var poems = [{"id":"1","title":"Abiding In Him","verse":"\"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever\" - Hebrews 13:8","poem":"Christ was the Lord of all my yesterdays,\n   No matter where I stood:\nIn sad, in stormy, or in sun-lit ways,\n   I found His presence good.\n\nChrist is the Lord of my today:   The dawn\n   Beyond my morning hill\nComes up in glory when the night is gone;\n   And Christ is with me still.\n\nSo I can trust Him for tomorrow too,\n   Though skies be dark or fair:\nIt will not matter — every sky is blue\n   When Christ, my Lord, is there.","firstline":"Christ was the Lord of all my yesterdays,","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic001.jpg","style":"","keywords":"christ,lord,matter,trust,night,glory,hill,tomorrow,dark,sky","likes":"10","lettercount":"329","wordcount":"103","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-07-02 14:36:57","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"1"},{"id":"2","title":"A Blackbird Bathes","verse":null,"poem":"This strutting, sable bird defies\nAll old wives' fables: he denies\nThat black is meant for mourning. See\nWith what exquisite ecstasy\n\nHe savors life: the whole of bliss\nTo fluff his feathers and dismiss\nThe dust of earth, beneath this spray.\nHe dips and ducks and struts away,\n\nTo give his wings a furtive flip\nAnd cock his head to watch than drip.\nHis somberness is but a guise\nPerhaps if we were just as wise\n\nAs one small blackbird, we could rift\nOur darkness too, and find the gift\nFrom which his satisfaction springs;\nThe joy that lurks in simple things.","firstline":"This strutting, sable bird defies","periodical":"Arizona Highways Magazine","image":"pic002.jpg","style":"","keywords":"head,watch,drip,sombemess,cock,flip,struts,away,wings,furtive","likes":"7","lettercount":"453","wordcount":"103","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-01-17 17:30:13","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"3","title":"Above The Clouds","verse":null,"poem":"Like Great gray birds of doom above our plane,\nThe dark clouds threatened, broke in deluge, poured\nAgainst the windows blinding sheets of rain.\nThe sky was ominous; but still we soared.\n\nAnd then a sudden miracle of light:\nThe sun in all its glory, golden, warm;\nAnd, far below, a sea of soft clouds, white\nAs driven snow. We flew above the storm.\n\nOn God's side, all our clouds must look like these.\nWhat seems to us so sinister and grim —\nThe tears, the tests, the trials and tragedies —\nUnfold as something beautiful to Him.\n\nHe knows -what wonder waits beyond earth's strife.\nRide high with Him above the storms of life.","firstline":"Like Great gray birds of doom above our plane,","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic003.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"above,clouds,sinister,seems,grim,these,tears,tests,side","likes":"12","lettercount":"519","wordcount":"115","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 10:44:26","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"4","title":"A Bride's Song","verse":null,"poem":"Your name is proud as lilies white and still,\n    Your name is deep as water without sound,\nAs radiant as sunlight on a hill,\n    As secret as the first buds out of ground;\n\nYour name is quietness when trumpets flare,\n    Your name is singing when the silence palls.\nAs cool as curtains blowing in the air,\n    As soft as elm trees when the first snow falls.\n\nBeloved, you have given me this thing\n    That clothes me round with wind and star and dew,\nWith swift exulting and shy wondering,\n    That makes me not myself but part of you—\n\nA strange new creature born of song and flame:\nBeloved, you have given me your name!","firstline":"Your name is proud as lilies white and still,","periodical":"","image":"pic004.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"beloved,given,star,dew,swift,wind,clothes,snow,falls,exulting","likes":"0","lettercount":"485","wordcount":"137","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"5","title":"Acceptance","verse":null,"poem":"One day I thought to ask God, “Why?\"\nAnd then I looked into the sky\nAnd saw His steadfast stars ride out\nThe storm. There was no talk of doubt.\n\nI walked His fields and, underfoot,\nI trampled petal, stalk and root.\nThe only answer to their doom,\nFrom every blossom, was perfume.\n\nA small bird, seeking crumbs in vain,\nFluffed up his feathers in the rain\nAnd lifted up his voice to sing\nWithout a thought of questioning.\n\nIn star, in bloom, in small bird's trill,\nI saw acceptance of God's will.\nWhat base presumption then that I\nShould dare to ask my Father, “Why?\"","firstline":"One day I thought to ask God, “Why?\"","periodical":"Moody Monthly Magazine","image":"pic005.jpg","style":"","keywords":"small,god,bird,thought,rain,lifted,feathers,voice,vain,seeking","likes":"1","lettercount":"469","wordcount":"106","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 17:15:47","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"6","title":"A Child Watching Trees","verse":null,"poem":"When my Saviour came to me\nHe was cradled in a tree:\nRough and rude the manger-bed\nWhere Lord Jesus laid His head;\n\nWhen my Saviour came to die\nOn a tree they nailed Him high;\nThis is how my child-thoughts run.\nWatching green trees in the sun.\n\nYoung trees wear a joy with them:\nDo they dream of Bethlehem?\nGreat trees keep such dignity —\nThey remember Calvary.","firstline":"When my Saviour came to me","periodical":"","image":"pic006.jpg","style":"","keywords":"trees,came,tree,dream,joy,wear,sun,green,bethlehan,young","likes":"5","lettercount":"297","wordcount":"69","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 10:37:31","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"7","title":"A Deserted House","verse":null,"poem":"Where is the joy, the laughter and the mirth\n   That once these walls, now crumbling ruins, held?\nFled, long since fled down scattered ways of earth;\n   One with the dust by vagrant winds dispelled.\n\nWhere are the feet that trod so lightly here,\n   The careless spoken words, the dreams unsaid?\nNaught, naught remains of that forgotten cheer;\n   Silenced, the halls re-echo to no tread.\n\nWhat tales of love, of romance, might unfold\n   If walls had lips, or windows were not dumb,\nWe may not know:   they  jealously withhold\n   All that has been from those who go and come; —\n\nSave where we find among the rubbish cast\nA child's broken toy, links us with the past.","firstline":"Where is the joy, the laughter and the mirth","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic007.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"fled,naught,walls,romance,dumb,unfold,lips,love,windows,tales","likes":"0","lettercount":"532","wordcount":"138","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:14:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"8","title":"A Doctor's Prayer","verse":null,"poem":"God of the human body, let me be\nOnly an instrument employed by Thee:\nThe knowledge and the healing skill are Thine;\nThe ready hands, the willing heart, are mine.\n\nBefore I turn to the appointed task,\nDiscernment for decision I would ask.\nLet me not work alone, unguided, blind:\nTouch with Thy wisdom this surrendered mind.\n\nThe gift of life, so many hunger for,\nThy hand alone has power to restore.\nGod the human body, let me be\nOnly an instrument employed by Thee.","firstline":"God of the human body, let me be","periodical":"","image":"pic008.jpg","style":"","keywords":"thee,thy,god,alone,employed,body,instrument,human,wisdom,unguided","likes":"1","lettercount":"380","wordcount":"85","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 13:54:18","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"9","title":"A Dove At Dawn","verse":null,"poem":"Heart of the Dawn, I heard you after sun\n   Move through the trees while day was yet unsaid.\nSoft stirred the leaves — your brief throbs one by one\n   Fell on the ear like griefs uncomforted.\n\nPathos was there so rare and exquisite\n   I marveled. Did lost memories start awake,\nPull at your strings and move across the night,\n   That sudden you should rise, and sob, and break?\n\nHeart of the Dawn, I knew you for a bird,\n   Gray wing, rose breast — dawn's blended harmonies.\nAnd yet I knew you not. I only heard,\n   Out of the shy confusion of the trees,\n\nOne white word lift and tremble — spelling love.\nWas it yourself O Heart, or God, or Dove?","firstline":"Heart of the Dawn, I heard you after sun","periodical":"Contemporary Verse Magazine","image":"pic009.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"heart,dawn,heard,knew,trees,move,breast,rose,gray","likes":"4","lettercount":"523","wordcount":"139","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-19 16:25:06","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"10","title":"Adventure","verse":null,"poem":"He could not tell what he sought in the wood,\nBut he kept going on;\nWonder pulled at his sleeve, brushed his coat\nAnd was gone.\n\nSquirrels scuttled up trees, and he stood\nTransfixed with desire;\nSomething tickled his ear with two words —\n“Farther, higher\".\n\nHe could not tell what he wanted to find,\nBut he kept looking here,\nLooking there, until small reaching hands\nClosed on fear:\n\nUntil coldness crept down through his spine,\nAnd his feet would not stir...........\nNow he knew what he longed to embrace —\n“Moth-er-ER!\"","firstline":"He could not tell what he sought in the wood,","periodical":"","image":"pic010.jpg","style":"","keywords":"kept,reaching,hands,closed,small,here,farther,higher,wanted","likes":"11","lettercount":"452","wordcount":"92","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 14:12:58","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"11","title":"Advice For Young Grief","verse":null,"poem":"Snap at the green twig, kick at the clod,\n   Bury the brown leaf under,\nSay, “It is over\", laugh at God.\n   Will that help much, I Wonder?\n\nThere will be other twigs that will grow,\n   Clods and brown leaves aplenty:\nAll that you learn you do not know,\n   When you are only twenty.\n\nEyes on the green twig, cheek on the clod,\n   Hands through the brown leaves creeping,\nSay, “I am stupid, help me, God\" —\n   That is the end of weeping.","firstline":"Snap at the green twig, kick at the clod,","periodical":"Kaleidograph Magazine","image":"pic011.jpg","style":"","keywords":"brown,leaves,help,clod,green,twig,god,cheek,eyes,learn","likes":"2","lettercount":"352","wordcount":"100","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-18 00:00:10","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"12","title":"Afternoon With Patricia: Ambition","verse":null,"poem":"My father says, “legitimate\",\n   “Irregularity\",\nAnd “clerical\". I hate such words —\n   They are too big for me.\n\nMy mother says, “Precisely so\",\n   And “poise\" and “womanhood\"\nI wouldn't want to talk like that —\n   Her words sound goody-good.\n\nMy sister gurgles, “my heart-throb\",\n   And “ultra\" and “divine\";\nThe words she says are sickly-sweet —\n   They wouldn't do for mine.\n\nMy brother blurts out “foo-manchoo\",\n   And “naa\" and “goo\" and “stuff\";\nIf words like that make sense at all,\n   They still don't make enough!\n\nBut down beside the fishing wharf,\n    With crabs and queer sea-birds,\nLives Uncle Joe (I like him lots)\n    And my, he knows the words!\n\nHe mends the nets, and winks his eye,\n    And nearly lays me flat\nWith “fan my eyebrows\", “blow me down\" —\n   If I could talk like that!","firstline":"My father says, “legitimate\",","periodical":"","image":"pic012.jpg","style":"","keywords":"words,wouldn,talk,crabs,wharf,queer,sea,lives,birds","likes":"3","lettercount":"735","wordcount":"174","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-25 04:10:24","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"13","title":"Afternoon With Patricia: Romance","verse":null,"poem":"The nicest man I ever knew\n    (You guess him, if you can)\nCalls on us twice in every week —\n    Yes — it's the garbage-man.\n\nOn Wednesdays and on Saturdays\n    He drives by and he yells,\n“Hello, girls!\" Then he carries off\n    The most peculiar smells:\n\nThe awful things that float to us\n    On every passing breeze —\nLike orange peel, and sauerkraut,\n    And mouldy cottage cheese.\n\nMy father is an engineer,\n   And Dave says, “Art's the stuff\";\nBut I shall marry the garbage-man\n   When I am old enough.\n\nMy sister says to choose your man\n   For all the gifts he brings —\nLike violets, and chocolate creams,\n   And furs and diamond rings.\n\nI  wonder if my sister knows\n   (She's older and she may) —\nBut I'm in love with the garbage-man\n   For what he takes away!","firstline":"The nicest man I ever knew","periodical":"","image":"pic013.jpg","style":"","keywords":"man,garbage,sister,gifts,choose,old,enough,marry,stuff","likes":"25","lettercount":"624","wordcount":"181","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2021-11-07 06:12:47","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"14","title":"After Quarreling","verse":null,"poem":"Oh, some may pine and some may pout,\nBut none can really do without\nEarth's dearest treasure from above\nThat little item known as love.\n\nDear grown-ups replica of Duane,\nYour stubbornness is all in vain:\nThough sullenly to bed you creep\nI kiss you all night in my sleep!","firstline":"Oh, some may pine and some may pout,","periodical":"","image":"pic014.jpg","style":"","keywords":"stubborness,vain,duane,replica,ups,sullenly,bed,sleep,night,kiss","likes":"1","lettercount":"219","wordcount":"50","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 17:15:29","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"15","title":"After-Thought","verse":null,"poem":"If I could hold the Book of Life again\n   Wherein they say so many wisdoms hide,\nSome great immortal Truth I might retain\n   When drifting out on death's eternal tide.\n\nBut as a willful child that will not con\n   The printed page when pictures may be seen,\nSo brave I found the beauty of the dawn,\n   So  fair the night, I would not read between.\n\nBefore my vision page on page -unrolled:\n    White noons, December twilights, twisted trees,\nDogwood and violets breaking earth's brown mold,\n    Wide burning deserts, and great living seas.\n\nWith one short lifetime scant enough to look,\nI never read a line in all the book.","firstline":"If I could hold the Book of Life again","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic015.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"page,read,great,book,dogwood,trees,violets,breaking,twisted,twilights","likes":"1","lettercount":"490","wordcount":"130","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-06 18:49:35","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"16","title":"Age Is For Love","verse":null,"poem":"Youth is for love, the poets long have sung\n   In threadbare words of moon-mist and of dawn:\nThe great One Flame, lit bravely by the young,\n   Flickers with age, burns dimly — and is gone.\n\nThey do not know, Beloved, these who make\n   A love that runs to music, leaps with light,\nQuivers at stars, how struggle and heartbreak\n   Have lit a flame that burns on through the night.\n\nLove is for age. When hearts no longer tread\n   The dangerous ascent, the deep abyss,\nWhen all that needs audition has been said\n   And wonder wakes no longer in a kiss.\n\nStill burns the flame. And two, in time of storm,\nDraw up to love — and find it safe and warm.","firstline":"Youth is for love, the poets long have sung","periodical":"Radio P.C. Magazine","image":"pic016.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"love,flame,burns,age,lit,longer,abyss,deep,dangerous","likes":"2","lettercount":"516","wordcount":"139","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-02-28 05:10:30","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"17","title":"A Handy Thing","verse":null,"poem":"She who dons a wedding ring\nNeeds this handy little thing:\nShe can roll and cut and bake,\nThings like Mother used to make;\n\nPiecrust will be flakier —\nThis should make a hit with her.\nAnd, for keeping Dad in line,\nHere is something very fine,\n\nSome thing smooth and sleek and trim,\nThat will make a “hit\" with him\nWhen she “konks him on the dome\" —\nIf he ever starts to roam.","firstline":"She who dons a wedding ring","periodical":"","image":"pic017.jpg","style":"","keywords":"hit,fine,smooth,something,here,line,sleek,trim,starts","likes":"0","lettercount":"323","wordcount":"75","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"18","title":"A Lady Chooses Rust","verse":null,"poem":"\n“Give me the rust\", she said, and in her eyes\n   There was a look that went beyond the gown\nI knew that she was walking with clean skies\n   Beyond the noisy confines of the town;\n\nI knew that russet leaves, in drifted heaps,\n   Crowded the comers of her mind; that part\nOf some lost hope the life defeated keeps\n   Was pushing up the windows of her heart.\n\nI knew she was remembering the way\n   The country ages, mellowing to rust,\nThat she had found a dream from yesterday\n   And she was nibbling at it, like a crust.\n\nThe sales girl wrapped the package and she went.\nIt was no sale:  It  was a sacrament.","firstline":"","periodical":"Holland's Magazine","image":"pic018.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"knew,rust,beyond,country,ages,mellowing,remembering,windows,pushing,found","likes":"3","lettercount":"476","wordcount":"135","linecount":"15","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-15 03:12:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"19","title":"Alas! How True","verse":null,"poem":"A dandelion in the Spring\nCan be the most confounded thing!\n\nWithin its bright-eyed stare you sense\nimpertinence.\n\nFor well you know that, on the sly,\nThe little thing will multiply\n\nAnd dandelions everywhere\nGet in your hair.\n\nAnd when you find them there you'll moan\nTo see how blond your hair has grown.\n\nBlond hair, blond lawn, take much shampoo\nHard work and you!","firstline":"A dandelion in the Spring","periodical":"","image":"pic019.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"hair,blond,moan,everywhere,dandelions,get,grown,hard,work,shampoo","likes":"2","lettercount":"299","wordcount":"65","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-24 19:50:32","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"20","title":"A Legend Of Childhood","verse":null,"poem":"God grew so tired of sitting\n   Way up in Heaven alone,\nHe said, “I'll make a new thing,\n   Some thing my very own.\n\nThe earth that I have fashioned\n   By men has been defiled.\"\nAnd so, to please His fancy,\n   God made a little child.\n\nHe took a burst of sunshine\n   And wrought a golden smile,\nThen wrapped it in a little heart\n   Simple and free from guile.\n\nTwin stars He stole from Heaven\n   To make the shining eyes,\nAnd rosy cheeks were fashioned\n   Out where the sunset lies.\n\nA brook came dancing, sparkling,\n   He caught its silver note,\nAnd lo! a rippling laugh was heard\n   Spilled from a tiny throat.\n\nAnd then, because all laughter\n   Is sweeter mixed with pain,\nHe made some tear-drops for his child\n   From little drops of rain.