Not in my self I trust, being so weak To noble deeds and proofs of lasting worth But ever forms of grace and hope poured over us When meekness in the heart with love communes! Better than reason, brighter than the tropes Laid by our sager minds who, for all times Sought to mark down in sign that yet unseen... Better this fruit of meekness, born of faith Which, of itself, is as angelic might Able to lift the lowly into heights Of knowing, where the dryer air imbues Essential manna: food of gods, the seed Which nightly growing, scarce discerned, springs up To perfect comfort, then more over-flown Works righteousness in the world, from carnal strife To life in liberty, our best revealed.
Blessed meekness, heart of saints and ever true With faithfulness of hope! Great care you show Where there is no demand, save principles Most holy, by the proud unknown; exalting Subtle sense, beyond surmise: submissive
Tender, patient, always kind with kindness Better than self-worth in self-service shown- Anoint our hearts with mercy's shining balm As in this world we all must yet forbear And lead us straight. Held fast in you we live!
Such faithfulness of worth must we behold And many hours again, turn aside Ignoble ways, to awful wonder sped Where so much lost of good our souls suspect Rejoins when love of truth has led us on. Yet all the best of faith, not always true To life and deed, though evident in hope Is made exempt from trial; better to prove The gold of piety when fiercer tried. Then faithfulness of worth in us is known When, as is judged by some, we're given leave To go our way when still is left behind That care of grace we’d prove, flown from the heart. So help this stumbling verse your good portray Set down with hope to coax the one in all... It tends the way of trial, your work to speak.
How you seek consistently for worth Through mundane laws that hourly drape the soul And from the smallest things secure our truth Distilling charity and faith of all!
Always, for grace, your comforting is new Untainted by the loot of carnal gain- Foul dross. Many for this are bound in chains Though freedom shunts the naked tyrant’s rule.
To look, to sift, to ply our souls again For better ways, to each more kindly given Though warring yet with pride: wretched stain Of brutal mobs, so dark in light of heaven!
Heaven in each to sing, a lovely song No phantom self to trust, in each is all- A cherished faith, for whom the brave are strong And waiting for, your sacred cares installed.
Great sympathy, the worth of all conjoined To open up for us a home-felt rest With love confessed and truth in one soul coined- To honor and, in deed, the upright quest!
Oh that in this trial may spring Such worthiness of heart, refined Not of carnal mind! Your secret’s long been kept Of old, the seers saw and wept But how can I, so frail Train these reigns to follow?
More steady now, defend the gap... Let not the breach become full With pride's conceit, abominable. Then to glimpse a true vision And care with no solo burden But for the proper meekness bidden And yoke humility fast-bound Not glancing here or there Shall you affix the heart here- New city, famed uncloven one And rising of your morning sun Out-braving that of brutish minds By purest faith, the way divined!
But can the child's gentle airs And heart as mild to forbear Enlighten such depravity Being only a child?
Resolving on their sojourn friend They bide their time, under the trees Whose verdant leaves Gives rest among the holy hills. Reclining by a gentle stream so soft, so still They turn aside from mortal strife To love in truth, confirming peace. Here they drink their life's content As down, down rolls the burden bent Once by a rod waved over their souls From maddened tyranny. Such fruit to bear and strength to lend In ways of grace that flow within Their pearly gates of honest faith! No wielding rule of force, they see The way, by simple virtue won. Of such is the Kingdom- Heaven’s enigmatic ones!
There is a fountain Whose breaking forth is of old; There is a gentle brook Its water, pure as clear gold. Who will put at naught? Eternal, undaunted abides The head, by right established From the heart, just inclined. No thing in heaven or earth Thwarts their medicament- As one through the gate They pass on, with wholly complied intent.
Glorious riches for those who may drink The waters that flow out this throne; Precepts of judgment on upright souls wink As through fields of Beauty they roam!
Descending on the heart renewed Anointed by the morning dew They look expectantly To own their vast integrity. With fuller' soap in hand To wash the inner walls They purge away what is not grand Within the secret chamber's hall. Relying on substantial grace They scourge all pride away And foment the true relations All can know and faith persuades. Once cleansed Inclining to the will, so pure They prove what lovers share and real friends Commend as faithful and true. Thus seeking only to reflect Their tempered best, in liquid words They overflow the world, no jot bereft Of crystal innocence, their light assured.
Though mongers traffic in the hour Arising with discerning power They trip the scale of false standards While iron on the chaff they tread Through a wilderness To the feast prepared.
