment in Verse for Every 
 *Day in the Tear 
 
 Compiled by 
 
 WALTER L. SHELDON 
 
 LECTURER OF THE ETHICAL SOCIETY OF ST. LOUIS 
 
 j « « i For Him Who Has Visions 
 
 JAJN. 1 . Of the Harvest Time. 
 
 “And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, 
 
 Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of 
 men; 
 
 Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something 
 new; 
 
 That which they have done but earnest of the things that 
 they shall do. ’ ’ 
 
 Of What Makes 
 
 Life A Battle. 
 
 “Our little lives are kept in equipoise 
 By opposite attractions and desires; 
 
 The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, 
 
 And the more noble instinct that aspires. ’ 1 
 
 JAN. 3. 
 
 Of What The 
 
 Prophets Tell, 
 
 “For lo! the days are hastening on, 
 
 By prophet-bards foretold, 
 
 When with the ever-circling years 
 Comes round the age of gold; 
 
 When Peace shall over all the earth 
 Its ancient splendors fling, 
 
 And the whole world send back the song 
 Which now the angels sing.” 
 
2 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 Of the Mission 
 of Art. 
 
 JAN. 4. 
 
 “ ’Tis the privilege of Art 
 
 Thus to play its cheerful part, 
 
 Man in earth to acclimate, 
 
 And bend the exile to his fate, 
 
 And, molded to one element, 
 
 With the days and firmament, 
 
 Teach him on these as stairs to climb 
 And live on even terms with Time.” 
 
 JAN. 5. 
 
 Of Being 
 A Free Man. 
 
 “Yet to this thought I hold with firm persistence, 
 The last result of wisdom stamps it true; 
 
 He only earns his freedom and existence, 
 
 Who daily conquers them anew.” 
 
 JAN. 6. 
 
 Of Nature’s 
 Great Law. 
 
 “What tho’ the holy secret which moulds thee, 
 Moulds not the solid earth? tho’ never winds 
 Have whispered it to the complaining sea, 
 Nature’s great law, and law of all men’s minds? — 
 To its own impulse every creature stirs; 
 
 Live by thy light , and earth will live by hers ! ” 
 
 JAN. 7. 
 
 Of Him Who 
 
 Is Above Envy. 
 
 “I envy not their hap 
 Whom favor doth advance; 
 
 I take no pleasure in their pain 
 That have less happy chance. 
 
 To rise by others’ fall 
 I deem a losing gain: 
 
 All states with others ’ ruin built 
 To ruins run amain.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 3 
 
 Of the World 
 To Come. 
 
 “Ring, bells in unreared steeples, 
 
 The joy of unborn peoples! 
 
 Sound, trumpets far off blown, 
 
 Your triumph is my own! 
 
 I feel the earth move sunward, 
 
 I join the great march onward, 
 
 And take, by faith, while living, 
 
 My freehold of thanksgiving . 7 7 
 
 Of the One Law 
 
 For Everybody. 
 
 “However others act towards thee 
 Act thou towards them as seemeth right; 
 
 And whatsoever others be, 
 
 Be thou the child of love and light . 77 
 
 Of Being 
 
 Ever Young. 
 
 “While a slave bewails his fetters; 
 
 While an orphan pleads in vain: 
 
 While an infant lisps his letters, 
 
 Heir of all the age’s gain; 
 
 While a lip grows ripe for kissing; 
 
 While a moan from man is wrung; 
 
 Know, by every want and blessing, 
 
 That the world is young.” 
 
 Of the Pleasure 
 
 In Resistance. 
 
 “Then, welcome each rebuff, 
 
 That turns earth’s smoothness rough, 
 
 Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! 
 
 Be our joys three parts pain! 
 
 Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 
 
 Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe ! 7 9 
 
 JAN. 10. 
 
 JAN. 11. 
 
 JAN. 8. 
 
 JAN. 9. 
 
4 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 22 Of the Measure 
 
 Of Greatness, 
 
 ‘ 6 Toil on, then, Greatness ! thou art in the right, 
 
 However narrow souls may call thee wrong; 
 
 Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight, 
 
 And so thou wilt in all the world’s ere long; 
 
 For worldlings cannot, struggle as they may, 
 
 From man’s great soul one great thought hide away,” 
 
 JAN. 13. 
 
 Of Memories 
 
 Of the Beautiful. 
 
 “ These beauteous forms, 
 Through a long absence, have not been to me 
 As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye; 
 
 But oft in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din 
 Of towns and cities, I have owed to them 
 In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 
 
 Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; 
 And passing even into my purer mind, 
 
 With tranquil restoration.” 
 
 JAN. 14. 
 
 For Each 
 
 And All. 
 
 “Once in the flight of ages past, 
 There lived a man ; and who was he ? 
 Mortal! howe’er thy lot be cast, 
 
 That man resembled thee. 
 
 He saw whatever thou hast seen; 
 Encountered all that troubles thee; 
 He was — whatever thou hast been; 
 He is — what thou shalt be. 
 
 The annals of the human race, 
 
 Their ruins, since the world began, 
 Of him afford no other trace 
 Than this, — there lived a man!” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 5 
 
 __ _ Of One Who Has 
 
 iJN. ID. A Measure of Values. 
 
 “If I were told that I must die to-morrow, 
 
 That the next sun 
 
 Which sinks should bear one past all fear and sorrow 
 For any one, 
 
 All the fight fought, all the short journey through: 
 What should I do? 
 
 I do not think that I should shrink or falter, 
 
 But just go on, 
 
 Doing my work, nor change, nor seek to alter 
 Aught that is gone ; 
 
 But rise and move and love and smile and pray 
 For one more day. ” 
 
 . - « Of the Kind of 
 
 • A Man We Like. 
 
 “I like the man who faces what he must 
 With step triumphant and a heart of cheer; 
 
 Who fights the daily battle without fear; 
 
 Nor loses faith in man; but does his best, 
 
 Nor ever murmurs at his humblest 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.” 
 
 JAN. 17. 
 
 Of the Pathway 
 
 Of Duty. 
 
 “ Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear 
 The Godhead’s most benignant grace; 
 
 Nor know we anything so fair 
 As is the smile upon thy face: 
 
 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds 
 And fragrance in thy footing treads; 
 
 Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; 
 
 And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and 
 strong . 9 ’ 
 
6 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JAN. 18. 
 
 For Him Who 
 
 Does His Best. 
 
 “Laurel crowns cleave to deserts, 
 
 And power to him who power exerts. 
 Hast not thy share? On winged feet, 
 Lo! it rushes thee to meet; 
 
 And all that Nature made thy own, 
 Floating in air or pent in stone, 
 
 Will rive the hills and swim the sea, 
 And, like thy shadow, follow thee.” 
 
 JAN. 19. 
 
 Of the Only Battle 
 
 Worth the While. 
 
 “Come, join in the only battle 
 Wherein no man can fail; 
 
 Where whoso fall and dieth, 
 
 Yet his deed shall still prevail.” 
 
 JAN. 20. 
 
 Of Living 
 
 by Law. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Self -reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
 
 These three alone lead life to sovereign power 
 
 * * * to live by law, 
 
 Acting the law we live by without fear; 
 
 And, because right is right, to follow right 
 Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.” 
 
 JAN. 21. 
 
 A Plea for 
 
 Steadfastness. 
 
 “Some of thy stern, unyielding might, 
 Enduring still through day and night, 
 
 Rude tempest-shock and withering blight, — 
 That I may keep at bay 
 The changeful April sky of chance 
 And the strong tide of circumstance, — 
 
 Give me, old granite gray.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 7 
 
 JAN. 22. 
 
 Of the Pathway 
 
 of the True Self. 
 
 “We have been on many thousand lines, 
 
 And we have shown, on each, spirit and power, 
 
 But hardly have we, for one little hour, 
 
 Been on our own line, have we been ourselves — 
 Hardly had skill to utter one of all 
 The nameless feelings that course through our breast, 
 But they course on forever unexpress 1 d 
 
 23. Of the Significance 
 
 of Waiting. 
 
 “I stay my haste, I make delays, 
 
 For what avails this eager pace? 
 
 I stand amid the eternal ways, 
 
 And what is mine shall know my face. 
 
 The waters know their own and draw 
 
 The brook that springs in yonder heights; 
 
 So flows the good with equal law 
 Into the soul of pure delight. 
 
 The stars come nightly to the sky; 
 
 The tidal wave unto the sea; 
 
 Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, 
 
 Can keep my own away from me.” 
 
 JAN. 24. 
 
 Of the Song : 
 
 of the Spheres. 
 
 “Away, away, through the wide, wide sky, 
 
 The fair blue fields that before us lie, — 
 
 Each sun with the worlds that round him roll, 
 Each planet poised on her turning pole; 
 
 With her isles of green, and her clouds of white, 
 And her waters that lie like fluid light, 
 
 For the source of glory uncovers his face, 
 
 And the brightness overflows unbounded space. 
 
 Lo, yonder the living splendors play; 
 
 Away, on our joyous path, away!” 
 
8 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 Of the Self-poised 
 Soul. 
 
 JAN. 25. 
 
 “No change of fortune’s calms 
 Can cast my comforts down; 
 
 When fortune smiles, I smile to think 
 How quickly she will frown; 
 
 And when, in froward mood, 
 
 She proved an angry foe, 
 
 Small gain I found to let her come, 
 
 Less loss to let her go.” 
 
 «/» Of Being Conscious 
 
 * of the Current Underneath. 
 
 “In the world’s most crowded streets, 
 
 Often, in the din of strife, 
 
 There rises an unspeakable desire 
 After the knowledge of our buried life, 
 
 A thirst to spend our fire and restless force 
 In tracking out our true original course. 
 
 A longing to inquire 
 
 Into the mystery of this heart which beats 
 So wild, so deep in us — to know 
 Whence our lives come and where they go.” 
 
 JAN 27 what ° ne ^ an 
 
 Can Do. 
 
 “A little spring 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 toil 
 might drink. 
 
 He passed again, and lo! the well, by summers never dried, 
 
 Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues, and saved a 
 life beside.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 9 
 
 JAN. 28, 
 
 The Value of What Is 
 Close at Hand. 
 
 “Why thus longing, thus forever sighing 
 For the far-off, unattained, and dim, 
 
 While the beautiful, all round thee lying, 
 
 Offers up its low perpetual hymn! 
 
 Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching 
 All thy restless yearnings it would still, 
 
 Leaf and flower and laden bees are preaching 
 Thine own sphere, tho' humble, first to fill. ^ ^ 
 
 “The past was goodly once, and yet, when all is said, 
 The best of it we know is that it's done and dead. 
 Dwindled and faded quite, perished beyond recall, 
 Nothing is left at last of what one time was all. 
 
 Duty and work and joy — these things it cannot give; 
 And the present is life, and life is good to live. 
 
 Let it lie where it fell, far from the living sun, 
 
 The past that, goodly once, is gone and dead and done.” 
 
 “Not souls severely white, 
 
 But groping for more light, 
 
 Are what Eternal Justice here demands. 
 
 Fear not: He made thee dust; 
 
 Cling to that sweet word — ‘Just;' 
 
 All's well with thee if thou art in just hands.” 
 
 JAN. 29, 
 
 Of “Duty and Work 
 and Joy.” 
 
 JAN. 30 
 
 Of What the Eternal 
 Exacts of Us. 
 
10 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JAN. 31. 
 
 Of What 
 
 Comes First 
 
 “Wouldst shape a noble life 1 ? Then cast 
 No backward glances toward the past. 
 And though somewhat be lost and gone, 
 
 Yet do thou act as one new-born; 
 
 What each day needs, that shalt thou ask, 
 Each day will set its proper task.” 
 
 FEB. 1. 
 
 Of the Vista 
 
 of Life. 
 
 “That care and trial seem at last 
 Through Memory’s sunset air, 
 
 Like mountain-ranges overpast, 
 
 In purple distance fair.” 
 
 t ~ Of the Infinite 
 
 >§ and Universal. 
 
 “Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears 
 Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres! 
 
 From age to age, while History carves sublime 
 On her waste rock the flaming curves of time, 
 
 How the wild swayings of our planet show 
 That worlds unseen surround the world we know ! 1 9 
 
 FEB. 3. 
 
 Of Being 
 
 a Man. 
 
 “A Creed is a rod 
 And a crown is of night; 
 
 But this thing is God : — 
 
 To be man with thy might, — 
 
 To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, 
 And live out thy life as the light.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 11 
 
 FEB. 4. 
 
 Of the Wealth 
 
 of the Spirit 
 
 “Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud; 
 Turn thy wild wheel thro’ sunshine, storm and cloud; 
 Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 
 
 Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; 
 With thy wild wheel we go not up or down; 
 
 Our hoard is little but our hearts are great.’ ’ 
 
 ^EB. 5^ Philosophy 
 
 in Verse 
 
 “Speak not of the transient, 
 
 Whatever its sphere; 
 
 To make self eternal, 
 
 Is our task here.” 
 
 FEB. 6. of the Game 
 
 of Life 
 
 “The Man, who, lifted high, 
 
 Conspicuous object in a Nation’s eye, 
 
 Or left unthought of in obscurity, — 
 
 Who, with a toward or untoward lot, 
 
 Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not — 
 
 Plays, in the many games of life, that one 
 Where what he most doth value must be won — 
 This is the happy Warrior, this is he 
 That every Man in arms should wish to be.” 
 
 FEB. 7. Of the Happiest Heart 
 
 That Ever Beat 
 
 “Who drives the horses of the sun 
 Shall lord it but a day; 
 
 Better the lowly deed were done, 
 
 And kept the humble way. 
 
 The happiest heart that ever beat 
 
 Was in some quiet breast 
 
 That found the common daylight sweet, 
 
 And left to Heaven the rest.” 
 
12 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 FEB. 8. 
 
 Of the Scorn 
 
 of Doubt. 
 
 “Not in most ancient Palestine, 
 
 Nor in the lightsome air of Greece, 
 
 Were human struggles more divine, 
 
 More blessed with guerdon of increase: 
 Take thou thy stand 
 In the workers’ band. 
 
 Hast then no faith ! Thine is the fault : — 
 What prophets, heroes, sages, saints, 
 Have loved, on thee still makes assault, 
 Thee with immortal things acquaints. 
 
 On life then seize: 
 
 Doubt is disease.” 
 
 FEB. 9. 
 
 Of that 
 
 Which Survives. 
 
 “Only we knew that something bright 
 Lingered lovingly where we stood, 
 Clothed with the incandescent light 
 Of something higher than humanhood. 
 0 the riches Love doth inherit! 
 
 Ah, the alchemy which doth change 
 Dross of body and dregs of spirit 
 Into sanctities rare and strange!” 
 
 FEB. 10. 
 
 Of the Mission 
 of Love. 
 
 “Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend — 
 Seeking a higher object. Love was given, 
 Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end. 
 For this the passion to excess was driven — 
 That self might be annulled : her bondage prove 
 The fetters of a dream, opposed to love.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 13 
 
 FEB. 11. 
 
 Of the Privilege of 
 Having a Soul. 
 
 “Do bird and blossom feel, like me 
 Life’s many-folded mystery, — 
 
 The wonder which it is To Bel 
 Or stand I severed and distinct, 
 
 From Nature’s chain of life unlinked'? 
 Allied to all, yet not the less 
 Prisoned in separate consciousness, 
 Alone o ; erburdened with a sense 
 Of life, and cause, and consequence!” 
 
 “He’s true to God who’s true to man; 
 Wherever wrong is done 
 To the humblest and the weakest, 
 
 ’Neath the all-beholding sun, 
 
 That wrong is also done to us; 
 
 And they are slaves most base, 
 
 Whose love of right is for themselves, 
 And not for all their race.” 
 
 “When the enemy is near thee, 
 
 Call on us! 
 
 In our hands we will upbear thee, 
 
 He shall neither scathe nor scare thee, 
 He shall fly thee, and shall fear thee. 
 Call on us! 
 
 Oh, and if thou dost not call, 
 
 Be thou faithful, that is all. 
 
 Go right on, and close behind thee 
 There shall follow still and find thee, 
 Help, sure help.” 
 
 FEB. 12. 
 
 Of Him Who Loves 
 
 and Serves a Cause. 
 
 FEB. 13. 
 
 lOf Sure Help for Those 
 Who Are Faithful. 
 
14 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 FEB. 14. 
 
 Of the Sum of 
 All Goodness. 
 
 “Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee: 
 Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
 
 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
 
 To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: 
 
 Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s 
 Thy God’s and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, 
 
 Thou fall’st a blessed martyr.” 
 
 FEB. 15. 
 
 When Skies and 
 
 Earth Shall Meet. 
 
 “It is a vision waiting and aware; 
 
 And you must draw it down, 0 men of worth — 
 Draw down the new Republic held in air, 
 
 And make for it foundations on the Earth.” 
 
 FEB. 16. 
 
 Of the Seasons 
 of Life. 
 
 “Turn, turn, my wheel! ’Tis nature’s plan 
 The child should grow into the man, 
 
 The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray; 
 
 In youth the heart exults and sings, 
 
 The pulses leap, the feet have wings; 
 
 In age the cricket chirps, and brings 
 The harvest-home of day.” 
 
 FEB. 17. 
 
 Of the Self-Poised 
 Stars. 
 
 “And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
 And the sea its long moon-silvered roll; 
 
 For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting 
 All the fever of some differing soul. 
 
 Bounded by themselves, and unregardful 
 In w r hat state God’s other works may be, 
 
 In their own tasks all their powers pouring, 
 These attain the mighty life you see. ’ ’ 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 15 
 
 pjjg ^g Of Him Who 
 
 Possesses Every Thing. 
 
 “Who hath his life from rumors freed, 
 
 Whose conscience is his strong retreat; 
 
 Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 
 
 Nor ruin make oppressors great; 
 
 This man is freed from servile bands, 
 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall; 
 
 Lord of himself, tho’ not of lands; 
 
 And having nothing, yet hath all. ” 
 
 FEB. 19. Of Living 
 
 to One End. 
 
 “And I moved it then and there, 
 
 Vowed all half ness to forswear, 
 
 In the whole, the good, the fair, 
 
 Resolutely living.” 
 
 FEB. 20. of Trust in the 
 
 Outcome. 
 
 “ ’Tis weary watching wave by wave, 
 
 And yet the tide heaves onward; 
 
 We climb like corals, grave by grave 
 That pave a pathway sunward. 
 
 We’re driven back in many a fray, 
 
 Yet never strength we borrow, 
 
 And where the vanguard camps to-day, 
 
 The rear shall rest to-morrow.” 
 
 FEB. 21. of Keeping to 
 
 the Pathway. 
 
 “Follow you the Star that lights a desert pathway, yours or 
 mine. 
 
 Forward, till you see the highest Human Nature is divine. 
 
 Follow light, and do the Right — for man can half -control 
 his doom — 
 
 Till you find the deathless angel seated in the vacant 
 tomb . 9 9 
 
16 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 FEB. 22, 
 
 Of the True Man’s 
 Fatherland. 
 
 “0 yes! his fatherland must be 
 
 As the blue heaven wide and free! 
 Where’er a human heart doth wear 
 Joy’s myrtle- wreath or sorrow’s gyves, 
 Where’er a human spirit strives 
 After a life more true and fair, 
 There is the true man’s birthplace grand, 
 His is a world-wide fatherland.” 
 
 “Nothing fails of its end. 
 
 Out of sight sinks the stone, 
 In the deep sea of time, 
 
 But the circles sweep on, 
 
 Till the low-rippled murmurs 
 Along the shores run, 
 
 And the dark and dead waters 
 Leap glad in the sun.” 
 
 “I may not to the world impart 
 The secret of its power, 
 
 But treasured in my inmost heart, 
 
 I keep my faded flower. 
 
 Where is the heart that doth not keep, 
 Within its inmost core, 
 
 Some fond remembrance, hidden deep, 
 
 Of days that are no more? 
 
