POETRY

THE WAY

To every man there openth
A Way, and Ways, and a Way.
And the High Soul climbs the High Way.
And the Low Soul gropes the Low.
And in between, on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openth
A High Way, and a Low.
And every man decideth
The way his soul shall go.

John Oxenham

AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

PRAYER

God, give me sympathy and sense
and help me keep my courage high.
God, give me calm and confidence-
And, please-a twinkle in my eye.

Margaret Bailey

TOO LITTLE TIME

I still find each day too short
for all the thoughts I want to think,
all the walks I want to take,
all the books I want to read,
and all the friends I want to see.
The longer I live the more my mind
dwells upon the beauty and
the wonder of the world.

John Burroughs

THE ANVIL

Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith's door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
The looking in, I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.

"How many anvils have you had," I said,
"To wear and batter all these hammers so?"
"Just one," said he, and then with a twinkling eye,
"The anvil wears the hammers out, you know."

And so, thought I, the anvil of God's word,
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet through the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed ... the hammers gone.

God, what a world, if man in street and mart
Felt that same kinship of the human heart
Which makes them, in the face of fire and flood,
Rise to the meaning of true brotherhood.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Have love. Not love alone for one,
But man as man thy brother call;
And scatter like the circling sun
Thy charities on all.

Johann von Schiller

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