Bursting bonds asunder They proclaim a day of liberty A day of freedom for the captive- Hurrah, a thousand years of Jubilee! Hosanna, Sabbath for all time And staffs of truth in love’s relation!
The vulgar many scoff Alack! They cry- Sacred heirs threshing down the mountains!
As firm as a rock I would be set Against the world and its cruel dejection’s More kindly proving latent virtues, set With brilliant facets of the light, resolving factions. Such longing for that life, true worth to know- Character ruling every passion's season For perfect care, great purposes to show In flowering blooms of soul and noble reasons! Eternal and unfading, such care met The waking might, more clearly then to shine In search of pure intent, whose hope reflects Our best, though wrapped in shadows of design. Still, the dawning visions pierce the night Encompassing the true, all loss despite!
When I was young I thought humanity Would be my nurse, my comfort and sure strength; My earnest hope was by the hour to length Fleet days that all life’s wonder I might see. I cherished kindness, lain upon the breast Of upright admonitions and goodwill; I danced with joy, with love I found my rest And honor was my vision’s windowsill. But then, too soon, their condemnation frowned On ways I knew in youth, as if insane To their adult, cruel outward forms that bound False glory: my innocence' dread infamy. Now tossed upon my bed I turn from shame To boiling tears, my hope and faith betrayed!
O hours, long hours that vex my wearied soul With thoughts of contradiction; fawning days Of youth are closed, in stocks of lies arraigned To inquisition and condemning powers! What tyrannous, what brutal, ruthless ways That slam this wooden slavery over head; Though pressing on, resolve shall bide the time To contemplate their end, too stark with dread. So mock, O State, my soul and purposed end More cruel, discharge your rotten judgments fate; A greater cause, at last, when first you rend The back and front of self... my selves berate! So dare upon my cheeks your thrice-six brand To scourge me; I shall lie not but withstand.
Nobody cares for that over which you weep Nor shares the burden of their world’s foredoom Seen starkly; you it is alone that peeps Into the whoring fate spun on life's loom. Lay down upon their rack of misery Which worthlessness of pride has reckless wove And trembling, accept the blasphemy Of idols in the soul for which they strove! Put off your past contrition, cut the tropes' Supposed necessities and dip your cup Into their Lethe; gulp down your failed hope And lax submit before death's razing sup! They will not let you flay their sacred cows; Though it is sin, prostrate I bid you bow.
What trust their way of pride obtained In those that helm the lumbering state Shall not to comfort more incline Than strife of passion wrought of late.
Between, there is a promise broke That speaks of ever darkening night And labors 'gainst the dreadful stroke Of death, like ships in dire flight.
Their chartered seas for parts forlorn In credence of foretokened shores Will not convey the factious storms Nor gain what love denied before.
And this, the proud not knowing whence Shall lurch upon familiar scenes Once ciphered sagely, common thence To revel in their courts, obscene.
Then bearing on their chosen course And mocking what is fair or foul Their blue and gray in time reverse For unity, their songs avow?
If they can, with triple band Wed Bahsaan's bull to Shiloh's mules; Outrun a troop, alone withstand A hundred million of the cruel!
Or bounding in the grip of faith O'er leap the whitewashed walls of mind And death undo, more radiant With proof of love, by grace refined!
Behold, they scoff the sacred care Corrupting in the status quo To auction off the orphaned heirs Like sheep among the chatteled fold!
More greedy than conniving guilds Engrossed upon the public store They plot against the tithing field Once left in portion to the poor!
At last, with utter impudence Of ruling pacts in bonds of state They wrack upon the innocent Their lust of power, insatiate!
They rape the moon, gulp down the sun Turn native warmth to icy cold In glory for what lust has won- A naked world, to privilege sold!
These boldly cruel and faithlessly Intemperate to the sacred dares Forsake the rescue of the weak And grace, whose other's burden bears!
What's more…in any way they choose They're bounding to the nether part Where proves what in the soul behooves For healing remedies of heart!
Both great and small, it is the way They all shall go, advancing now To visit on that desert plain Their first anointed met his own!
Such fates are bringing to a head That hidden in their factious state… Like poison asps of slinking dread To strike them, cunning, unawake!
And lions, lurking in the brush Where they conceal their interests Shall cancel with a sudden rush Their treachery and compromise!