 Who hath not saved some trifling thing 
 More prized than jewels rare — 
 
 A faded flower, a broken ring, 
 
 A tress of golden hair?” 
 
 FEB. 23. 
 
 Of the Influence 
 
 of a Single Act. 
 
 FEB. 24. 
 
 Of the Memories 
 
 that Cling 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 17 
 
 A Prayer of Love 
 
 • and Submission. 
 
 “ Teach me to feel another’s woe, 
 
 To hide the fault I see; 
 
 That mercy I to others show, 
 
 That mercy show to me. 
 
 If I am right, thy grace impart, 
 
 Still in the right to stay; 
 
 If I am wrong, 0 teach my heart 
 To find that better way. 
 
 This day, be bread and peace my lot; 
 
 All else beneath the sun, 
 
 Thou know’st if best bestow’d or not, 
 
 And let thy will be done.” 
 
 Of the 
 
 True Lent. 
 
 “Is this a fast to keep 
 The larder lean, 
 
 And clean 
 
 From fat of veals and sheep'? 
 
 No: ’tis a fast to dole 
 Thy sheaf of wheat, 
 
 And meat, 
 
 Unto the hungry soul.” 
 
 Of the Web 
 
 of Human Destiny. 
 
 “Like warp and woof all destinies 
 Are woven fast, 
 
 Linked in sympathy like the keys 
 Of an organ vast. 
 
 Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; 
 
 Break but one 
 
 Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar 
 Through all will run.” 
 
 FEB. 26. 
 
 FEB. 27. 
 
18 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 FEB. 28. 
 
 Of What the 
 
 Mystic Sees 
 
 “Have I knowledge 1 ? counfounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid 
 bare. 
 
 Have I forethought 1 ? how purblind; how blank, to the In- 
 finite Care! 
 
 Do I task any faculty highest, to image success 1 ? 
 
 I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and no less, 
 
 In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God 
 
 In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the 
 clod.” 
 
 FEB. 29. 
 
 A Creed for 
 
 Young and Old. 
 
 “Courage, ne’er by sorrow broken! 
 
 Aid where tears of virtue flow; 
 
 Faith to keep each promise spoken; 
 
 Truth alike to friend and foe! 
 
 ’Fore kings’ thrones a manly spirit! 
 
 Brothers, noble is the prize! 
 
 Honour due to ev’ry merit! 
 
 Death to all the brood of lies!” 
 
 MARCH 1. of What 
 
 Is Overhead. 
 
 “Ay! gloriously thou standest there, 
 
 Beautiful, boundless firmament! 
 
 That, swelling wide o’er earth and air, 
 
 And round the horizon bent, 
 
 With thy bright vault, and sapphire wall, 
 
 Dost overhang and circle all. 
 
 0, when amid the throng of men, 
 
 The heart grows sick of hollow mirth, 
 
 How willingly we turn us then 
 Away from this cold earth, 
 
 And look into thy azure breast, 
 
 For seats of innocence and rest!” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 19 
 
 MARCH 2. 
 
 Of the Race 
 
 Where All Must Run. 
 
 “To them was life a simple art 
 Of duties to be done, 
 
 A game where each man took his part, 
 A race where all must run; 
 
 A battle whose great scheme and scope 
 They little cared to know, 
 
 Content, as men-at-arms, to cope 
 Each with his fronting foe.” 
 
 MARCH 3. 
 
 Of the Vision 
 
 of Evangeline. 
 
 “As from the mountain’s top the rainy mists of the morn- 
 ing 
 
 Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us, 
 
 Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and hamlets, 
 
 So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world far 
 below her, 
 
 Dark no longer, but all illumined with love; and the path- 
 way 
 
 Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair in 
 the distance. 
 
 Patience and abnegation of self , and devotion to others , 
 
 This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had taught 
 her . ’ 9 
 
 f 
 
 MARCH 4. 
 
 Of the “Three 
 
 Firm Friends.’’ 
 
 “Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends. 
 
 Hath he not always treasures, always friends, 
 
 A good, great man? Three treasures, — love, and light, 
 And calm thoughts, equable as infant’s breath; 
 
 And three firm friends, more sure than day or night, — 
 Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death.” 
 
20 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 MARCH 5. For Him Who Will 
 
 Make the Effort. 
 
 “The star of the unconquered will, 
 
 It rises in my breast, 
 
 Serene, and resolute, and still, 
 
 And calm, and self-possessed. 
 
 0, fear not in a world like this, 
 
 And thou shalt know ere long, 
 
 Know how sublime a thing it is 
 To suffer and be strong. ’ ’ 
 
 MARCH 6. of the wm 
 
 to Do and Dare. 
 
 “So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
 
 So near to God is man, 
 
 When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
 
 The youth replies, I can.” 
 
 MARCH 7. Of the “Shaft 
 
 of Light.” 
 
 “Ah! when shall all men’s good 
 Be each man’s rule, and universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 
 Through all the circle of the golden year 1 ?” 
 
 MARCH 8. ofthe 
 
 Resurrection. 
 
 “Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground, 
 
 Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around. 
 Whatever befell, 
 
 Earth is not hell; 
 
 Now, too, as when it first began, 
 
 Life is yet life, and man is man. 
 
 For all that breathe beneath the heaven’s high cope, 
 Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope. 
 
 Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief: 
 
 Or at least, faith unbelief.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 21 
 
 MARCH 9. 
 
 Of One Kind 
 
 of Immortality. 
 
 “To have struck one blow for truth 
 In the daily fight with lies; 
 
 To have done one deed of right 
 In the face of calumnies, 
 
 To have sown in the souls of men 
 One thought that will not die — 
 
 To have been a link in the chain of life; — 
 Shall be immortality. ’ ’ 
 
 MARCH 10. of the Man 
 
 We All Love, 
 
 “Walking his round of duty 
 Serenely day by day, 
 
 With the strong man’s hand of labor 
 And childhood’s heart of play.” 
 
 MARCH 11. of the 
 
 True Surrender. 
 
 “And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew — 
 With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it 
 too — 
 
 The submission of man’s nothing-perfect to God’s all- 
 complete, 
 
 As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet!” 
 
 MARCH 12. For Him 
 
 Who Sorrows. 
 
 “Tho at times impetuous with emotion 
 And anguish long suppressed, 
 
 The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, 
 That cannot be at rest, — 
 
 We will be patient, and assuage the feeling 
 We may not wholly stay; 
 
 By silence sanctifying, not concealing, 
 
 The grief that must have way.” 
 
22 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 MARCH 13. 
 
 Of Him 
 
 Who Persists. 
 
 “For myself alone I doubt; 
 
 All is well, I know, without; 
 
 I alone the beauty mar, 
 
 I alone the music jar. 
 
 Yet, with hands by evil stained, 
 
 And an ear by discord pained, 
 
 I am groping for the keys 
 Of the heavenly harmonies; 
 
 Still within my heart I bear 
 Love for all things good and fair.” 
 
 MARCH 14. 
 
 Of the Symbols 
 
 of the Soul. 
 
 “How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold? 
 Because the lovely little flower is free 
 Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold; 
 
 And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree 
 Comes not by casting in a formal mould, 
 
 But from its own vitality. ” 
 
 MARCH 15. 
 
 Of the Silent 
 
 Heroes. 
 
 “Within this lowly grave a conqueror lies, 
 
 And yet the monument proclaims it not, 
 
 Nor round the sleeper’s name hath chisel wrought 
 The emblems of a fame that never dies, 
 
 A simple name alone, 
 
 To the great world unknown, 
 
 Is graven here, and wild flowers, rising round, 
 Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground, 
 Lean lovingly against the humble stone.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 23 
 
 MARCH 16. Of Empire 
 
 Universal. 
 
 “Till each man find his own in all men’s good, 
 
 And all men work in noble brotherhood, 
 
 Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers, 
 
 And ruling by obeying Nature’s powers, 
 
 And gathering all the fruits of earth and crown’d with all 
 her flowers.” 
 
 MARCH 17. of the “ Good 
 
 Oldj Times. 
 
 “Idly as thou, in that old day 
 
 Thou mournest, did thy sire repine; 
 
 So, in his time, thy child grown gray 
 Shall sigh for thine. 
 
 But life shall on and upward go; 
 
 Th’ eternal step of Progress beats 
 To that great anthem, calm and slow, 
 
 Which God repeats.” 
 
 MARCH 18. 
 
 Of the Inmost Center 
 in Us All. 
 
 “The lore you praise and I neglect, 
 
 The labors and the precepts of old times, 
 
 I have not slightly disesteemed. But, friends, 
 Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
 From outward things, whate’er you may believe; 
 There is an inmost center in us all, 
 
 Where truth abides in fulness. ’ ’ 
 
 MARCH 19. 
 
 Of the Resurrection 
 of the Dead. 
 
 “But strew his ashes to the wind, 
 
 Whose sword or voice has served mankind, 
 And is he dead, whose glorious mind 
 Lifts thine on high? 
 
 To live in hearts we leave behind 
 Is not to die.” 
 
24 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 MARCH 20. 
 
 Of the Judge 
 
 and His Judgment. 
 
 “Him only, pleasure leads, and peace attends, 
 Him, only him, the shield of Jove defends, 
 Whose means are fair and spotless as his ends. ’ ’ 
 
 MARCH 21. 
 
 Of the 
 
 Dreamer’s Vision. 
 
 “For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
 Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonders that 
 would be, 
 
 When the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle- 
 flags were furl'd 
 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 
 
 MARCH 22. of the Hours 
 
 of Yearning. 
 
 “Ah, when, within our narrow chamber 
 The lamp with friendly lustre glows, 
 
 Flames in the breast each faded ember, 
 
 And in the heart, itself that knows. 
 
 Then hope again lends sweet assistance, 
 
 And reason then resumes her speech: 
 
 One yearns, the rivers of existence, 
 
 The very founts of Life, to reach." 
 
 MARCH 23. 
 
 An Inspiration for Those 
 Who Know What it is to Love. 
 
 — “May I reach 
 
 That purest heaven, be to other souls 
 The cup of strength in some great agony 
 Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, 
 Beget the smiles that have no cruelty — 
 
 Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, 
 And in diffusion ever more intense, 
 
 So shall I join the choir invisible 
 
 Whose music is the gladness of the world." 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 25 
 
 MARCH 24. 
 
 Of the Reality That is Better 
 Than Illusions. 
 
 “I woke to find the simple truth 
 Of fact and feeling better 
 Than all the dreams that held my youth 
 A still repining debtor.’ ’ 
 
 MARCH 25. 
 
 Of the Whole Duty 
 of Man. 
 
 “ Think truly and thy thoughts 
 Shall the world’s famine feed; 
 
 Speak truly, and each word of thine 
 Shall be a fruitful seed: 
 
 Live truly, and thy life shall be 
 A great and noble creed.” 
 
 For Him Who 
 
 Would Keep Moving. 
 
 “Rest is not quitting 
 The busy career; 
 
 Rest is the fitting 
 Of self to its sphere. 
 
 ’Tis loving and serving 
 The highest and best; 
 
 ’Tis onward ! unswerving, — 
 
 And that is true rest.” 
 
 Of the Abodes 
 
 of Peace. 
 
 “If solid happiness we prize 
 
 Within ourselves this jewel lies, 
 
 And they are fools who roam; 
 
 The world has nothing to bestow, 
 
 From ourselves our joys must flow, 
 
 And that dear hut, our home.” 
 
 MARCH 26. 
 
 MARCH 27. 
 
26 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 MARCH 28. 
 
 Of the 
 
 Final Truth. 
 
 “I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I 
 spoke : 
 
 I, a work of God’s hand for that purpose, received in my 
 brain 
 
 And pronounced on the rest of his handiwork — returned 
 him again 
 
 His creation ’s approval or censure : I spoke as I saw : 
 
 I report, as a man may of God’s work — all’s love, yet all’s 
 law. ’ ’ 
 
 MARCH 29. 
 
 Of the Way 
 
 to Climb. 
 
 “We need not bid, for cloistered cell, 
 Our neighbor and our work farewell, 
 Nor strive to wind ourselves too high 
 For sinful man beneath the sky. 
 
 The trivial round, the common task, 
 Will furnish all we ought to ask; 
 Room to deny ourselves; a road 
 To bring us, daily, nearer God.” 
 
 MARCH 30. 
 
 Of Art 
 
 At its Best. 
 
 “That kind one ne’er forget who, as in sport 
 Thy youth to noble aspirations train’d, 
 
 And who to thee in easy riddles taught 
 
 The secret how each virtue might be gain’d; 
 
 In Industry, the Bee the palm may bear; 
 
 In Skill, the Worm a lesson may impart; 
 
 With Spirits, blest, thy Knowledge thou dost share; 
 But thou, 0 man, alone hast Art\’ J 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 27 
 
 MARCH 31. 
 
 Of the Reasons Why 
 Some Men Do Not Stumble. 
 
 “ There are in this loud, stunning tide 
 Of human care and crime, 
 
 With whom the melodies abide 
 Of the everlasting chime; 
 
 Who carry music in their heart 
 Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, 
 
 Plying their daily task with busier feet 
 Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.” 
 
 APRIL 1. 
 
 Of the 
 
 Everlasting Spring. 
 
 “Spring still makes spring in the mind, 
 When sixty years are told ; 
 
 Love awakes anew this throbbing heart, 
 And we are never old. 
 
 Over the winter glaciers, 
 
 I see the summer glow, 
 
 And through the wild-piled snowdrift, 
 The warm rosebuds below. ’ ’ 
 
 APRIL 2. 
 
 Of Success 
 
 That is Sure. 
 
 “What is it, that the crowd requite 
 Thy love with hate, thy truth with lies? 
 And but to faith, and not to sight, 
 
 The walls of Freedom’s temple rise? 
 
 Yet do thy work; it shall succeed 
 In thine or in another’s day; 
 
 And, if denied the victor’s meed, 
 
 Thou shalt not lack the toiler’s pay.” 
 
28 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 APEIL 3. of the 
 
 True Progress. 
 
 “ Build thee more stately mansions, 0 my soul, 
 
 As the swift seasons roll! 
 
 Leave thy low-vaulted past! 
 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 
 Leaving thine outgrown ' shell by life’s unresting sea!” 
 
 APRIL 4. 
 
 Of What Evangeline 
 Had Learnt. 
 
 “Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted; 
 
 If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning 
 
 Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of 
 refreshment ; 
 
 That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the 
 fountain. 
 
 Patience; accomplish thy labor; accomplish thy work of 
 affection ! 
 
 Sorrow and silence are strong , and patient endurance is 
 godlike. 9 9 
 
 APRIL 5. 
 
 Of the Thing 
 
 That Makes Us Men. 
 
 “But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, 
 Existent behind all laws, that made them, and, lo they 
 are ! 
 
 I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, 
 That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, 
 but a star. 
 
 Consider it well; each tone of our scale in itself is naught; 
 It is everywhere in the world, — loud, soft, and all is 
 said : 
 
 Give it to me to use ! I mix it with two in my thought ; 
 And there! Ye have heard and seen: Consider and bow 
 the head.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 29 
 
 APRIL 6. 
 
 Of What Gives Glory 
 
 to Star and|Blossom 
 
 “Yet these sweet sounds of the early season 
 And these fair sights of its sunny days 
 Are only sweet when we fondly listen 
 And only fair when we fondly gaze. 
 
 There is no glory in star or blossom 
 Till looked upon by a loving eye; 
 
 There is no fragrance in April breezes 
 
 Till breathed with joy as they wander by.” 
 
 A Sigh for a Lull 
 
 In the Storm. 
 
 “Touch us gently, Time! 
 
 We’ve not proud nor soaring wings; 
 
 Our ambition, our content, 
 
 Lies in simple things. 
 
 Humble voyagers are we, 
 
 O’er life’s dim, unsounded sea, 
 
 Seeking only some calm clime; — 
 
 Touch us gently, gentle Time!” 
 
 Of Him Who Sees 
 At First Hand. 
 
 “The clouded hill attend thou still, 
 
 And him that went within. 
 
 He yet shall bring some worthy thing 
 For waiting souls to see : 
 
 Some sacred word that he has heard 
 Their light and life shall be; 
 
 Some lofty part, than which the heart 
 Adopt no nobler can, 
 
 Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe 
 And thou shalt do, 0 Man!” 
 
 APRIL 7. 
 
 APRIL 8. 
 
30 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 APRIL 9. 
 
 Of Rest from 
 
 the City’s Jar. 
 
 “Calm soul of all things! make it mine 
 To feel, amid the city's jar, 
 
 That there abides a peace of thine, 
 
 Man did not make, and cannot mar. 
 
 The will to neither strive nor cry, 
 
 The power to feel with others, give! 
 Calm, calm me more! nor let me die 
 Before I have begun to live." 
 
 APRIL 10. 
 
 Of the Passion 
 
 for Labor. 
 
 “Droop not, tho' shame, sin, and anguish are round thee, 
 Bravely fling off the old chain that hath bound thee! 
 Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee; 
 
 Rest not content, in thy darkness, — a clod! 
 
 Work for some good, be it ever so slowly; 
 
 Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly; 
 
 Labor! — all labor is noble and holy; 
 
 Let thy great deed be thy prayer to thy God." 
 
 APRIL 11. 
 
 For Him Who 
 
 Appreciates Spring Time. 
 
 “I mourn no more my vanished years: 
 Beneath a tender rain, 
 
 An April rain of smiles and tears, 
 
 My heart is young again. 
 
 The west winds blow, and, singing low, 
 I hear the glad streams run; 
 
 The windows of my soul I throw 
 Wide open to the sun. 
 
 No longer forward nor behind 
 I look in hope or fear; 
 
 But grateful, take the good I find, 
 
 The best of now and here." 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 31 
 
 APRIL 12. 
 
 Of Life’s 
 
 Building Blocks. 
 
 “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.” 
 
 APRIL 13. 
 
 Of the Mixture 
 
 of Good and Evil. 
 
 “Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name? 
 
 Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands! 
 
 What, have fear of change from Thee, who art ever the 
 same? 
 
 Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power 
 expands? 
 
 There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live 
 as before; 
 
 The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound ; 
 
 What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good 
 more; 
 
 On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect 
 round. ’ 1 
 
 APRIL 14. 
 
 Of the Temple 
 
 Not Made With Hands. 
 
 “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.” 
 
32 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 APRIL 15. 
 
 Of the Handwriting 
 on the Soul. 
 
 “In every heart some viewless founts are fed 
 From far-off hillsides where the dews were shed; 
 On the worn features of the weariest face 
 Some youthful memory leaves its hidden trace.’ ’ 
 
 APRIL 16. 
 
 Of Our Regard 
 
 for the Dead. 
 
 “My thoughts are with the dead; with them 
 I live in their past years, 
 
 Their virtues love, their faults condemn, 
 Partake their hopes and fears, 
 
 And from their lessons seek and find 
 Instruction with a humble mind.” 
 
 APRIL 17. 
 
 Of Earning 
 
 One’s Living. 
 
 6 1 Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing, 
 Onward through life he goes; 
 
 Each morning sees some task begin, 
 Each evening sees it close; 
 Something attempted, something done, 
 Has earned a night’s repose.” 
 
 APRIL 18. 
 
 Of the Time 
 
 of Awakening. 
 
 “Some silent laws our hearts will make, 
 Which they shall long obey: 
 
 We for the year to come may take 
 Our temper from to-day. 
 
 And from the blessed power that rolls 
 About, below, above, 
 
 We’ll frame the measure of our souls: 
 They shall be tuned to love.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 33 
 
 APRIL 19. 
 
 Of Something Better 
 Than Coronets. 
 
 “Howe’er it be, it seems to me, 
 
 ’Tis only noble to be good. 
 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 
 And simple faith than Norman blood.” 
 
 APRIL 20. 
 
 Of Being 
 
 A King. 
 