\n\nIt was a lot of labor;\n   But when the little child\nPlayed round the door of Heaven\n   God often watched, and smiled.\n\nAnd Heaven was a different place,\n   Till, looking down one day,\nHe saw a lonely woman —\n   And gave His child away.","firstline":"God grew so tired of sitting","periodical":"","image":"pic020.jpg","style":"","keywords":"heaven,little,child,god,drops,fashioned,laughter,its,silver,sweeter","likes":"1","lettercount":"761","wordcount":"225","linecount":"32","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 08:31:21","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"21","title":"Alien","verse":null,"poem":"Within the still, white room that gave me birth,\n    My body bloomed, the counterpart of two\nWho bore me; but alone, across the earth.\n   Miles from that place, the heart they never knew\n\nBy wise moon fairies on a far high hill\n   Was being woven out of threads of mist;\nIts fragile beauty was a thing more still\n   Than any lake the wind has ever kissed.\n\nAnd I have borne it secretly within,\n   A shy soft wonder sleeping at my breast.\nAnd such has been dissemblance I could win\n   That even those who bore me have not guessed,\n\nWhen misty moonlight blows from tree to tree,\nHow near they are at last to finding me.","firstline":"Within the still, white room that gave me birth,","periodical":"","image":"pic021.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"bore,within,tree,borne,sleeping,secretly,shy,kissed,wonder,ever","likes":"2","lettercount":"481","wordcount":"134","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-11 04:09:06","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"22","title":"A Little Sister Of St. Mary's","verse":null,"poem":"Thy face is still as quiet words that slip\n   Into forgotten silences; and yet,\nThere is suggestion in the up-curved lip\n   Of hidden smiles that one cannot forget.\n\nThou hast an air of being strangely wise,\n   As though thy dignity great comfort were,\nBut there are mocking lights within thine eyes,\n   And laughter in thy draperies astir.\n\nMost grave, most still, think not that thou canst blind\n   These eyes of mine with wisdoms of the face!\nI know thee, — little sister of the wind\n   That laughing flits from place to forest place, —\n\nBeneath these robes that play at dignity\nThou hast a heart all youth, all gaiety!","firstline":"Thy face is still as quiet words that slip","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic022.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"thy,thou,hast,dignity,these,place,most,eyes,face","likes":"0","lettercount":"505","wordcount":"127","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:14:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"23","title":"All For You","verse":null,"poem":"1.  There is Hill on which the Savior died,\n    There is a Cross where Christ was crucified,\n    There is a Love that opens heaven wide -\n    And this is all for you.\n\nCHORUS:\n\n    All for you the pain He bore.\n    All for you the thorns He wore;\n    Sinner come, I now implore -\n    Christ has died for you!\n\n2.  There is a Light to shine upon your way.\n    There is a Hand to reach you when you stray,\n    There is a Voice to guide you day by day -\n    And this is all for you.\n\n3.  There is a peace this world cannot afford,\n    There is a way the soul can be restored,\n    There is a fellowship with Christ the Lord -\n    And this is all for you.\n\n4.  There is a joy that only Christ can bring,\n    There is a song that only sinners sing.\n    There is a hope to which the lost can cling -\n    And this is all you.","firstline":"1.  There is Hill on which the Savior died,","periodical":"Hope Publishing Company Magazine","image":"pic023.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"christ,died,day,afford,soul,restored,cannot,world,voice,fellowship","likes":"2","lettercount":"586","wordcount":"231","linecount":"21","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-09-07 23:53:14","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"24","title":"All That Is Most Important Yet Remains","verse":null,"poem":"Be not discouraged, though the way seems hard —\n   All that is most important yet remains:\nBeauty still comes at daybreak to your yard,\n   Dressing each comer with exquisite pains;\n\nColor and song, and laughter in the eyes\n   Of little children yet too young to know,\nStill lend to earth a glint of paradise\n   And light the long dark journey here below.\n\nBe not discouraged, though the days of toil\n   Yield little increase and the self-denial\nSeems hard to bear — gold is a meager spoil;\n   And that which is eternally worthwhile,\n\nGod from His gracious bounty still lets fall —\nNor asks one single penny for it all.","firstline":"Be not discouraged, though the way seems hard —","periodical":"Holland's Magazine","image":"pic024.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"discouraged,hard,little,self,denial,seans,bear,increase,toil","likes":"2","lettercount":"507","wordcount":"127","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-23 09:20:58","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"25","title":"All Things Are New","verse":null,"poem":"Not for the newness of the year —-\n   Though it is joy to see\nHow faithfully Thy seasons pass\n   In continuity,\n\nHow sunnier, fall, and winter move\n   In never-ceasing ranks\nToward the earth's awakening —\n   But not for this be thanks.\n\nNot for the newness of the world,\n   The spring in tender green,\nBut for the newness of the heart,\n   But for the life washed clean,\n\nBut for the glad security\n   That hallows all we do,\nThe knowledge that in Jesus Christ\n   Behold, all things are new.","firstline":"Not for the newness of the year —-","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic025.jpg","style":"","keywords":"newness,heart,life,washed,green,spring,world,clean,tender","likes":"1","lettercount":"388","wordcount":"111","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-06 18:48:33","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"26","title":"All Was Changed","verse":"\"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?\" - I Corinthians 15:55","poem":"The garden seared a shrouded thing,\n   And all the night was still:\nThe lonely stars looked down upon\n   Three crosses on a hill.\n\nLike furtive forms the shadows moved,\n   The earth was wrapped in gloom:\nThat night the Hope of all the world\n   Lay sealed within a tomb.\n\nBut on the morrow all was changed,\n   Man's grief was joy instead:\nThe risen Savior walked the world —\n   And only Death was dead.","firstline":"The garden seared a shrouded thing,","periodical":"Baptist Standard","image":"pic026.jpg","style":"","keywords":"night,world,changed,man,morrow,within,sealed,grief,tomb,instead","likes":"1","lettercount":"316","wordcount":"90","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-21 11:35:23","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"27","title":"All We Like Sheep","verse":"\"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.\" - Isaiah 53:6","poem":"All we like sheep have gone astray, to seek\n   The greener pastures and the larger streams;\nAll we like sheep have wandered, worn and weak,\n   To nibble at the fringe of empty dreams.\n\nWhat depths of desolation and despair\n   Would be our lot, if we had never known\nThe Shepherd's voice, if God had left us there\n   To perish in our wanderings, alone!\n\nBut not our God, but not our blessed God;\n   On Christ was laid the burden of our sin:\nThe weary way to Calvary He trod,\n   And died, that every man might enter in —\n\nTo rest by quiet waters, fresh and clean,\nTo feed where pastures are forever green.","firstline":"All we like sheep have gone astray, to seek","periodical":"Moody Magazine","image":"pic027.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"god,pastures,sheep,calvary,weary,sin,trod,christ,blessed,died","likes":"0","lettercount":"477","wordcount":"130","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"28","title":"Alma Mater Song","verse":null,"poem":"When spring returns to Campbellsville,\nAnd dogwood blooms on College Hill,\nIn fancy then our spirits too\nWill seek again the paths they knew.\n\nAnd when the flaming maples burn.\nIn autumn dreams we will return,\nRecalling hopes as brave and high\nAs windless ways where wild geese fly.\n\nAnd every sunset sky will be\nThrough all the years of memory,\nHowever far our feet may stray,\nA glimpse of garnet and of gray.\n\nCHORUS\n\nDear Alma. Mater, we will lift\nIn praise of you a choicer gift\nThan song can be - the gift of youth,\nCommitted to the Word of Truth.","firstline":"When spring returns to Campbellsville,","periodical":"","image":"pic028.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"gift,stray,feet,glimpse,garnet,gray,far,chorus,sky,years","likes":"1","lettercount":"446","wordcount":"103","linecount":"17","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"29","title":"A Meadowlark At Dusk","verse":null,"poem":"At dusk, a meadowlark! And all my heart,\n   That has known weariness through countless days,\nLeaps in response. What sweet tumultuous art\n   That brave, bright note of bubbling bliss betrays.\n\nAbove the greening fields, perched on a wire,\n   Unconscious of my listening ears below,\nHe lifts aloft his glad song high and higher\n   He lifts my spirit with it - Does he know?\n\nFor six brave minutes by the kitchen clock\n   By singing beauty is my heart set free,\nAnd then he flies - perhaps to join the flock;\n   Night - and the stars - and duty still for me\n\nBut weariness slips from me like a husk -\nHealed by a song - a meadowlark at dusk.","firstline":"At dusk, a meadowlark! And all my heart,","periodical":"Women's Magazine [England]","image":"pic029.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"lifts,brave,song,dusk,meadowlark,heart,weariness,minutes,clock,singing","likes":"0","lettercount":"501","wordcount":"136","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:12:57","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"30","title":"America's Hope","verse":null,"poem":"Oh, bright against the clouded sky,\nThe well-loved banner gleams;\nIts silken folds the ancient hope\nOf all our patriot's dreams.\n\nYet never, through the troubled years,\nHas love of land sufficed:\nThat nation only shall endure\nThat bows to Jesus Christ.","firstline":"Oh, bright against the clouded sky,","periodical":"","image":"pic030.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"years,love,troubled,never,dreams,land,sufficed,jesus,christ,bows","likes":"1","lettercount":"210","wordcount":"42","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 16:22:53","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"31","title":"A Mother's Song For Her Daughter","verse":null,"poem":"I cannot tell her all she means to me:\n   There is no word that mothers find to say\nFor love so deep; but I can toil that she\n   May have the leisure to be young and gay.\n\nI watch her sometimes and she does not know\n   How I am blessing her for all the dear\nAbandon of her joy; and how I grow\n   In strength and wisdom just be have her near.\n\nA daughter gives herself with out restraint,\n   Her youth drops brightest wonder at my feet;\nAnd though I'm selfish sometimes, no complaint\n   Of mine shall mar these days she makes complete\n\nI cannot tell her now; but when the years\n   Have taught us understanding, then we two\nWill find some word — and through a mist of tears\n   I'll say, “My daughter, I have lived in you\".","firstline":"I cannot tell her all she means to me:","periodical":"","image":"pic031.jpg","style":"","keywords":"cannot,daughter,sometimes,word,selfish,complaint,mine,feet,wonder,brightest","likes":"2","lettercount":"567","wordcount":"163","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-09-14 17:04:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"32","title":"A Mother's Thanksgiving","verse":null,"poem":"Now is the time for giving thanks,\n   And I will give mine, too:\nThanks be to God for simple tasks,\n   And hands with which to do.\n\nThanks be to God for little feet.\n   So happy in their play;\nLord, give me patience, love, and faith\n   To guide them on their way.\n\nThanks be to God for little lips\n   That can be taught to sing\nThe old, old songs, the tender tunes\n   Of Jesus, Lord and King.\n\nThanks be to God, when feet shall fail\n   And fading sight grow dim,\nThat Christ will do what I can not.\n   Thanks be to God—————for Him.","firstline":"Now is the time for giving thanks,","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic032.jpg","style":"","keywords":"thanks,god,lord,their,old,little,feet,tunes,jesus","likes":"0","lettercount":"433","wordcount":"126","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:11:36","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"33","title":"A Mother, To Her Children, On Mother's Day","verse":null,"poem":"When you were young, you brought your brief heartaches\n   To me to mend, and put them in my hand.\nI eased the small, hurt places, for your sakes.\n   You knew me as the one who understands\n\nAnd cares. And I knew you as purest joy,\n   Each tiny tear-stained face, each curly head\nBowing in grief above some broken toy.\n   You came for comfort — I was comforted.\n\nAnd now I bring my great heartaches to you.\n   You wrap me in your love:   remembering\nThe long, lost years, as grown-up children do, \n   The lovely years of childhood's tender spring:\n\nAnd I, again, am blest — and lifted far\nAbove the place where any heartaches are.","firstline":"When you were young, you brought your brief heartaches","periodical":"New York Times","image":"pic033.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"heartaches,years,knew,above,love,remembering,long,lost,wrap","likes":"2","lettercount":"503","wordcount":"135","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:11:13","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"34","title":"And Peter","verse":"\"But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.\" - Mark 16:7","poem":"How like our Lord to add, “and Peter\" — knowing\n   That one would walk the world in cruel shame,\nForever haunted by a far cock crowing,\n   And idle boast, and eyes that held no blame\n\nBut looked with brave compassionate reminding\n   Into his own. How like our Lord, to know\nThat somewhere Peter, stumbling on through blinding\n   And bitter tears, would need that message so.\n\nThat somewhere, Peter, all his spirit broken.\n   Past pride, past fear, past all save grim regret,\nWould find in two small words a tender token\n   That all his lifetime he would not forget:\n\nThe sweet assurance that he still belonged,\nIn spite of all, unto the Lord he wronged.","firstline":"How like our Lord to add, “and Peter\" — knowing","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic034.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"peter,past,lord,somewhere,regret,fear,save,grim,pride,spirit","likes":"1","lettercount":"531","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:21:04","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"35","title":"Andrea Paula","verse":null,"poem":"Andrea Paula, sculptor, carved a heart,\n   Carved it of dead dreams and a block of stone.\nGrace, beauty, color, dignified his art;\n   It all but lived. He worshiped it alone.\n\nBut oft at dusk he nursed a secret grief,\n   Kneeling before the thing his hands had wrought:\n“It will not live,\" he sobbed. At last belief\n   Was crystalized into one frenzied thought:\n\nAndrea Paula while the gray world slept,\n   Stole from his breast the heart that was his own,\nCrushed it to fragments and on calm knees crept\n   Out through the dark and worked it into stone.\n\nThey have not, critics say, since time began\nFound art so human — nor so cold a man.","firstline":"Andrea Paula, sculptor, carved a heart,","periodical":"Contemporary Verse Magazine","image":"pic035.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"andrea,art,heart,stone,paula,carved,own,crushed,calm,fragments","likes":"2","lettercount":"517","wordcount":"133","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-15 16:46:59","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"36","title":"An Old Man","verse":null,"poem":"His back is bent with weight of care.\n   Too many years have lain\nUpon his brow and traced their flight\n   In crooked lines of pain.\n\nHis feeble footsteps beat the earth\n   With faulty resonance,\nThat all too long have traveled down\n   The way of circumstance.\n\nHis hands are shapeless, trembling things,\n   That once were firm and strong,\nThey speak of weary days of toil\n   And duty served too long.\n\nOnly within his sunken eyes\n   The fire of youth still gleams —\nHis eyes that all his life have been\n   The mirror of his dreams.","firstline":"His back is bent with weight of care.","periodical":"","image":"pic036.jpg","style":"","keywords":"eyes,long,toil,weary,days,speak,firm,hands,shapeless,trembling","likes":"0","lettercount":"418","wordcount":"118","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"37","title":"And It Was Night","verse":"\"He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night.\" - John 13:30","poem":"And it was night. Not calm, familiar night,\n   With hill and star, with darkness cool and kind;\nNot these, but total abstinence of light,\n   Like sudden midnight caning on the blind:\n\nNo drowsy settling of weary wings,\n   No light wind shyly fingering the air,\nBut darkness that was gross, like that which clings\n   To doom and desolation and despair.\n\nAnd it was night. And Judas went alone —\n   But how alone, or at what cruel cost\nHe gave the kiss that made the Saviour known.\n   He did not dream. Until, too late, too lost,\n\nHe cast his portion on the potter's sod —\nAnd turned forever from the Son of God.","firstline":"And it was night. Not calm, familiar night,","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic037.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"night,alone,darkness,light,kiss,cruel,cost,judas,doom","likes":"0","lettercount":"491","wordcount":"129","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:49:14","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"38","title":"And Redbud Quickens","verse":null,"poem":"All is forgiven now that dogwood blooms\n   And redbud quickens on the burnished bough,\nAnd every honeysuckle hedge perfumes\n   The countryside. All is forgiven now,\n\nThe clean cool curve of furrows freshly turned,\n   Young blackbirds strutting sleekly by the plow.\nAre harbingers whose meaning we have learned:\n   Spring has come back - all is forgiven now.\n\nAnd what of us who, winter long, have moped\n   Beside the fire and let earth's bleakness sift\nInto our souls? Now, better than we hoped,\n   God gives again His reassuring gift:\n\nAnother Spring. Shall we not do our part\nAnd thaw the long, long winter of the heart?","firstline":"All is forgiven now that dogwood blooms","periodical":"World Outlook Magazine","image":"pic038.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"forgiven,long,winter,spring,fire,earth,bleakness,beside,moped,back","likes":"0","lettercount":"499","wordcount":"122","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"39","title":"Anniversary Song","verse":null,"poem":"       (To Dad)\n\nDo you remember when our love,\n   The little helpless dear one,\nWas still so small the whole delight\n   Was just to keep it near one?