What now they see, a token is Of that which ere shall sudden be And vengeful, wreck with peerless fears The hopes of their once proud conceits!
Then roaring like the oceans' waves They'll rage in torrents of the lost And raging, grapes of wrath display Or reigns of ageless justice tossed!
So shall their boiling tears roll down And myriad, recompensing ploys Dance on their condescending frowns They spent before on care deprived!
Worse for sure and wretched more For them whose rotten bars of state Held scorn of truth, let slip the store Of wealth such care would mediate!
Now boon or bale is in the mean Of happenings that shows their part And illustrates their work conceived Or faithless, wields the devilish arts!
These arts, their fates have since resolved With every mite of what they are To demonstrate from whence evolved Or failing, burn like falling stars!
And whom shall every compass read Not owning that of common birth Which points to limit in the needs Now turned to their lascivious worth?
But them who, in the closing hours Shall wake upon the dawning light And in the grasp of subtle powers Withdraw consumption’s lusty mite.
Then broached upon the sacred weal Shall bards and sages break their bread For those whose grace and freedom steals To love, escaping from the dead!
Such noble trial the heroes bore For them in unremitting weights And, Kingdom courage, smashed norms Of tyranny and sanctioned fates!
Though lessons of such faith have failed The fool, aloof in proud concerns They prove the marshal will of all For truth, through burnished virtues earned!
Ages in their veins shall, waking, whirl As archaic potentials’ dreadful might Turns girl to boy, conversely boy to girl Unlimbing reason for unreason's fright! That once gone right will deftly then turn left While self-conception staggers to its doom Bursting the bonds of day and night; bereft The carnal measure fails both late and soon. Then faced with generations' awesome curve Of ageless heart and soul, how shall it bear The paltry thought at first that blindly swerved Into the narrow recess of their care? Alone at last, they no more can maintain As what confounds the part, no part sustains!
Praise the privileged, admire the ambitious For they are worthy, they have all the strength… So evident contrived, their powers are banked To dominate dissenting arguments. Evangelists that preach a brave new age Are these more reasoned wizards on the brink Of all disposing will, all ends betrayed To serve their corporations’ nod and wink. Such market is their world, as goods are sold Their education, pride's admissive rite Ordains participation, pirate gold Dispensed in rank currencies of conceit. Hurrah, at last, the world’s equality In once overt, now covert slavery!
Behold the brazen will, these men of time From time brought forth, they are the world's latest And so, they must truly be the best As culminating age the mind refines! Now to and fro they go, their lists increased With every tally, everything computes Their princely judgment as long ago deceased Life’s mystery, crutch of simple dupes. Learning is theirs, precepts are theirs to bend; Lawyers, scholars, politicians rest Upon this pillar; they can split or mend The finest lines, no tittle left undressed. Step by step they round the universe And finite lies to infinities converse!
Such pride of theirs that strains for fleeting fame Seeking to tempt from time the wasting plaque Of recognition, though their judgment's black And vaulting minds, the lurching of the lame! Construing every worth as if to pose In some fair light their comic dignity They wreck the world and secretly repose With condescension’ self-important glee. As if full-wrought by truth's heroic wing Their pride aspires; on vain conceits they soar Up threw the mist while private songs they sing In self-made praise for deeds of learned lore. Like bats that sound the dark in broken flight They mock the truth, embraced in shrouds of night!
Such sophists, ever proud of self, decree- Hear all you simple what I will disclose Which power of my discernment shall repose The world in technocratic majesty. As instruments of some more vested being They bat their eyes and let fly all their minds Resolving every complex urgency And wagging tongues, the Gnostic’s doubt unbind. An air of comedy, their creeping self Weaving the webs of their proud certainties More armchair resting, ready to divulge The bestial learning to the rest, insane. Prostrate in ponds of swill they splash with glee Pretending to catch sail for open seas!
Behold the estimations and the creed Of judgment in self-righteous confidence That cares for nothing of the innocent But swamps life’s refugees with cruel conceits! With ages it has built the edifice Of dogma; every pit and lion’s maw Is its contraption, set in consciousness Of those condemning letters of the law. Cunning serpent, masquerading as a dove It fashions politics, more vicious wrought With rationales to blacklist those who strove To flee its institutions’ heinous plot. Enamored with its fascist benefit The systems of the world it implements!