 “Content I live; this is my stay, — 
 
 I seek no more than may suffice. 
 
 I press to bear no haughty sway; 
 
 Look, what I lack my mind supplies. 
 
 Lo ! thus I triumph like a king, 
 
 Content with what my mind doth bring.” 
 
 APRIL 21. 
 
 If One Would 
 
 Only Try. 
 
 “In the world’s broad field of battle, 
 In the bivouac of Life, 
 
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 
 
 Be a hero in the strife! 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time.” 
 
 APRIL 22. 
 
 Of Being 
 
 Receptive 
 
 “Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; 
 
 Our meddling intellect 
 
 Mis-shapes the beauteous form of things: — 
 We murder to dissect. 
 
 Enough of Science and of Art; 
 
 Close up those barren leaves; 
 
 Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
 That watches and receives.” 
 
34 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 APRIL 23. 
 
 Where All Shall 
 
 Meet in One. 
 
 “Silent rushes the swift Lord 
 Through ruined systems still restored, 
 Broadsowing, bleak and void to bless, 
 Plants with worlds the wilderness; 
 Waters with tears of ancient sorrow 
 Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow. 
 
 House and tenant go to ground, 
 
 Lost in God, in Godhead found.” 
 
 APRIL 24. 
 
 Of the Dimensions 
 of Life. 
 
 “It is not growing like a tree 
 In bulk, doth make men better be; 
 
 Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 
 To fall a log at last, dry, bald and sere : 
 
 A lily of a day 
 Is fairer far in May, 
 
 Altho it fall and die that night, — 
 
 It was the plant and flower of Light. 
 
 In small proportions we just beauties see; 
 And in short measures life may perfect be.” 
 
 APRIL 25. 
 
 Of “ Spinning 
 
 on Forever.” 
 
 “0, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. 
 Ancient founts of inspiration well thro’ all my fancy yet. 
 Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward, let 
 us range. 
 
 Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves 
 of change.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 35 
 
 APRIL 26, 
 
 Of Nature 
 
 to the Naturalist. 
 
 “And Nature, the old nurse, took 
 The child upon her knee, 
 
 Saying: ‘Here is a story-book 
 Thy Father has written for thee/ 
 And he wandered away and away 
 With Nature, the dear old nurse, 
 Who sang to him night and day 
 The rhymes of the universe. 
 ‘Come, wander with me/ she said, 
 ‘Into regions yet untrod; 
 
 And read what is still unread 
 In the manuscripts of God/ ” 
 
 “But all, the world’s coarse thumb 
 And finger failed to plumb, 
 
 So passed in making up the main account; 
 
 All instincts immature, 
 
 All purposes unsure, 
 
 That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s ac- 
 count : 
 
 All I could never be, 
 
 All men ignored in me, 
 
 This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.” 
 
 “I, too, am weak, and faith is small, 
 
 And blindness happeneth unto all. 
 
 Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight, 
 Through present wrong, the eternal right; 
 And step, by step, since time began, 
 
 I see the steady gain of man.” 
 
 APRIL 27, 
 
 Df the Way 
 
 the Eternal Sees, 
 
 APEIL 28. 
 
 Of the Present Wrong 
 
 and the Eternal Right. 
 
36 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 APRIL 29. For Him Who Knows 
 
 How to Listen. 
 
 “ Think you, ’mid all this mighty sum 
 Of things forever speaking, 
 
 That nothing of itself will come, 
 
 But we must still be seeking? 
 
 One impulse from a vernal wood 
 May teach you more of man, 
 
 Of moral evil and of good, 
 
 Than all the sages can.” 
 
 APRIL 30. Of the Love 
 
 of the Beautiful. 
 
 “Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why 
 This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
 
 Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
 Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.” 
 
 MAY 1. Of What T Each Day 
 
 Can Give. 
 
 “Not by deeds that gain the world’s applauses, 
 
 Not by works that win thee world renown, 
 
 Not by martyrdom or vaunted crosses, 
 
 Canst thou win and wear the immortal crown. 
 
 Daily struggling, tho unloved and lonely, 
 
 Every day a rich reward will give; 
 
 Thou wilt find by hearty striving only, 
 
 And truly loving, thou canst truly live.” 
 
 MAY 2. Of the Meaning 
 
 of Freedom. 
 
 “Is true freedom but to break 
 Fetters for our own dear sake, 
 
 And with leathern hearts forget 
 That we owe mankind a debt? 
 
 No, true freedom is to share 
 All the chains our brothers wear, 
 
 And with heart and hand to be 
 Earnest to make others free.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 37 
 
 MAY 
 
 MAY 
 
 MAY 
 
 MAY 
 
 2 Of the Phantoms 
 
 of the Good. 
 
 “Ever their phantoms rise before us, 
 
 Our loftier brothers, but one in blood. 
 
 By bed and table they lord it o’er us, 
 
 With looks of beauty and words of good.” 
 
 Of the 
 
 *• Sainted Living. 
 
 “And on that cheek and o’er that brow, 
 
 So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 
 
 The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 
 
 But tell of days in goodness spent, 
 
 A mind at peace with all below, 
 
 A heart whose love is innocent ! ’ ’ 
 
 5. Of What Should 
 
 Come of Longing. 
 
 ‘ i The thing we long for, that we are 
 For one transcendent moment, 
 
 Before the Present poor and bare 
 Can make its sneering comment. 
 
 Still, through our paltry stir and strife 
 Glows down the wished Ideal, 
 
 And Longing moulds in clay what Life 
 Carves in the marble Real.” 
 
 Of Him Who Has 
 
 Wholesome Wisdom. 
 
 Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, 
 
 But looks through nature, up to nature’s God; 
 Pursues that chain which links the immense design, 
 Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine; 
 
 Sees that no being any bliss can know, 
 
 But touches some above, and some below; 
 
 Learns from this union of the rising whole, 
 
 The first, last purpose of the human soul; 
 
 And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, 
 
 All end, in Love of God and Love of man.” 
 
38 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 MAY 
 
 MAY 
 
 MAY 
 
 MAY 
 
 7. Of Nature’s 
 
 Climbing Soul. 
 
 “Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
 
 We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; 
 
 Every clod feels a stir of might, 
 
 An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
 
 And, groping blindly above it for light, 
 
 Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.’ ’ 
 
 8, Of Him Who 
 
 Never Rests. 
 
 “To insight profounder 
 Man’s spirit must dive; 
 
 His aye-rolling orbit 
 At no goal will arrive; 
 
 The heavens that now draw him 
 With sweetness untold, 
 
 Once found, — for new heavens 
 He spurneth the old.” 
 
 9 t Of the 
 
 Two Voices. 
 
 “Hears not also mortal life? 
 
 Hear nor we, unthinking Creatures, 
 
 Slaves to folly, love or strife — 
 
 Voices of two different natures? 
 
 Such rebounds our inward ear 
 Catches sometimes from afar — 
 
 Listen, ponder, hold them dear, 
 
 For of God, — of God they are.” 
 
 2Q Of the Origin 
 
 of Sacred Literature 
 
 “Out from the heart of nature rolled 
 The burdens of the Bibles old; 
 
 The litanies of nations came, 
 
 Like the volcano’s tongue of flame, 
 
 Up from the burning core below, — 
 
 The canticles of love and woe.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 39 
 
 MAY 11 
 
 Of the Signs 
 
 Of Promise. 
 
 “I hear the soul of Man around me waking, 
 
 Like a great sea, its frozen fetters breaking, 
 Every hour new signs of promise tell 
 That the great soul shall once again be free, 
 For high, and yet more high, the murmurs swell 
 Of inward strife for truth and liberty. ” 
 
 MAY 12. For Him Who Would 
 
 “Father of all! in every age, 
 
 In every clime adored, 
 
 By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
 
 Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! 
 
 Thou Great First Cause, least understood; 
 
 Who all my sense confined 
 To know but this, that thou art good, 
 And that myself am blind; 
 
 To thee, whose temple is all space, 
 
 Whose altar, earth, sea, skies! 
 
 One chorus let all being raise! 
 
 All Nature’s incense rise!” 
 
 “The airs of heaven blow o’er me; 
 A glory shines before me 
 Of what mankind shall be, — 
 Pure, generous, brave and free. 
 A dream of man and woman 
 Diviner but still human, 
 
 Solving the riddle old, ' 
 
 Shaping the Age of Gold!” 
 
 Offer Prayer. 
 
 MAY 13. 
 
 Of the Glory 
 
 Unspeakable. 
 
40 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 MAY 14. 
 
 When the Soul 
 
 Is Awake. 
 
 “The eye — it cannot choose but see; 
 
 We cannot bid the ear be still; 
 
 Our bodies feel, where’er they be, 
 
 Against or with our will. 
 
 Nor less I deem that there are Powers 
 Which of themselves our minds impress; 
 That we can feed this mind of ours 
 In a wise passiveness.” 
 
 MAY 15. 
 
 Of Heaven 
 
 and Hell. 
 
 “0 restless spirit! wherefore strain 
 Beyond thy sphere? 
 
 Heaven and Hell, with their joy and pain, 
 Are now and here. 
 
 Then of what is to be, and of what is done, 
 Why queriest thou? 
 
 The Past and the time to be are one, 
 
 And both are NOW!” 
 
 MAY 16. 
 
 Of the Heaven 
 
 Everywhere. 
 
 “Not only around our infancy 
 Doth heaven with all its splendors lie, 
 Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
 Wle Sinais climb and know it not.” 
 
 MAY 17. 
 
 Of the Impulse 
 
 to Happiness. 
 
 “The showers of the spring 
 Rouse the birds, and they sing; 
 
 If the wind do but stir for his proper delight, 
 
 Each leaf, that and this, his neighbor will kiss; 
 Each wave, one and t’other, speeds after his brother; 
 They are happy, for that is their right.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 41 
 
 MAY 
 
 Of What Makes 
 
 or Mars. 
 
 “Man is his own star; and the soul that can 
 Render an honest and a perfect man 
 Commands all light, all influence, all fate. 
 
 Nothing to him falls early, or too late. 
 
 Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, 
 
 Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. ” 
 
 MAY 19. 
 
 Of What 
 
 Life is For. 
 
 “For life, with all it yields of joy or woe, 
 
 And hope and fear, * * * * 
 
 Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love, 
 How love might be, hath been indeed, and is ; 
 
 And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost 
 Such prize despite the envy of the world, 
 
 And, having gained truth, keep truth: that is all.” 
 
 MAY 20 of a P resence 
 
 to be Felt and Known. 
 
 “He is made one with Nature: there is heard 
 His voice in all her music, from the moan 
 Of thunder, to the song of night’s sweet bird; 
 
 He is a presence to be felt and known 
 In darkness and in light, from herb and stone 
 Spreading itself where’er that Power may move 
 Which has withdrawn his being to its own; 
 
 Which wields the world with never wearied love, 
 Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.” 
 
 MAY 21. Of Those Obscure 
 
 in Destiny 
 
 “Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 
 
 Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
 The short and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave, 
 Await alike the inevitable hour; — 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” 
 
42 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 MAY 22. Of “Man’s 
 
 Chief Attribute.” 
 
 “The thoughtless man we must despise, 
 
 Who disregards the thing he shapes. 
 
 This forms a man’s chief attribute, 
 
 And Reason is to him assign’d, 
 
 That what his hand may execute, 
 
 Within his heart, too, he should find.” 
 
 MAY 23. Of Yearning 
 
 Onward. 
 
 “Alas the wings that lift the mind no aid 
 Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me, 
 
 Yet in each soul is born the pleasure 
 Of yearning onward, upward and away, 
 
 When o’er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure, 
 
 The lark sends down his flickering lay, — 
 
 When over crags and piny highlands 
 The poising eagle slowly soars, 
 
 And over plains and lakes and islands 
 The crane sails by to other shores.” 
 
 MAY 24. Empire “transfused by 
 
 Power of Thought.” 
 
 “Make knowledge circle with the winds; 
 
 But let her herald, Reverence, fly 
 Before her to whatever sky 
 Bear seed of men and growth of minds. 
 
 Love thou thy land, with love far-brought 
 From out the storied Past, and used 
 Within the Present, but transfused 
 Thro ’ future time by power of Thought. ’ ’ 
 
 MAY 25. ~ Of the Spirit’s 
 
 Voyage. 
 
 “We have past Age’s icy caves, 
 
 And Manhood’s dark and tossing waves, 
 
 And Youth’s smooth ocean, smiling to betray: 
 
 Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee 
 Of shadow-peopled Infancy, 
 
 Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 43 
 
 MAY 26. 
 
 MAY 27. 
 
 MAY 28. 
 
 Of the Mood 
 
 of Worship. 
 
 ‘The harp at Nature ’s advent strung 
 Has never ceased to play; 
 
 The song the stars of morning sung 
 Has never died away. 
 
 The blue sky is the temple’s arch, 
 
 Its transept earth and air, 
 
 The music of its starry march 
 The chorus of a prayer.” 
 
 Of the Way 
 
 to Sing. 
 
 “No messenger to run before, 
 
 Devising plan; 
 
 No mention of the place or hour 
 To any man; 
 
 No waiting till some sound betrays 
 A listening ear; 
 
 No different voice, no new delays, 
 
 If steps draw near. 
 
 The birds must know. Who wisely sings 
 Will sing as they; 
 
 The common air has generous wings, 
 
 Songs make their way.” 
 
 Of the Pleasures 
 
 of the Mind. 
 
 : When all is done and said, 
 
 In the end this shall you find : 
 
 He most of all doth bathe in bliss 
 That hath a quiet mind; 
 
 And, clear from worldly cares, 
 
 To deem, can be content, 
 
 The sweetest time in all his life 
 In thinking to be spent.” 
 
44 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 MAY 29. Of the Stillness 
 
 of the Infinite. 
 
 “The bird winging the evening sky 
 Flies onward without song; 
 
 The crowding years as they pass by 
 Flow on in mutest throng. 
 
 With sweetest music silence blends, 
 
 And silent praise is best; 
 
 In silence life begins and ends: 
 
 God cannot be expressed. ” 
 
 MAY 30. of ° ne ’ s Debt 
 
 to the Past. 
 
 “I had my birth where stars were born, 
 
 In the dim aeons of the past; 
 
 My cradle cosmic forces rocked, 
 
 And to my first was linked my last. 
 
 For me, through fire and blood and tears, 
 
 Man struggled onward up the height, 
 
 On which, at last, from heaven falls 
 An ever clearer, broader light. 
 
 The child of all the ages, I, 
 
 Nursed on the exhaustless breasts of time; 
 
 By heroes thrilled, by sages taught, 
 
 Sung to by bards of every clime.” 
 
 MAY 31. of the Truths 
 
 of the Spirit. 
 
 “0 joy! that in our embers 
 Is something that doth live, 
 
 That Nature yet remembers 
 What was so fugitive!” 
 
 “Truths that wake, 
 
 To perish never; 
 
 Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 
 
 Nor Man nor Boy, 
 
 Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
 
 Can utterly abolish or destroy!” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 45 
 
 JUNE 1. ° f the Land 
 
 of Dreams. 
 
 “One calm sweet smile, in that shadowy sphere, 
 
 From eyes that open on earth no more — 
 
 One warning word from a voice once dear — 
 
 How they rise in the memory o’er and o’er! 
 
 Far off from those hills that shine with day 
 And fields that bloom in the heavenly gales, 
 
 The Land of Dreams goest stretching away 
 To dimmer mountains and darker vales. 
 
 So shalt thou come from the Land of Dreams, 
 
 With love and peace to this world of strife: 
 
 And the light that over that border streams 
 Shall lie on the path of thy daily life.” 
 
 JUNE 2. of the Love 
 
 of Nature. 
 
 “For she can so inform 
 The mind that is within us, so impress 
 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
 
 Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
 
 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
 The dreary intercourse of daily life, 
 
 Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb 
 Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
 Is full of blessings.” 
 
 JUNE 3. Of the Remorse 
 
 of Guinevere. 
 
 “Ah my God, 
 
 What might I not have made of thy fair world, 
 
 Had I but loved thy highest creature here? 
 
 It was my duty to have loved the highest: 
 
 It surely was my profit had I known: 
 
 It would have been my pleasure had I seen. 
 
 We needs must love the highest when we see it, 
 
 Not Lancelot, nor another.” 
 
46 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JUNE 4. Of the Inspiration One May Receive 
 
 From a Beautiful Day. 
 
 “Through every fiber of my brain. 
 
 Through every nerve, through every vein, 
 
 I feel the electric thrill, the touch 
 Of life, that seems almost too much. 
 
 I hear the wind among the trees 
 Playing celestial symphonies; 
 
 I see the branches downward bent, 
 
 Like keys of some great instrument. 
 
 0 Gift of God! 0 perfect day; 
 
 Whereon shall no man work, but play; 
 
 Whereon it is enough for me, 
 
 Not to be doing, but to be!” 
 
 JUNE 5. of Each and 
 
 All. 
 
 “All are needed by each one; 
 
 Nothing is fair or good alone. 
 
 I thought the sparrow’s note from heaven, 
 
 Singing at dawn on the alder bough; 
 
 I brought him home, in his nest, at even; 
 
 He sings the song, but it cheers not now, 
 
 For I did not bring home the river and sky; — 
 
 He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye . 9 9 
 
 JUNE 6. 
 
 When the Soul 
 
 Communes With Nature. 
 
 “That blessed mood, 
 In which the burthen of the mystery, 
 
 In which the heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world, 
 
 Is lightened : * * * * 
 
 Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 
 And even the motion of our human blood 
 Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 
 In body, and become a living soul: 
 
 While with an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
 
 We see into the life of things.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 47 
 
 JUNE 7. 
 
 Of Choosing 
 Sides. 
 
 “By all for which the martyrs bore their agony and shame; 
 
 By all the warning words of truth with which the pro- 
 phets came; 
 
 By the Future which awaits us; by all the hopes which 
 cast 
 
 Their faint and trembling beams across the blackness of 
 the Past; 
 
 And by the blessed thought of Him who for Earth ’s free- 
 dom died, 
 
 0 my people! 0 my brothers! let us choose the righteous 
 side.” 
 
 JUNE 8. 
 
 Of the Power of 
 
 Second Birth 
 
 “I come to overthrow the ancient wrong, 
 
 To let the joy of nations rise again; 
 
 I am Unselfish Service, I am Song, 
 
 I am the Hope that feeds the hearts of men. 
 I am the Vision in the world-eclipse, 
 
 And where I pass the feet of Beauty burn; 
 And when I set the bugle to my lips, 
 
 The youth of work-worn ages will return.” 
 
 ______ Of the Colors of Nature 
 
 JUNE 9. and Their Meaning. 
 
 “I cannot tell what you say, green leaves, 
 
 I cannot tell what you say: 
 
 But I know that there is a spirit in you, 
 
 And a world in you this day. 
 
 0 green is the color of faith and truth, 
 
 And rose the color of love and youth, 
 
 And brown of the fruitful clay. 
 
 Sweet earth is faithful, and fruitful and young, 
 
 And her bridal day shall come ere long, 
 
 And you shall know what the rocks and the streams 
 And the whispering woodlands say.” 
 
48 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JUNE 10. of the World 
 
 Invisible. 
 
 “It lies around us like a cloud, 
 
 The world we do not see ; 
 
 Yet the sweet closing of an eye 
 May bring us there to be. 
 
 Its gentle breezes fan our cheeks 
 Amid our worldly cares; 
 
 Its gentle voices whisper love, 
 
 And mingle with our prayers.’ ’ 
 
 JUNE 11. ° f the Victory 
 
 Over Death. 
 
 “Sweet is the scene when virtue dies! 
 
 When sinks a righteous soul to rest, 
 
 How mildly beam the closing eyes, 
 
 How gently heaves the expiring breast! 
 Triumphant smiles the victor brow; 
 
 Fanned by some angel’s purple wing; — 
 
 Where is, 0 grave! thy victory now? 
 
