SUPPLICATION

Father, I know that all my life

Is portioned out for me,

And the changes that will surely come
I do not fear to see;

But I ask Thee for a present mind
Intent on pleasing Thee.

I ask Thee for a thoughtful love,
Through constant watching wise,
To meet the glad with joyful smiles,
And to wipe the weeping eyes;
And a heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathize.

I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do,
Or secret thing to know;

I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.

Wherever in the world I am,
In whatsoe'er estate,

I have a fellowship with hearts
To keep and cultivate;
And a work of lowly love to do,

For the Lord on whom I wait.

So I ask Thee for the daily strength,
To none that ask denied,

And a mind to blend with outward life,

While keeping at Thy side;

Content to fill a little space,

If Thou be glorified.

Anna Laetitia Waring

CHILD OF A DAY

Child of a day, thou knowest not
The tears that overflow thine urn,
The gushing eyes that read thy lot,
Nor, if thou knewest, could'st return!

And why the wish! the pure and blest,
Watch, like thy mother, o'er thy sleep;

O peaceful night! O envied rest!
Thou wilt not ever see her weep.

Walter Savage Landor

A WIDOW BIRD

A widow bird sat mourning for her love
Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,

No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

LEAF AFTER LEAF

Leaf after leaf drops off, flower after flower,
Some in the chill, some in the warmer hour:
Alike they flourish and alike they fall,

And Earth who nourisht them receives them all.
Should we, her wiser sons, be less content

To sink into her lap when life is spent?

Walter Savage Landor

THE APPROACH OF AGE

Let Youth, who never rests, run by;
But should each Grace desert the Muse?
Should all that once hath charmed us, fly
At heavy Age's creaking shoes?

The titter of light Days I hear

To see so strange a figure come: Laugh on, light Days, and never fear; He passes you; he seeks the tomb.

Walter Savage Landor

THE CHANGELESS

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

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud; Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

RULE BRITANNIA

When Britain first at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of her land,

And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free
The dread and envy of them all.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies Serves but to root thy native oak.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,

And work their woe and thy renown.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine!

The Muses, still with Freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle, with matchless beauty crown'd
And manly hearts to guard the fair:

Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves !
Britons never shall be slaves!

James Thomson