\n\nWhen every day was holiday,\n   In any kind of weather,\nBecause we nursed our little love\n   And tended it together?\n\nThe years have seen that love grow up\n   To such supreme dimensions\nIt hardly ever asks for now\n   The fond heart's small attentions.\n\nIt seldom seeks the boon of arms,\n   The hand-clasps and caresses,\nThis sturdy love we lean upon\n   Through failures and successes.\n\nWe are so fortunate to have\n   This fire to warm December,\nThis safe and certain flame of love —\n   But sometimes I. remember:\n\nSometimes (I know it's foolish, dear)\n   It seems this tall new stranger\nMight grow beyond us. Do you think\n   There could be any danger?","firstline":"       (To Dad)","periodical":"","image":"pic039.jpg","style":"","keywords":"love,small,sometimes,any,dear,grow,little,remember,failures,fortunate","likes":"0","lettercount":"623","wordcount":"181","linecount":"25","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"40","title":"Another Moment","verse":null,"poem":"Another moment, and the earth may loose\n   Ten thousand furies bearing us to doom:\nA second, even, and without excuse\n   Silence of death may fall upon this room —\n\nFor it is written men shall not discern\n   The final hour when these things must be.\nAnother moment — and so much to learn,\n   A world of wonder still to hear and see!\n\nHow fresh is mountain laurel in the spring! —\n   I may not see it now, nor hear again\nThe wild sweet note the Huitacochees sing,\n   Nor sense the earth's green odors after rain\n\nBut no — the moment passes ... and I stay!\nUp! Up! I will drink beauty while I may!","firstline":"Another moment, and the earth may loose","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic040.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"moment,hear,another,earth,wild,sweet,note,spring,fresh","likes":"1","lettercount":"485","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-03-27 14:39:24","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"41","title":"The Anti-Climax","verse":null,"poem":"As two grown tired, we lay aside the volume....\nBut stay one moment! let us mark the place\nTomorrow brings again the sun to heaven,\nThe dew to earth — but not your face.\n\nNo more together shall we read Love's story;\nBut haply in the years that are to be,\nMy idle fingers, turning through the pages,\nShall chance on this — and linger lovingly.\n\nRemembering a romance still unfinished,\nA tale whose climax we can never know —\nAnd I shall sigh and “Would it,\" I shall wonder,\n“If we had turned the page, have ended so?\"","firstline":"As two grown tired, we lay aside the volume....","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic041.jpg","style":"","keywords":"linger,lovingly,remembering,chance,pages,years,idle,fingers,turning","likes":"6","lettercount":"446","wordcount":"99","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-02-28 02:26:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"42","title":"A Prayer For Love","verse":null,"poem":"I pray that Love will find me on a day\n   Not too much fretted by the common tasks.\n(Lord, thou dost surely know a woman's way\n   Of liking to be loved!) My spirit asks\n\nThat for this once — if Love should be my lot—\n   I may go forth to meet him joyously,\nAs one on terms with happiness, and not\n   Bowed by the daily cares that fall on me.\n\nBut if the lighter way be never mine,\n   The little, foolish fancies of the heart,\nLord, by thy grace this folly I resign\n   So only thou shouldst give me for my part\n\nThough tom by toil the youth that once was I —\nIf Love should come he will not pass me by","firstline":"I pray that Love will find me on a day","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic042.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"love,thou,lord,foolish,fancies,heart,little,fall,lighter","likes":"0","lettercount":"475","wordcount":"141","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:14:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"43","title":"April Assault","verse":null,"poem":"Marching over rain-drenched meadows,\nRank on rank they swarm:\nLittle legions, flower forces,\nTake the world by storm.\n\nFirst confuse the eye with color,\nThen with fragrance fret\nAll the cautious, all the prudent,\nAll the hard-to-get.\n\nFiercely move the bright battalions\nUnder April skies:\nStab with stamens, pelt with petals,\nDevastate disguise.\n\nLost the heart, though well it may be\nWary to a fault —\nNone can stand before such brilliant\nBeautiful assault!","firstline":"Marching over rain-drenched meadows,","periodical":"Good Housekeeping Magazine","image":"pic043.jpg","style":"","keywords":"rank,petals,devastate,disguise,lost,pelt,stamens,april,skies,stab","likes":"0","lettercount":"389","wordcount":"74","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"44","title":"Argonne Forest","verse":null,"poem":"All night the rain, in blinding sheets.\nAlong the war-scarred landscape beats;\nTrees rock, and heavy banks of snow\nPlunge headlong into pools below;\nAnd mournfully, from dark to light,\nThe winds go howling through the night.\n\nIn Argonne Forest Dead Men walk —\nAll silently:   They do not talk\nOf other days when, side by side,\nThey fought the noble fight — and died,\nBut with unseeing eyes they stare\nInto the empty night. They beau\nNo arms to wield against the foe,\nBut still in solemn ranks they go,\nThese tattered heroes, — on and on\nThrough gloomy swamps of old Argonne.\n\nIn Argonne Forest, when the spring\nShall smile again, and birds shall sing,\nAnd deep within that Forest's gloom\nLight winds shall waft a faint perfume\nFrom hidden flowers, when over all\nThe dreary landscape light shall fall\nAnd sunshine penetrated the deep\nDark glooms where Dead lien cannot sleep,\nThe eye shall look in vain for than:\nThose tattered hungry forms of men\nWill lurk no more, — They will be gone\nWhen Spring shall come to old Argonne.\n\nOnly, beside the river there,\nThe trees shall wear a loftier air.\nAs though those Souls of wandering men\nHad somehow entered into them:\nFor each shall whisper unto each\nThe Loving Truths that Dead Men teach.\nAnd when the solitary night\nShall brood o'er Argonne, lo! the light\nFrom many million stars shall keep\nA silent watch — where Dead Men sleep.","firstline":"All night the rain, in blinding sheets.","periodical":"","image":"pic044.jpg","style":"","keywords":"argonne,men,dead,light,night,forest,side,spring,deep","likes":"2","lettercount":"1154","wordcount":"249","linecount":"38","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 08:47:16","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"45","title":"A Song For Any Father","verse":null,"poem":"Strong men survive in steel; the sensitive\n   Persist in song and sermon. In his way\nEach struggles by accomplishment to live\n   Beyond the margin of earth's little day.\n\nBut simple men have learned a deeper truth:\n   They choose to build in flesh and blood and bone,\nAnd recklessly and proudly squander youth\n   To give it to the sons they call their own.\n\nMen choose their monuments. Who builds a boy\n   Builds strength and beauty welded into one:\nAdventure, humor, everlasting joy,\n   And dreams to hold beyond life's setting sun.\n\nWho builds a bridge may serve posterity;\nWho builds a boy outwits eternity.","firstline":"Strong men survive in steel; the sensitive","periodical":"","image":"pic045.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"builds,men,choose,beyond,boy,their,sons,welded,adventure,beauty","likes":"0","lettercount":"488","wordcount":"120","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"46","title":"A Spanish Serenade","verse":null,"poem":"Softest zephyrs fan my cheek,\nAs I wander through thy moonlit garden;\nFaintly on the breezes home\nComes the sound of sweet guitar and castanets;\n\nHere I linger in thy hour,\nWhere I've come at dusk to serenade thee;\nLove I wait to greet thee,\nFor thee I love, and thou art mine, Sweetheart!\n\nChorus:\n\nCome where the wild flowers\nSway in the moonlight,\nWhispering of love.\n\nAh they speak of thee,\nBid thee come to me;\n\nNight is for love, dear,\nLove is my life, dear, \nAh bid me live!\n\nWaken, sweet,\nThy lover greet, \nOr dawn shall break above\nA broken heart.\n\nAll the voices of the night\nCall to wake thee from thy peaceful slumber;\nNightingale breathes forth his song, \nWildest flood of longing love and melody!\n\nAll the air throbs with love's cry,\nAnd I cannot, cannot bear to leave thee;\nLove, my heart is breaking,\nOh thou must hear and thou wilt come, Sweetheart!","firstline":"Softest zephyrs fan my cheek,","periodical":"","image":"pic046.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"love,thee,thy,come,thou,sweet,heart,greet,cannot,dear","likes":"1","lettercount":"697","wordcount":"162","linecount":"29","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-19 20:09:45","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"47","title":"A Song For Today","verse":null,"poem":"Give over dreaming! All too soon the day\n   That even now illumes the eastern sky\nWith blush of morn, will take the twilight way\n   And fade in dusk. Up, Heart! forbear the sigh\n\nThat trembles for a dream that may not be:\n   Behold the promise that this day bestows,\nWith courage face the morn; tonight may see\n   A faith renewed, a hope reborn — who knows?\n\nGive over dreaming! What has never been\n   May yet bear fruit, but what can never be\n'Twere better to forget. This hour may mean\n   The gateway that unlocks Eternity.\n\nOld doubts, old griefs, old burdens, cast away —\nAwake! oh Heart, arise! —fulfill Today!","firstline":"Give over dreaming! All too soon the day","periodical":"Telling Tales Magazine","image":"pic047.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"old,over,never,morn,heart,day,dreaming,better,hour","likes":"0","lettercount":"503","wordcount":"128","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"48","title":"A Song Of Mop Sticks","verse":null,"poem":"Sing a song of mop sticks\nAnd of life, their brother:\nYouth is at the one end,\nAge is at the other.\n\nYouth is like the mop rag:\nRunning hither, yonder,\nAge is like the handle:\nTaking time to ponder.\n\nYouth is bound to fix things,\nBusy with its cleaning;\nAge has found an old wall -\nGlad to stand there leaning.","firstline":"Sing a song of mop sticks","periodical":"","image":"pic048.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"age,youth,mop,its,busy,fix,ponder,bound,cleaning,found","likes":"0","lettercount":"247","wordcount":"62","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"49","title":"A Son, To His Father, On Father's Day","verse":null,"poem":"This is your day, my Father, and the world\nWill pause to do you honor for a space.\nLast night I watched you, and my slow thoughts curled\nAbout the growing lines upon your face.\n\nMy thoughts were not of baseball, nor brown arms\nOf swimmers, cleaving water in the sun;\nMy thoughts were life — its burdens, its alarms,\nAnd, over all, the courage you had wen.\n\nThis is your day, my father. We are men.\nYou will not want the flowers Mother would;\nBut let me tell you, just between us:   When\nA boy's dreams fail, remembering you is good,\n\nRemembering you is like a sudden, strong.\nClean gust of wind — to bear my youth along.","firstline":"This is your day, my Father, and the world","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic049.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"thoughts,remembering,day,father,its,flowers,mother,between,wen","likes":"0","lettercount":"509","wordcount":"121","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"50","title":"As The Rain Cometh Down","verse":"\"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.\" - Isaiah 55:10-11","poem":"Softly the rain is falling in the night,\n   Over the hills and valleys, premising\nGod will reclothe His world in robes of bright\n   And living verdure:   soon there will be Spring.\n\nAlong the barren bough new life will creep\n   And quicken in each tender blade and shoot:\nThe earth will waken from her long, long sleep,\n   There will be bud and blossom, leaf and fruit.\n\nInto my heart His gentle promise falls\n   Like falling rain. All is not yet destroyed:\nThough strife and sorrow rule, and sin appalls,\n   God's Word shall not return unto Him void —\n\nIt shall accomplish all His purpose planned.\nUpon this blessed hope the heart can stand.","firstline":"Softly the rain is falling in the night,","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic050.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"god,long,heart,rain,falling,destroyed,strife,rule,sorrow,falls","likes":"1","lettercount":"513","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 17:07:40","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"51","title":"A Student Prayer","verse":null,"poem":"My Father is an architect in stone:\n   His granite pinnacles projecting high\nInto a far place, secret and alone,\n   Stand sentinel against the quiet sky.\n\nTheir beauty is a deep and still delight,\n   Their solid strength a challenge to the soul\nCalling my spirit to some lonely height,\n   Lifting my life toward some splendid goal.\n\nBeholding these, I am remembering\n   Another Stone, rejected once of men:\nWhen earth's foundations totter, let me cling\n   To Jesus Christ, the Rock of Ages; when\n\nI build my young life, tall and straight and slim,\nOh let it be a structure built on Him.","firstline":"My Father is an architect in stone:","periodical":"Tahquitz Pines Magazine","image":"pic051.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"stone,their,life,another,rejected,earth,remembering,men,beholding,toward","likes":"3","lettercount":"466","wordcount":"118","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-03-29 18:45:26","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"52","title":"At Home With God","verse":null,"poem":"At home with God.... Now, in that blest abode,\nShe rests, her earthly burdens all laid down.\nHow was it when she took the last long road\nThat led from earth to glory and her crown?\n\nI cannot think she said goodbye and turned\nTo walk down dark and unfrequented ways.\nThis was familiar ground to one, who learned\nTo be at home with Him through all her days.","firstline":"At home with God.... Now, in that blest abode,","periodical":"","image":"pic052.jpg","style":"","keywords":"home,goodbye,turned,said,think,cannot,walk,dark,learned,days","likes":"3","lettercount":"286","wordcount":"69","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-11 04:09:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"53","title":"At The Cross","verse":"\"And sitting down they watched him there.\" - Mathew 27:36","poem":"And sitting down they watched Him there, the One\n   Who stilled the tempest, multiplied the bread,\nWalked on the water and, from sun to sun.\n   Laid hands upon the sick, and raised the dead.\n\nThey saw Him dying on the cross of shame.\n   Some watched with pity, some with scorn; and some,\nA faithful few who had believed He came\n   To reign as King, with grief were stricken dumb.\n\nThey watched Him there. But oh, they did not know\n   How many, through the years, would watch Him, too.\nAnd never be the same again, but go\n   From that dark Hill, regenerated, new:\n\nNo longer victims of sin's deep despair,\nBut born again — because they watched Him there.","firstline":"And sitting down they watched Him there, the One","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic053.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"watched,sun,watch,never,same,dark,years,many,king,grief","likes":"1","lettercount":"521","wordcount":"136","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-03-31 17:04:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"54","title":"A Woman To Her Lover","verse":null,"poem":"Of those dim others whom my heart revered\n   Be not afraid, Beloved, nor let live\nOne jealous thought; their spirits are endeared\n   Only as dreams to me. Love does not give\n\nItself so much to persons, as to all\n   The shy sweet wonder of a world that moves\nThrough magic days. The intimate, the small,\n   And mostly love itself, the lover loves.\n\nAnd less to men than to the wind and trees,\n   The silent stars, I made my early vows.\nYou drink my soul with every breath of these.\n   While those pale shades before which memory bows,\n\nForgotten are their names, their faces gone;\nOnly the love they wake, in you lives on.","firstline":"Of those dim others whcm my heart revered","periodical":"Sun Magazine","image":"pic054.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"love,their,those,itself,drink,breath,vows,soul,stars,men","likes":"2","lettercount":"488","wordcount":"131","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-08 10:23:32","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"55","title":"A Tryst With Hills","verse":null,"poem":"I have a tryst to keep when spring returns,\n   A tryst with hills, green garbed and wondering\nThrough all these winter days within me burns\n   The fever of the song my lips shall sing\n\nWhen free at last, to keep my tryst I go\n   Out of the city's gate unto the hills.\nGreen hills awaking from a dream of snow\n   To long day-dreams of wind and daffodils.\n\nWhile yet remembrance of departed rain\n   Lurks in a few lost tears on blade and leaf\nI will arise and seek them once again.\n   Fling from my shoulders days of winter grief\n\nStoop to the earth and kiss them every one\nHills I have loved through long, long days of sun.","firstline":"I have a tryst to keep when spring returns,","periodical":"","image":"pic055.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"hills,long,days,tryst,keep,winter,green,few,lost,tears","likes":"0","lettercount":"483","wordcount":"136","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:51:36","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"56","title":"Attitudes","verse":null,"poem":"The days are mirrors that reflect ourselves,\n   And who shall say if life be this or that?\nRegardless of the proof for which man delves,\n   The world, in truth, is neither round nor flat,\n\nBut many-sided, myriad and strange,\n   As limitless in scope as all desire,\nAll duty, all resolve, all dreams that change\n   The boundaries of earth to something higher.\n\nUnto the bee the world is all perfume.\n    Blown skyward from the rose. Unto the mole,\nDarkness, the friendly feel of earth, and room -\n    To stretch the flesh. And each has proved the whole\n\nFor life is not a pattern cut to fit —\nWe make it by the way we look at it.","firstline":"The days are mirrors that reflect ourselves,","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic056.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"life,unto,world,earth,skyward,rose,mole,blown,bee,something","likes":"1","lettercount":"496","wordcount":"136","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-05 17:57:11","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"57","title":"Autumn Twilight","verse":null,"poem":"Here in the autumn twilight beauty lies\n   Upon the hills, as motionless as sleep.\nThere will be stirring where the shadows creep\n   Down in the marsh grass, as the heron flies,\n\nAnd motion higher, in the dreaming skies,\n   When honing wings reach up and climb the steep\nAscent of heaven; but the hills will keep\n   Beauty, so still, one wonders if it dies.