 And where, insidious death! thy sting?” 
 
 JUNE 12. Of Keeping Calm 
 
 In a Storm. 
 
 “Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, 
 Or mild concerns of ordinary life, 
 
 A constant influence; a peculiar grace; 
 
 But who, if he be called upon to face 
 
 Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 
 
 Great issues, good or bad for humankind, 
 
 Is happy as a Lover; and attired 
 
 With sudden brightness, like a man inspired; 
 
 And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law 
 In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw. 
 
 This is the Happy Warrior, this is he 
 That every man in arms should wish to be. ’ ’ 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 49 
 
 JUNE 13. 
 
 Of Something Better 
 
 Than Philosophy. 
 
 “0, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
 
 I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; 
 And when I am stretched beneath the pines, 
 Where the evening star so holy shines, 
 
 I laugh at the lore and pride of man, 
 
 At the sophist schools and the learned clan; 
 For what are they all in their high conceit, 
 When man in the bush with God may meet ! 9 ’ 
 
 JUNE 14. A Craving 
 
 “0 everlasting Might! 
 
 My broken life repair; 
 
 Nerve thou my will and clear my sight, 
 Give strength to do and bear. 
 
 0 everlasting Love! 
 
 Wellspring of grace and peace; 
 
 Pour down thy fullness from above, 
 Bid doubt and trouble cease l” 
 
 “We receive but what we give, 
 
 And in our life alone does nature live: 
 
 And would we aught behold of higher worth, 
 Than that inanimate, cold world allowed 
 To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd, 
 Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth 
 A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud 
 Enveloping the Earth — 
 
 And from the soul itself must there be sent 
 A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, 
 Of all sweet sounds the life and element ! 1 9 
 
 tor Strength. 
 
 JUNE 15. 
 
 Of Beholding Things 
 
 of Higher Worth. 
 
50 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JUNE 16. For Him Wh0 
 
 is Determined. 
 
 “And virtue is more than a mere empty sound, 
 
 His practice through life man may make it, 
 
 And though oft, ere he yet the divine one has found, 
 
 He may stumble, he still may overtake it. 
 
 And that which the wise in his wisdom ne’er knew, 
 
 Can be done by the mind that is childlike and true.” 
 
 JUNE 17. ° f Bein s Thrilled 
 
 By an Inward Sense. 
 
 “Mowers are not flowers unto the poet’s eyes, 
 
 Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense; 
 
 He knows that outward seemings are but lies, 
 
 Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence 
 The soul that looks within for truth may guess 
 The presence of some wondrous heavenliness. ” 
 
 JUNE 18. ° f the Mission 
 
 of the Body. 
 
 “What is he but a brute 
 Whose flesh hath soul to suit, 
 
 Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? 
 
 To man, propose this test — 
 
 Thy body at its best, 
 
 How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?” 
 
 JUNE 19. Of Living 
 
 Forever. 
 
 “Alike are life and death, 
 
 When life in death survives, 
 
 And the uninterrupted breath 
 Inspires a thousand lives.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 51 
 
 JUNE 20. Of Cosmic 
 
 Beauty. 
 
 “For Nature beats in perfect tune, 
 
 And rounds with rhyme her every cune, 
 
 Thou canst not wave thy staff in air 
 Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 
 
 But it carves the bow of beauty there, 
 
 And the ripples in rhyme the oar forsake. ’ ’ 
 
 JUNE 21. Of the Sermons 
 
 in Stones. 
 
 “Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 
 Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; 
 
 And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” 
 
 JUNE 22. Of the Joy of 
 
 Elevated Thoughts. 
 
 “And I have felt 
 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 
 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 
 And rolls through all things.” 
 
 U, OF ILL 113. 
 
52 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JUNE 23. of the Childlike 
 
 Heart. 
 
 “The haughty eye shall seek in vain 
 What innocence beholds; 
 
 No cunning finds the key of heaven, 
 
 No strength its gate unfolds. 
 
 Alone to guilelessness and love 
 The gate shall open fall; 
 
 The mind of pride is nothingness, 
 
 The childlike heart is all!” 
 
 JUNE 24. Of the Right Kind 
 
 • ;of« Love. 
 
 “The warrior for the True, the Right, 
 
 Fights in Love’s name; 
 
 The love that lures thee from that fight 
 Lures thee to shame; 
 
 That love which lifts the heart, yet leaves 
 The spirit free, — 
 
 That love or none, is fit for one 
 Man-shaped like thee.” 
 
 JUNE 25. of Those Things 
 
 We May Trust In. 
 
 “I trust in Nature for the stable laws 
 Of Beauty and Utility. Spring shall plant, 
 
 And Autumn garner to the end of time: 
 
 I trust in God — the Right shall be the Right 
 And other than the Wrong, while He endures — 
 
 I trust in my own Soul, that can perceive 
 
 The outward and the inward, nature’s good and God’s.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 53 
 
 JUNE 26. 
 
 Of Him Who Is 
 
 Not Passion’s Slave. 
 
 “For thou hast been 
 
 As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing; 
 
 A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards 
 Hast ta’en with equal thanks: and blest are those 
 Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled 
 That they are not a pipe for fortune’s finger 
 To sound what stops she please. Give me that man 
 That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him 
 In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, 
 
 As I do thee.” 
 
 JUNE 27. of the Bird ’ s 
 
 “What objects are the fountains 
 Of thy happy strain 1 ? 
 
 What fields, or waves, or mountains? 
 
 What shapes of sky or plain? 
 
 What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain? 
 Waking or asleep, 
 
 Thou of death must deem 
 Things more true and deep 
 Than we mortals dream, 
 
 Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?” 
 
 JUNE 28. In the Name of the Power, Not Ourselves, 
 
 That Makes for Righteousness. 
 
 “A servant, with this clause, 
 
 Makes drudgery divine : 
 
 Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws 
 Makes that and the action fine.” 
 
 Flight Upward. 
 
 JUNE 29, 
 
 A Daily Prayer for 
 
 Men in the Market. 
 
 “Unto common good ordain 
 This rivalship of hand and brain. 
 And, east in some diviner mold, 
 Let the new cycle shame the old.” 
 
54 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JUNE 30. 
 
 Of the Flight 
 
 of Time. 
 
 “0, leave me, still, the rapid flight 
 
 That makes the changing seasons gay, 
 The grateful speed that brings the night, 
 The swift and glad return of day: 
 
 Then haste thee, Time — ’tis kindness all 
 That speeds thy winged feet so fast : 
 
 Thy pleasures stay not till they pall, 
 
 And all thy pains are quickly past. ” 
 
 __ ^ Of What We Ought 
 
 JUliY 1. to Reverence. 
 
 “ Learn more reverence, * * * * not for rank or 
 
 wealth — that needs no learning; 
 
 That comes quickly — quick as sin does, ay, and culminates 
 to sin, 
 
 But for Adam’s seed, MAN! Trust me, ’tis a clay above 
 your scorning, 
 
 With God’s image stamped upon it, and God’s kindling 
 breath within.” 
 
 JULY 2. 
 
 Of the Life 
 
 of Service. 
 
 “And ye shall succor men; 
 
 ’Tis nobleness to serve; 
 
 Help them who cannot help again; 
 
 Beware from right to swerve.” 
 
 JULY 3. 
 
 Of What the Best Life 
 Consists In. 
 
 “To make undying music in the world, 
 
 Breathing as beauteous order that controls 
 With growing sway the growing life of man — 
 So we inherit that sweet purity 
 For which we struggled, failed, and agonized.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 55 
 
 JULY 4. ofthe 
 
 Fatherland. 
 
 “What words divine of lover or of poet 
 Could tell our love and make thee know it, 
 
 Among the Nations bright beyond compare? 
 
 What were our lives without thee? 
 
 What all our lives to save thee? 
 
 We reck not what we gave thee; 
 
 We will not dare to doubt thee, 
 
 But ask whatever else, and we will dare.” 
 
 ____ _ Old Fashioned 
 
 JUJjY Wisdom in Verse 
 
 “Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, 
 
 For him as kindly spread the flowry lawn. 
 
 Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? 
 
 Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. 
 
 Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? 
 
 Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. 
 
 And just as short of reason he must fall, 
 
 Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.” 
 
 JULY 6. 
 
 Of the Sensitive 
 Plant. 
 
 “That garden sweet, that lady fair, 
 
 And all sweet shapes and odors there, 
 
 In truth have never past away: 
 
 ’Tis we, ? tis ours, are changed; not they. 
 For love, and beauty, and delight, 
 
 There is no death nor change; their might 
 Exceeds our organs, which endure 
 No light, being themselves obscure.” 
 
 JULY 7. 
 
 Of the Union of Greatness 
 and Humility. 
 
 “True dignity abides with him alone, 
 
 Who in the silent hour of inward thought, 
 Can still suspect and still revere himself 
 In lowliness of heart.” 
 
56 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JULY 8. Of the Kirgdom 
 
 We Hope For. 
 
 “Ay, for doubtless I am old and think gray thoughts, for I 
 am gray; 
 
 After all the stormy changes shall we find a changeless 
 May? 
 
 When the schemes and all the systems, Kingdoms and Re- 
 publics fall, 
 
 Something kindlier, higher, holier, — all for each, and each 
 for all?” 
 
 JULY 9. of ° ur Kinship 
 
 With All Living Things. 
 
 “And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, 
 
 Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part 
 Of the selfsame universal being, 
 
 Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. 
 
 In all places, then, and in all seasons, 
 
 Flowers expand their light and soul-like wfings, 
 Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, 
 
 How akin they are to human beings.” 
 
 JULY 10. ° f the Whispering 
 
 Voices. 
 
 “Ever the words of the gods resound; 
 
 But the porches of man’s ear 
 Seldom in this low life’s round 
 Are unsealed, that he may hear. 
 
 Wandering voices in the air, 
 
 And murmurs in the wold, 
 
 Speak what I cannot declare, 
 
 Yet cannot all withhold.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IK THE YEAR. 
 
 57 
 
 JULY 11, 
 
 That Our Work 
 
 Shall Go On, 
 
 “Others shall sing the song, 
 Others shall right the wrong, — 
 Finish what I begin, 
 
 And all I fail of win. 
 
 What matter, I or they? 
 Mine or another’s day, 
 
 So the right word be said 
 And life the sweeter made?” 
 
 “Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart 
 No man of iron mold and bloody hands, 
 
 Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands 
 The passions that consumed his restless heart: 
 
 But one of tender spirit and delicate frame 
 Gentlest, in mien and mind, 
 
 Of gentle womankind, 
 
 Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame: 
 
 One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made 
 Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in May, 
 Yet, at the thought of other’s pain, a shade 
 Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away.” 
 
 JULY 13. of the Good 
 
 “The wisest man could ask no more of fate 
 Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, 
 
 Safe from the many, honored by the few; 
 Nothing to crave in Church or World or State, 
 But inwardly in secret to be great. ’ ’ 
 
 JULY 12. 
 
 Of the Silent 
 
 Heroes, 
 
 for its Own Sake, 
 
58 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 Of What Shall Come 
 
 if We^Have Faith. 
 
 “Lo! a cloud’s about to vanish 
 From the day; 
 
 And a brazen wrong to crumble 
 Into clay. 
 
 Lo! the Right’s about to conquer, 
 
 Clear the way! 
 
 With the Right shall many more 
 Enter smiling at the door; 
 
 With the giant Wrong shall fall 
 Many others great and small, 
 
 That for ages long have held us 
 For their prey. 
 
 Men of thought and men of action, 
 
 Clear the way ! ’ ’ 
 
 For Them 
 
 Who Keep Heart. 
 
 “Tho hearts brood o’er the past, our eyes, 
 
 With smiling features glisten! 
 
 For lo! our day bursts up the skies: 
 
 Lean out your souls and listen! 
 
 The world rolls Freedom’s radiant way 
 And ripens with her sorrow; 
 
 Keep heart! who bear the cross to-day 
 Shall wear the crown to-morrow.” 
 
 JULY 16. From Thought 
 
 to Achievement. 
 
 “Wait, — wait, undoubting, for the winds have caught 
 From our bold speech the heritage of thought; 
 
 And thought unfettered grows through speech to deeds, 
 As the broad forest marches in its seeds. 
 
 What tho we perish ere the day is won'? 
 
 Enough to see its glorious work begun ! ’ ’ 
 
 JULY 14. 
 
 JULY 15. 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 59 
 
 JULY 17. Of the LI nks Between 
 
 the Past and the Future. 
 
 “ Still shall the soul around it call 
 
 The shadows which it gathered here, 
 
 And, painted on the eternal wall, 
 
 The Past shall reappear. 
 
 We live our life again: 
 
 Or warmly touched, or coldly dim, 
 
 The pictures of the Past remain. 
 
 Man’s work shall follow him.” 
 
 JULY 18. of what sha11 
 
 Endure. 
 
 “All that is, at all, 
 
 Lasts ever, past recall; 
 
 Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: 
 
 What entered into thee, 
 
 That was, is, and shall be: 
 
 Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.” 
 
 JULY 19. of the J°y 
 
 of Living. 
 
 “There’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean 
 To be some happy creature’s palace; 
 
 The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 
 
 Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
 
 And lets his illumined being o’errun 
 With the deluge of summer it receives; 
 
 His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
 
 And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; 
 He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
 
 In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best 1 ?” 
 
 JULY 20. of the Time w hen 
 
 the Soul Shall Triumph. 
 
 “Serene will be our days and bright, 
 
 And happy will our nature be, 
 
 When love is an unerring light, 
 
 And joy its own security.” 
 
60 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JULY 21. Of the Spiritual 
 
 Depths. 
 
 “Thought is deeper than all speech, 
 
 Feeling deeper than all thought ; 
 
 Souls to souls can never teach 
 What unto themselves was taught. 
 
 We are spirits clad in veils; 
 
 Man by man was never seen; 
 
 All our deep communing fails 
 To remove the shadowy screen. ’ ’ 
 
 JULY 22. Of the Peace that 
 
 Passeth Understanding. 
 
 “To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language; for his gayer hours 
 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
 Into his dark musings, with a mild 
 And healing sympathy, that steals away 
 Their sharpness, ere he is aware. ” 
 
 JULY 23. ° f the New World’s 
 
 Gospel. 
 
 “Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who dares 
 Look up to thee, the Father, — dares to ask 
 More than thy wisdom answers. 
 
 I claim the right of knowing whom I serve, 
 
 Else is my service idle; he that asks 
 My homage asks it from a reasoning soul. 
 
 We who have rolled the sphere beneath our feet 
 To find a virgin forest, as we lay 
 The beams of our rude temple, first of all 
 Must frame its doorway high enough for man 
 To pass unstooping. 
 
 This is the new world ’s gospel: Be ye men!” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 61 
 
 JULY 24. 
 
 Of the Cosmic Spirit 
 
 At the Center. 
 
 “Not for sport of mind and force 
 Hast Thou made Thy Universe, 
 But as atmosphere and zone 
 Of Thy loving heart alone.’ ’ 
 
 JULY 25. 
 
 Of Joy 
 
 in the Woods. 
 
 “Be it ours to meditate, 
 
 In these calm shades, thy milder majesty 
 And to the beautiful order of thy works 
 Learn to conform the order of our lives. 
 
 My heart is awed within me when I think 
 Of the great miracle that still goes on, 
 
 In silence, round me — the perpetual work 
 Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed 
 Horever. Written on thy works I read 
 The lesson of thy own eternity.” 
 
 ‘ c Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
 
 In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil 
 side; 
 
 Tho’ the cause of evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is 
 strong, 
 
 And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her 
 throng 
 
 Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all 
 wrong . 9 ’ 
 
 JULY 26. 
 
 Of the Choice 
 
 Inevitable. 
 
62 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 JULY 27. 
 
 It May Be 
 
 Sometime. 
 
 “0 Spirit vast and deep as Night and Heaven! 
 
 Mother and sonl of all to which is given 
 
 The light of life, the loveliness of being, 
 
 Lo! thou dost reascend the human heart. 
 
 Scorn and Hate, 
 
 Revenge and Selfishness are desolate — 
 
 A hundred nations swear that there shall be 
 Pity and Peace and Love, among the good and free!” 
 
 JULY 28. 
 
 Of Kinship 
 
 Everywhere. 
 
 “The wood is wiser far than thou; 
 
 The wood and wave each other know. 
 Not unrelated, unallied, 
 
 But to each thing and thought allied 
 Is perfect Nature’s every part, 
 
 Rooted in the mighty Heart.” 
 
 JULY 29. 
 
 Of the Soul’s 
 Bible. 
 
 “Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, 
 
 And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone; 
 Each age, each kindred adds a verse to it, 
 
 Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan.” 
 
 JULY 30. 
 
 Of One’s 
 
 “ Daily Bread.” 
 
 “That all of good the past hath had 
 Remains to make our own time glad, — 
 Our common daily life divine, 
 
 And every land a Palestine.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 63 
 
 JULY 31. 
 
 Of the Things that 
 
 are Most Precious. 
 
 u Loveliest of lovely things are they, 
 
 On earth, that soonest pass away. 
 
 The rose that lives its little hour 
 Is prized beyond the sculptured flower. 
 Even love, long tried and cherished long, 
 Becomes more tender and more strong, 
 At thought of that insatiate grave 
 From which its yearnings cannot save.” 
 
 AUG. 1. 
 
 From the Chorus 
 
 of Spirits. 
 
 “ We’ll pass the eyes 
 Of the starry skies 
 Into the hoar deep to colonize: 
 
 Death, Chaos, and Night, 
 
 From the sound of our flight, 
 
 Shall flee, like mist from a tempest’s might. 
 
 And Earth, Air and Light, 
 
 And the Spirit of Might, 
 
 Which drives round the stars in their fiery flight; 
 And Love, Thought and Breath, 
 
 The powers that quell Death, 
 
 Wherever we soar shall assemble beneath.” 
 
 AUG. 2. 
 
 Of Duty and 
 
 How it Sustains. 
 
 “ There are who ask not if thine eye 
 Be on them; who, in love and truth, 
 
 Where no misgiving is, rely 
 Upon the genial sense of youth: 
 
 Glad hearts: without reproach or blot; 
 
 Who do thy work, and know it not: 
 
 0 ! if through confidence misplaced 
 They fail, thy saving arms, dread Powder! 
 
 Around them cast.” 
 
64 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 AUG. 3. Practical Wisdom 
 
 in Rhyme 
 
 “Judges and senates have been bought for gold; 
 Esteem and love were never to be sold; 
 
 Honor and shame from no condition rise; 
 
 Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
 
 A wit’s a feather, and a chief a rod; 
 
 An honest man’s the noblest work of God.” 
 
 AUG. 4. ° f Heights 
 
 and Depths. 
 
 “Inaudible move day and night, 
 
 And noiseless grows the flower; 
 
 Silent are pulsing wings of light, 
 
 And voiceless fleets the hour. 
 
 The highest thoughts no utterance find, 
 
 The holiest hope is dumb, 
 
 In silence grows the immortal mind, 
 
 And speechless deep joys come.” 
 
 AUG. 5. of What We 
 
 Have Not Done. 
 
 “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.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 65 
 
 AUG 6. Of the Soul’s Surrender 
 
 to the Infinite. 
 
 “Around me stood the oaks and firs; 
 
 Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; 
 
 Over me soared the eternal sky, 
 
 Full of light and of Deity; 
 
 Again I saw, again I heard, 
 
 The rolling river, the morning bird; — 
 
 Beauty through my senses stole; 
 
 I yielded myself to the perfect whole. ” 
 
 AUG. 7. 
 
 Of Riches 
 
 in Heaven. 
 
 “For this is my kingdom: my peace with my neighbor; 
 The clasp of a hand or the warmth of a smile, 
 
 The sweetness of toil as the fruit of my labor, — 
 
 The glad joy of living and working the while; 
 
 The birds and the flowers and the blue skies above me, 
 The green of the meadows, the gold of the grain; 
 
 A song in the evening, a dear heart to love me, — 
 
 And just enough pleasure to balance the pain.” 
 