Dogmatic soul, how bold it tempts the fates That meets to each the fruits of carnal will Redoubled, which was spent in kind so late Upon our brothers, sisters, other selves! It make its estimations, rules the span Between men, lords over the equity With proud conceit to lift the brazen hand And rend in two the heart of sympathy. Such is its gruesome glee in confidence Of its own judgment, ever knowing not The facts it scorns in others are dispensed In every heart: one root all life begot. More wretched this, more wicked in the blame Than hypocrites who, at bottom, are the same!
O laws of learning, evolution's best How justified, how potent is your power Subduing and uplifting every hour; Once ruled by you, the heart finds no redress! No scruple needed, no conscience to bestow Now call the torrents of predestined will And with your iron styluses, furrow The world with greed’s intent in utmost skill! Alas, your fate, pride’s inner engines fired To serve with zeal your doctrine’s least behest Without compunction; all survival' squires Dubbed the sovereigns of amoral quests. Unsheathe your carnal sword’s materialism And drive home, to the hilt, your nihilism!
All those who in their earthly dight Boast learned clans and worldly dower Come wonder at the poets’ right And fix your fate as fit your power!
No practiced rationales conceive When forces on your knowing bend; Such carnal estimates deceive When pride attempts the steep ascent.
This way, conceited souls have sought In compass of archaic strife But struck upon the verge of thought To rush, headlong, through blinding light.
So dazzled by the tempting flight And fronting on the mystic lore They passed in sudden bounds the night And heedless through the fabric tore.
Then wept the father for his child Whose compass must his boldness run Respecting not what mercies mild Could shield his course around the sun.
Alas, is writ the history Of those whose elemental plans Had claim upon the Destiny But seized, too rash, with carnal hands The motive reigns of deity!
Was it not clear? The bards at first Set boundaries upon such pride To staunch against what bastard birth Could yet unleash on earth and sky?
Mix not in hastiness your words In offerings of vain conceit; Let triple bound the fire burn Or poison from the vessel leaks...
Steady bid the Ark to go And don’t, impatient, force the day Or roaring out, a tempest blows To carry even faith away...
So quick to estimate the worth And feigning wise, they stole the day Then strutting on, betrayed their birth To be the kings of cursed ways!
But prophets of the coming age Have tasted tidings of this fate So sweet at first, the telling page Though in the end a bitter slake!
More clear, some writing on the wall Amidst war's company of friends Who spoiled all else but can't forestall The dipping scale of amends!
So wrote the cryptic book of life Before the proud trespassed this way And greedy, fashioned every strife To wrack upon the ancient lays!
Or did it seem the sacred stones That sages kept were for such use As men could make and then disown The consequences of abuse?
Bid them to escape the maze And weave the hero’s Golden Fleece… Catch the thread of heroes’ faith And marry the conflicting states!
Yet clever ploys of sapience Will not untie the troubled knots Nor shall their reasoned doctrinaires Indemnify the pirate lots!
Neither shall allied abuse Or armies in the streets arrayed Cower recompense, unloosed As strings, on bursting winds displayed!
Nor will their factory of lies Run off the field the sacred part Of being, which does not rely On teaching guilds or sophists’ art!
New legislators overpass Their systems, proving all along What bards have known is in the grasp Of wisdom and her healing songs.
Her anthems would the angels sing And conscious wonders now unfurl Enduing on the eagle’s wing The reformation of the world.
A golden age from wisdom's wild Which prophets and true sages knew And poets chant, with metered style In sacred harmonies of truth.
Though no one, cloaked under the guise Of learning can recast the lots As what there is, is for the wise Whom angels love and men forgot.
To what they will! It never was And never being comes to pass; Abandoning the formal cause Their shadow comes to roost at last.
Knowing not, it’s fit to be Hid in the bosom of the past Which ordering, the heart shall see And so in seeing, live at last.
Such is the mystery at hand That twain must lie upon the fates Of being Man and so withstand The complex enmities of strife.
Yet everywhere, a further clue Admits into the larger state: Where two makes three, that three is true In one...a simple aggregate.
And what of three resolved as one Completes the elemental climb? As two the parents, then the son- A father for an ageless time.
But father, to what groom is born An other who has yet to be Or being not, as men have known Comes sailing on a boundless sea?
Still, from a depth unknown This tenant of the nether shore Who comes unsought, seeking her own With ciphers of the healing lore.
Unlike the Siren, who of late Has tempted some to absent ruth She mends the heart and satiates The home-felt yearnings of the truth.
Such understanding and such joy Of owning what can scarce be spoke And greater exploits, more employed In solving what their lovers wrote.