\n\nThere is no name for beauty that can be\n   A thing so quiet as that far, faint line\nOf purple silence, guarded by a tree\n   So straight, so still, it scarcely seems a pine.\n\nHere in the shadowed dusk one can but see,\nAnd reach for wonder words will not confine.","firstline":"Here in the autumn twilight beauty lies","periodical":"Lyric Magazine","image":"pic057.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"beauty,reach,hills,here,faint,line,purple,far,dies,keep","likes":"1","lettercount":"486","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-07-18 21:35:53","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"58","title":"Aviator","verse":null,"poem":"Out of the dust I rise and go to be\nA part of heaven's arched immensity:\nNow I am one with all the birds that try\nThe vast -uncharted regions of the sky.\n\nI climb the air, below me lies unfurled\nThe gold and azure beauty of a world\nOf sand and sea, of mountains reaching too\nFor something that awaits them in the blue.\n\nThese are the things that He has made. But now\nI leave than far beneath and go to plow\nThe meadows of the sky, with every clod\nA fleecy cloud bank from the hand of God.\n\nA child of space, earth baffles me no more.\nAnd life's perplexities resolve. I soar\nWith hope restored again, and faith renewed:\nAlone with God, my soul gains altitude.\n\nThough well I know this place of sun and star\nIs not my home — I dwell where people are —\nThrough all earth's dusty days my spirit sings:\nI feel the pull of sky, the lift of wings!","firstline":"Out of the dust I rise and go to be","periodical":"","image":"pic058.jpg","style":"","keywords":"sky,earth,god,hope,soar,faith,alone,renewed,restored","likes":"4","lettercount":"680","wordcount":"169","linecount":"20","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 10:37:31","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"59","title":"A Village Churchyard","verse":null,"poem":"The silence of unuttered dreams has turned\n   This village churchyard to a thing more still\nThan starlight sleeping on a winter hill;\n   For fled is now the wild romance that burned\n\nIn youthful hearts; and aged ones, that yearned\n   For greater wisdom, can no more fulfill\nTheir own desires. At rest from good or ill.\n   They sleep in silent trenches, unconcerned.\n\nYet here is quiet born not all of pain,\n   For budding grasses speak of hope not dead,\nAnd mingled with green blades the poppie's red\n   Gives promise of desire that blooms again;\n\nAs though the dreams life would not let than keep,\nThe dead had found more beautiful in sleep.\n\n(To Dale Downing)","firstline":"The silence of unuttered dreams has turned","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic059.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"more,dreams,dead,sleep,speak,grasses,hope,budding,mingled,quiet","likes":"1","lettercount":"526","wordcount":"132","linecount":"15","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 12:04:29","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"60","title":"A Wild Rose","verse":null,"poem":"I came upon a fairy\n   In her sylvan-glade boudoir —\n(She was at her morning toilet\n   And forgot to shut the door!)\n\nI saw her trailing bath-robe\n   Made of shimmering folds of green\nAll trimmed in silver dew-drops,\n   Like a jeweled fairy queen.\n\nAnd I know she was a Princess,\n   For I saw her gold crown gleam\nAs she bent her pink face downward\n   To wash it in the stream.\n\n(I'd like to find her name out,\n   If anybody knows—\nI went back once to ask her,\n   But only found a rose!)","firstline":"I came upon a fairy","periodical":"","image":"pic060.jpg","style":"","keywords":"fairy,crown,gleam,bent,pink,gold,jewelled,queen,princess","likes":"2","lettercount":"382","wordcount":"116","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-18 22:27:33","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"61","title":"Ballad For Any Summer","verse":null,"poem":"He was a sailor's son,\nBore with the tug of water\nPulling hard at his sleeve\nShe was a hill-man's daughter.\n\nShe was a woodland fern,\nPlucked from the quiet places .\nHe was a lifted sail,\nStretched for the windy spaces.\n\nHe found her shyness sweet,\nSmiled at her naive greeting;\nSomething big in his heart\nHastened her own heart's beating.\n\nUnder the August moon\nFaith that he thought enduring\nBroke with the sea and sail,\nFinding her more alluring.\n\nOnce, when the silence spread\nClose as a cloak around than,\nLove was a tide that swept\nIn from the sea and drowned them.\n\nThere in the moonlight, he\nPromised never to fail her:\nHe was a lover now,\nMore than he was a sailor.\n\nAh, but he had no wit,\nNot on the sea to reckon:\nScarce had the summer waned\nWhen it began to beckon.\n\nHe was a sailor's son:\nAll that a sea-man misses,\nInland, pulled at his heart,\nSmothering her young kisses.\n\nOften her blue eyes brim:\nGrieving to have bereft her,\nOften he wakes at dawn.\nNevertheless, he left her.\n\nWeep for the sea's bright call,\nWeep for her hearts undoing:\nShe was a hill-man's child,\nBorn for a hill-man's wooing.\n\nShe was a mountain maid,\nBorn to be wife and mother,\nBut for a sea-man's love,\nNow she will wed another.\n\nNow, as she tucks in seeds,\nOut in her garden kneeling,\nEyes that are bright with dreams\nFollow a lone gull's wheeling.\n\nFollow a far sky trail.\nBlue as the sea, for token.....\nNever a sail turns home,\nHome to a heart that's broken.\n\nWeep for a summer's schemes.\nWeep for the hearts that find them,\nFollow, and then go back -\nLeaving a dream behind than.","firstline":"He was a sailor's son,","periodical":"","image":"pic061.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"sea,man,weep,heart,hill,follow,sail,sailor,son,hearts","likes":"1","lettercount":"1267","wordcount":"295","linecount":"56","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-01-18 08:25:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"62","title":"Ballad For Bettsey","verse":null,"poem":"Our Bettsey has a way with tots —\nA way with all of us —\nAnd who could blame a certain lad\nFor getting amorous?\n\nSo Bettsey's going to take the step,\nAnd she will never rue it,\nIf she can just remember this:\n“Let George do it!\"\n\nWith dishes, or with diapers.\nIt makes no difference,\nThis simple slogan of four words\nIs just plain sense.\n\nFor Bettsey. wearing dish-pan hands!\n(Base thought — I do eschew it)\nA better plan by far would be\nTo “let George do it'.\"'\n\nFor Bettsey is a glamor gal\nAnd pedigogue in one —\nA laughing sprite, a tiny grim\nAuthoritarian;\n\nAnd, having such a bright career,\nWe hope she will pursue it....\nSo, in the simple tasks of life\nJust “let George do it.\"\n\nGood wishes, Bettsey, as you go;\nGod speed you on your way,\nAnd give you happy years ahead —\nA happy wedding day.\n\nWe'd really like to “kiss the bride.\"\nIs she just only knew it,\nBut, since this might embarrass her,\nWe'll “let George do it.\"","firstline":"Our Bettsey has a way with tots —","periodical":"","image":"pic062.jpg","style":"","keywords":"bettsey,george,happy,simple,career,pursue,bright,tasks,hope","likes":"2","lettercount":"799","wordcount":"180","linecount":"32","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-01-18 08:25:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"63","title":"Banner Of Love","verse":null,"poem":"His banner over me was love, was love!\n   Say not the way was long, nor fierce the strife\nFor He was there, and every moment of\n   The earthly conflict was abundant life.\n\nSpeak not of hopes deferred, of dreams laid down —\n   Through all of these His presence has sufficed.\nThis was my joyous privilege, my crown:\n   In every furnace, to have walked with Christ.\n\nHis banner over me was love. Let this\n   And only this, be written where I lie,\nWhen all life's toil and tears I shall dismiss;\n   Raise over me this single battle cry —\n\nWrite it in words of flame for all to read.\nWho knows the Saviour has no other need.","firstline":"His banner over me was love, was love!","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic063.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"over,love,life,banner,single,tears,raise,lie,christ","likes":"0","lettercount":"495","wordcount":"134","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:11:36","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"64","title":"Beauty","verse":null,"poem":"Beauty on a sunny slope\nBeauty in a tree\nSpring is making beauty now\nWhat is wrong with me?\n\nLaughter in a robins song\nLaughter in the dew\nSpring is mixing laughter now\nWhat is wrong with you?\n\nCould I not be taking up\nBeauty of the Spring\nShaping it and weaving it\nIn the songs I sing.\n\nCould you not be wearing now\nLaugher Springtime makes\nWearing it and sharing it\n\nWith a heart that breaks.","firstline":"Beauty on a sunny slope","periodical":"","image":"pic064.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"beauty,spring,laughter,wearing,wrong,sing,breaks,songs,heart,laugher","likes":"1","lettercount":"314","wordcount":"77","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-27 19:58:59","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"65","title":"Beauty Catches Singing","verse":null,"poem":"“My soul is dead to Beauty!\" thus I cried,\nWhose eyes with age-long weeping had grown dull,\n“Oh give me back my vision—stab me God\nWith sudden beauty, swift and terrible!\"\n\nThen straight from heaven's gate one arrow sped,\nOne arrow downward to the heart of me—\nGod loosed a bird and Beauty found a voice,\nAnd blinded by a song, I see! I see!","firstline":"“My soul is dead to Beauty!\" thus I cried,","periodical":"Lyric West Magazine","image":"pic065.jpg","style":"","keywords":"beauty,arrow,god,sped,downward,dead,gate,straight,heaven","likes":"2","lettercount":"300","wordcount":"65","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-24 19:50:30","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"66","title":"Because Christ Came","verse":null,"poem":"1. There is light on the mountains because of God's grace,\n   And glory that shines from above:\n   All nature is wearing a radiant face,\n   Because of the Gift of God's love.\n\nCHORUS:\n   Because He came, life has a fresh beginning.\n   Because the Savior came all things are new;\n   Because He died to make an end of sinning,\n   The trusting heart can have its springtime too.\n   \n   Because He rose, all earth repeats the story,\n   All nature wakes to join the glad refrain;\n   Sing, now my soul — to Christ be praise and glory,\n   Because He lives, because He lives again!\n\n2. There is peace in the valley, though shadows may fall,\n   When all of life's journey is run;\n   There is peace in the Valley of Death, now for all\n   Who trust in the gift of God's Son.\n\n3. There is peace in the valley and light on the hills,\n   And life in the quickening sod,\n   With grace that abounds and a rapture that thrills —\n   Because of the Gift of our God.","firstline":"1. There is light on the mountains because of God's grace,","periodical":"","image":"pic066.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"because,god,valley,gift,life,peace,light,lives,came","likes":"1","lettercount":"730","wordcount":"226","linecount":"22","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-08-03 14:38:46","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"67","title":"Because He Rose","verse":null,"poem":"They stumbled through the dark that Easter morning\n   And spoke in low, hushed voices of the Dead.\nThey brought their love, their spices for adorning,\n   But walked with broken hearts, uncomforted.\n\nThey did not know that, even while they worried\n   About the stone, the tomb had been defied:\nHow, with one simple gesture, calm, unhurried,\n   The Lord they loved had laid all death aside.\n\nThey did not know; but every heart that sorrows\n   Can know, today, the peace these words disclose\n“He is not here.\" And all earth's dark tomorrows\n   Will never be the same — because He rose.","firstline":"They stumbled through the dark that Easter morning","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic067.jpg","style":"","keywords":"their,dark,heart,aside,sorrows,today,death,laid,calm,unhurried","likes":"3","lettercount":"476","wordcount":"117","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 10:53:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"68","title":"Because Of Calvary","verse":null,"poem":"Give me an uncomplaining heart\n   That is at terms with life,\nAccepting graciously alike\n   Serenity, or strife.\n\nGive me an understanding heart\n   That is at terms with men,\nAn overflowing love that gives.\n   Not asking “why,\" or “when.\"\n\nGive me a consecrated heart\n   That is at terms with Thee,\nSecurely resting in Thy grace —\n   Because of Calvary.\n\n\n1. We touch the fringe of God's magnificence\n   When we behold His earth and sky and sea;\n   But none of this is peace or permanence,\n   Until we glimpse our God at Calvary.\n\nCHORUS:\n   What peace it brings, what joy and ecstasy.\n   To know Christ died to set the sinner free!\n   It binds the heart to Him eternally:\n   Forever His — because of Calvary.\n\n2. God's magnitude the heart cannot express,\n   Until it sees how much He sacrificed.\n   For God, who hung the world on nothingness,\n   Reveals Himself, alone, in Jesus Christ.\n\n3. Why should we grasp at God's infinitude,\n   Why should we reach for starry realms of space,\n   When all of time is but an interlude\n   On which to pose the glory of His grace?","firstline":"Give me an uncomp laining heart","periodical":"","image":"pic068.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"heart,god,terms,calvary,grace,christ,peace,because,express","likes":"0","lettercount":"845","wordcount":"242","linecount":"30","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:02:39","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"69","title":"Before The Easter Dawn","verse":null,"poem":"What whisper stirs among the olive trees.\n   Where late the Saviour prayed? What gesture lifts\nThe little leaves, as though some secret breeze\n   Were fingering the branches? Through the rifts\n\nIn darkness, what is this that slowly seeps\n   Like mellow sunlight through the garden gloom?\nThere is no wind, no sun, as yet. Earth sleeps.\n   This is the miracle within the tomb!\n\nNo passing breeze, no transitory breath\n   Of air, could move these trees in such a way.\nThis is the breath of Life, come back from death.\n   And this new radiance is not the day:\n\nIt is the Light of all the world, restored\nForever more — in Christ, the risen Lord.","firstline":"What whisper stirs among the olive trees.","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic069.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"breath,trees,breeze,such,these,life,come,back,move,air","likes":"1","lettercount":"515","wordcount":"131","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 16:55:15","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"70","title":"Behind The Rain","verse":null,"poem":"What walks behind the curtain of the rain?\n   Stirs something there that is afraid to speak,\nAfraid, or else some dim, forgotten pain\n   Has hushed the groping word, but through the bleak\n\nUncertain silences, distinct and near,\n   A footstep hovers—nay, a hand,\nReaching for something intimate and dear,\n   Something remembered in a long-lost land.\n\nWhat time the wind makes utterance in leaves,\n   What time cool drops feel earthward, to and fro\nSomething behind the still rain moves and grieves,\n   Fretting the dusk with sounds that will not go\n\nThe way of words, but falter—pause—and break,\nWounding themselves upon an old heartache.","firstline":"What walks behind the curtain of the rain?","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic070.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"something,afraid,behind,time,rain,feel,earthward,drops,moves","likes":"1","lettercount":"534","wordcount":"119","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-11 04:09:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"71","title":"Behold, The Dawn!","verse":null,"poem":"Hills that have borne the burden of the night,\n   Lift to the sudden dawn bewildered eyes —\nFor kindled heart the fires torturing the skies\n   With fear of flame, with something less than light\n\nAnd more than beauty, are but cold affright\n   To hills on whom remembered midnight lies.\nHow slowly in each waking bosom dies\n   The dream it keeps of stars, serene and white!\n\nBut it will die, when out of space is born\n   The great One Flame. And now that wakes, that wakes!\nAnd stars are less than whispers blown about;\n   The peace of midnight is a thing outworn;\n\nAnd from the hills a mighty triumph breaks,\nGreeting the Sun with many-throated shout!","firstline":"Hills that have borne the burden of the night,","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic071.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"hills,less,stars,midnight,flame,wakes,serene,white,die,space","likes":"0","lettercount":"521","wordcount":"133","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:14:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"72","title":"Behold The Lamb Of God","verse":null,"poem":"I looked, and lo! a Lamb. Throughout the ages,\n   The endless eons of eternity,\nThe fairest picture found on heaven's pages\n   Will be the one that speaks of Calvary.\n\nThe sweetest anthem, even in the Glory,\n   Will not be some exalted new refrain,\nBut just the old familiar gospel story:\n   “How worthy is the Lamb for sinners slain!\"\n\nBehold the Lamb of God, O lost and lonely,\n   Behold Him here and now, if you would share\nHis presence in the other world. For only\n   The ones who love Him here will see Him there.","firstline":"I looked, and lo! a Lamb. Throughout the ages,","periodical":"","image":"pic072.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"lamb,here,behold,sinners,worthy,slain,story,old,familiar,gospel","likes":"0","lettercount":"411","wordcount":"112","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"73","title":"Beloved It Is Night","verse":null,"poem":"Beloved it is night. Lift not thy face —\n   Pass through the garden with a muted voice;\nThis is the hour of dreaming. This the place\n   Where out of time the One Dream of our choice\n\nMay suddenly be born. But speak no word —\n   Let fall one whisper even, and the rose\nThat sleeps by yonder casement, would be stirred\n   To dream of things not any flower knows.\n\nLift not thy face. Beloved. It is night ——-\n   Dusk and a silence in the garden blend.\nBut in thy face is wonder born of light,\n   And in my heart a song that knows no end.\n\nA light, a song....Beloved, turn away\nLest all the garden wake and call it day!","firstline":"Beloved it is night. Lift not thy face —","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic073.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"garden,face,thy,beloved,dream,knows,light,born,lift","likes":"1","lettercount":"499","wordcount":"138","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 17:12:14","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"74","title":"Benediction","verse":null,"poem":"When sleepy birds wake up to greet the dawn\n   With songs of praise, and like a silver scroll\nThe morning sky unfolds to wait upon\n   The coming of the sun, then lifts my soul\n\nIts canticle of love, O Christ, to Thee —\n   Creator of the whole. My glad heart pours\nIts gratitude in floods of ecstasy\n   And, like a bird, my spirit sings and soars.