 AUG. 8. 
 
 Of the Reasons 
 
 for Waiting. 
 
 “Be patient, 0 be patient! the germs of mighty thought 
 Must have their silent undergrowth, must underground be 
 wrought ; 
 
 Be patient, 0 be patient! Put your ear against the earth; 
 Listen there how noiselessly the germ o ’ the seed has birth ; 
 How noiselessly and gently it upheaves its little way 
 Till it parts the scarcely-broken ground and the blade 
 stands up in the day.” 
 
66 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 Of Marching 
 On. 
 
 AUG. 9. 
 
 “Beneath this starry arch 
 Nought resteth or is still; 
 
 But all things hold their march, 
 
 As if by one great will; 
 
 Moves one, move all: hark to the foot-fall! 
 On, on, forever! 
 
 By night like stars on high, 
 
 The Hours reveal their train; 
 
 They whisper and go by; 
 
 I never watch in vain. 
 
 Moves one, move all: hark to the foot-fall! 
 On, on, forever !” 
 
 Of the Smile 
 
 of Cheer. 
 
 “When I approach the setting sun, 
 
 And feel my journey nearly done, 
 
 May earth be veiled in genial light, 
 
 And her last smile to me seem bright ! 
 
 Help me till then to kindly view 
 The world that I am passing through ! ’ 7 
 
 Of What 
 
 All Can Do. 
 
 “Thy nature, which, through fire and flood, 
 
 To place or gain finds out its way, 
 
 Hath power to seek the highest good, 
 
 And duty’s holiest call obey.” 
 
 AUG. 10. 
 
 AUG. 11. 
 
 AUG. 12. 
 
 Of Him Who Believes 
 in Justice. 
 
 “Stainless soldier on the walls, 
 
 Knowing this, — and knows no more, — 
 Whoever fights, whoever falls, 
 
 Justice conquers evermore, 
 
 Justice after as before.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 67 
 
 AUG. 13, 
 
 Of Faith Stronger 
 than Illusion. 
 
 “And so, noble soul, forget not the law, 
 And give the true faith thy seal; 
 
 What ear never heard and eye never saw, 
 The Beautiful, the True, they are real. 
 Look not without, as the fool may do; 
 
 It is in thee and ever created anew.” 
 
 AUG. 14. of the Value 
 
 “Of all the myriad moods of mind 
 
 That through the soul come thronging, 
 Which one was e’er so dear, so kind, 
 
 So beautiful as Longing? 
 
 But, would we learn that heart’s full scope 
 Which we are hourly wronging, 
 
 Our lives must climb from hope to hope 
 And realize our longing. ” 
 
 “The eye shall fail that searches 
 For me the hollow sky; 
 
 The far is even as the near, 
 
 The low is as the high. 
 
 The stern behest of duty, 
 
 The doom-book open thrown, 
 
 The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear, 
 Are with yourselves alone.” 
 
 of Longing. 
 
 AUG. 15, 
 
 Of the Kingdom 
 
 of Heaven. 
 
68 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 AUG. 16. ° f the s P ur 
 
 to the Soul. 
 
 “The fiend that man harries 
 Is love of the Best; 
 
 Yawns the pit of the Dragon, 
 
 Lit by rays from the Blest. 
 
 The Lethe of nature 
 
 Can’t trance him again, 
 
 Whose soul sees the perfect, 
 
 Which his eye seeks in vain.” 
 
 AUG. 17. Of the Ancient 
 
 Sanctuaries. 
 
 “Should we, in the world’s riper years, neglect 
 God’s ancient sanctuaries, and adore 
 Only among the crowd, and under roofs 
 That our frail hands have raised*? * * * * 
 
 The groves were God’s first temples. Ere man learned 
 To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, 
 
 And spread the roof above them, — ere he framed 
 The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
 The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, 
 
 Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down 
 And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
 And supplication.” 
 
 AUG. 18. of What Ws 
 
 Ought to See. 
 
 “By misery unrepelled, unawed 
 
 By pomp or power, thou seest a Man 
 In prince or peasant, — slave or lord, — 
 
 Pale priest, or swarthy artisan. 
 
 Through all disguise, form, place, or name, 
 Beneath the flaunting robes of sin, 
 
 Through poverty and squalid shame, 
 
 Thou lookest on the man within.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 69 
 
 * - Q Of Love that is Stronger 
 
 than Death. 
 
 “Love, from its awful throne of patient power 
 In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour 
 Of dead endurance, from the slippery steep, 
 
 And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs, 
 
 And folds over the world its healing wings.” 
 
 AUG. 20. 
 
 Of What the 
 
 Spirit Tells Us. 
 
 “Out of darkness 
 Into light. 
 
 And out of light 
 
 Into darkness again; 
 
 Perhaps to pleasure, 
 
 Perhaps to pain! 
 
 There must be Something, 
 
 Above or below; 
 
 Somewhere unseen 
 A mighty Bow, 
 
 A Hand that tires not, 
 
 A sleepless eye 
 That sees the arrows 
 F'ly and fly; 
 
 One who knows 
 Why we live — and die.” 
 
 Of Beliel that the 
 Right Must Win. 
 
 “Blessed, too, is he who can divine 
 Where real right doth lie. 
 
 And dares to take the side that seems 
 Wrong to man's blindfold eye. 
 
 For right is right, since God is God; 
 
 And right the day must win; 
 
 To doubt would be disloyalty, 
 
 To falter would be sin.” 
 
70 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 AUG. 22. Of the Change 
 
 We Hope For. 
 
 “ There *s a fount about to stream, 
 
 There ’s a light about to beam, 
 
 There ’s a warmth about to glow, 
 
 There’s a flower about to blow; 
 
 There’s a midnight blackness changing 
 Into grey! 
 
 Men of thought! be up and stirring 
 Night and day; 
 
 Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain, 
 
 Clear the way!” 
 
 AUG. 23. of Peace 
 
 Everlasting. 
 
 “The time shall come when earth shall be 
 A garden of joy, from sea to sea, 
 
 When the slaughterous sword is drawn no more, 
 
 And goodness exults from shore to shore. 
 
 Toil, brothers, toil, till the world is free, 
 
 Till goodness shall hold high jubilee!” 
 
 AUG. 24. That it: Wil1 Come 
 
 Out Right Sometime. 
 
 6 ‘ Deep in unfathomable mines 
 Of never-failing skill, 
 
 He treasures up his deep designs, 
 
 And works his sovereign will. 
 
 His purposes will ripen fast, 
 
 Unfolding every hour; 
 
 The bud may have 'a bitter taste, 
 
 But sweet will be the flower.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 71 
 
 AUG. 25. ° f True 
 
 Giving. 
 
 “That is no true alms which the hand can hold; 
 
 He gives nothing but worthless gold 
 Who gives from a sense of duty; 
 
 But he who gives a slender mite, 
 
 And gives to that which is out of sight, 
 
 That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
 Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
 
 The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
 
 For a god goes with it and makes it store 
 
 To the soul that was starving in darkness before . 9 9 
 
 Of the Final 
 Goal. 
 
 “0 yet we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill, 
 
 That not a worm is cloven in vain, — 
 
 That not a moth with vain desire 
 Is shrivel ’d in a fruitless fire, 
 
 Or but subserves another’s gain. 
 
 Behold, we know not anything; 
 
 I can but trust that good will fall 
 At last — far off — at last, to all, 
 
 And every winter change to spring.” 
 
 Of Those Who Would 
 
 Be in the Lead. 
 
 “0 resistless restless race! 
 
 0 beloved race in all ! 0 my breast aches with tender love for 
 all! 
 
 0 I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all, 
 Pioneers, 0 pioneers! 
 
 Have the elder races halted*? 
 
 Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there be- 
 yond the seas'? 
 
 We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the 
 lesson, 
 
 Pioneers, 0 pioneers!” 
 
 AUG. 26. 
 
 AUG. 27. 
 
72 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 AUG. 28. Of Serving 
 
 by Submission. 
 
 “Who best 
 
 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state 
 Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, 
 
 And post o’er land and ocean without rest; 
 
 They also serve who only stand and wait.” 
 
 AUG. 29. 
 
 Of Service 
 
 in Small Things. 
 
 “For the distant still thou yearnest, 
 And behold, the good so near! 
 
 If to use the good thou learnest, 
 Thou wilt surely find it here.” 
 
 AUG. 30. Of the Changing 
 
 That is Not Dying. 
 
 ‘ ‘ When will the stream be aweary of flowing 
 Under my eye? 
 
 When will the wind be aweary of blowing 
 Over the sky? 
 
 When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting? 
 
 When will the heart be aweary of beating, 
 
 And not die? 
 
 Never, 0! never, nothing will die; 
 
 The world was never made; 
 
 It will change, but it will not fade. ’ ’ 
 
 AUG. 31. of the Soil 
 
 We Venerate. 
 
 “What’s hallowed ground? ’Tis what gives birth 
 To sacred thoughts in souls of worth! — 
 
 Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth 
 Earth’s compass round! 
 
 And your high priesthood shall make earth 
 All hallowed ground.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 SEPT. 1. ° f the Links Which 
 
 Make Everything One. 
 
 “So since the universe began, 
 
 And till it shall be ended, 
 
 The soul of Nature, soul of Man 
 And soul of God are blended.” 
 
 SEPT. 2. In Memory of 
 
 the Silent Ones. 
 
 “We count the broken lyres that rest 
 Where the sweet wailing singers slumber. 
 
 But o’er their silent sister’s breast 
 
 The wild flowers who will stoop to number? 
 
 A few can touch the magic string, 
 
 And noisy [Fame is proud to win them: — 
 
 Alas for those that never sing, 
 
 But die with all their music in them ! ’ ’ 
 
 SEPT 3 of the 
 
 Trust. 
 
 “Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the 
 shore, 
 
 And the individual withers, and the world is more and 
 more. 
 
 Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one unceasing purpose 
 runs, 
 
 And the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process 
 of the suns.” 
 
 SEPT. 4. of the Souls 
 
 That Do Not Die. 
 
 “Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 
 
 The bridal of the earth and sky, 
 
 The dew shall weep thy fall to-night; 
 
 For thou must die. 
 
 Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 
 
 Like seasoned timber, never gives; 
 
 But tho the whole world turn to coal, 
 
 Then chiefly lives.” 
 
74 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 SEPT 5. Of the Life 
 
 That Pays. 
 
 “0 may I join that choir invisible 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 In minds made better by their presence: live 
 In pulses stirred to generosity, 
 
 In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 For miserable aims that end with self, 
 
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 
 And with their mild persistence urge man’s search 
 To vaster issues.” 
 
 SEPT. 6. Of the Slow 
 
 Climbing Sun. 
 
 “If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 
 
 It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 
 
 Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, 
 
 And, but, for you, possess the field. 
 
 For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, 
 
 Seem here no painful inch to gain, 
 
 [Far back through creeks and inlets making, 
 
 Comes silent, flooding in, the main, 
 
 And not by eastern windows only, 
 
 When daylight comes, comes in the light, 
 
 In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 
 
 But westward, look, the land is bright.” 
 
 Of the Temple 
 
 kjEPT 7. Not Made With Hands. 
 
 “To cloisters of the spirit 
 These aisles of quiet lead; 
 
 Here may the vision gladden, 
 
 The voice within us plead! 
 
 Here be no man a stranger; 
 
 No holy cause be banned; 
 
 No good for one be counted 
 Not good for all the land.” 
 
FOB EVEEY DAY IN THE YEAR. 75 
 
 SEPT. 8. For Him 
 
 Who Dares. 
 
 “This is Love’s nobility, — 
 
 Not to scatter bread and gold, 
 
 Goods and raiment bought and sold; 
 
 But to hold fast his simple sense, 
 
 And speak the speech of innocence, 
 
 And with the hand, the body, and blood, 
 
 To make his bosom-counsel good. 
 
 For he that feeds men serveth few; 
 
 He serves all who dares be true.” 
 
 SEPT. 9. For Him 
 
 Who Seeks Rest. 
 
 “Wouldst thou soar upward on joyous wing, 
 
 Cast off the earthly burden of the real; 
 
 And from this cramped and dungeon-being spring 
 Into the realm of the Ideal.” 
 
 SEPT 10. ° f the Mood 
 
 of Surrender. 
 
 “Transfused through you, 0 mountain friends! 
 
 With mine your solemn spirit blends, 
 
 And life no more hath separate ends. 
 
 I read each misty mountain sign, 
 
 I know the voice of wave and pine, 
 
 And I am yours, and ye are mine, 
 
 Life’s burdens fall, its discords cease, 
 
 I lapse into the glad release 
 Of Nature’s own exceeding peace.” 
 
 SEPT. 11. of the Swee P 
 
 Onward. 
 
 “Far away beyond her myriad coming changes earth will be 
 Something other than the wildest modern guess of you 
 and me. 
 
 Forward, then, but still remember how the course of time 
 will swerve, 
 
 Crook and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming 
 
 curve. 
 
76 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VEESE 
 
 SEPT. 12. For Him 
 
 Who Has Faith 
 
 u Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but 
 record 
 
 One death-grapple in the darkness ’twixt old systems and 
 the Word; 
 
 Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 
 throne, — 
 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim 
 unknown 
 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above 
 His own.” 
 
 SEPT. 13. 
 
 Of Nature’s 
 
 Most Solemn Lesson. 
 
 (( I have learned 
 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity, 
 
 Nor harsh nor grating, tho of ample power 
 To chasten and subdue. 
 
 For nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege 
 Through all the years of this our life to lead 
 From joy to joy.” 
 
 SEPT. 14. 
 
 Of Him“Who 
 
 Is^Always Rich. 
 
 “If happiness have not her seat 
 And center in the breast, 
 
 We may be wise or rich or great 
 But never can be blest. ’ ’ 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 77 
 
 SEPT. 15. of What We Think 
 
 In Life’s Afternoon. 
 
 “That all the jarring notes of life 
 Seem blending in a psalm, 
 
 And all the angles of its strife 
 Slow rounding into calm. 
 
 And so the shadows fall apart, 
 
 And so the west-winds play; 
 
 And all the windows of my heart 
 I open to the day.” 
 
 SEPT. 16. 
 
 Of the Lesson 
 
 of Cosmic Law. 
 
 “Teach me your mood, 0 patient stars! 
 Who climb each night the ancient sky, 
 Leaving on space no shade, no scars, 
 
 No trace of age, no fear to die.” 
 
 SEPT. 17. 
 
 Of the Glory 
 
 of the Commonplace. 
 
 “Underneath there lies 
 The common life of every day; 
 
 Only the spirit glorifies 
 With its own tints the sober gray. 
 
 In vain we look, in vain uplift 
 
 Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind; 
 
 We see but what we have the gift 
 Of seeing ; what we bring we find. ’ ’ 
 
 SEPT. 18. 
 
 Of Human 
 
 Fellowship. 
 
 “The crest and crowning of all good, 
 
 Life’s final star is Brotherhood; 
 
 For it will bring again to Earth 
 Her long-lost Poesy and Mirth; 
 
 And till it comes, we men are slaves 
 And travel downward to the dust of graves. 
 
 Tc this event the ages ran; 
 
 Make way for Brotherhood — make way for Man!” 
 
78 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 SEPT. 19. Of Him 
 
 Who Knew Peace. 
 
 “He walked the dark world, in the mild, 
 
 Still guidance of the Light; 
 
 In tearful tenderness a child, 
 
 A strong man in the right. ’ ’ 
 
 SEPT. 20. 
 
 Of the Center 
 
 of Calm. 
 
 “It is not the sea that sinks and shelves, 
 But ourselves 
 That rock and rise 
 With endless and uneasy motion, 
 
 Now touching the very skies, 
 
 Now sinking into the depths of ocean. ” 
 
 SEPT. 21. For Him 
 
 Who Never Tries. 
 
 6 6 Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us, 
 
 Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, 
 
 Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, 
 
 Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. 
 
 Work, — and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow; 
 Work, — thou shalt ride over Care’s coming billow; 
 
 Lie not down wearied ’neath Woe’s weeping willow! 
 Work with a stout heart and resolute will!” 
 
 SEPT. 22. 
 
 For Him Who Would 
 
 Not Be a Slave. 
 
 “They are slaves who fear to speak 
 For the fallen and the weak; 
 
 They are slaves who will not choose 
 Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 
 
 Rather than in silence shrink 
 Hrom the truth they needs must think; 
 They are slaves who dare not be 
 In the right with two or three.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 79 
 
 SEPT. 23. of the Rei £ n 
 
 of Law. 
 
 “Through the vastness, arching all, 
 
 I see the great stars rise and fall, 
 
 The rounding seasons come and go, 
 
 The tided oceans ebb and flow; 
 
 The tokens of a central force, 
 
 Whose circles, in their widening course, 
 
 Overlap and move the universe; 
 
 The workings of the law whence springs 
 The rhythmic harmony of things, 
 
 Which shapes in earth the darkling spar, 
 
 And orbs in heaven the morning star. ’ ’ 
 
 SEPT. 24. 
 
 Of the Soul in 0 
 Things|Material. 
 
 “And what if trade sow cities 
 Like shells along the shore, 
 
 And thatch with towns the prairie broad 
 With railways ironed o’er? 
 
 They are but sailing foam-bells 
 Along Thought's causing stream, 
 
 And take their shape and sun-color 
 From him that sends the dream. ” 
 
 SEPT. 25. 
 
 Of Communion 
 
 With Nature 
 
 “Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods, 
 
 And mountains; and of all that we behold 
 From this green earth; of all the mighty world 
 Of eye, and ear, — both what they half-create, 
 And what perceive; well-pleased to recognize 
 In nature and the language of the sense, 
 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
 The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
 Of all my moral being . 7 ' 
 
80 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 SEPT. 26. 
 
 For the Time 
 
 When the Tears Come. 
 
 “0 deem not they are blessed alone 
 Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep; 
 The Power who pities man, has shown 
 A blessing for the eyes that weep. 
 
 The light of smiles shall fill again 
 The lids that overflow with tears; 
 
 And weary hours of woe and pain 
 Are promises of happier years.’ ’ 
 
 SEPT. 27. 
 
 Of Him Who Never 
 Hesitates. 
 
 “ Away with the flimsy idea that life with a past is attended, 
 
 There’s Now — only Now — and no Past — there’s never a 
 past; it has ended. 
 
 Away with its obsolete story and all of its yesterday sor- 
 row; 
 
 There’s only to-day, almost gone, and in front of to-day 
 stands to-morrow.” 
 
 SEPT. 28. 
 
 For Him 
 
 Who Will Strive. 
 
 “Not to ease and aimless quiet 
 Doth that inward answer tend, 
 
 But to works of love and duty, 
 
 As our being’s end, — 
 
 Not to idle dreams and trances, 
 
 Length of face, and solemn tone, 
 
 But to Faith, in daily striving 
 And performance shown.” 
 
 8EPT. 29. 
 
 That All 
 
 Is Well. 
 
 “In the tumult and excess 
 Of act and passion under sun, 
 
 We sometimes hear, 0, soft and far 
 As silver star did touch with star, 
 
 The kiss of Peace and Righteousness 
 Through all things that are done.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN' THE YEAR. 
 
 81 
 
 SEPT. 30. of the Soul 
 
 of the Brook. 
 
 “And I shall sleep — and on thy side, 
 
 As ages after ages glide, 
 
 Children their early sports shall try, 
 
 And pass to hoary age and die. 
 
 But thou, unchanged from year to year, 
 
 Gaily shalt play and glitter here; 
 
 Amid young flowers and tender grass 
 Thy tender infancy shalt pass; 
 
 And, singing down thy narrow glen, 
 
 Shalt mock the fading race of men.” 
 
