Who did so sweetly Death's sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,

Yet sugaring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flowers! sweetly your time ye spent, Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,

And after death for cures.
I follow straight, without complaints or grief;
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if

It be as short as yours.
George Herbert [1593-1633]

BE TRUE

THOU must be true thyself,

If thou the truth wouldst teach;
Thy soul must overflow, if thou

Another's soul wouldst reach!
It needs the overflow of heart

To give the lips full speech.

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.

Horatius Bonar [1808-1889]

TO-DAY

WHY fear to-morrow, timid heart?
Why tread the future's way?
We only need to do our part
To-day, dear child, to-day.

The past is written!

On pages sad and gay;
Within the future do not look,
But live to-day-to-day.

Close the book

602250 A

'Tis this one hour that God has given;
His Now we must obey;

And it will make our earth his heaven
To live to-day-to-day.

Lydia Avery Coonley Ward [1845

THE VALLEY OF VAIN VERSES

THE grief that is but feigning,
And weeps melodious tears
Of delicate complaining
From self-indulgent years;
The mirth that is but madness,
And has no inward gladness
Beneath its laughter, straining
To capture thoughtless ears;

The love that is but passion
Of amber-scented lust;
The doubt that is but fashion;
The faith that has no trust;-
These Thamyris disperses,
In the Valley of Vain Verses
Below the Mount Parnassian,
And they crumble into dust.

Henry Van Dyke [1852

A THANKSGIVING

LORD, for the erring thought
Not unto evil wrought;
Lord, for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still;
For the heart from itself kept:
Our Thanksgiving accept!

For ignorant hopes that were
Broken to our blind prayer;
For pain, death, sorrow-sent
Unto our chastisement;

For all loss of seeming good:
Quicken our gratitude!

William Dean Howells [1837

THE LADY POVERTY

THE Lady Poverty was fair:
But she has lost her looks of late,

With change of times and change of air.

Ah slattern, she neglects her hair,
Her gown,
her shoes. She keeps no state
As once when her pure feet were bare.

Or-almost worse, if worse can be― She scolds in parlors; dusts and trims, Watches and counts. Oh, is this she Whom Francis met, whose step was free, Who with Obedience caroled hymns, In Umbria walked with Chastity?

Where is her ladyhood? Not here,
Not among modern kinds of men;
But in the stony fields, where clear
Through the thin trees the skies appear;
In delicate spare soil and fen,
And slender landscape and austere.
Alice Meynell [1853-

THE LADY POVERTY

I MET her on the Umbrian Hills,
Her hair unbound, her feet unshod;
As one whom secret glory fills

She walked-alone with God.

I met her in the city street;

Oh, how changed was her aspect then! With heavy eyes and weary feet She walked alone-with men. Jacob Fischer [18

THE PRAYER OF BEATEN MEN
From "The House of Broken Swords "

WE are the fallen, who, with helpless faces
Low in the dust, in stiffening ruin lay,
Felt the hoof's beat, and heard the rattling traces
As o'er us drove the chariots of the fray.

We are the fallen, who by ramparts gory,

Awaiting death, heard the far shouts begin,
And with our last glance glimpsed the victor's glory
For which we died, but dying might not win.

We were but men. Always our eyes were holden,
We could not read the dark that walled us round,
Nor deem our futile plans with thine enfolden-

We fought, not knowing God was on the ground.

Give us our own; and though in realms eternal
The potsherd and the pot, belike, are one,
Make our old world to know that with supernal
Powers we were matched, and by the stars o'erthrown.

Ay, grant our ears to hear the foolish praising

Of men-old voices of our lost home-land,
Or else, the gateways of this dim world raising,
Give us our swords again, and hold thy hand.
William Hervey Woods [1852–

THE LAST WORD

CREEP into thy narrow bed,
Creep, and let no more be said!
Vain thy onset! all stands fast.
Thou thyself must break at last.

Let the long contention cease!
Geese are swans, and swans are geese,
Let them have it how they will!
Thou art tired; best be still.

They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
Better men fared thus before thee;
Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged-and sank at last.

Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find thy body by the wall!

Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]

IO VICTIS

From "He and She"

I SING the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the Battle of Life,

The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife;

Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim

Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of fame,

But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart,

Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part;

Whose youth bore no flower on its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes away,

From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at, who stood at the dying of day

With the wreck of their life all around them, unpitied, unheeded, alone,

With Death swooping down o'er their failure, and all but their faith overthrown,

While the voice of the world shouts its chorus-its pæan for those who have won;

While the trumpet is sounding triumphant and high to the breeze and the sun