\n\nBut comes the dusk, the time for sheltering,\n   When drooping pinions fold on drowsy birds,\nMy heart seeks out its shelter too. I sing\n   No more:  Thou art  too near for need of words;\n\nThy quiet hand is on my heart to bless,\nAnd I am wrapped in Thy great gentleness.","firstline":"When sleepy birds wake up to greet the dawn","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic074.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"heart,its,birds,thy,pinions,drooping,fold,drowsy,sheltering,dusk","likes":"0","lettercount":"483","wordcount":"137","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:52:50","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"75","title":"Benjamin Franklin","verse":null,"poem":"I  — Visitor From Yesterday\n\nWhoever reads may find himself a host\n   To more than words:  a quaint, invisible,\nDisturbing presence, moving like a ghost\n   From yesterday. A strangely lovable,\n\nEngaging ghost, who cannot quite forget:\n   “Poor Richard\" leans from out the past to peer\nAt how the line is spaced, the type is set.\n   He almost seems to say, “What have we here?\"\n\nII  — He Dreamed A Stove\n\nPerhaps from out the gleaming coals it came,\n   When backs were freezing and each face grew hot,\nThe swift idea: why not capture flame\n   And lock it in a box? Why not, why not?\n\nIt might have been like this. Nobody knows\n   Just where the thought is born that makes the deed.\nNor really cares, just so it grows and grows\n   And reaches out to fill a heart-felt need.\n\nHe dreamed a stove. But oh, he dreamed much more:\n   The smell of home-made bread and popping com,\nThe old men gathered at the country store;\n   And children, huddled on some icy mom,\n\nWith hands outstretched. All cherished, all esteemed.\nAll simple, warm and friendly things — he dreamed.\n\nIII  - Man With A Kite\n\nWas he a boy upon a windy hill,\n   His kite-string in his hand, when first he knew\nThe wild applause of thunder and the thrill\n   Of lightning flashing on the startled view?\n\nWas he a boy, when first he felt the pull\n   Of something stronger, stronger than the wind:\nA young idea, bright and beautiful,\n   That could be more, if harnessed, disciplined?\n\nAnd did he run along the hills with it\n   And toss it, with his kite, into the sky;\nThen draw it to himself and try to fit\n   The thought into the scheme he meant to try?\n\nHow many years, how many kites took flight,\nBefore he knew he held the key to light!\n\nIV — Fire! Fire!\n\nNo matter where he went, or what he saw,\n   He had a spark that kindled into flame.\nThe fire of learning and the fire of law\n   Were both, alike, ignited in his name.\n\nThis is a truth philosophers confess,\n   These are the things that statesmen talk about.\nBut any dozing school-boy cares much less\n   For fires so started, than for those put out.\n\nHe planned protection. He could not foresee\n   The racing engines, screaming sirens, all\nThe frenzied furor that would one day be\n   Earth's high adventure for each eager, small,\n\nUplifted face — unmindful of school books —\nLost in a world of ladders, hose and hooks.\n\nV  — Home town (Philadelphia, U.S.A.)\n\nThe youth who walked the shabby streets of home,\n   Contesting for their shabbiness, could tell\nWhat toil and tears it takes before men come\n   With confidence to hang the freedom bell:\n\nThe long, long look along the years, that must\n   Precede the written word, the law laid down.\nFor he, who holds the future in his trust,\n   Must walk beyond the streets of any town.\n\nMost men find daily living dull and slow:\n   These only reach the ultimate by strife.\nBut some men garner greatness as they go\n   About the ordinary tasks of life,\n\nSeeing in simple things what few can see —\nAnd these live larger than locality.\n\nVI - Here Was America\n\nHere was no man — but all men put in one:\n   Creative though, inventive skill, and zeal\nFor perseverance at a task begun.\n   Here was the high white hope that all men feel,\n\nBut few attain to. Here was reaching up.\n   And getting under, probing deep; the far,\nremote, ideal extended. Here the cup\n   Of living held one bright, imprisoned star.\n\nHere was America:   the  scathing more\n   Than land, or language, something yet to be,\nNot found in field or forest, hill or shore:\n   The great enduring passion to be free.\n\nNot just in documents upon a shelf,\nBut freedom written in the man himself.","firstline":"I  — Visitor From Yesterday","periodical":"","image":"pic075.jpg","style":"","keywords":"here,men,more,fire,dreamed,himself,boy,these,home","likes":"0","lettercount":"2894","wordcount":"756","linecount":"84","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:09:00","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"76","title":"Beloved, Share Your Pleasure With The Wind","verse":null,"poem":"Go tell your joy to listening field and star,\n   Beloved, share your pleasure with the wind;\nRun in the light and fling your laughter far,\n   In leaping wave and dancing sunlight find\n\nRenewal of your mood,—but come not here.\n   You will not need my touch, my spoken words\nTo add one little measure to your cheer.\n   Beloved, give your singing to the birds.\n\nBut when your heart too quiet grows with pain,\n   Slip through the dusk and come again to me;\nSobbing your grief like soft insistent rain,\n   Yielding your broken faith to sympathy;\n\nAnd in my woman's peace find grace to bear\nThe only moment's that our love can share.","firstline":"Go tell your joy to listening field and star,","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic076.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"share,come,beloved,pain,slip,sobbing,dusk,grows,heart,cheer","likes":"16","lettercount":"502","wordcount":"129","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-09-18 20:04:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"77","title":"Bethany Supper","verse":null,"poem":"Lord, I have swept my house and taken out\n   Fine linen, silver, all to honor Thee;\nAnd now at twilight, with these spread about,\n   My heart reminds me with strange irony,\n\nWith mute misgivings and with vague -unrest:\n   I have no gift to give, no feast to spread.\nAt every table where Thou wert the guest,\n   It ever was Thyself who broke the bread.\n\nLord, I have been a Martha all the day,\n   And now as darkness falls I am aware\nThat quiet Mary chose the better way.\n   Thou Heavenly Guest, these hands would fain prepare\n\nThy welcome, but have naught to offer Thee —\nHave pity, break the bread of life to me.","firstline":"Lord, I have swept my house and taken out","periodical":"","image":"pic077.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"spread,thee,these,lord,thou,guest,bread,aware,quiet,mary","likes":"1","lettercount":"485","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 14:41:12","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"78","title":"Black Hounds Of Hades","verse":null,"poem":"Out of the darkness the black hounds are galloping:\n   Young flesh is tender and young flesh is sweet.\nWhite in the moonlight, their bared fangs are ravaging\n   Every hushed heart in the cottage or street.\n\nFresh from each foray, with bloody jaws slavering,\n   Widely they skirt the world, hungry for more;\nFew are the dreams will be left on the morrow by\n   Black hounds of Hades, the dark dogs of war.\n\nHe is so stalwart.....His bright face is clouded now.\n   Young flesh is tender and young flesh is sweet.\nDoes he lie wakeful, too——-wide-eyed and listening\n   Over and over to galloping feet?","firstline":"Out of the darkness the black hounds are galloping:","periodical":"","image":"pic078.jpg","style":"","keywords":"flesh,young,tender,sweet,over,galloping,black,hounds,dogs","likes":"4","lettercount":"486","wordcount":"120","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-06 04:46:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"79","title":"The Blind","verse":null,"poem":"The blind man, on the comer every day,\n   Stands stretching forth his hand — but not for alms\nHe has the Truth of God to give away —\n   A fresh supply of tracts. His troubling palms\n\nCan hardly hold their treasure; and his lips\n   Cannot control the current of his song;\nHe hums the old hymns softly as he slips\n    A leaflet here and there among the throng.\n\nHe knows that most will pass and scarcely glance.\n    But still, in rain or sunshine, he must try\nTo give the gospel, though men look askance.\n    If he were peddling pencils they might buy,\n\nIn pity for lost sight; for most are kind.\nThey do not know he sees — and they are blind.","firstline":"The blind man, on the comer every day,","periodical":"","image":"pic079.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"blind,most,knows,scarcely,glance,pass,among,slips,softly","likes":"0","lettercount":"514","wordcount":"143","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"80","title":"Blindness","verse":null,"poem":"For sightless eyes no pity do I crave,\n   Who long have bowed submissive to Fate's will.\n\nLife makes her gifts, and once to me she gave\n   To look on Beauty. Deep I drank, -until\nWith very seeing did my eyes grow blind.\n   (There is a joy too great for human sight!)\n\nMine be the curse. Alone, I am consigned\n   Through endless days to walk, in utter night.\n\nAnd yet, for very blindness do I see\n   More faithfully and sure, who light dead eyes\nWith tapers from the shrine of memory.\n   For still, proud seas, gaunt peaks and tawny skies,\n\nGray clouds, and trees, hold converse down the years,\nRemembered and undimmed by latter tears.","firstline":"For sightless eyes no pity do I crave,","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic080.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"eyes,memory,shrine,proud,seas,gaunt,tapers,light,more,blindness","likes":"0","lettercount":"499","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:54:00","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"81","title":"Books","verse":null,"poem":"As one who stands upon the brink of Time\n   And sees the planets circle into view,\nSo I regard my world of books. The new\n   Are undiscovered realms of prose and rhyme,\n\nWho knows what depths of thought, what heights sublime\n   Of lofty truth, these shall invite me to?\nBut oh the old, my first-loves tried and true!\n   These are my land of home, my native clime.\n\nA peaceful field I have in Emerson;\n   Scott is a peak, and Keats a quiet bay;\nBrowning the mighty sea, and Tennyson\n   A happy river singing on its way.\n\nBut Shakespeare, earliest love and most adored —\nA continent forever unexplored.","firstline":"As one who stands upon the brink of Time","periodical":"American Poetry Magazine","image":"pic081.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"these,quiet,keats,bay,browning,mighty,peak,scott,peaceful,clime","likes":"1","lettercount":"478","wordcount":"126","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-02-25 19:49:44","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"82","title":"Bridegroom's If","verse":null,"poem":"If you can keep your head when all about you\n   She's losing hers, and blaming it on you;\nIf you can say, “I cannot live without you\",\n   E'en when the dishes fly (and know it' s true);\n\nIf you can find the bath-room all a-clutter\n   With silken garments hanging up to dry,\nAnd neither rage, nor snort, nor stomp, nor sputter,\n   But whistle blithely on—nor bat an eye!\n\nIf you can taste each strange, uncertain mixture\n   She sets before you—claiming to be food,\nAnd keep your grin a bright and steady fixture\n   While eating it—and even call it good;\n\nIf you can wait, and not grow tired in waiting,\n   While she adorns herself for other eyes;\nAnd when she prates of self don't deal in prating\n   And yet don't act too good or look too wise;\n\nIf you can work for her and keep on grinning,\n   Though all night long with weariness you toss;\nAnd rise and start again at the beginning,\n   And never breathe a word about your cross;\n\nIf you can fill each drab domestic minute\n   With sixty seconds worth of tenderness;\nThen take the plunge, my boy—go on, begin it —\n   Your marriage will turn out a huge success!","firstline":"If you can keep your head when all about you","periodical":"","image":"pic082.jpg","style":"","keywords":"keep,while,don,good,about,grinning,work,wise,night","likes":"0","lettercount":"903","wordcount":"238","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:09:37","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"83","title":"Brief Beauty","verse":null,"poem":"December twilight wanes. This dappled dusk\n   Lives but a moment. Stand beside the gate.\nBut utter nothing. Anything so brusque\n   As speech would shatter this brief beauty. Wait.\n\nWait while the new moon climbs above the hill,\n   One stitch of silver threading through the sky.\nWait wordlessly, Beloved, wait until\n   The darkness comes to cover us. Then cry.\n\nCry for the shortened days, the fading year,\n   The stricken branches barren now of leaf:\nThat loveliness is lost, and we are here;\n   And beauty is a thing so brief, so brief!","firstline":"December twilight wanes. This dappled dusk","periodical":"","image":"pic083.jpg","style":"","keywords":"wait,brief,beauty,cry,beloved,cover,darkness,wordlessly,stitch,silver","likes":"1","lettercount":"429","wordcount":"108","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 08:44:20","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"84","title":"Brief Courage","verse":null,"poem":"I saw a maple flaunt the crimson flame\n   Of one leaf on the air\nA gallant gesture to disguise the shame\n   Of branches stricken bare.\n\nI lifted laughter up to sway and toss\n   Where joy no more occurs,\nAnd whispered, “Heart, so shall we make our loss\n   Magnificent as hers.\"","firstline":"I saw a maple flaunt the crimson flame","periodical":"","image":"pic084.jpg","style":"","keywords":"toss,joy,sway,laughter,lifted,more,occurs,magnificent,loss,heart","likes":"2","lettercount":"220","wordcount":"62","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2021-11-15 13:21:38","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"85","title":"Bright Assault","verse":null,"poem":"With circling scimitar of light,\n   Dawn creeps from out the ambush of the sky,\nCleaves downward to the earth—and startled night\n   Slinks into shadow with a stricken cry\n\nThat mounts in blue mist from the sleepy hills,\n   That curves in hazy drifts of gray and tawn.\nThat lifts and floats above the trees, and fills\n   Each hollow with the great sob, “I am gone.\"\n\nWhere will the wondering and secret things,\n   That hugged the dark, take refuge from the day?\nBereft of the cool covert of her wings,\n   Where will night's children run and hide? O stay\n\nThis bright assault, this battery of light!\nSpare little frightened eyes that hunt the night!","firstline":"With circling scimitar of light,","periodical":"","image":"pic085.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"night,light,dark,refuge,day,bereft,cool,hugged,secret,hollow","likes":"0","lettercount":"527","wordcount":"130","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"86","title":"Broadway Christmas","verse":null,"poem":"Above the traffic, suddenly there swells\n   An angel chorus—and the eyes grow wet.\nWhile every shop with tawdry tinsel tells\n   The Old, Old Story men cannot forget.\n\nWhat though they died along Judean hills,\n   Those angel voices—long ago—tonight\nAbove the tragedy of human ills\n   Comes back the ancient anthem born of Light.\n\nBecause, along this street, each hungry heart\n   Cries out for “Peace, good will\", the sacred throng\nTraverses centuries again to start\n   Remembrance waking in the well-loved song\n\nThat falls on Broadway, as on Bethlehem——-\nAnd men are hushed while God comes down to them.","firstline":"Above the traffic, suddenly there swells","periodical":"","image":"pic086.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"old,while,angel,above,along,men,sacred,peace,good","likes":"0","lettercount":"522","wordcount":"114","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:03:15","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"87","title":"Broken For You","verse":null,"poem":"“This is my body, broken for you.\" So\n    The Savior said; and climbed His lonely hill.\n“Those were but words, and that was long ago,\"\n    The scoffers say—and yet I hear Him still.\n\nWhenever I reach out to break the bread,\n    Or take the cup, His stricken form appears,\nHis pleading voice entreats; and I am led\n    To go to Him in penitence and tears.\n\nThat broken body breaks my stubborn heart\n   And puts an end to all my foolish pride.\nI weep as though no other had a part\n   In that for which our Lord was crucified:\n\nThe burden of His cross is mine to bear —\nAs though my sin alone had put Him there.","firstline":"“This is my body, broken for you.\" So","periodical":"","image":"pic087.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"body,broken,puts,end,foolish,heart,pride,stubborn,penitence","likes":"3","lettercount":"491","wordcount":"139","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-03 10:04:11","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"88","title":"Broken Fences","verse":null,"poem":"The brindle found it first. I wonder how\n   A broken fence line does effect a cow.\nDid she peruse her passport carefully?\n   Or, quite consumed with curiosity,\n\nDid she dash through the unexpected gate\n   Without a moment's pause to ruminate?\nThere was a broken fence line long ago,\n   Discovered by a boy I used to know,\n\nHe chose new pastures with the greatest ease,\n   And never did look back. Yet every breeze\nLife-long, that stirred the curtains of his mind.\n   Blew, somehow, from that pasture left behind.","firstline":"The brindle found it first. I wonder how","periodical":"","image":"pic088.jpg","style":"","keywords":"fence,line,broken,long,ease,never,back,greatest,pastures,used","likes":"1","lettercount":"406","wordcount":"105","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-05 17:57:11","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"89","title":"Broken Petals","verse":null,"poem":"Little Rose with broken petals,\nLying in my hand,\nTell me: do you grieve to lie so?\nDo you fear to droop and die so?\nI would understand,\nUnderneath those broken petals,\nDo you fancy pain?\n\nFear not, when the spring shall find you\nDoubt and grief no more shall bind you:\nYou shall bloom again.\nLife is made of broken petals,\nFallen e'en as those,—\nScattered bits of dreams forsaken:\nBut at Dawn, when we awaken,\nLo! another Rose.","firstline":"Little Rose with broken petals,","periodical":"","image":"pic089.jpg","style":"","keywords":"petals,broken,those,fear,rose,fallen,life,bind,bloom","likes":"2","lettercount":"354","wordcount":"80","linecount":"15","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-29 22:24:15","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"90","title":"Brooks And Women","verse":null,"poem":"Small streams and women have too much to say;\n   Ask any man and he will tell you that.