 OCT. 1. When the Soul 
 
 Itself Speaks. 
 
 “Hope is no smiling delusion that shames, 
 
 Nor folly that reason should scorn; 
 
 ’Tis the voice of the heart which so loudly proclaims 
 That we for the better were born. 
 
 And that which the inner voice bids us believe 
 Can never the hope of our spirits deceive.” 
 
 Of a Creed 
 
 Universal. 
 
 “Free from its bonds the mind, 
 
 The body from the rod; 
 
 Broken all chains that bind 
 The image of our God. 
 
 Earth own, at last untrod 
 By sect, or caste, or clan, 
 
 The fatherhood of God, 
 
 The brotherhood of man!” 
 
 Of Growth 
 
 In Spirit. 
 
 1 ( More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, 
 
 As tempted more ; more able to endure, 
 
 As more exposed to suffering and distress; 
 
 Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.” 
 
 OCT. 2. 
 
 OCT. 3. 
 
82 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 OCT. 
 
 OCT. 
 
 OCT. 
 
 OCT. 
 
 4. Of the Pleasures 
 
 of the Mind. 
 
 “Companion none is like 
 Unto the mind alone, 
 
 For many have been harmed by speech, — 
 Through thinking, few, or none, 
 
 Fear oftentimes restraineth words, 
 
 But makes not thoughts to cease; 
 
 And he speaks best that hath the skill 
 When for to hold his peace.’ ’ 
 
 Of Life and 
 
 Destiny. 
 
 “We shape, ourselves, the joy or fear 
 Of which the coming life is made, 
 
 And fill our Future’s atmosphere 
 With sunshine or with shade. 
 
 The tissue of the Life to be 
 
 We weave with colors all our own, 
 
 And in the fields of Destiny 
 We reap as we have sown.” 
 
 6 # Of Him 
 
 Who Serves. 
 
 ‘Who puts back into place a fallen bar, 
 
 Or flings a rock out of a traveled road, 
 
 His feet are moving toward the central star, 
 
 His name is whispered in the God’s abode.” 
 
 7 # For Him Who 
 
 Would Be Serene. 
 
 “How happy is he born and taught, 
 
 That serveth not another’s will; 
 
 Whose armor is his honest thought, 
 
 And simple truth his utmost skill 
 Whose passions not his masters are, 
 
 Whose soul is still prepared for death, 
 
 Untied unto the worldly care 
 Of public fame, or private breath!” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 83 
 
 For Him Who 
 
 Would Be Steadfast. 
 
 “His ‘No’ was ‘No’ without recall; 
 
 His ‘Yes’ was ‘Yes’ and powerful all; 
 
 He gave his ‘Yes’ with careful heed; 
 
 His thoughts and words were well agreed, 
 
 His word, his bond and seal.” 
 
 OCT. 9. 
 
 To Him 
 
 Who Trusts. 
 
 “Tho the mills of God grind slowly, 
 
 Yet they grind exceeding small; 
 
 Tho with patience He stands waiting, 
 
 With exactness grinds He all.” 
 
 OCT, 10. 
 
 Of the Squirrel 
 
 to the Mountain. 
 
 “All sorts of things and weather 
 Must be taken in together, 
 
 To make up a year 
 And a sphere. 
 
 And I think it no disgrace 
 To occupy my place.” 
 
 OCT. 11. For Him Who Would 
 
 Be Immortal. 
 
 “The energy of life may be 
 Kept on after the grave, but not begun ; 
 
 And he who flagg’d not in the earthly strife, 
 
 From strength to strength advancing — only he, 
 
 His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, 
 
 Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life. ’ ’ 
 
 OCT. 12. In the Service 
 
 of Duty. 
 
 “0, let my weakness have an end! 
 
 Give unto me, made lowly wise, 
 
 The spirit of self-sacrifice; 
 
 The confidence of reason give; 
 
 And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live ! ’ ’ 
 
84 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 OCT. 13. Of the Measure 
 
 of a Man. 
 
 “Not in the deed that’s done before the eyes 
 Of wonder-stricken lands upturned to view, 
 
 But in the will , — though no occasion rise, 
 
 And sleeping still, that dares such deeds to do , 
 
 Is drawn the line which parts him from the clods 
 And gives the man a kinship with the gods.” 
 
 OCT. 14. Of Spiritual 
 
 Riches. 
 
 “If Thought unlock her mysteries, 
 
 If Friendship on me smile, 
 
 I walk in marble galleries, 
 
 I talk with kings the while.” 
 
 OCT. 15. ° f Li s ht and 
 
 Darkness. 
 
 “He that has light within his own clear breast 
 May sit in the center and enjoy bright day; 
 
 But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, 
 Benighted walks under the midday sun; 
 
 Himself in his own dungeon.” 
 
 OCT. 16. ^ the ‘‘Whitening 
 
 in the Social Fire.” 
 
 “Voices are crying from the dust to Tyre, 
 
 From Baalbec and the stones of Babylon — 
 
 ‘We raised our pillars upon Self -Desire, 
 
 And perished from the large gaze of the sun . 9 
 No house can stand, no kingdom can endure 
 Built on the crumbling rock of Self-Desire : 
 
 Nothing is Living Stone, nothing is sure, 
 
 That is not whitened in the Social Fire.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN' THE YEAR. 
 
 85 
 
 OCT 17 of the Man 
 
 Who" Is Free. 
 
 “Out of the night that covers me, 
 
 Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
 
 I thank whatever gods may be 
 For my unconquerable soul. 
 
 It matters not how straight the gate 
 
 How charged with punishments the scroll, 
 
 I am the master of my fate : 
 
 I am the captain of my soul.” 
 
 OCT 18 For who 
 
 Looks^Ahead. 
 
 “High hopes that burned like stars sublime, 
 
 Go down the heavens of Freedom 
 And true hearts perish in the time 
 We bitterliest need them! 
 
 But never sit we down and say 
 There’s nothing left hut sorrow; 
 
 We walk the wilderness to-day, 
 
 The promised land to-morrow.” 
 
 OCT. 19. For Him Who 
 
 Would Not Swerve. 
 
 “Ah! if our souls but poise and swing 
 Like the compass in its brazen ring, 
 
 Ever level and ever true 
 
 To the toil and the task we have to do, 
 
 We shall sail securely, and safely reach 
 The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining reach 
 The sights we see, and the sounds we hear, 
 
 Will be those of joy and not of fear!” 
 
86 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 OCT. 20. For Him Who 
 
 Has Insight. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Sweet is the pleasure 
 Itself cannot spoil! 
 
 Is not true leisure 
 One with true toil? 
 
 Thou that wouldst taste it, 
 
 Still do thy best ; 
 
 Use it, not waste it, — 
 
 Else ’tis no rest.” 
 
 OCT. 21. of Him who 
 
 Loves Justice. 
 
 “Few, few were they whose swords of old 
 Won the fair land in which we dwell; 
 
 But we are many, we who hold 
 The grim resolve to guard it well. 
 
 Strike, for that broad and goodly land, 
 
 Blow after blow, till men shall see 
 That Might and Bight move hand in hand, 
 
 And glorious must their triumph be ! ” 
 
 OCT. 22. ° f the Lost 
 
 Heroes. 
 
 “Gone? In grander form they rise; 
 
 Dead? We may clasp their hands in ours, 
 
 And catch the light of their clearer eyes, 
 
 And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers. 
 W'herever a noble deed is done, 
 
 ’Tis the pulse of a Hero’s heart is stirred; 
 Wherever Right has a triumph won — 
 
 There are the Heroes’ voices heard.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IK THE YEAR. 
 
 87 
 
 OCT. 23. 
 
 For Him Who 
 Can See. 
 
 “ Thick is the darkness — 
 Sunward, 0 sunward! 
 Rough is the highway — 
 Onward, still onward! 
 Dawn harbors surely 
 East of the shadows. 
 Facing us somewhere 
 
 Spread the sweet meadows. 
 Upward and forward! 
 
 Time will restore us: 
 
 Light is above us, 
 
 Rest is before us.” 
 
 “ Still the race of Hero-spirits 
 
 Pass the lamp from hand to hand; 
 Age from age the world inherits — 
 ‘Wife and Child, and Fatherland/ 
 Still the youthful hunter gathers 
 Fiery joy from wold and wood; 
 
 He will dare, as dared his fathers, 
 Give him cause as good.” 
 
 OCT. 25. ° f the Debts 
 
 “Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
 
 Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues 
 
 Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike 
 
 As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch’d % 
 
 But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends 
 
 The smallest scruple of her excellence 
 
 But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
 
 Herself the glory of a creditor, 
 
 Both thanks and use.” 
 
 OCT. 24. 
 
 For Those Who Are 
 
 Tempted to Despond 
 
 We Owe. 
 
88 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 OCT. 26. of the Wind That 
 
 Always Blows Right. 
 
 “My little craft sails not alone; 
 
 A thousand ships from every zone 
 Are out upon a thousand seas, 
 
 And what for me were favoring breeze 
 Might crush another with the shock 
 Of doom upon some hidden rock. 
 
 And so I do not dare to pray 
 For wind to waft me on my way. 
 
 Then whatsoever wind both blow, 
 
 My heart is glad to have it so. 
 
 And blow it East or blow it West 
 
 The wind that blows, that wind is best.” 
 
 OCT. 27. For Him Who 
 
 Is in Trouble. 
 
 “The rounded world is fair to see, 
 
 Nine times folded in mystery; 
 
 Tho baffled seers cannot impart 
 The secret of its laboring heart, 
 
 Throb thine with Nature’s throbbing breast 
 And all is clear from east to west.” 
 
 OCT. 28. For the Last 
 
 of the Flowers. 
 
 “The aster-flower is failing, 
 
 The hazel’s gold is paling; 
 
 Yet overhead more near 
 The eternal stars appear! 
 
 And yet for the things I see 
 I trust the things to be.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 89 
 
 OCT. 29. of the Measur e 
 
 of Strength. 
 
 “ Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes, — they were souls that 
 stood alone, 
 
 While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious 
 stone, 
 
 Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam 
 'incline 
 
 To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith di- 
 vine, 
 
 By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s su- 
 preme design.” 
 
 OCT. 30. of Who Has 
 
 Peace Within. 
 
 “In lowly vales I mount 
 To pleasure’s highest pitch, 
 
 My simple dress sure honor brings, 
 
 My poor estate is rich. 
 
 My conscience is my crown, 
 
 Contented thoughts my rest; 
 
 My heart is happy in itself; 
 
 My bliss is in my breast.” 
 
 OCT 31 At the Heart 
 
 of All. 
 
 “Eterne alternation 
 
 Now follows, now flies; 
 
 And under pain, pleasure, — 
 
 Under pleasure, pain lies. 
 
 Love works at the center, 
 
 Heart-heaving alway; 
 
 Forth speed the strong pulses 
 To the borders of day.” 
 
90 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 NOV. 1. a Plea for 
 
 Strength. 
 
 “ A little of thy steadfastness, 
 
 Rounded with leafy gracefulness, 
 
 Old oak, give me, — 
 
 That the world’s blasts may round me blow, 
 
 And I yield gently to and fro, 
 
 While my stout-hearted trunk below 
 And firm-set roots unshaken be.” 
 
 NOV. 2. 
 
 For Him Who 
 
 Can Wait. 
 
 “ There is a day of sunny rest 
 
 For every dark and troubled night; 
 And grief may abide an evening guest, 
 But joy shall come with early light. ’ 7 
 
 NOV. 3. Of the Man in 
 
 Arms. 
 
 “It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought 
 Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
 Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: 
 
 Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
 That makes the path before him always bright: 
 
 This is the happy warrior; this is he 
 That every man in arms should wish to be . 7 7 
 
 NOV. 4. For Him Who 
 
 Fights. 
 
 “Soon rested those who fought; but thou 
 Who minglest in the harder strife 
 For truths which men receive not now, 
 
 Thy warfare only ends with life. 
 
 Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, 
 
 And blench not at thy chosen lot. 
 
 The timid good may stand aloof, 
 
 The sage may frown — yet faint thou not . 77 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 91 
 
 NOV. 5. ° f the Church 
 
 of the Soul. 
 
 “ These temples grew as grows the grass; 
 
 Art might obey, but not surpass. 
 
 The passive master lent his hand 
 To the vast Soul that o’er him planned; 
 
 And the same power that reared the shrine 
 Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.” 
 
 NOV. 6. 
 
 “ Happy the man, and happy he alone, 
 
 He who can call to-day his own; 
 
 He who, secure within, can say, 
 
 To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv’d to-day.” 
 
 NOV. 7. 
 
 Of the Glory 
 
 of Living. 
 
 “The things, 0 Life! thou quickenest, all 
 Strive upward towards the broad, bright sky. 
 Upward and outward, and they fall 
 Back to earth’s bosom where they die. 
 
 Well, I have had my turn, have been 
 Raised from the darkness of the clod, 
 
 And for a glorious moment seen 
 The brightness of the skirts of God.” 
 
 NOV. 8. 
 
 Of the Horizon 
 
 of the Soul. 
 
 “Ye heavens, whose pure, dark regions have no sign 
 Of languor, though so calm, and though so great 
 And yet untroubled and unpassionate ; 
 
 . . . . you remain 
 
 A world above man’s head, to let him see 
 How boundless might his soul’s horizons be, 
 
 How vast, yet of what clear transparency! 
 
 How it were good to live there and breathe free: 
 How fair a lot to fill 
 Is left to each man still!” 
 
92 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 NOV. 9. Of the Immortal 
 
 Good. 
 
 “I looked: aside the dust-cloud rolled, — 
 
 The Master seemed the Builder too ; 
 
 Upspringing from the ruined Old 
 I saw the New. 
 
 ’Twas but the ruin of the bad, — 
 
 The wasting of the wrong and ill; 
 
 Whatever of good the old time had 
 Was living still.” 
 
 NOV. 10. Of Truth 
 
 Triumphant. 
 
 “No power can die that ever wrought for Truth; 
 Thereby a law of Nature it became, 
 
 And lives unwithered in its sinewy youth, 
 
 When he who called it forth is but a name.” 
 
 Of the Victor’s 
 March. 
 
 “Well to suffer is divine; 
 
 Pass the watchword down the line, 
 
 Pass the countersign 1 Endure! ’ 
 
 Not to him who rashly dares, 
 
 But to him who nobly bears, 
 
 Is the victor’s garland sure.” 
 
 Of the Best 
 
 of All Comrades. 
 
 “If Thought and Love desert us, from that day 
 Let us break off all commerce with the Muse; 
 
 With Thought and Love companions of our way, 
 Whate’er the senses take or may refuse, 
 
 The Mind’s internal heaven shall shed her dews 
 Of inspiration on the humblest lay.” 
 
 NOV. 11. 
 
 NOV. 12. 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 93 
 
 NOV. 13. of Love 
 
 Triumphant. 
 
 “Of all the lives lived, 
 
 No life is so sweet, 
 
 As the life where one thought, 
 
 In refrain doth repeat, 
 
 Over and over, ever and ever, 
 
 Till the life ends, 
 
 Altering never. 
 
 0 ! of all the lives lived, 
 
 Can be no life so sweet 
 As the life where one thought 
 In refrain doth repeat. ” 
 
 NOV. 14. 
 
 Of Ties 
 
 Everlasting. 
 
 “Poor indeed thou must be, if around thee 
 Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw, 
 
 If no silken cord of love hath bound thee 
 To some little world through weal and woe.” 
 
 NOV. 15. 
 
 To Him Who 
 
 Would Be Fearless. 
 
 “ ‘Wouldst thou/ — so the helmsman answered, 
 c Learn the secret of the sea*? 
 
 Only those who brave its dangers 
 Comprehend its mystery ! ? ” 
 
 NOV. 16. 
 
 Of What 
 
 Might Be. 
 
 “Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, 
 Like some of the simple great ones gone 
 For ever and ever by. 
 
 One still strong man in a blatant land, 
 Whatever they call him, what care I, 
 Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, — one 
 Who can rule and dare not lie.” 
 
94 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 NOV. 17. 
 
 Of the Source 
 
 of Strength. 
 
 “Is parchment, then, the holy fount before thee, 
 
 A draught wherefrom thy thirst forever slakes? 
 
 No true refreshment can restore thee, 
 
 Save what from thine own soul spontaneous breaks.’ ’ 
 
 “All before us lies the way; 
 
 Give the past unto the wind; 
 
 All before us is the day, 
 
 Night and darkness are behind. 
 Eden with its angels bold, 
 
 Love and flowers and coolest sea, 
 Is less an ancient story told 
 Than a glowing prophecy.” 
 
 “ ‘Ah, once more,’ I cried, ‘ye stars, ye waters, 
 
 On my heart your mighty charm renew; 
 
 Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, 
 
 Feel my soul becoming vast like you.’ 
 
 From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, 
 Over the lit sea’s unquiet way, 
 
 In the rustling night-air came the answer: 
 
 ‘Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.’ ” 
 
 NOV. 20. For Him Who 
 
 “0, our manhood’s prime vigor! 
 
 No spirit feels waste, 
 
 No muscle is stopped in its playing, 
 
 No sinew unbraced; — 
 
 How good is man’s life, the mere living! 
 How fit to employ 
 
 The heart and the soul and the senses 
 Forever in joy.” 
 
 NOV. 18, 
 
 Of the True 
 Eden. 
 
 NOV. 19, 
 
 Of the Stars 
 
 and Their Lesson. 
 
 Knows. 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 95 
 
 NOV. 21. For Him’Who 
 
 Would Learn. 
 
 “If this great world of joy and pain 
 Revolve in one sure track; 
 
 If freedom, set, will rise again, 
 
 And virtue, flown, come back; 
 
 Woe to the purblind crew who fill 
 The heart with each day’s care; 
 
 Nor gain, from past or future, skill 
 To bear, and to forbear!” 
 
 NOV. 22. Of the Higher 
 
 Paradise. 
 
 “In the spirit’s perfect air, 
 
 In the passions tame and kind, 
 
 Innocence from selfish care, 
 
 The real Eden we shall find, 
 
 When the soul to sin hath died, 
 
 True and beautiful and sound, 
 
 Then all earth is sanctified, 
 
 Upsprings paradise around.” 
 
 NOV. 23. ° f the Higher 
 
 Self. 
 
 “All we have will’d or hop’d or dream ’d of good, shall exist; 
 
 Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor 
 power 
 
 Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the 
 melodist, 
 
 When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
 
 The high that prov’d too high, the heroic for earth too 
 hard, 
 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
 
 Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; 
 
 Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.” 
 
96 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 NOV. 24. In the World 
 
 of the Spirit. 
 
 “He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel 
 In worlds whose course is equable and pure; 
 
 No fears to beat away— no strife to heal — 
 
 The past unsighed for, and the future sure. 
 
 Of all that is most beauteous-imaged there 
 In happier beauty — more pellucid streams, 
 
 An ampler ether, a diviner air, 
 
 And fields invested with purpureal gleams; 
 
 Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day 
 Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey. 
 
 Yet there the soul shall enter which hath earned 
 That privilege by virtue.’ ’ 
 
 NOV. 25. of Bein e 
 
 Satisfied. 
 
 “From toil he wins his spirit’s light, 
 
 From busy day the peaceful night; 
 
 Rich, from the very want of wealth, 
 
 In heaven’s best treasures, peace and health.” 
 
 NOV. 26. 
 
 Of Kinship 
 
 Universal. 
 
 “For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, 
 
 Round the earth’s electric circle the swift flash of right or 
 wrong; 
 
 Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast 
 frame 
 
 Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy or 
 shame ; — • 
 
 In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal 
 claim. ’ ’ 
 
 NOV. 27. 
 
 Of the Beauty 
 
 That Does Not Fade. 
 
 “Her love made all things lovely, 
 
 For in the heart must live 
 The feeling that imparts the charm, — 
 
 We gain by what we give/’ 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 97 
 
 NOV. 28. Of the Man 
 
 With a Soul. 
 