Unraveling the partial ways That some are wont to boast of worth She echoes on a timeless sea The spirit's knowing and rebirth…
A sound of silence in the rush Of doing, where most spend their life Speaks love as out the burning bush And peace upon the winds of strife.
Alas, all may take to heart The fiery reigns of aerial course And yet unlock the secret haunts Life’s law assumes and still rehearse!
Best charity of heart, let not the droll Of vulgar men block out the noble life That lays before me; seen through the strife Your good gleams forth, and this I would extol. No wars of dark and light shall I bemoan Nor proud deny the factions of my care For all our folly I cannot but own In every way; yet for Man's faith I dare. There is no purity of gold untried By hottest heat; once, twice, yes seven times All thoughts of good are purged of petty lies That cling as vain-conceit; this, trials refine. Then stoke the furnace of experience With fiery ordeal and fiercer ply The avenues of self for that pittance Of worth that under pride so darkly lies. What goal before of grace your saints pursue Through worlds of strife in hope of what is true!
Like ships hurled upon raging storms am I Mystery tossed, the fool of untamed seas My soul forlorn and strong waves beating. Hard is the struggle in this long, dark night Long the venturing for peace through cruel despite Groaning, at last, this trial to overcome. Such vast recess of peril and naked doom To bear, seeking the uplifted beacon's bright light Where truth's assuredness is as the noon Secured by lauded faith's enduring might! Yet strange calms where onward once my hope blew on The sure contention as desperate deeds spent Doubt by doing, in hours of pressing trial a brief respite! Then struggle made me strong, on solid foes To flex determined thought where turns the tide Of loss, intent on proofs my striving will. But now where is my strength and constancy When stagnant set the winds and sails droop down As vain? All things grow bale with shifting doubt. Better now seems the hour of raging storms When all my being convulsed and harder tried Accustomed in my soul the likely end
Which in the circumspection made me strive For temperance and time’s acknowledged good. Yet here am I thrown back on taunting doubts As reeling pools descend, whereto I drift In weakness, weak against the empty air. Then Nothing is my fear, and this the grief- My mind cannot conceive the remedy For failing faith, but whispers all undone. I fade, tormented, worn and pushed below To glaring loss in this strange incubation. What agony and languishing of Fate! How now I wince the boast of active hours I lurched on trials, the inward battle cast To and fro, my soul in contests fraught once brave! O let me tempt this end to different ways And sway what hour remains toward true worth Secured, held fast in grace! Then would I glad Return the raging sea its fierce combat With honor to defend the failing hope Of truth; more firm in deed, undo the fates And lonely agonies of conscious thralldom Where is lost my joy of life, a captive fool to chance
Advancing nothing better than the beasts! Is this the trial I sought, this utmost strain That tends through agony to own the way of All our lives? A better recompense to noble aims Fit better to perfect the wayward thoughts Than all of bravery once sought to fill With proof more tangible? Then let me see My heart reflect truth’s light assured in love Not measured by the trials of carnal will Nor held submissive to the glint of time! Alas, bring forth my worth both tried and true And firmly fix my soul’s integrity Upon the sacred law in love’s remand! Perhaps I may yet prove my way when tried severe Where heart's necessity masters extremes Of despair and hope which speaks experience And quaff the dregs of strife, perhaps commune With families unseen and tribes of men Forgot; by self forgot in those who claim Their proof of worth by pride and every way Mere pleasure in consumptive greediness.
Such petty helps of outward show and gain Heaped up with selfishness and frauds of love… Corrupted and corrupting will that feigns The rites of self 'gainst loss; real loss unknown In ways that count the outward show of things! But love, the heart of knowing evident In those once proven true, accounts no thing As seen through carnal veils, times’ niceties. Such pomp depraved is that, the outward garb With which failed heart relieves the inward dross In outward style, the one dissemblance fair That postures worth, though no good intends Save praise, to some their best acclaim Where honesty is not enough to glut The appetites of I. But for the poor The proven fast, laying down their selfish strife For consummating grace and unity. So thought by thought, deed on deed, does love lead on To lasting worth and peace, which even death With its dread severance cannot separate Once sympathetic souls have met in grace.