\nThe constant babble of a brook at play,\n   And women dropping in to sew and chat,\n\nToo soon grow tiresome. Every man agrees\n   Incessant chatter makes for little brain,\nAnd so condemns the two, nor ever sees\n   How brooks and women talk to hide their pain.\n\nBecause the hearts of women are too proud\n   To stoop to tears, they bid their longings hush,\nanother their grief, and smile and talk too loud.\n    This is the way of women. And brooks rush\n\nThe same wild way, because they must forget\nOld wounds of stick and stone that stab them yet.","firstline":"Small streams and women have too much to say;","periodical":"","image":"pic090.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"women,their,talk,man,because,brooks,bid,longings,hush,another","likes":"0","lettercount":"492","wordcount":"136","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:55:00","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"91","title":"Burn, Candle, Burn","verse":null,"poem":"Burn, candle burn,\nAcross the Christmas night;\nSay to a darkened world\nThat there is Light.\n\nShine through the gloom\nWhere trembling figures grope:\nSay to each burdened heart\nThat there is Hope.\n\nBurn, candle, burn:\nGod is not high and far —\nHe dwells where cattle crunch,\nWhere children are.\n\nDown every path\nThat weary mortals plod,\nIf you but listen, look,\nYou can find God.\n\nBurn, candle, burn\nUntil all strivings cease —\nSay to a troubled world\nThat there is_ Peace:\n\nOnce angels sang,\nThat all the world might sing.\nLet every head be bowed —\nRemembering.","firstline":"Burn, candle burn,","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic091.jpg","style":"","keywords":"burn,world,candle,god,listen,strivings,plod,mortals,path","likes":"0","lettercount":"474","wordcount":"100","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:21:04","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"92","title":"But Love Is More","verse":null,"poem":"Love is what all have said. But love is more:\n   More than the brimming cup of tenderness,\nThe word, the glance, the touch. These all explore\n   The fringe of love; but love is in excess\n\nOf these. To realize its cherished goal.\n   Love climbs the lonely mountains of the mind,\nLove probes the secret caverns of the soul.\n   Yet he, who thinks he sees love whole, is blind.\n\nLove is what all have said. But love will be\n   What none can say until, with clearer sight,\nThrough fadeless ages of eternity,\n   We learn to read the simple word aright,\n\nFor God is love. The little we have known\nWill find its ultimate in Him, alone.","firstline":"Love is what all have said. But love is more:","periodical":"Christian Herald","image":"pic092.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"love,its,these,word,said,more,ages,sight,fadeless,clearer","likes":"0","lettercount":"492","wordcount":"133","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:55:19","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"93","title":"But Not Our God;","verse":null,"poem":"God did not need to clothe the world with beauty,\nHe could have left it practical and plain:\nHe might have made all paths mere dust and duty,\nWithout the ministry of sun and rain.\n\nBut not our God, our gracious God.'\nThe verdant hills, the quickened clod,\nWithin a world of storm and strife,\nProclaim He is the Lord of Life.\n\nGod did not need to deck the night with splendor,\nHe could have left the world to carry on\nWithout the stars, the moonlight warm and tender\nHe might have left earth desolate till dawn.\n\nBut not our God! He had to sow\nThe sky with stars, that we might know,\nThrough every dark and troubled night,\nOur Father is the Lord of Light.\n\nGod did not need to leave His home in glory\nTo take the sinner's place at Calvary,\nThat every man might share salvation's story\nHe could have left us lost eternally.\n\nBut not our God! He had to die\nAt Calvary, that you and I\nMight share with Him that home above -\nBecause He is the Lord of Love.","firstline":"God did not need to clothe the world with beauty,","periodical":"","image":"pic093.jpg","style":"","keywords":"god,left,world,lord,need,share,calvary,home,without,night","likes":"0","lettercount":"761","wordcount":"186","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"94","title":"But Ye Are A Chosen Generation","verse":"\"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;\" - I Peter 2:9","poem":"These are not facts that fence us in below\n   The doubts, the fears, the worry and the strife,\nAll of the vain earth problems that we know\n   Here in the grim monotony of life.\n\nWe are not creatures of mere circumstance,\n   Blown by the swift uncertain wind of time;\nWe nibble not the crumbled bread of chance —\n   Ours is a heritage that is sublime.\n\nThere is a fact eternal in the skies:\n   God's Son has triumphed o'er this house of clay\nFrom out our earthly bondage we shall rise\n   To glimpse the glory of His face some day.\n\nThis is the circumstance that knows no change:\n   Christ died for the ungodly long ago;\nThis is the wonder, beautiful and strange:\n   His fellowship the poorest soul may know.","firstline":"These are not facts that fence us in below","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic094.jpg","style":"","keywords":"circumstance,bondage,earthly,rise,glimpse,glory,clay,house,eternal,fact","likes":"0","lettercount":"558","wordcount":"152","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:11:36","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"95","title":"Candles","verse":null,"poem":"The stars are candles of the sky\nWith which God lights the gloom\nTo make the desert of the night\nA garden rich with bloom.\nAnd all the careless little words\nYou whispered long ago\nAre candles which I light to make\nThe leaden present glow.","firstline":"The stars are candles of the sky","periodical":"","image":"pic095.jpg","style":"","keywords":"candles,long,whispered,little,ago,words,light,glow,present,leaden","likes":"2","lettercount":"193","wordcount":"46","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-11 01:28:20","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"96","title":"Carol","verse":null,"poem":"Not alone at Avonshire\n   Is the preaching done;\nEverywhere and all the time\n   God lifts up His Son.\n\nEvery fragrant zephyr blown\n   Over a new-mown hay\nCalls me back to Bethlehem\n   Where the wee Christ lay.\n\nNot a silver ripple breaks\n   On a river's brim\nBut is Jordan lifting spray\n   As John buried Him.\n\nWhen the twilight takes young hills,\n   Every silent tree\nIs a finger pointing us\n   Back to Calvary.\n\nAnd I never hear the dove's\n   Mating music swell\nBut I turn to Pentecost\n   Where His spirit fell.\n\nNot alone at Avonshire\n   Is the preaching done;\nEverywhere and all the time\n   God lifts up His Son.","firstline":"Not alone at Avonshire","periodical":"","image":"pic096.jpg","style":"","keywords":"alone,lifts,son,back,time,god,avonshire,everywhere,preaching,done","likes":"0","lettercount":"469","wordcount":"143","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"97","title":"Certainty","verse":null,"poem":"Whatever comes or doesn't come,\nThis I know,\nThere will be warm days again\nAfter snow.\n\nThere will be warm days, and buds\nBursting through\nLittle coats to show themselves\nPink and new.\n\nThere will be the buds and then,\nAlmost near\nMeadow larks will trill five notes\nSwift and clear.\n\nThere will be the meadow larks\nAnd a wall\nGreen with moss—and it may be\nThat is all.\n\nBut I hope (oh dare I hope?)\nThere will be\nSomething dearer than them all —\nJust for me.","firstline":"Whatever comes or doesn't come,","periodical":"","image":"pic097.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"buds,larks,meadow,hope,warm,days,notes,five,dearer","likes":"0","lettercount":"379","wordcount":"88","linecount":"20","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"98","title":"Child's Prayer","verse":null,"poem":"In Bethlehem the streets were dim,\nAs shadows fell; but over Him\nGod lit a star, and heaven smiled,\nAnd there was light around the Child..\nNow it is dark again:   Oh, let\nMy candle shine, lest men forget.","firstline":"In Bethlehem the streets were dim,","periodical":"","image":"pic098.jpg","style":"","keywords":"dark,child,around,light,candle,shine,forget,men,lest,smiled","likes":"2","lettercount":"164","wordcount":"41","linecount":"6","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-03 11:22:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"99","title":"Child's Song For The Sun","verse":null,"poem":"Red ball, red ball,\nI have played with you,\nBounced you down a blue sky-road,\nAll the long day through.\n\nRed ball, red ball,\nI have lost you now —\nBounced too high and let you roll\nOver the hill's brow.\n\nRed ball, red ball,\nYou are gone — but please,\nWhen you come down, give my love\nTo the young Chinese!.","firstline":"Red ball, red ball,","periodical":"","image":"pic099.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"red,ball,bounced,please,brow,hill,come,love,chinese","likes":"1","lettercount":"255","wordcount":"62","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-17 08:31:43","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"100","title":"Choosing The Forever","verse":"\"Though the boy was still young, she took him to the LORD's house at Shiloh.\" - I Samuel 1:24","poem":"He was so little —\nI can see her stand\nTrembling, reluctant\nTo let go his hand.\n\nYet she was wise\nEarth ties to sever:\nShe chose not now,\nBut the forever.\n\nGod give us mothers\nWho will joy to see\nTheir sons remembered\nThrough eternity.","firstline":"He was so little —","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic100.jpg","style":"","keywords":"mothers,god,forever,joy,their,eternity,remembered,sons,chose,sever","likes":"2","lettercount":"194","wordcount":"46","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-08-10 03:37:20","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"101","title":"Christ Changes Things","verse":null,"poem":"He changed Golgotha's gruesome face,\nThat stark hill called The Skull:\nBy dying there, to save the world,\nHe made it beautiful.\n\nJust so He changed the face of Death,\nFor those He came to save:\nBy coming forth a conqueror.\nTriumphant, from the grave.","firstline":"He changed Golgotha's gruesome face,","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic101.jpg","style":"","keywords":"changed,face,save,coming,came,those,forth,conqueror,grave,triumphant","likes":"1","lettercount":"205","wordcount":"45","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 12:58:58","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"102","title":"Christ Is My Friend","verse":null,"poem":"1. Mine morning breaks, when day is new.\n   Not far beyond the heaven's blue\n   But close beside me, tender, true,\n   My faithful Friend abides.\n\nCHORUS:\n   Christ is my Friend, to Him I bring\n   The thoughts I think, the songs I sing.\n   No matter what the day affords.\n   One thought sustains:  I am the Lord's!\n   \n   Though paths be smooth, or paths be rough,\n   Christ is my Friend — that is enough.\n   No other friend could ever be\n   What Christ, the Saviour, is to me.\n\n2. When day's high noon with toil is rife,\n   Not far beyond the fringe of life\n   But close beside me in the strife,\n   My faithful Friend abides.\n\n3. When shadows fall, when day is done,\n   Not far beyond the setting sun\n   But close and kind, the Blessed One,\n   My faithful Friend abides.\n\nSet to music by William M. Bower\nWritten 21 days before Helen Frazee-Bower died.","firstline":"1. Mine morning breaks, when day is new.","periodical":"","image":"pic102.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"friend,day,close,faithful,abides,beyond,christ,far,bower,paths","likes":"1","lettercount":"650","wordcount":"205","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 12:58:40","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"103","title":"Christian Doctor","verse":null,"poem":"He knows the healing ministry of hands,\n   The drugs to give, the potion to impart —\nBut, more than body ills, he understands\n   The deep, deep need of every patient's heart.\n\nHis kindness is a fire that lights the roan\n   Against all chilliness:   he  has a way\nOf smiling that dispels the deepest gloom,\n   And skies that clouded are no longer gray.\n\nGod enters with him through the sick-room door;\n   They probe together for the hidden hurt.\nMen call him “doctor.\" He is this———and more.\n   With manner gentle, and with touch expert,\n\nHe heals our scars and takes away our pains.\nAnd then he goes; but somehow, God remains.","firstline":"He knows the healing ministry of hands,","periodical":"Christian Herald","image":"pic103.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"deep,more,god,together,hidden,hurt,men,probe,doctor","likes":"2","lettercount":"524","wordcount":"130","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-24 19:50:32","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"104","title":"Christmas Lullaby","verse":null,"poem":"Sleep, my baby, gently slumber,\nWhile the snow flakes fall:\nGod Himself was once a baby,\nCradled in a stall.\n\nSleep, my baby, gently slumber,\nDark the night and cold;\nWe will warm it with a story,\nSweetest ever told.\n\nSleep, my baby, gently slumber.\nBlessed Jesus cares:\nHe who was Himself a baby\nHears a baby's prayers.\n\nSleep, my baby, gently slumber,\nJesus understands.\nOh, the love that God has proffered\nIn a Baby's hands!","firstline":"Sleep, my baby, gently slumber,","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic104.jpg","style":"","keywords":"baby,sleep,slumber,gently,jesus,himself,god,proffered,hands,blessed","likes":"15","lettercount":"349","wordcount":"76","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-07-04 15:50:46","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"105","title":"Christmas Party","verse":null,"poem":"With mink and with sable\n   For Christmas prepare,\n(But God had a stable,\n   And cattle were there),\n\nWith strutting and strumming,\n   With fizz and with foam.\n(Don't count on God coming:\n   He won't feel at home.)","firstline":"With mink and with sable","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic105.jpg","style":"","keywords":"god,count,don,foam,coming,fizz,feel,won,home,strumming","likes":"1","lettercount":"166","wordcount":"48","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-08 20:41:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"106","title":"Christmas Song For Children","verse":null,"poem":"Green trees talk at Christmas time,\nLow and very low,\nWist ye what the green trees say,\nChildren, do you know?\n\nSpeak they of a golden room,\nToys upon the floor,\nTwinkle-candles in a row?\nYes, of these — and more.\n\nGreen trees talk at Christmas time.\nLow and very low,\nOf the world's first Christmas tree,\nLong and long ago.\n\nThere was neither golden roan.\nToy, nor candle-gleam;\nBut there was a Light indeed —\nWist ye of its beam?\n\nIt was still, oh very still,\nOut on Calvary\nWhen God hung His Christmas Gift,\nChrist, upon the Tree.\n\nNow, when Christmas candles shine,\nNow, when yule-logs sing,\nChildren, hush, and bow the head,\nOnce — remembering.","firstline":"Green trees talk at Christmas time,","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic106.jpg","style":"","keywords":"christmas,low,green,trees,candles,upon,tree,golden,long","likes":"1","lettercount":"545","wordcount":"118","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 14:41:33","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"107","title":"Christmas Wish","verse":null,"poem":"I wish I had been the star that pointed\nDown through the long, long years\nTo the Christ who should come for sin's atonement\nMaking an end of tears.\n\nThough all the night had been dark around me,\nThough other stars grew dim,\nI should have shone with a special splendor —\nKnowing I shone for Him.\n\nI wish I had been the heart of Mary,\nSimple and undefiled —\nWaiting the long, long watch with Joseph,\nEager to hold God's child;\n\nThough all the world had been filled with music —\nVoices the shepherds heard,\nI should have leaned my ear to hearken\nOnly the Word, the Word.\n\nThe star and the bam are an ancient story.\nClothed in the mists of time;\nAnd Mary has gone the way of women,\nAfter her task sublime;\n\nBut I am alive, and wishful thinking\nHappily I dismiss:\nI am alive to shine and shelter\nAnd there is need of this.","firstline":"I wish I had been the star that pointed","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic107.jpg","style":"","keywords":"long,shome,alive,mary,wish,star,word,ear,hearken","likes":"1","lettercount":"672","wordcount":"159","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-06 18:38:00","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"108","title":"Christ, The Lord, Has Come","verse":null,"poem":"1. When all the world was lost in sin,\n   And God seared very far,\n   Above the darkness of the earth\n   He pinned a single star.\n   \n   And shepherds, watching in the fields,\n   Were startled at the sight:\n   The angels sang, the shadows fled —\n   And all they saw was light.\n\nCHORUS\n   The song resounds,\n   The light abounds,\n   For Christ the Lord has come.\n   Today, as then,\n   He comes to men —\n   Oh, make your heart His home!\n\n2. Though all mankind had gone astray,\n   By sin and shame undone.\n   Our God could not forget His world:\n   He sent His only Son.\n\n   And Mary, by the manger bed,\n   Sang softly to the Boy:\n   Her pain and weariness were gone,\n   And all she felt was joy.\n\n3. Though sin and sorrow rule the world,\n   And man is born to strife,\n   Instead the ugliness of death\n   God gives Eternal Life.\n\n   And all who trust redeeming grace\n   Will find a sweet release:\n   The Lord has come. Give Him your heart.\n   He'll give you joy and peace.","firstline":"1. When all the world was lost in sin,","periodical":"","image":"pic108.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"god,sin,world,joy,light,lord,heart,come,sang","likes":"0","lettercount":"720","wordcount":"256","linecount":"32","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"109","title":"City Park","verse":null,"poem":"Let me look long upon this cool and still\nGreen epic of the earth, wedged in between\nThe walls of industry, this quiet scene\nWhere comes no traffic rumble, nor the shrill\nNewsboy announcing. Let me sit and fill\nMy homesick heart with other gold and green:\n\nThe sifted gold of sunlight through the lean,\nDark shapes of pines upon a far-off hill.\nMan's most need, though he rush and toil and fret\nFor food and raiment, is not met in these.\nThe naked soul has need of canopies\nOf silence; and the hungers that beset\nThe lone heart are appeased by nothing less\nThan growing beauty, clothed in quietness.\n\nLet me look long upon this cool and still\n   Green epic of the earth, wedged in between\nThe walls of industry, this quiet scene\n   Where comes no traffic rumble, nor the shrill\n\nNewsboy announcing. Let me sit and fill\n   My homesick heart with other gold and green:\nThe sifted gold of sunlight through the lean,\n   Dark shapes of pines upon a far-off hill.