strength

No strength of nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright:
And what she has she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.

How long beneath the law I lay
In bondage and distress;
I toll'd the precept to obey,
But toil'd without success.

Then, to abstain from outward sin
Was more than I could do;
Now, if I feel its power within,
I feel I hate it too.

Then all my servile works were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose His ways.

A VIEWLESS thing is the wind,
But its strength is mightier far
Than a phalanxed host in battle line,
Than the limbs of a Samson are.

And a viewless thing is Love,
And a name that vanisheth;
But her strength is the wind’s wild strength above,
For she conquers shame and Death.

Then thou hast learnt the secret of my soul,
Officious Friendship has its trust betrayed;
No more I need the bursting sigh control,
Nor summon pride my struggling soul to aid.

But think not banished hope returns again,
Think not I write thy thankless heart to move;
The faded form that tells my tender pain
May win thy pity, but it can't thy love.

Nor can I move thee by soft winning art,
By manners taught to charm, or practised glance;
Artless as thine, my too too feeling heart

"He ought to be home," said the old man, "without there's something amiss.
He only went to the Two-mile -- he ought to be back by this.
He would ride the Reckless filly, he would have his wilful way;
And, here, he's not back at sundown -- and what will his mother say?
"He was always his mother's idol, since ever his father died;
And there isn't a horse on the station that he isn't game to ride.
But that Reckless mare is vicious, and if once she gets away
He hasn't got strength to hold her -- and what will his mother say?"

I

Let others sing of Empire and of pomp beyond the sea,
A song of Little Puddleton is good enough for me,
A song of kindly living, and of coming home to tea.

I seldom read the papers, so I don't know what goes on.
I go to bed at sunset, and I leap alert at dawn,
To gossip with my garden, which I'll have you understand,
Is the neatest and the sweetest little garden in the land;
A span of sunny quietude, with walls so high and stout,
They shut me in from all the world, and shut the whole world out,

I was a grovelling creature once,
And basely cleaved to earth:
I wanted spirit to renounce
The clod that gave me birth.

But God hath breathed upon a worm,
And sent me from above
Wings such as clothe an angel's form,
The wings of joy and love.

With these to Pisgah's top I fly
And there delighted stand,
To view, beneath a shining sky,
The spacious promised land.

The Lord of all the vast domain
Has promised it to me,
The length and breadth of all the plain

When Joe Dove took his elephants out on the road
He made each one hold fast with his trunk
To the tail of the elephant walking in front
To stop them from doing a bunk.

There were fifteen in all, so 'twere rather a job
To get them linked up in a row,
But once he had fixed 'em Joe knew they'd hold on,
For an elephant never lets go.

The pace it was set by the big 'uns in front,
'Twas surprising how fast they could stride,
And poor little Aggie, the one at the back...
Had to run till she very near died.

Success to Tommy Atkins, he's a very brave man,
And to deny it there's few people can;
And to face his foreign foes he's never afraid,
Therefore he's not a beggar, as Rudyard Kipling has said.

No, he's paid by our Government, and is worthy of his hire;
And from our shores in time of war he makes our foes retire,
He doesn't need to beg; no, nothing so low;
No, he considers it more honourable to face a foreign foe.

No, he's not a beggar, he's a more useful man,
And, as Shakespeare has said, his life's but a span;

When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.
She took the tried clay of the common road --
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth,
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;
Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears;
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.
Into the shape she breathed a flame to light
That tender, tragic, ever-changing face.

There's no menagerie, I vow,

Excels my Lily's at this minute;

She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.

Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp'd pinions wildly wave,--
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that nought can cure.

What is the fairy's name?--Is't Lily?--Ask not me!
Give thanks to Heaven if she's unknown to thee.

Oh what a cackling, what a shrieking,

When near the door she takes her stand,