 “His tongue was framed to music, 
 
 And his hand was armed with skill, 
 
 His face with the mold of beauty, 
 
 And his heart the throne of will.” 
 
 NOV. 29. Of the Pathway 
 
 of Knowledge. 
 
 “No one could tell me where my Soul might be. 
 
 I searched for God, but God eluded me. 
 
 I sought my Brother out, and found all three.” 
 
 NOV. 30. Of “Each Accomplished 
 
 Service of the Day.” 
 
 “ — Each true deed is worship: it is prayer, 
 
 And carries its own answer unaware, 
 
 Yes, they whose feet upon good errands run 
 Are friends of God, with Michael of the Sun; 
 
 Yes, each accomplished service of the day 
 Paves for the feet of God a lordlier way. 
 
 The souls that love and labor through all wrong, 
 
 They clasp his hand and make the circle strong; 
 
 They lay the deep foundation stone by stone, 
 
 And build into eternity God’s throne!” 
 
 DEC. 1. of Love 
 
 Religious. 
 
 “So, to the calmly gathered thought 
 The innermost of truth is taught, 
 
 The mystery dimly understood, 
 
 That love of God is love of good. ’ ’ 
 
 DEC. 2. of the Lost 
 
 Illusions. 
 
 “I grieve not that ripe Knowledge takes away 
 The charm that Nature to my childhood wore, 
 
 Eor, with that insight, cometh, day by day, 
 
 A greater bliss than wonder was before; 
 
 The real doth not clip the poet’s wings, — 
 
 To win the secret of a weed’s plain heart 
 Reveals some clew to spiritual things, 
 
 And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art.” 
 
98 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 DEC. 3. 
 
 DEC. 4. 
 
 DEC. 5, 
 
 DEC. 6, 
 
 Of the Birth 
 
 of the Spirit. 
 
 “A subtle chain of countless rings 
 The next unto the farthest brings; 
 
 The eye reads omens where it goes, 
 
 And speaks all languages the rose; 
 
 And striving to be man, the worm 
 
 Mounts through all the spires of form/’ 
 
 Of Him 
 
 Who Keeps On. 
 
 “Dust are all the hands that wrought; 
 
 Books are sepulchres of thought; 
 
 And I answer, — ‘Tho it be, 
 
 W/hy should that discomfort me? 
 
 No endeavor is in vain; 
 
 Its reward is in the doing , 
 
 And the rapture of pursuing 
 
 Is the prize, the vanquished gain/ ” 
 
 Our Trust. 
 
 “That all our sorrow, pain and doubt 
 A great compassion clasps about, 
 
 And law and goodness, love and force, 
 Are wedded fast beyond divorce / 9 
 
 Of Beauty 
 
 Universal. 
 
 “There the great Planter plants 
 Of fruitful worlds the grain, 
 
 And with a million spells enchants 
 The souls that walk in pain. 
 
 Still on the seeds of all he made, 
 
 The rose of beauty burns; 
 
 Through times that wear and forms that fade 
 Immortal youth returns / 9 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 99 
 
 DEC. 7. For Him 
 
 Who Aspires 
 
 “Be noble! and the nobleness that lies 
 In other men, sleeping, but never dead, 
 
 Will rise in majesty to meet thine own; 
 
 Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes, 
 
 Then will pure light around thy path be shed, 
 
 And thou wilt nevermore be sad and lone . 7 ’ 
 
 DEC. 8. Of the Star-Like 
 
 Soul. 
 
 “Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; 
 
 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: 
 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
 
 So didst thou travel on life’s common way. 
 
 In cheerful godliness, and yet thy heart 
 The lowliest duties on herself did lay.” 
 
 DEC. 9. ° f Life 
 
 Everlasting. 
 
 “Were a star quenched on high, 
 
 For ages would its light, 
 
 Still traveling downward from the sky, 
 
 Shine on our mortal sight. 
 
 So when a great man dies, 
 
 For years beyond our ken, 
 
 The light he leaves behind him lies 
 Upon the paths of men.” 
 
 DEC. 10. For Him 
 
 Who Believes. 
 
 “I watch the circle of the eternal years, 
 
 And read forever in the storied page 
 One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, and tears, — 
 One upward step of Truth from age to age.” 
 
100 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 DEO. 11. A Universal 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 “Give me, Lord, eyes to behold the truth; 
 
 A seeing sense that knows the eternal right; 
 
 A heart with pity filled, and gentlest ruth; 
 
 A manly faith that makes all darkness light: 
 
 Give me the power to labor for mankind; 
 
 Make me the mouth of such as cannot speak ; 
 
 Eyes let me be to groping men and blind; 
 
 A conscience to the base; and to the weak 
 
 Let me be hands and feet; and to the foolish, mind; 
 
 And lead still further on such as thy kingdom seek.” 
 DEO. 12. “ Of Faith 
 
 in Man. 
 
 “And though I ? ve learned some souls are base, 
 
 I would not therefore hate the race; 
 
 I still would bless my fellow men, 
 
 And trust them, though deceived again. 
 
 God help me still to kindly view 
 The world that I am passing through!” 
 
 DEO. 13. For Him WhoJWould 
 
 Keep Abreast of Truth. 
 
 “ ’Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves 
 Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers’ graves. 
 New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good 
 uncouth ; 
 
 They must upward still, and onward, who would keep 
 abreast of Truth.” 
 
 DEC. 14. Of the Vanishing 
 
 Years. 
 
 “Look, how they come, — a mingled crowd 
 Of bright and dark, but rapid days; 
 
 Beneath them, like a summer cloud, 
 
 The wide world changes as I gaze. 
 
 What! grieve that time has brought so soon 
 The sober age of manhood on! 
 
 As idly might I weep, at noon, 
 
 To see the blush of morning gone.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 101 
 
 DEC. 15. of the Value ot 
 
 A Random Thought. 
 
 “A dreamer dropped a random thought; ’twas old, and yet 
 ’twas new; 
 
 A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being true. 
 
 It shone upon a genial mind, and lo ! its light became 
 A lamp of life, a beacon ray, a monitory flame. 
 
 The thought was small; its issue great; a watch-fire on the 
 hill; 
 
 It shed its radiance far adown, and cheers the valley still ! ’ ’ 
 
 DEC. 16. of Sowing 
 
 and Reaping. 
 
 “Men must reap the things they sow, 
 
 Force from force must ever flow, 
 
 Or worse; but ’tis a bitter woe 
 
 That love or reason cannot change 
 
 The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge.” 
 
 DEC. 17. Of the Man 
 
 to Come. 
 
 “Let war and trade and creeds and song 
 Blend, ripen, race on race, 
 
 The sunburnt world a man shall breed 
 Of all the zones and countless days. 
 
 No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, 
 
 My oldest force is good as new, 
 
 And the fresh rose on yonder thorn 
 
 Gives back the bending heavens in dew. ’ ’ 
 
 DEC. 18. Of What is 
 
 Possible in Man. 
 
 “All that hath been majestical 
 
 In life or death since time began, 
 
 Is native in the simple heart of all 
 The angel heart of man. 
 
 And thus among the untaught poor 
 Great deeds and feelings find a home, 
 
 That cast in shadow all the golden lore 
 Of classic Greece and Rome.” 
 
102 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 Of the Autumn 
 Time. 
 
 DEC. 19. 
 
 “I’ve tried the world — it wears no more 
 The coloring of romance it wore. 
 
 Yet well has Nature kept the truth 
 She promised in my earliest youth. 
 
 The radiant beauty shed abroad 
 On all the glorious works of God, 
 
 Shows freshly to my sobered eye, 
 
 Each charm it wore in days gone by.” 
 
 DEC. 20. of the W*ri cl1 
 
 Knows No Failure. 
 
 “Each has his work and way, 
 
 Each has his part and play, 
 
 Each has his task to do, 
 
 Both of the good and true. 
 
 Whether thou’rt grave or gay, 
 
 Be thou yet brave and true.” 
 
 DEC. 21. What the Poet 
 
 Sees. 
 
 “Ah, there is something here 
 Unfathomed by the cynic’s sneer, — 
 
 A conscience more divine than we, 
 
 A gladness fed with secret tears, 
 
 A vexing, forward-reaching sense 
 Of some more noble permanence; 
 
 A light across the sea, 
 
 Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, 
 
 Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate years.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN' THE YEAR. 
 
 103 
 
 DEC. 22. of the Invisible 
 
 Church. 
 
 “With noiseless slide of stone to stone 
 The mystic church of God has grown. 
 
 Invisible and silent stands 
 
 The temple never made with hands, 
 
 Unheard the voices still and small 
 Of its unseen confessional . 7 7 
 
 DEC. 23. For Who 
 
 Would Know God. 
 
 “Flower in the crannied wall, 
 
 I pluck you out of the crannies; — 
 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 
 Little flower — but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 
 I should know what God and man is.” 
 
 DEC. 24. of High-Souled 
 
 Deeds. 
 
 “There is no wind but soweth seeds 
 Of a more true and open life, 
 
 Which burst unlooked for into high-souled deeds 
 With wayside beauty rife.” 
 
 DEC. 25. ! Of the Love* 
 
 ! That Never Dies. 
 
 “Love, now a universal birth, 
 
 From heart to heart is stealing, 
 
 From earth to man, from man to earth: 
 
 It is the hour of feeling. 
 
 One moment now may give us more 
 Than years of toiling reason: 
 
 Our minds shall drink at every pore 
 The spirit of the season . ' 7 
 
104 
 
 A SENTIMENT IN VERSE 
 
 DEC. 26. ° f the Wheel 
 
 of Fortune. 
 
 “ Smile, and we smile, the lords of many lands; 
 
 Frown, and we smile, the lords of our own hands; 
 
 For man is man, and master of his fate. 
 
 Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd; 
 
 Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud ; 
 
 Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.” 
 
 DEC. 27. ° f the Senses 
 
 of the Soul. 
 
 “The senses folding thick and dark 
 About the stifled soul within, 
 
 We guess diviner things beyond, 
 
 And yearn to them with yearning fond; 
 
 We strike out blindly to a mark 
 Believed in, but not seen.” 
 
 DEC. 28. Of Him Who Asks 
 
 For No Reward. 
 
 “We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is 
 great, 
 
 Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm 
 of fate. 
 
 Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her 
 wretched crust, 
 
 Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous 
 to be just.” 
 
 DEC. 29. of Bein s Lifted 
 
 Up. 
 
 “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.” 
 
FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. 
 
 105 
 
 DEC. 30. of the staff 
 
 of Duty. 
 
 “Through no disturbance of my soul, 
 
 Or strong compunction in me wrought, 
 
 I supplicate for thy control; 
 
 But in the quietness of thought : 
 
 Me this unchartered freedom tires; 
 
 I feel the weight of chance-desires: 
 
 My hopes no more must change their name, 
 
 I long for a repose that ever is the same. n 
 
 DEC. 31. ° f Lookin & 
 
 Into the Future. 
 
 1 1 Once the welcome light has broken, 
 
 Who shall say 
 
 What the unimagined glories 
 Of the day? 
 
 What the evil that shall perish 
 In its ray? 
 
 Aid the dawning tongue and pen; 
 
 Aid it, hopes of honest men; 
 
 Aid it, paper, aid it type, 
 
 Aid it, for the hour is ripe; 
 
 And our earnest must not slacken 
 Into play. 
 
 Men of thought and men of action, 
 
 Clear the way.” 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Jan. 1. Alfred Tennyson, 1809-1892. “Locksley Hall.” 
 Jan. 2. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1807-1882. 
 “Haunted Houses.’ ’ 
 
 Jan. 3. Edmund Hamilton Sears. 1810-1876. “The An- 
 gel’s Song.” 
 
 Jan. 4. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803-1882. Prefixed to 
 “Essay on Art.” 
 
 Jan. 5. Goethe. 1749-1832. Found as a quotation. 
 
 Jan. 6. Matthew Arnold. 1822-1888. “Religious Isola- 
 tion. ’ ’ 
 
 Jan. 7. Robert Southwell. 1556-1595. “Content and Rich.” 
 Jan. 8. John Greenleaf Whittier. 1807-1892. “My Tri- 
 umph. ’ ’ 
 
 Jan. 9. Found as an anonymous quotation. Author not 
 located. 
 
 Jan. 10. Charles Kingsley. 1819-1875. “The World’s Age.” 
 Jan. 11. Robert Browning. 1812-1889. “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” 
 Jan. 12. James Russell Lowell. 1819-1892. “Sonnet.” 
 
 Jan. 13. William Wordsworth. 1790-1850. “Tintern Ab- 
 bey.” 
 
 Jan. 14. James Montgomery. 1776-1854. “The Common Lot.” 
 Jan. 15. Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey) 
 
 1905. From a poem in “Unity.” 
 
 Jan. 16. Sarah Knowles Bolton. 1841- . “The Inev- 
 
 itable.” From the American Anthology. 
 
 Jan. 17. William Wordsworth. “Ode to Duty.” 
 
 Jan. 18. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Prefixed to “Essay on 
 Compensation. ’ ’ 
 
 Jan. 19. William Morris . 1834-1896. Found as a quotation. 
 Jan. 20. Alfred Tennyson. “Oenone.” 
 
 Jan. 21. James Russell Lowell. “The Beggar.” 
 
 Jan. 22. Matthew Arnold. “The Buried Life.” 
 
 Jan. 23. John Burroughs, 1837- . “Waiting.” From 
 
 The American Anthology. 
 
 Jan. 24. William Cullen Bryant. 1794-1877. “Song of the 
 Stars. ’ ’ 
 
 Jan. 25. Robert Southwell. “Content and Rich.” 
 
 Jan. 26. Matthew Arnold. “The Buried Life.” 
 
 106 
 
Jan. 27. Charles Maekay. 1814-1889. “ Small Beginnings. ” 
 From Bryants “A Library of Poetry and 
 Song.” 
 
 Jan. 28. Harriet Winslow Sewell. 1819-1889. “Why Thus 
 Longing ? ’ 9 
 
 Jan. 29. W. E. Henley. 1849-1903. “The Echo.” XXXYII. 
 Jan. 30. Annie Reave Aldrich. 1866-1892. “The Eternal 
 Justice.” From The American Anthology. 
 
 Jan. 31. Goethe. Found as a quotation. 
 
 Feb. 1. John Greenleaf Whittier. “My Psalm.” 
 
 Feb. 2. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 1809-1894. 
 
 Feb. 3. Algernon Charles Swinburne. 1837-. “Hertha.” 
 Feb. 4. Alfred Tennyson. “Song” from “Enid.” 
 
 Feb. 5. Goethe. Found as a quotation. 
 
 Feb. 6. William Wordsworth. “The Happy Warrior.” 
 Feb. 7. John Vance Cheney. 1848- . “The Happiest 
 
 Heart.” From The American Anthology. 
 
 Feb. 8. John Lancaster Spalding. 1840. “Believe and Take 
 Heart.” From The American Anthology. 
 
 Feb. 9. Richard Realf. 1834-1877. “An Old Man’s 
 Idyl.” From The American Anthology. 
 
 Feb. 10. William Wordsworth. “Laodamia.” 
 
 Feb. 11. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Questions of Life.” 
 Feb. 12. James Russell Lowell. “On the Capture of Cer- 
 tain Fugitive Slaves Near Washington.” 
 
 Feb. 13. Arthur Hugh Clough. “Dipsychus.” 
 
 Feb. 14. William Shakespeare. “Henry VIII.” 
 
 Feb. 15. Edwin Markham. 1852-. From Cosmopolitan, 
 
 June, 1906. 
 
 Feb. 16. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Keramos.” 
 
 Feb. 17. Matthew Arnold. “Self-Dependence.” 
 
 Feb. 18. Sir Henry Wotton. 1568-1639. 
 
 Feb. 19. James Russell Lowell. “On the Capture of Cer- 
 tain Fugitive Slaves near Washington.” 
 
 Feb. 20. Gerald Massey. 1828- . “To-Day and To- 
 
 Morrow. * 9 
 
 Feb. 21. Alfred Tennyson. “Locksley Hall Sixty Years 
 After.” 
 
 Feb. 22. James Russell Lowell. “The Fatherland.” 
 
 Feb. 23. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Quaker Alumni.” 
 
 Feb. 24. Ellen Clementine Howarth. 1827-1899. “The 
 Faded Flower.” 
 
 107 
 
Feb. 25. Alexander Pope. 1688-1744. “ A Universal Prayer.” 
 Feb. 26. Robert Herrick. 1591-1674. “The True Lent.” 
 Feb. 27. John Greenleaf Whittier. “My Soul and I.” 
 Feb. 28. Robert Browning. “Saul.” 
 
 Feb. 29. Friedrich Schiller. 1759-1805. “Hymn to Joy.” 
 Translation by Bowring, slightly modified. 
 March 1. William Cullen Bryant. “The Firmament.” 
 March 2. Richard Moncklin Milnes. (Lord Houghton). 
 
 1809-1885. “The Men of Old.” 
 
 March 3. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Evangeline.” 
 March 4. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 1772-1834. “The 
 
 Good Great Man.” 
 
 March 5. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “The Light of 
 the Stars.” 
 
 March 6. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Voluntaries.” 
 
 March 7. Alfred Tennyson. “The Golden Year.” 
 
 March 8. Arthur Hugh Clough. 1819-1861. “Easter Day.” 
 March 9. Edwin Hatch. 1835-1889. “Towards Fields of 
 Light,” taken from “The Message of Man,” 
 compiled by Stanton Coit. 
 
 March 10. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Hero.” 
 
 March 11. Robert Browning. “Saul.” 
 
 March 12. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Resignation.” 
 March 13. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Andrew Rykman’s 
 Prayer . 9 7 
 
 March 14. William Wordsworth. “Miscellaneous Sonnets.” 
 March 15. William C. Bryant. “The Conqueror’s Grave.” 
 March 16. Alfred Tennyson. “Ode Sung at the Opening of 
 the International Exhibition.” 
 
 March 17. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Reformer.” 
 March 18. Robert Browning. “Paracelsus.” 
 
 March 19. Thos. Campbell. 1757-1844. “Hallowed Ground.” 
 March 20. William Wordsworth. “Dion.” 
 
 March 21. Alfred Tennyson. “Locksley Hall.” 
 
 March 22. Goethe. “Faust,” from the Translation by Bay- 
 ard Taylor. 
 
 March 23. George Eliot. 1819-1880. “The Choir Invisible.” 
 March 24. John Greenleaf Whittier. “To Robert Burns.” 
 March 25. Horatius Bonar. 1808-1889. “Think Truly.” 
 March 26. John Sullivan Dwight. 1813-1893. “Sweet is 
 the Pleasure.” 
 
 March 27. Nathaniel Cotton. 1721-17 . “The Fire-Side.” 
 
 108 
 
March 28. Robert Browning. “Saul.” 
 
 March 29. John Keble, 1792-1866. “Morning.” 
 
 March 30. Friedrich Schiller. “The Artists.” 
 
 March 31. John Keble. “St. Matthew.” 
 
 April 1. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The World-Soul.” 
 
 April 2. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Voices.” 
 
 April 3. Oliver Wendell Holmes. “The Chambered Nau- 
 tilus. 7 7 
 
 April 4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Evangeline.” 
 April 5. Robert Browning. “Abt Vogler.” 
 
 April 6. William Cullen Bryant. “An Invitation to the 
 Country . 7 7 
 
 April 7. Bryan Waller Proctor. 1787-1875. “A Petition 
 to Time.” From the Victorian Anthology. 
 April 8. Arthur Hugh Clough. “The New Sinai.” 
 
 April 9. Matthew Arnold. “Lines Written in Kensington 
 Gardens . 7 7 
 
 April 10. Frances S. Osgood. 1812-1850. “Labor.” 
 
 April 11. John Greenleaf Whittier. “My Psalm.” 
 