\n\nMan's most need, though he rush and toil and fret\n   For food and raiment, is not met in these.\nThe naked soul has need of canopies\n   Of silence, and the hungers that beset\n\nThe lone heart are appeased by nothing less\nThan growing beauty, clothed in quietness.","firstline":"Let me look long upon this cool and still","periodical":"","image":"pic109.jpg","style":"","keywords":"gold,green,need,upon,heart,food,met,these,raiment,rush","likes":"0","lettercount":"978","wordcount":"238","linecount":"28","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"110","title":"Cling To His Hand","verse":null,"poem":"1.  When the clouds of trouble gather,\n    When the shades of night descend.\n    There is One who walks beside you —\n    He will keep you to the end.\n\nCHORUS:\n    Night may be long, but the heart need not fear it,\n    Sky may be dark, but God's morning will clear it;\n    Whisper a prayer, for the Savior can hear it —\n    Cling to His hand in the dark.\n\n2.  When you think you are forgotten\n    By the friends that you have known,\n    There is One who still remembers\n    One who never leaves His own.\n\n3.  Christ has been this way before you,\n    He has walked each lonely road;\n    When the burdens seem too heavy\n    Let the Savior share your load.\n    \n4.  Only doubters faint and falter.\n    Walk by faith and not by sight —\n    In the heart of every shadow\n    Dwells the lovely Lord of Light.","firstline":"1.  When the clouds of trouble gather,","periodical":"","image":"pic110.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"savior,dark,night,heart,seem,heavy,road,burdens,lonely","likes":"17","lettercount":"598","wordcount":"218","linecount":"22","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-04 10:16:31","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"111","title":"Love's Fruit","verse":null,"poem":"Love is a nectar — we have tasted it,\n   A bloom and we have plucked it, you and I;\nLove is a book wherein the gods have writ\n   Those mortal joys which they cannot supply;\n\nLove is a mirror where we only see\n   Reflected what is comely to the view;\nLove is a halo which you make for me,\n   And love a rod with which I measure you.\n\nAll this we know, and this does love fulfill\n   In all our hearts; yet are we not content\nTo deem our love immortalized until,\n   Groping for light in blind bewilderment,\n\nWe come at last, through sacrifice and loss,\nTo know love is a crown of thorns, a cross.","firstline":"Love is a nectar — we have tasted it,","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic111.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"love,deem,immortalized,groping,content,hearts,measure,fulfill,light,blind","likes":"16","lettercount":"463","wordcount":"134","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-08 10:31:32","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"112","title":"Commentary On Plowing: The Poet","verse":null,"poem":"The new-turned furrows sprawl beneath the sun;\n   Dusky and silent, earth awaits her time\nOf blossoming. Now hardly will be won\n   The white dawn-flicker, when the will to climb\n\nShall stir the seed:   this darkly  ribboned field,\n   Drowsy with dreams, will wake to sudden zest,\nIn sinuous undulations the green yield\n   Of beauty will become a dream confessed.\n\nYet not the pregnant premises of wealth\n   In grain, or vintage, woe me—I am bound\nTo this sweet idle moment. The slow stealth\n   Of one small field mouse, and the brittle sound\n\nOf black clods crunching, I shall wake to find\nHow often, down the furrows of the mind!","firstline":"The new-turned furrows sprawl beneath the sun;","periodical":"","image":"pic112.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"wake,field,furrows,wealth,grain,woe,vintage,pregnant,become","likes":"1","lettercount":"506","wordcount":"128","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 13:53:55","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"113","title":"Commentary On Plowing: An Old Woman","verse":null,"poem":"The plow cuts deep, the new-turned earth lies black\n   As grief turned over in the heart. The land\nHas heard a question and has given back\n   The answer:   in  a dark but certain hand\n\nThe slow script runs. Each furrow in the sun\n   Lies cool and isolate. The plow cuts deep,\nStrikes at the roots; and slowly, one by one,\n   The earth gives up the secrets she would keep.\n\nHow often, in the brown fields of the heart,\n   The plow cuts deep; for furrows of despair\nYield annual increase. But all ripe grains start\n   From deep-turned earth — and with the bright-eyed stare\n\nOf yonder field mouse, in my heart's field one\nSmall covert dream blinks all day at the sun..","firstline":"The plow cuts deep, the new-turned earth lies black","periodical":"Wing's","image":"pic113.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"deep,earth,heart,turned,plow,cuts,sun,lies,field,yield","likes":"4","lettercount":"528","wordcount":"142","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-10 11:41:17","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"114","title":"Comes The Dawn","verse":null,"poem":"All night the stormy vanguards of the sky\n   Besieged the battered earth. The twisted trees\nOne moment tossed their wind-swept branches high;\n   The next, bowed low upon their suppliant knees.\n\nNow morning breaks: the dreary landscape swims\n   In sunlit glory; and the gaunt trees stand\nAt ease, to rest their worn and weary limbs.\n   Now gentleness comes back to all the land.\n\nSo hush, my heart, and trust: for surely He,\n   Who stills the storms in nature, knows the way\nTo touch the tumult in each life, and be\n   Himself the sunrise and the perfect day.\n\nHe dries all tears. Beyond this haggard night\nThere will be peace again — and warmth and light.","firstline":"All night the stormy vanguards of the sky","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic114.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"their,night,trees,surely,weary,stills,storms,knows,nature,trust","likes":"0","lettercount":"527","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"115","title":"Compassion Is Thy Name","verse":null,"poem":"When I behold the thirsty stalks of grain\nUncurl long fingers to the cooling rain\nAnd write in green the premise of the wheat,\nBecause Thy grace provides that man may eat,\n\nThen I recall the hungry multitude —\nThe curious, the eager, faint for food ——\nThe loaves and fishes shared with all who came.\nO Son of God — Compassion is Thy name!","firstline":"When I behold the thirsty stalks of grain","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic115.jpg","style":"","keywords":"thy,curious,eager,recall,multitude,faint,hungry,food,son","likes":"4","lettercount":"297","wordcount":"65","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-07-14 10:10:26","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"116","title":"Coins","verse":null,"poem":"Two coins, two polished coins, are mine to hold,\n   Are mine to spend or cherish as I will,\nAnd one I hoard as misers hoard their gold,\n   And one, alas, too carelessly I spill.\n\nO Life, my second coin, how recklessly\n   Your shining days slip through these finger-tips!\nBut Love, my first, I guard you jealously,\n   Against the touch — the wild sweet touch — of lips.\n\nBut if there come (and oh I know there must!)\n   One in whose eyes that glories wake for me,\nI'll take my Love and spend it for a crust\n   To feed his soul through all eternity.\n\nThen Life, grown strangely precious at his touch,\nShall be the coin I cherish overmuch.\n\n   Herald","firstline":"Two coins, two polished coins, are mine to hold,","periodical":"","image":"pic116.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"touch,coin,love,hoard,two,life,mine,spend,cherish","likes":"1","lettercount":"515","wordcount":"140","linecount":"15","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-30 17:09:10","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"117","title":"Confidences","verse":null,"poem":"Heart, never talk with trees in green\nThey are not trusty, quite.\nFor what they hear in confidence\nThey whisper of at night.\nGo laugh and play and sing with them.\nTheir own bright wisdoms glean,\nBut still the urge that coaxes lips\nTo talk with trees in green.\n\nAnd if a secret longing stirs\nThat will not settle down,\nHeart take your little wistful dreams\nAnd talk with trees in brown.\nBare branches on your cheek will be\nAs soft as finger tips;\nHeart, they will know and never speak\nOld sorrows seal their lips.","firstline":"Heart, never talk with trees in green","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic117.jpg","style":"","keywords":"trees,talk,heart,their,lips,green,never,dreams,brown,wistful","likes":"3","lettercount":"416","wordcount":"96","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 10:47:38","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"118","title":"Consecration","verse":null,"poem":"That I may have the confidence\nLife's great attempts to try,\nNight after night I keep my faith\nWith white stars, still and high.\n\nThat I may have the patient grace\nTo meet dull circumstance,\nDay after day I keep my eyes\nOn countless plodding ants.\n\nAnd which renews my spirit most,\nOr why, I cannot tell;\nOnly, between the two lies God,\nSomewhere — I know it well.","firstline":"That I may have the confidence","periodical":"","image":"pic118.jpg","style":"","keywords":"night,after,day,keep,most,spirit,renews,plodding,ants,cannot","likes":"1","lettercount":"300","wordcount":"69","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-17 08:31:43","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"119","title":"Consecration","verse":null,"poem":"Men build their temples unto God,\nMagnificent and high.\nTheir domes and spires are lifted up;\nBut God may pass them by.\n\nTo dwell in temples made by hands\nIs not His chosen plan:\nHe seeks the humble, human heart.\nGod's temple is the man;\n\nMan's hope of glory, Christ within.\nHow strange and marvelous\nThat God should choose this house of clay\nInhabited by us!\n\nMost gladly let us then give place\nAnd dedicate afresh\nTo Him, whose right it is to reign,\nThis temple of the flesh.","firstline":"Men build their temples unto God,","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic119.jpg","style":"","keywords":"god,man,temples,temple,their,house,clay,inhabited,choose,strange","likes":"3","lettercount":"386","wordcount":"89","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-09-02 11:52:22","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"120","title":"Conversation","verse":null,"poem":"First tuck your tulip bulbs beneath the sod,\n   Then make a place for pansies. Did you know,\nDear little boy, that now you work with God?\n   He made a garden in the long ago;\n\nHe makes all gardens yet. Ho seed can sprout\n   Without His care. He sends the rain, the sun:\nNo flower wakes and pokes its bright face out\n   Unless He guards and cherishes each one.\n\nAnd did you know that, when His loved ones chose\n   A place for Jesus, after He had died,\nThey found a garden — and from there He rose,\n   That first glad Easter morning, glorified?\n\nSo make your garden, little boy, each spring:\nGod gives us gardens — for remembering.","firstline":"First tuck your tulip bulbs beneath the sod,","periodical":"","image":"pic120.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"garden,god,gardens,boy,little,place,died,after,guards","likes":"2","lettercount":"504","wordcount":"135","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-03 11:22:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"121","title":"Consider This","verse":null,"poem":"Consider this, when from the chafing bond\n   Of life's activity you steal away\nTo quiet dreams, consider this:   a pond\n   Fringed with blue iris has somewhat to say:\n\nKeen sparkling wit of ripples, reveries,\n   Cool-browed and still beneath the lotus-pad,\nThese, and the grave assurances of trees\n   Bending above, are largess to be had.\n\nConsider this:   no bright pool of the mind,\n   Where thought has emptied and where wisdom lies\nCaptive, can give you more than you will find\n   In one small pond — face lifted to the skies,\n\nBack on the earth, and slim arms stretched about\nBlue iris flung to heaven like a shout!","firstline":"Consider this, when from the chafing bond","periodical":"Kaleidograph Magazine","image":"pic121.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"consider,pond,iris,blue,lies,captive,more,small,emptied,bright","likes":"0","lettercount":"496","wordcount":"128","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"122","title":"Consolation","verse":null,"poem":"All life begins in wonder,\nAnd ends in wandering.\nBut in between are beauty,\nAnd toil and suffering;\n\nAnd in between are children,\nWith little, trusting, eyes;\nAnd light and love and laughter;\nAnd books to make one wise;\n\nGreat moments of endeavor;\nBrief moments of content;\nAnd all the song and sunshine\nFor which the world was meant.\n\nThe old may faint and falter,\nBut still the heart can lean —\nWhen evening shadows lengthen —\nUpon the in-between.","firstline":"All life begins in wonder,","periodical":"","image":"pic122.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"between,moments,sunshine,world,meant,old,brief,content,song","likes":"20","lettercount":"380","wordcount":"80","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-06-06 14:01:25","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"123","title":"Contentment","verse":null,"poem":"There is a point beyond which longing ends,\n   Where no more yearning is, nor any hope\nAbove the present need; where thought descends\n   To cannon earth, and wishes cease to grope.\n\nContentment men have called it; and they make\n   Of it a thing most diligently sought.\nNot so with me:  I would  forever break\n   The fragile thread of which content is wrought.\n\nGive me the will to seek; the thought that lifts\n   The humble heart on pinions of desire.\nIt is the weak, the stagnant, soul that drifts\n   In calm content — too feeble to aspire.\n\nWho finds most Life must most for living strive;\nFor only by our longings do we live.","firstline":"There is a point beyond which longing ends,","periodical":"Survey Magazine","image":"pic123.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"most,content,thought,pinions,weak,desire,heart,lifts,thread,wrought","likes":"1","lettercount":"499","wordcount":"133","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 09:08:54","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"124","title":"Could Ye Not Watch?","verse":"\"What, could ye not watch with me one hour?\" - Mathew 26:40","poem":"He is tireless in His care for all\n   Of us! He slumbers not, the blessed Christ,\nSo diligent to serve. When I recall\n   The joy of heaven that He sacrificed\n\nTo walk awhile with men, His healing touch,\n   So swift to comfort all who suffered loss,\nHis busy hands that served so well, so much —\n   Those loving hands, nail-pierced upon the Cross——-\n\nThen I remember dark Gethsemane;\n   And out of silence I can hear Him say,\n“Could ye not watch with me one hour?\" He\n   Was ever watchful of their needs; but they\n\nHad slept through His. How could, how could they do\nThis thing? But what of me? And what of you?","firstline":"He is tireless in His care for all","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic124.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"hands,pierced,upon,cross,remsnber,nail,loving,much,care","likes":"9","lettercount":"500","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-02-23 18:10:55","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"125","title":"Counselor's Lament (Antidote for Ego Inflation)","verse":null,"poem":"We counseled and cajoled them,\n   We read their little minds,\nAnd in our dally records,\n   We catalogued our “finds\";\n\nBut when we met their teachers\n   (In spite of smile and smirk)\nTheir inevitable greeting\n   Was, “Well, it doesn't work.\"\n\nWe equipped ourselves with “gadgets\"\n   And “gimcracks\" to delight;\nWe consulted with the “experts\"\n   Far, far into the night;\n\nBut, the more we read about them,\n   (to classify each quirk)\nThe more their teachers told us,\n   “My dear, it doesn't work.\"\n\nWe dealt with “temper tantrums,\"\n   The “timid\" and “withdrawn\";\nWe slept, and dreamed about them,\n   From midnight unto dawn;\n\nWe searched for “all the answers\",\n   (our task we did not shirk) ...\nTheir teachers had one answer,\n   “Too bad — it doesn't work!\"\n\nWe know we have been faithful\n   And tried to understand;\nAnd really - if you ask us —\n   We think we're pretty grand;\n \nBut let's be very humble,\n   Let' s neither rave nor rant,\nWe're sure we understand them.\n   But still their teachers can't!!","firstline":"We counseled and cajoled them,","periodical":"","image":"pic125.jpg","style":"","keywords":"their,teachers,doesn,work,about,more,far,understand,read","likes":"1","lettercount":"863","wordcount":"217","linecount":"33","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 10:49:36","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"126","title":"Country Christmas","verse":null,"poem":"Now one star shines above the hill,\nPinned to a pine so dark and still.\n\nUpon the hillslope huddled sheep\nAre little woolly mounds of sleep.\n\nThe cattle, housed and waned and fed,\nStand dozing by the manger bed.\n\nWith star and sheep and fragrant hay,\nHow can the Child be far away?\n\nThough angel throngs have given place\nTo satellites that whirl in space,\n\nThis country Christmas it would seen\nThat peace on earth is not a dream.","firstline":"Now one star shines above the hill,","periodical":"Time of Singing Magazine","image":"pic126.jpg","style":"","keywords":"star,sheep,away,angel,throngs,far,child,dream,fragrant,hay","likes":"1","lettercount":"347","wordcount":"79","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-07-22 09:26:26","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"127","title":"Country Schoolhouse","verse":null,"poem":"The little, lonely schoolhouse by the road,\nWith vacant windows empty-eyed and still,\nSeems listening for scampering of feet,\nFor laughter tossed from hill to sunny hill.\n\nThe big bus comes to take the children, now.\nIn modem, well-equipped and oversized\nNew buildings education will go on,\nCompletely up-to-date and organized.\n\nBut do not tear the little schoolhouse down:\nIt is not roof and walls and floor, alone,\nBut something lost and loved and intimate —\nA way of living that is almost gone.\n\nA shelter for the feathered and the furred,\nThere let it stand and weather to decay:\nMan needs one little guidepost pointing back,\nAmidst the frenzied furor of today.","firstline":"The little, lonely schoolhouse by the road,","periodical":"Oregonian","image":"pic127.jpg","style":"","keywords":"little,schoolhouse,hill,intimate,living,almost,shelter,loved,lost","likes":"0","lettercount":"556","wordcount":"113","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:21:04","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"128","title":"Couplets By The Way","verse":null,"poem":"Nothing is quite so full of pleasure\nAs the thing you'd do if you had the leisure.