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uman hearts. What courage of the flesh and of the spirit! How grim of wit, when wit alone might serve! What wisdom his to know the boundless might Of banded effort in a world like ours! How meek, how self-forgetful, courteous, calm! A silent figure when men idly raged In murderous anger; calm, too, in the storm,-- Storm of the spirit, strangely imminent, When spiritual lightnings struck men down And brought, by violence, the sense of sin, And violently oped the gates of peace. O hear that voice, which rang from dawn to night, In church and abbey whose most ancient walls Not for a thousand years such accents knew! On windy hilltops; by the roaring sea; 'Mid tombs, in market-places, prisons, fields; 'Mid clamor, vile attack,--or deep-awed hush, Wherein celestial visitants drew near And secret ministered to troubled souls! Hear ye, O hear! that ceaseless-pleading voice, Which storm, nor suffering, nor age could still-- Chief prophet voice through nigh a century's span! Now silvery as Zion's dove that mourns, Now quelling as the Archangel's judgment trump, And ever with a sound like that of old Which, in the desert, shook the wandering tribes, Or, round about storied Jerusalem, Or by Gennesaret, or Jordan, spake The words of life. Let not that image fade Ever, O God! from out the minds of men, Of him thy messenger and stainless priest, In a brute, sodden, and unfaithful time, Early and late, o'er land and sea, on-driven; In youth, in eager manhood, age extreme,-- Driven on forever, back and forth the world, By that divine, omnipotent desire-- The hunger and the passion for men's souls! --Richard Watson Gilder. "WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS" It fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe'er I stray and range, Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. --Arthur Hugh Clough. HER GLADNESS My darling went Unto the seaside long ago. Content I stayed at home, for O, I was so glad Of all the little outings that she had! I knew she needed rest. I loved to stay At home a while that she might go away. "How beautiful the sea! How she enjoys The music of the waves! No care annoys
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