More wondrous then I'll own this strife of life Which, in the balance, can trip-up proud thoughts And, by contrition, prove an upright goad Of mercy, yielding still an outward balm For inward wounds and, by that salving oil Of grace to remedy the ancient wrongs. What draught of life is here in unity Of pain, hope, faith, and love in which is found The universal heart of Man! Such webs Of night and day to interweave our worth That, careful tending, yields the sweet fragrance Of liberty and peace to waft along A high communion; lovely as a rose Its scent of life, unfolding evermore The virtues of our magnanimity!
This work, sublime in truth revealing trials Enlightens your way, O sojourn heart Which, too long groaning, you have sought the while And knew not, pierced through with scorching darts Of cruel despite. The back and not the front You first pursued and turned away the thought Which, rightly meek, could otherwise wax blunt The plaint of sorrow, though not falsely wrought. Such Vale you pass, and must, which set before Is flood with tears like yours for such remiss Unkindly given, patiently now born- Both cheeks for smiting, doubly felt love's kiss. Forbear the world’s affront in wrath uncouth To bless your soul with love, and love in truth.
Miners do not bemoan their lot or odds Toiling amidst the mountains for the boon Of rare and costly things, nor curse the gods That one is later rich, one richer soon. Attentiveness they hold who sooner reap The treasure that's around them secret sown And into every crevice careful peek To pluck what hasty others pass unknown. Nor is life slack to proffer all the glee Of finding under foot the stainless wealth If only first to humbly, inward see What beauty of the soul slips by in stealth. The fool to Fortune's ways too tempted clings Though Memory retains the sacred things.
What is the plowman's good who does not know To break the fallow is a noble work And what is called the helper who would sow For early rains and yet the labor shirks? All seasons come in their appointed time Accounting faithfully intrinsic ends And turn together, folding as this rhyme To pass one into each toward that they tend. So one's the heart, all dispositions move Proportionate to their respective toil As one's the year, all seasons constant prove To blend experience for richer soil. Then discipline grabs hold onto the tares For ripened truth, joy harvesting the tears.
The carpenters, with tape and steady rule Check their work, all purposes befitting... Discerning every plane, they make it true To need and art, nothing good omitting. Time, space, and material they well acquaint To suit what in idea they have known And do not think impatiently to joint The aims they love and hope to outward show. Determined from at first their thoughts aspire With upright means to prove the inward form In outward style, contracting the attire To fit, too transient, what their heart has born. All means appraised, they discipline the fair Integrity requires of perfect care.
Near shore, the fawning airs of pride blow on The ship of low ambition as the port Of youth is left, though life truth not resort To worldly confidence. Such day's bygone. Awake you Sleepers, grab onto the helm Of discipline and keep a watchful eye For them false prophets' quackery that o’er whelms The carnal reason; now, the trial draws nigh! Set ores to deeper waters, brave the depths Of judgment and sustain the vast relief 'gainst piercing cynicism which has cleft Many good hulls upon the Siren’s reef. The hero fronts the dark and Dagon stays Enchanted, winning gems from wisdom's lay.
Seeming and unseemly, like and dislike The teeter and the totter is such play Of mind and meaning, cause and causal plight Which founding can confound the night with day. Such boy is father to the man while life On loss is nourished; so a fusion rules Through universal verse as all is strife On one compounded simile endued. Now what in words the wise of men contend Consistent with or contrawise contrived Life meets centripetal where spirit bends The line’s division into circumscribed. More starkly known, unknown from first to last Is Destiny, God seeking what is past.
The trial’s consideration first shall lend Two ways to go, one fearful way determined; The other, lasting truths of life extends And once encompassed, all pure hopes resound. All bloody and destructive ways are there In carnal things and impish aspirations That darkens every soul to proudly bear The image of its brutal estimations. But as a canopy of light there’s one That demonstrates the heart’s nobility To all the world, revealing as the sun The Character’s divine prosperity. Such paragon of grace shall ever lives With truth and love to conquer death and sin!
As changing faces for the change of things Accommodation is the passing rite Which gives an entrance to the newer things Where right or wrong, as given's, always nice. No boasting in the things of present worth As change is certain and as night and day Faith owns the gauntlets which, ordained by birth Initiates men to humanity. Whether comes fair or foul, all constant live Between what was, perhaps that which shall be Where nothing is received, nothing given Except that proven by integrity. More prudent then, the tested heart discerns What loss to own, what gains to yet forgo.