 April 12. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “The Builders.” 
 April 13. Robert Browning. “Abt Vogler.” 
 
 April 14. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “The Builders.” 
 April 15. Oliver Wendell Holmes. “The Old Player.” 
 
 April 16. Robert Southey. 1774-1843. Found as a quotation. 
 April 17. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “The Village 
 Blacksmith . 7 7 
 
 April 18. William Wordsworth. “To My Sister.” 
 
 April 19. Alfred Tennyson. “Lady Claire Vere de Vere.” 
 April 20. William Byrd. 1538-1623. “My Mind to Me a 
 Kingdom Is.” 
 
 April 21. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Psalm of Life.” 
 April 22. William Wordsworth. “The Tables Turned.” 
 April 23. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Threnody.” 
 
 April 24. Ben Jonson. 1573-1637. “The Noble Nature.” 
 April 25. Alfred Tennyson. “Locksley Hall.” 
 
 April 26. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “The Fiftieth 
 Anniversary of Agassiz.” 
 
 April 27. Robert Browning. “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” 
 
 April 28. John G. Whittier. “The Chapel of the Hermits.” 
 April 29. Wm. Wordsworth. “Expostulation and Reply.” 
 April 30. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The Rhodora.” 
 
 May 1. Harriet Winslow Sewell. “Why Thus Longing?” 
 
 109 
 
May 2. James Russell Lowell. “True ’Freedom.” 
 
 May 3. John Sterling. 1806-1844. From a Collection. 
 May 4. Lord Byron. 1788-1824. “She Walks in Beauty.” 
 May 5. James Russell Lowell. “Longing.” 
 
 May 6. Alexander Pope. “Essay on Man.” 
 
 May 7. James Russell Lowell. “Vision of Sir Launfal.” 
 May 8. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The Sphinx.” 
 
 May 9. William Wordsworth. “Mountain Echo.” 
 
 May 10. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The Problem.” 
 
 May 11. James Russell Lowell. “Incident in a Railroad 
 Car.” 
 
 May 12. Alexander Pope. “A Universal Prayer.” 
 
 May 13. John Greenleaf Whittier. “My Triumph.” 
 
 May 14. William Wordsworth. “Expostulation and 
 Reply. ’ 9 
 
 May 15. John Greenleaf Whittier. “My Soul and I.” 
 
 May 16. James Russell Lowell. “Vision of Sir Launfal.” 
 May 17. William Wordsworth. “Stray Pleasures.” 
 
 May 18. John Fletcher. 1579-1625. “Upon an Honest 
 Man’s Fortune.” 
 
 May 19. Robert Browning. “A Death in the Desert.” 
 
 May 20. Percy B. Shelley. 1792-1822. “Adonais.” 
 
 May 21. Thomas Gray. 1716-1751. “Elegy Written in a 
 Country Church Yard.” 
 
 May 22. Friedrich Schiller. “The Song of the Bell.” From 
 the Translation by Bowring. 
 
 May 23. Goethe. “Faust.” From the Translation by Bay- 
 ard Taylor. 
 
 May 24. Alfred Tennyson. “Love Thou Thy Land.” 
 
 May 25. Percy B. Shelley. “Prometheus Unbound.” 
 
 May 26. John G. Whittier. “The Tent on the Beach.” 
 
 May 27. Helen Hunt Jackson. 1831-1885. “The Way to 
 Sing.” 
 
 May 28. Lord Thomas Vaux. 1510-1556. “Thought.” 
 
 May 29. John Lancaster Spalding. “Silence.” From The 
 American Anthology. 
 
 May 30. Minot J. Savage. 1841- . “My Birth.” From 
 
 The American Anthology. 
 
 May 31. William Wordsworth. “Ode to Immortality. ” 
 
 June 1. William Cullen Bryant. “The Land of Dreams.” 
 June 2. William Wordsworth. “Tintern Abbey.” 
 
 June 3. Alfred Tennyson. “Guinevere.” 
 
 no 
 
June 4. Henry W. Longfellow. “A Day of Sunshine.’ ’ 
 June 5. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “ Each and All.” 
 
 June 6. William Wordsworth. “Tintern Abbey.” 
 
 June 7. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Crisis.” 
 
 June 8. Edwin Markham. “The Muse of Labor.” 
 
 June 9. Charles Kingsley. “Dartside.” 
 
 June 10. Harriet Beecher Stowe. 1812-1896. “The Other 
 World.” 
 
 June 11. Anna L. Barbauld. 1743-1825. “The Death of the 
 Virtuous. ’ 9 
 
 June 12. William Wordsworth. “The Happy Warrior.” 
 June 13. Ralph Waldo Emerson. From “A Farewell.” 
 June 14. Horatius Bonar. “Everlasting Light.” 
 
 June 15. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Lines to a Lady.” 
 June 16. Friedrich Schiller. “The Words of Faith.” 
 
 June 17. James Russell Lowell. “Vision of Sir Launfal.” 
 June 18. Robert Browning. “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” 
 
 June 19. Henry W. Longfellow. “Charles Sumner.” 
 
 June 20. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Wood Notes.” 
 
 June 21. William Shakespeare. “As You Like It.” 
 
 June 22. William Wordsworth. “Tintern Abbey.” 
 
 June 23. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Child Songs.” 
 
 June 24. Audrey Thomas De Vere. 1814-1902. “Songs.” 
 From The Victorian Anthology. 
 
 June 25. Robert Browning. “A Soul’s Tragedy.” 
 
 June 26. William Shakespeare. “Hamlet.” 
 
 June 27. Percy B. Shelley. “The Sky Lark.” 
 
 June 28. George Herbert. 1593-1633. “The Elixir.” 
 
 June 29. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Centennial Hymn.” 
 June 30. William Cullen Bryant. “The Lapse of Time.” 
 July 1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861. “Lady 
 Geraldine ’s Courtship. ’ ’ 
 
 July 2. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Boston Hymn.” 
 
 July 3. George Eliot. “The Choir Invisible.” 
 
 July 4. James Russell Lowell. “Commemoration Ode.” 
 July 5. Alexander Pope. “Essay on Man.” 
 
 July 6. Percy B. Shelley. “The Sensitive Plant.” 
 
 July 7. William Wordsworth. From “Lines” in “Poems 
 of His Youth.” 
 
 July 8. Alfred Tennyson. “Locksley Hall Sixty Years 
 After. ’ ’ 
 
 July 9. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “The Flowers.” 
 
 ill 
 
July 10. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “My Garden.’ ’ 
 
 July 11. John Greenleaf Whittier. “My Triumph.” 
 
 July 12. William Cullen Bryant. “The Conqueror’s Grave.” 
 July 13. James Russell Lowell. Hound as a quotation. 
 
 July 14. Charles Mackay. “Clear the Way.” 
 
 July 15. Gerald Massey. “To-Day and To-Morrow.” 
 
 July 16. Oliver Wendell Holmes. “The Secret of the Stars.” 
 July 17. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Raphael.” 
 
 July 18. Robert Browning. “Rabbi Ben Ezra.” 
 
 July 19. James Russell Lowell. “Vision of Sir Launfal.” 
 July 20. William Wordsworth. “Ode to Duty.” 
 
 July 21. Christopher P. Cranch. 1813-1892. “Thought.” 
 July 22. William Cullen Bryant. “ Thanatopsis. ” 
 
 July 23. Oliver Wendell Holmes. “Questioning.” 
 
 July 24. John G. Whittier. “Andrew Rykman’s Prayer.” 
 July 25. William Cullen Bryant. “The Forest Hymn.” 
 July 26. James Russell Lowell. “The Present Crisis.” 
 July 27. Percy B. Shelley. “Prometheus Unbound.” 
 
 July 28. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Wood Notes.” 
 
 July 29. James Russell Lowell. Found as a quotation. 
 
 July 30. John G. Whittier. “The Chapel of the Hermits.” 
 July 31. William Cullen Bryant. “Scenes on the Banks of 
 the Hudson.” 
 
 Aug. 1. Percy B. Shelley. “Prometheus Unbound.” 
 
 Aug. 2. William Wordsworth. “Ode to Duty.” 
 
 Aug. 3. Alexander Pope. “Essay on Man.” 
 
 Aug. 4. John Lancaster Spalding. “Silence.” 
 
 Aug. 5. Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850-1894. Found as a 
 quotation. 
 
 Aug. 6. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Each and All.” 
 
 Aug. 7. William Chandler Bagley. From Harper’s Maga- 
 zine. Copyrighted, and reprinted here by 
 special consent of author and publisher. 
 
 Aug. 8. William James Linton. “Patience.” From The 
 Victorian Anthology. 
 
 Aug. 9. Harriet Martineau. 1802-1876. “On, on For- 
 ever. ’ ’ From The Victorian Anthology. 
 
 Aug. 10. Lydia Maria Child. 1802-1880. “The World I am 
 Passing Through.” From The American An- 
 thology. 
 
 Aug. 11. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Voices.” 
 
 Aug. 12. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Voluntaries.” 
 
 112 
 
Aug. 13. Friedrich Schiller. “The Words of Illusion.” 
 From the Translation by Bulwer, modified. 
 Aug. 14. James Russell Lowell. “Longing.” 
 
 Aug. 15. John G. Whittier. “The Vision of Echard.” 
 Aug. 16. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The Sphinx.” 
 
 Aug. 17. William Cullen Bryant. “The Forest Hymn.” 
 Aug. 18. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Democracy.” 
 
 Aug. 19. Percy B. Shelley. “Prometheus Unbound.” 
 
 Aug. 20. Richard Henry Stoddard. 1825-1903. “The 
 Flight of the Arrow.” 
 
 Aug. 21. Frederick William Faber. “The Right Must Win.” 
 Aug. 22. Charles Mackay. “Clear the Way.” Found in 
 “Voices of Freedom.” 
 
 Aug. 23. Thomas Cooper. 1805-1892. “Chartist’s Song.” 
 From The Victorian Anthology. 
 
 Aug. 24. William Cowper. 1731-1800. “Providence.” 
 
 Aug. 25. James Russell Lowell. “Vision of Sir Launfal.” 
 Aug. 26. Alfred Tennyson. “In Memoriam.” 
 
 Aug. 27. Walt Whitman. 1819-1892. “Leaves of Grass.” 
 Aug. 28. John Milton. 1608-1674. “Sonnet on His Blind- 
 ness.” 
 
 Aug. 29. Goethe. Hound as a quotation. 
 
 Aug. 30. Alfred Tennyson. “Nothing Will Die.” 
 
 Aug. 31. Thomas Campbell. “Hallowed Ground.” 
 
 Sept. 1. Found in an article in the “Unitarian Review.” 
 Author not located. 
 
 Sept. 2. Oliver Wendell Holmes. “The Voiceless.” 
 
 Sept 3. Alfred Tennyson. “Locksley Hall.” 
 
 Sept. 4. George Herbert. “Virtue.” 
 
 Sept. 5. George Eliot. “The Choir Invisible.” 
 
 Sept. 6. Arthur Hugh Clough. “Say Not the Struggle 
 Naught Availeth.” 
 
 Sept. 7. W. C. Gannett. 1840. “Building of the Temple.” 
 
 Sept. 8. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “National, Daemonic and 
 
 Celestial Love.” 
 
 Sept. 9. Friedrich Schiller. “The Ideal and Life.” 
 
 Sept. 10. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Summer by the Lake 
 Side.” 
 
 Sept. 11. Alfred Tennyson. “Locksley Hall Sixty Years 
 After. ’ 9 
 
 Sept. 12. James Russell Lowell. “The Present Crisis.” 
 
 Sept. 13. William Wordsworth. “Tintern Abbey.” 
 
 113 
 
Sept. 14. Robert Burns. 1759-1796. Found as a quotation. 
 Sept. 15. John Greenleaf Whittier. “My Psalm.” 
 
 Sept. 16. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The Poet.” 
 
 Sept. 17. Henry W. Longfellow. “The Children’s Crusade.” 
 Sept. 18. Edwin Markham. “Brotherhood.” 
 
 Sept. 19. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Rantoul.” 
 
 Sept. 20. Henry W. Longfellow. “Building of the Ship.” 
 Sept 21. Frances S. Osgood. “Labor.” 
 
 Sept. 22. James Russell Lowell. “A Stanza on Freedom.” 
 Sept. 23. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Questions of Life.” 
 Sept. 24. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The World-Soul.” 
 
 Sept. 25. William Wordsworth. “Tintern Abbey.” 
 
 Sept. 26. William Cullen Bryant. “Blessed Are They 
 That Mourn.” 
 
 Sept. 27. Eugene F. Ware. 1841- 
 
 Sept. 28. John Greenleaf Whittier. “To . With 
 
 a copy of Woolman’s Journal.” 
 
 Sept. 29. Elizabeth B. Browning. “Human Life’s Misery.” 
 Sept. 30. William Cullen Bryant. “The Brook.” 
 
 Oct. 1. Friedrich Schiller. “Hope.” 
 
 Oct. 2. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Astrsea.” 
 
 Oct. 3. William Wordsworth. “The Happy Warrior.” 
 Oct. 4. Lord Thomas Yaux. “Thought.” 
 
 Oct. 5. John Greenleaf Whittier. “Raphael.” 
 
 Oct. 6. Edwin Markham. “Service.” 
 
 Oct. 7. Sir Henry Wotton. “A Good Man.” 
 
 Oct. 8. “Inscription on Baron Stein’s Tomb.” Found as 
 a quotation. 
 
 Oct. 9. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Translation 
 from a German Poem.” 
 
 Oct. 10. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The Squirrel.” 
 
 Oct. 11. Matthew Arnold. “Sonnet on Immortality.” 
 
 Oct. 12. William Wordsworth. “Ode to Duty.” 
 
 Oct. 13. Percy Adams Hutchison. “Measure of a Man.” 
 Oct. 14. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Walden.” 
 
 Oct. 15. John Milton. “Comus.” 
 
 Oct. 16. Edwin Markham. “The Witness of the Dust.” 
 Oct. 17. W. E. Henley. “To R. T. H. B.” 
 
 Oct. 18. Gerald Massey. “To-Day and To-Morrow.” 
 
 Oct. 19. Henry W. Longfellow. “Building of the Ship.” 
 Oct. 20. John Sullivan Dwight. “True Pleasure.” 
 
 Oct. 21. William Cullen Bryant. “Our Country’s Call.” 
 
 114 
 
Oct. 22. Edna Dean Proctor. 1838- . “Our Heroes. 7 7 
 
 Oct. 23. W. E. Henley. “The Echoes. 77 XI. 
 
 Oct. 24. Charles Kingsley. “The World’s Age. 77 
 Oct. 25. William Shakespeare. “Measure for Measure. 77 
 Oct. 26. Author not located. Found in a poem in “Unity. 77 
 Oct. 27. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Prefixed to “Essay on Na- 
 ture. 77 
 
 Oct. 28. John Greenleaf Whittier. “My triumph. 77 
 Oct. 29. James Russell Lowell. “The Present Crisis. 77 
 Oct. 30. Robert Southwell. “Content and Rich. 77 
 Oct. 31. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The Sphinx. 77 
 Nov. 1. James Russell Lowell. “The Beggar. 77 
 Nov. 2. William Cullen Bryant. “Blessed Are They That 
 Mourn. 7 7 
 
 Nov. 3. William Wordsworth. “The Happy Warrior. 
 Nov. 4. William Cullen Bryant. “The Battle Field. 77 
 Nov. 5. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The Problem. 77 
 Nov. 6. John Dryden. “Imitation of Horace. 77 Hound as 
 a quotation. 
 
 Nov. 7. William Cullen Bryant. “Life. 77 
 Nov. 8. Matthew Arnold. “A Summer Night. 77 
 Nov. 9. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Reformer. 77 
 Nov. 10. James Russell Lowell. “Sonnet. 77 
 Nov. 11. John G. Whittier. “The Burial of Barbour. 77 
 Nov. 12. Wm. Wordsworth. “Poems of the Imagination. 7 7 
 Nov. 13. Helen Hunt Jackson. “Refrain. 77 
 Nov. 14. Harriet Winslow Sewell. “Why Thus Longing? 77 
 Nov. 15. Henry W. Longfellow. “The Secret of the Sea. 77 
 Nov. 16. Alfred Tennyson. “Maud. 77 
 Nov. 17. Goethe. “Faust. 77 Bayard Taylor’s Translation. 
 Nov. 18. E. T. Clapp. “The Soul’s Prophesy. 77 
 Nov. 19. Matthew Arnold. “Self-Dependence. 77 
 Nov. 20. Robert Browning. “Saul. 77 
 Nov. 21. William Wordsworth. “Forbearance. 77 
 Nov. 22. E. T. Clapp. “The Soul’s Prophesy. 77 
 Nov. 23. Robert Browning. “Abt Vogler. 77 
 Nov. 24. William Wordsworth. “Laodamia. 77 
 Nov. 25. Thomas Gray. “Ode on the Pleasure Arising from 
 Vicissitude. 7 7 
 
 Nov. 26. James Russell Lowell. “The Present Crisis. 77 
 Nov. 27. Sarah J. Hale. 1788-1879. “Alice Ray. 77 From 
 The American Anthology. 
 
 115 
 
Nov. 28. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “ Essay on Power.” 
 
 Nov. 29. Ernst H. Crosby. 1856- . “The Search/ ’ 
 
 From Plain Talk in Psalm and Parable. 
 
 Nov. 30. Edwin Markham. “The Angelus. ” 
 
 Dec. 1. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Meeting. ” 
 
 Dec. 2. James Russell Lowell. “ Sonnet/ ’ 
 
 Dec. 3. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Introduction to Treatise 
 on “ Nature/ ’ 
 
 Dec. 4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “The Wind Over 
 the Chimney/ ’ 
 
 Dec. 5. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Meeting/ ’ 
 
 Dec. 6. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “ Waldeinsamkeit.” 
 
 Dec. 7. James Russell Lowell. “Sonnet/’ 
 
 Dec. 8. William Wordsworth. “Sonnet to Milton/’ 
 
 Dec. 9. Henry W. Longfellow. “Charles Sumner.” 
 
 Dec. 10. James Russell Lowell. “Elegy on the Death of 
 
 Dr. Channing. ” 
 
 Dee. 11. Theodore Parker. 1810-1860. “The Higher Good.” 
 Dec. 12. Lydia Maria Child. “The World I am Passing 
 Through.” From The American Anthology. 
 Dec. 13. James Russell Lowell. “The Present Crisis.” 
 
 Dec. 14. William Cullen Bryant. “The Lapse of Time.” 
 Dec. 15. Charles Mackay. “Small Beginnings.” 
 
 Dec. 16. Percy B. Shelley. “Euganian Hills.” 
 
 Dec. 17. Ralph Waldo Emerson. “The World-Soul.” 
 
 Dec. 18. James Russell Lowell. “Incident in a Railway 
 Car.” 
 
 Dec. 19. William Cullen Bryant. “The Rivulet.” 
 
 Dec. 20. Eugene F. Ware. “The Child of Fate.” 
 
 Dec. 21. James Russell Lowell. “Commemoration Ode.” 
 Dec. 22. John Greenleaf Whittier. “The Meeting.” 
 
 Dec. 23. Alfred Tennyson. “The Flower.” 
 
 Dec. 24. James Russell Lowell. “Incident in a Railway 
 Car.” 
 
 Dec. 25. William Wordsworth. “To My Sister.” 
 
 Dec. 26. Alfred Tennyson. “Enid.” 
 
 Dec. 27. Elizabeth B. Browning. “Human Life’s Misery.” 
 Dec. 28. James Russell Lowell. “The Present Crisis.” 
 
 Dec. 29. Henry W. Longfellow. “Santa Filomena.” 
 
 Dec. 30. William Wbrdsworth. “Ode to Duty.” 
 
 Dec. 31. Charles Mackay. “Clear the Way.” 
 
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