No longer bothered in the waking hours To vex their love in ways of cruel reproof They lighten every gloom for kinder bowers Of sweet attentions for their primal youth. Life’s innocence they keep and sooner turn On admiration of that sincere care That judges not but, ever ready, learns What good or bad, by name, is common shared. So being one within a true respect They no more care contend with right or wrong Nor weary coming days with old regrets But thank the night as harbinger of song. Alas, to love in truth and ever live In joy of grace, the best of heart to give!
Boasting nothing soon to vainly give The estimation of life’s lordly plan They overcome the world and constant live By faith, submitting as is fit for Man. Too soon, conceited banter comes about On winds of contradiction, inward born For outward wreck upon the teeth of doubt As partial men, from seeming self are shorn. But owning what is due they right respect The station that sets them among the stars So puny, which at night they just reflect On cares that found with selfless disregard. Without more striving then, their love is shown To silence pride, their truth more clearly known.
So comes the heart and all transcending will To study every hope and worldly care In what is sought or whether grace distills The phantom soul; from private ways to bear All things of earthly good and evil bound As strange concoctions are at first the mead Of every way, wherein true faith resounds With substances of vital unity. No forms of vacant care to find at first Where subtle intimations leaps the mind To own the sacred unction which must bursts Up through the shadow self and misty kind. Once found in each, born by integrity They compass every care and open up The fountain of their youth, with Manhood’s key Unlocking treasures of angelic sup. Such ripened grace and beauty inward heard Reforms relations, comforting the world!
O beauty in the heart of Man, so true That weighs equal our need; more pure than gold Your equity of faith in life that holds As dung those things which vanity once lured! Allied and filling up the high measure Of righteousness, your precepts wrought by love Then rectifies the will, drawing treasures From out our hallowed shrine and lights’ abode! Steadfast then, set these lamps, our best reflect In awesome wonders of life’s unity Which once our pride and greedy goals bereft For minion light. Still, there is verity! Great mystery, though portions are we known Built up are All in each and each in All!
Who knows what in our secret heart may lie For ways more worthy, guessed but still unheard To shape the comforts of our dawning days And lift to yet new life the palling world? More subtle than the silent creep of time It slips us by, like shadows of a dream To fall beneath the hustle and the grind Of souls once careless snared by cruel disdain. Not here or there in sweetened sympathies Nor couched in dainty flirting of the mind Come forms of light and golden verities Clothed in itself, itself a world sublime. Substance of being, hope without a fear Is faith, now purified by countless tears!
Ten thousand times ten thousand worlds contrived In weight and number, light and dark devoid Before this lovely seat could life employ As token, gem, and dame of the sublime. Compressed within its bowels, the earth’s distress From many tons of ore brings forth one stone Which, rare and coveted, some men invest With value, for their cherished to adorn. But these and all great wonders cannot own What earth and heaven have to us bequeathed In one fleet breath of spirit, inward born To magnify and summarize the rest. Such pains of birth inform us by what odds Are wrought the dignities of Man in God!
The intimations of our youth Are whispering the dreams of Manhood- Shadowed ways of meaning Which in kind with ambient stars Seem presently arrived yet constant play The chiming of a universal sphere In concert with a universal heart That we, as man or woman, ever hear As one, though tuned with all in scale of parts.
Sweet songs of knowing, harmonies sublime Soft now upwelling, urging on the climb Of ancient being, born to pass all by Conceived a worm, mounting to the skies On wings supernal, loft on noble strains To ring the victor’s anthem and the aims Of hope and faith for life’s enduring worth!
O fair gentleness and sweet repose Of patient care, always I hold you dear In hours of trial and the disconcerting. Your steady grace, so wondrous, shall unfold To lighten all the dark and gruesome fears Of my lost night and lonely hurting.
First in you I find the kindliness Of heart, whose worth is more than gold To this poor soul and the cruel world. And so, your care is more than tenderness As your intent, stronger than is told Of truth, by men, the mind unfurled.
Let none forget, in you we find our rest From you we’re born, to you we must return Our faith of innocence, in us the best Of love that ever inward burns!
Such kindliness of grace that sends In exhortation, ways to mend The heart, wherein hope sure stride Stitching firmer, faith into faith Passing through life’s gate Were mercy ever abides!
How knowingly your mourning dove Has tended patiently in love To coo to us our heart’s content. What beauty of true care to see What worthiness and lasting peace In the upright soul’s pure intent!
May we work and prove today Though battered in the idols’ fray To overcome the world and show forth Our best, temptation disposed; Trusting not in lonely works But piercing the mist in our eyes Unto truth, too dimly beheld!
While barren thoughts of self matured It could not allay the blasting doubts But rose from the gate Beautiful Acceptance and supplication Whose living grace it brightly lit!
In deserts of the world I’d rather be Than I the courts of kings a foolish thrall To vain ambitions or moneyed servitude! Free, I’d live with honest contemplation Though poor for that accounting among men To scan the awesome work above, bright heavens Fixed and revolving orbs set in their glory- Arrayed expanse and grand infinitude. Wondrous mirror, image of the heart So deep that breathes the life and endless age Of generation, countless among men! Now overflow your light and influence The way of sojourn souls, quick innervate With living water all this ashen self And renew with greater hope than one life holds To saturate with life and numberless Lives of men. So would we ever reap The holy writ by them set down; As they in us could live, none should die But as the heavens we’d continue on With light profuse, as upon each other flown Though for a thousand years our fixed orbs retired!
Together then we’d prove the godliness Which, for integrity, cannot waver Or be shook off the rock of unity- Each found in each by truths’ of soul sublime Supernal, resplendent, on wings of grace Forever coursing our most noble aims Of faith and loveliness, proving the cause And seal by which we’re sealed, image of God. So never more we seek to outward strive For proof of worth, true worth best justified In what transcends the part, no bit denied Of universal good and common chords Which year to year, age to age, remain the same! Here is the hope, which, lodestone of the wise Can hold steadfast the will in sympathy With lives of men, though by death over-shroud… The equity of heart for our humanity That frees the soul to broad consideration Smashing all dogmatic claims of power With honest understanding. Here mercy sits As guard over the heart to weigh all thoughts That from the cynic soul might issue forth
And, in condemning, wreck our common good… So deep is hell and worthless is the theme Of selfish ways in proud experience. Such wretched pride would ever delegate Our worth, and in the delegation ruin our lives For peace, resigning each as slaves to chance, disjoined From central cares that keep the hearth of life. But equity shall own the ways of each Lest by vain pride assuredness be weighed Unequal worth, to sanctioned cliques imputed. Such preference would tip the scale for war And war cut short in wrath our ancient climb. Wretched thought, dastard ignobility That lifts a self-conception over others- Our brothers, sisters, friends, remaining self Which met could bring to whole our fractured lives! But let one live in each and each in all Then would we meet alike in constancy And, with respectful patience, comprehend The fateful chords that make for our sojourn. Once found in each, each other’s best admired Our hearts would grow in love’s sweet communion
And mercy, our best fruit, would rise to fill Each yearning soul, our friends their burdens eased Which sensed in loneliness, the wastes of pain Is guided home at last with kindliness. Doubtless, none is worthy without love Which, ever proving, seeks to mitigate The toil of ours so snared with cruel fates That desperately we fall from out the light Unwitting to be pierced with seething pain Of spite, the bitter herb of discontent. Yet, there’s none blameless in love’s law which spoke- Love others as you love yourself For all men, as is common to be known Seek first their private fare and, if well done Perchance may cast a glance toward others’ need. Of all work then, such as must be done None’s more worthy of praise as this one is Who sets aside the judgment that demands For brutal blows, more blows returned in measure Of recompense, but seeks still to reconcile The complex wrong, by men construed; takes two
For what is called offense, yet not one care To be avenged, only that peace, life’s Eden once Might soon return. Love’s loss of part is bane. But should be lost this simple fact of grace Where equity of heart yields every hope To lift into the peace of natal care… Then quake! Comes every strife and civil war! Such wickedness abides with greedy thoughts That urge despite and beastly remonstrance When rather due, in truth, is to forgive. But throwing off conceit, we now shall live No more self-proud in cruel estimations But fix in heart the welfare of our whole And prove the power of consanguinity Whose grace so freely from one root is trained With generosity, no justice won By privilege or the pacts of honored cast… Then owning every potent jot for good Our hearts sure hold, no respect at all For cliques of power, in preference, justified We’ll prove our best, which, ever true below With perfect sympathy, has born us all
Except those proud hypocrites who style themselves Elect among us, righteous laws of God Whose spiteful ranks have ever mocked the heart With judgment, though the ways of truth have sought No condemnation, ‘clean/unclean’, but in love Worked every mercy, ever fit for all Confirming peace at last, our lives conjoined!
Though in a public place arise Faint words on wisdom’s wind The work must not be compromised Or then is stilled the healing breath And whom shall seers send? Back |
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