\nNothing is quite so full of merit\nAs the gown you like but you cannot wear it.\n\nNothing is quite so full of beauty\nAs a hope that thrives on the fare of duty.\nNothing is quite so full of wonder\nAs a dream that floats when the rest go under.","firstline":"Nothing is quite so full of pleasure","periodical":"","image":"pic128.jpg","style":"","keywords":"nothing,full,quite,duty,fare,wonder,floats,under,rest,thrives","likes":"0","lettercount":"255","wordcount":"68","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"129","title":"Courage","verse":null,"poem":"You asked me, “What is courage?\" And I took\n   The dictionary down and spelled it out.\nFor such a little boy, the heavy book\n   Was ponderous. You twisted it about;\n\nYou said, “It's being brave — and what is that?\"\n   You said, “It's not to fear — am I afraid?\nDoes courage arch its back up like our cat,\n   And spit at everything it meets?\" you said.\n\nPerplexed, we closed the book and took a walk.\n   And came where fire had worked untimely death;\nThe woods were gone. But on a slender stalk\n   A flower inched for life. I caught my breath.\n\n“Courage,\" I said, and took you by the hand,\n“Is one white flower in a fire-swept land.\"","firstline":"You asked me, “What is courage?\" And I took","periodical":"Saturday Evening Post; 7\/30\/1938 Vol. 211 Issue 5, p40","image":"pic129.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"said,took,courage,fire,book,flower,untimely,death,woods","likes":"7","lettercount":"535","wordcount":"137","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-12 17:19:40","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"130","title":"Courage","verse":null,"poem":"Life, at your feet I lay the choicest gifts\nThat I can give,\nNor question aught, if only in me throb\nThe will to live,\n\nThe will to face tomorrow, though its way\nBe steep or rough.\nI give you, Life, for courage all I own —\nIs this enough?\n\nMy hopes, my dreams, my stubborn youthful pride\nThat will not fail;\nIf these be not sufficient value, Life,\nWhat can avail?\n\nNay, must I borrow? Then I'll ask of Love,\n“A boon, I pray.\"\nAnd Love shall buy me courage and the faith\nTo face each day.","firstline":"Life, at your feet I lay the choicest gifts","periodical":"Lyric Magazine","image":"pic130.jpg","style":"","keywords":"life,courage,face,love,sufficient,fail,youthful,pride,value,these","likes":"0","lettercount":"399","wordcount":"98","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"131","title":"Courage","verse":null,"poem":"What is so still as a road in the moonlight?\nWhat is so pale as a star at the dawn?\nWhat is so brave as a heart that keeps singing,\nAfter the reason for singing is gone?\n\nMorning will shatter earth's moon-stricken silence,\nNight will bring back the glow to a star —\nNothing, oh nothing, shall challenge the courage\nOf hearts that keep singing when song is so far.","firstline":"What is so still as a road in the moonlight?","periodical":"","image":"pic131.jpg","style":"","keywords":"singing,nothing,star,night,glow,back,bring,challenge,song","likes":"1","lettercount":"299","wordcount":"70","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"132","title":"Country Doctor","verse":null,"poem":"He dealt with broken bodies. He would scoff\n   At careless pleasure lazy leisure yields.\nBut every Thursday, on his one day off,\n   He took the boy and walked the open fields.\n\nThere, tall against the skyline, he would stand,\n   Then turn and stoop to earth and cup a clod\nAnd place it gently in the small boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand.\n   You knew he spoke to him of growth, and God.\n\nYou knew he looked along the far frontiers\n   Of all tomorrows, when the boy would be\nThe man, in need of wisdom for the years,\n   In need of strength and of tenacity.\n\nAgainst the troubled times of death and birth,\nHe gave his son this contact with the earth.","firstline":"He dealt with broken bodies. He would scoff","periodical":"","image":"pic132.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"boy,need,against,earth,knew,far,along,looked,growth,small","likes":"2","lettercount":"492","wordcount":"135","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-07-18 11:49:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"133","title":"Courage, Resourcefulness, Character","verse":null,"poem":"From many walks of life they come,\n   Who can no longer walk;\nAnd, far from home, they make a home\n   Of laughter and of talk.\n\nThey bring their courage in their hands,\n   Whose hands can hardly hold\nAnother thing. Each understands\n   Before he has been told.\n\nThey find resourceful ways to share\n   The burdens not their own,\nAnd carry all, who would not dare\n   To carry one alone.\n\nUpon another's need they wait,\n   Less fortunate than they;\nI see them standing, tall and straight,\n   Who must sit down all day;\n\nI see them standing so because,\n   With scarce a dream fulfilled,\nThey toil and toil, without a pause —\n   What character they build!\n\nThough muscle or though sinew shrink,\n   They still pursue their goal.\nThese are less handicapped I think\n   Than many who are whole.","firstline":"From many walks of life they come,","periodical":"","image":"pic133.jpg","style":"","keywords":"their,hands,toil,another,home,carry,less,standing,many,fulfilled","likes":"1","lettercount":"615","wordcount":"171","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-02 17:02:14","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"134","title":"Creed","verse":null,"poem":"I believe in the beauty\nOf wings against the night\nA gull cleaving the darkness\nWith slow stains of light.\n\nI believe in the wisdom\nOf words along the shore:\nA wave bursting with clamor,\nHushed, saying no more.\n\nI believe in the wonder\nOf love within the heart:\nPoised like a gull drifting,\nA wave, ready to start.","firstline":"I believe in the beauty","periodical":"","image":"pic134.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"believe,wave,gull,saying,more,clamor,wonder,hushed,within,ready","likes":"1","lettercount":"254","wordcount":"59","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-04 18:20:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"135","title":"Cross-Roads","verse":null,"poem":"Hither and yon they call to me,\nAnd whither shall I go?\nThe broad highway walks straight ahead -\n'Tis smooth and white I know;\n\nAnd yet the gray road beckons,\nWith every curve a lure:\nIt just goes stumbling on its way —\nI'd like to take it, sure.\n\nThere are crowds upon the highway,\nAnd signs to make it plain;\nBut somewhere down the gray road\nI smell the breath of rain —\n\nThe wind comes out to coax me,\nWith soft beguiling tone,\nThe leaves reach out their little hands\nThe highway walks — alone.","firstline":"Hither and yon they call to me,","periodical":"Southerner Magazine","image":"pic135.jpg","style":"","keywords":"highway,road,walks,gray,breath,rain,wind,smell,somewhere","likes":"1","lettercount":"415","wordcount":"98","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 13:18:55","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"136","title":"Crushed Petals","verse":null,"poem":"The rose, that like a crimson taper burned\n   At dawn within the garden's hallowed shrine,\nAlready fades, each brilliant petal turned\n   To rust along the edges. So decline\n\nBeauty and youth. But when the rose shall lie\n   A scattered ruin in the grass, I know\nLight winds will steep and stir and lift on high\n   The wondrous fragrance that it lived to show.\n\nLove is a rose that for a moment flamed,\n   Though life has crushed the petals one by one\nBeloved, lift your face, be not ashamed,\n   Nor strive our altered circumstance to shun -\n\nLife leaves us still this truth to think about:\nEach bloom is crushed to bring the sweetness out.","firstline":"The rose, that like a crimson taper burned","periodical":"Montclair, New Jersey Times Magazine","image":"pic136.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"rose,crushed,lift,life,flamed,petals,moment,show,wondrous,high","likes":"2","lettercount":"504","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 17:08:22","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"137","title":"Cry Out Of Darkness","verse":null,"poem":"Silence is drifting like sorrow\nInto the streets of the town;\nDay is a lost tomorrow,\nSeeking a vanished crown.\n\nDay is a drab, insistent,\nThreadbare, familiar tune;\nLife is a non-resistant.\nOnly a scant white moon.\n\nOut of the brave past lingers,\nOnly gray ghost-words start\nPlucking with nervous fingers\nThe broken strings of the heart.","firstline":"Silence is drifting like sorrow","periodical":"","image":"pic137.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"day,past,gray,lingers,brave,scant,white,moon,ghost,start","likes":"0","lettercount":"280","wordcount":"57","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:05:56","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"138","title":"Cycle","verse":null,"poem":"A small boy thinks that in his Dad\nRests all the wisdom to be had.\n\nYouth puts the Old Man on the shelf\nAnd seeks for wisdom in itself.\n\nThe father knows that, to be wise,\nOne looks into a small boy's eyes.","firstline":"A small boy thinks that in his Dad","periodical":"","image":"pic138.jpg","style":"","keywords":"small,wisdom,boy,father,itself,knows,wise,eyes,looks,seeks","likes":"3","lettercount":"162","wordcount":"43","linecount":"6","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-08-22 08:01:23","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"139","title":"Dartmoor Dusk","verse":null,"poem":"Give me your hand — and let the twilight gather\nHome to the moor\nWish-hound and pixy and a gaunt gray shadow\nTo stalk our door.\n\nBlow on no embers of unlit tomorrows,\nSlip off no husk\nFrom withered yesterdays; but clasp this moment\nAnd Dartmoor dusk.\n\nThis is the hour of our hearts' detachment,\nThe time to stand\nUnthinking and unthought of — but forget not\nTo hold my hand.","firstline":"Give me your hand — and let the twilight gather","periodical":"","image":"pic139.jpg","style":"","keywords":"hand,dartmoor,moment,dusk,clasp,withered,husk,hour,yesterdays","likes":"2","lettercount":"315","wordcount":"71","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 08:34:00","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"140","title":"Dawn","verse":null,"poem":"Dawn — and a flush of crimson\nHeralds the coming sun;\nSomewhere a lark is chanting\nHis morning requiem.\n\nDawn — and a mist of silver\nWraps every blade and leaf;\nMy lone heart keeps repeating\nThe burden of its grief.","firstline":"Dawn — and a flush of crimson","periodical":"Overland Monthly","image":"pic140.jpg","style":"","keywords":"dawn,lone,leaf,blade,heart,wraps,keeps,grief,its","likes":"1","lettercount":"186","wordcount":"41","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-10-31 05:22:37","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"141","title":"Dawn","verse":null,"poem":"Now to its daily round of care returns\n   The world, that for a season sought relief\nIn slumber from the manifold concerns,\n   The arduous tasks of living. For a brief\n\nEcstatic instant, wonder born of light\n   Clothes with romance sights cannon, figures dull;\nCreeps from the east a tremor of the night\n   That mounts in wind and passes to a lull.\n\nSomewhere I know, like this, another dawn\n   With rosy fingers reaches for the day;\nSomewhere, I know, its glory falls upon\n   Another landscape, other winds at play,\n \nAnd one who dreams, and slumbering forgets——-\nFreed for a moment from the old regrets.","firstline":"Now to its daily round of care returns","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic141.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"another,somewhere,its,rosy,dawn,fingers,day,reaches,lull","likes":"3","lettercount":"493","wordcount":"123","linecount":"15","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:14:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"142","title":"Day Before Spring","verse":null,"poem":"Now is a green mist present on the trees\n   On tiptoe standing, hushed and hesitant.\nWhat shy and intimate expectancies\n   Disturb their branches, where the pale gold slant\n\nOf sunlight finds them? These are quickened now:\n   The secret pulse of life beats soft within,\nPry's at the surface, creeps along each bough.\n   The ancient miracle will soon begin.\n\nTomorrow will bring pattern out of mist:\n   The thin cool leaves, uncurled and delicate,\nWill waken to a world sun-drenched, wind-kissed.\n   But for that glory, now the heart can wait:\n\nThe heart can dream awhile, content to cling\nJust to this slender premise of the Spring.","firstline":"Now is a green mist present on the trees","periodical":"Arizona Highways Magazine","image":"pic142.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"heart,mist,cool,leaves,delicate,waken,thin,uncurled,bring,miracle","likes":"1","lettercount":"508","wordcount":"122","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-04-15 06:59:54","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"143","title":"Day Before Winter","verse":null,"poem":"The earth has gone back to her sleeping\nAs one who returns\nToo tired to extinguish the embers,\nForgotten there burns\n\nThe goldenrod. Here for a moment\nMay one, grown alarmed\nBy something too sinister, chilly,\nReach out and be warmed.","firstline":"The earth has gone back to her sleeping","periodical":"Holland's Magazine","image":"pic143.jpg","style":"","keywords":"alarmed,grown,moment,something,sinister,warmed,reach,chilly,here,goldenrod","likes":"1","lettercount":"192","wordcount":"41","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-08 18:18:13","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"144","title":"Days","verse":null,"poem":"The days go by me as I trudge\nAlong Life's winding way,\nAnd some are dull, some dreamy-eyed;\nBut some all blithe and gay\n\nStrew smiles and flowers at my feet,\nThen shyly squeeze my hand\nAnd run ahead to point the way —\nDear days that understand.\n\n\n\nSane days one touches lightly\nAs sea-gulls touch the foam,\nFinding no joy, for dreaming\nOf joy that is to come.\n\nOr luring ghosts of laughter\nDown dim forgotten ways\nWhere light winds stir the ashes\nOf buried yesterdays.\n\nTo-day I have lived deeply,\nOn currents strong and free\nAs those that sweep the ocean\nThis day has carried me\n\nWhere Yesterday is only\nA faint receding shore,\nAnd somewhere lurks Tomorrow\nAn island to explore.\n\nBut I am kin to neither,\nFor me does naught exist\nSave wide gray seas of water\nAnd freedom and a mist.\n\nNo day has been save this one,\nNo day shall ever be,\nAll else I will touch lightly\nTo keep this memory.","firstline":"The days go by me as I trudge","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic144.jpg","style":"","keywords":"day,days,lightly,touch,save,joy,carried,ocean,buried,yesterday","likes":"2","lettercount":"719","wordcount":"169","linecount":"33","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-22 13:04:48","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"145","title":"Death Comes To All","verse":"\"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.\" — Matthew 28:20","poem":"Death comes to all. But death is never all,\n   For those who look into the Savior's face.\nWithin the shadowed valley these recall\n   His blessed premise: that the God of grace\n\nGoes with them. When the forms of loved ones fade,\n   His form grows clearer. These are not bereft\nAnd unbefriended:  they are glad to trade,\n   For heaven's joy, the earthly joys they left.\n\nDeath comes to all. But oh, how different\n   For those whose empty hearts have never known\nThat, for their soul's salvation, Christ was sent.\n   All such must walk the last, dark road — alone.\n\nDeath comes to all. But not to all the same:\nSome go to meet it in the Savior's name.","firstline":"Death comes to all. But death is never all,","periodical":"","image":"pic145.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"death,these,savior,never,those,empty,hearts,soul,whose,their","likes":"1","lettercount":"516","wordcount":"136","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-01-18 08:25:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"146","title":"Dead Men Speak The Truth","verse":null,"poem":"“Brother, slept you very well\n   This and yesternight?\"\n“Nay, I dreamed again of earth.\"\n   “Such dreams were delight.\"\n\n“Nay, I heard a Cause upheld,\n   Saw the young eyes glow;\nAnd I fear men seek again,\n   Brother, what we know.\"\n\n“Have you then no pride of death.\n   You who gave your Youth?\"\n“Nay, the grave has humbled me:\n   Dead men speak the truth.\"\n\nBy some fancy now it seems\n   I remember you —\nBrother, were you not of those\n   That my own hand slew?\"\n\n“So I was. But do you now\n   Any part recall\nOf all the glory that was yours,\n   Or why we fought at all?\"\n\n“Nay, I only know the wind\n   Pierced me with his breath;\nAnd the night was very still...\n   And you smiled in death.\"\n\n“But the Cause, the noble Cause,\n   That for which you bled?\"\n“Brother, I forgot the Cause —\n   For thinking of you dead.\"\n\n“What things shall a man lay down\n   Then, if not his life,\nTo prove the glory of a Cause\n   And justify the strife?\"\n\n“Brother, there is but one way,\n   Honor's only test:\nThe first to lay his weapons down —\n   He conquers all the rest.\"\n\n“By our error we have found\n   Wisdom for their need;\nBut woe, that for the truth we guard\n   The nations still must bleed!\"","firstline":"“Brother, slept you very well","periodical":"","image":"pic146.jpg","style":"","keywords":"brother,cause,nay,truth,glory,dead,men,death,forgot","likes":"0","lettercount":"992","wordcount":"278","linecount":"40","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"147","title":"Dear Teacher","verse":null,"poem":"All summer long the windows of his mind\n   Were flung wide-open to the wind and sun.\nReturn to routine is so slow! Be kind,\n   Be gentle, try to understand that one\n\nWho walked in wayward wonder through a maze\n   Of golden hours, one who listened long\nTo bird and brook, may find a well-turned phrase\n   An antidote that is a bit too strong.\n\nHe will return to learning; but not yet:\n   The corridors of thought are crowded still\nWith morning meadows where the grass was wet,\n   With branches blowing on a windy hill.\n\nHe will return. Be patient with him, please:\nOne comes back slowly from such things as these.","firstline":"All summer long the windows of his mind","periodical":"","image":"pic147.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"return,long,crowded,thought,morning,meadows,corridors,learning,phrase,antidote","likes":"14","lettercount":"482","wordcount":"128","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-03-28 02:33:29","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"148","title":"Decision","verse":null,"poem":"He quaffed, and hung the dipper by the well.\n   “Black gold,\" he said, “black gold ten miles away!\nHey Mai come here. You think we ought to sell?\n   They struck oil on the Greensburg road today.\"\n\nIn quietness she moved to feed the pup.\n   In quietness she turned and touched his hand.\n“Now Pa,\" she said, “don't get you fussened up:\n   The land's the thing, the clean, the lovely land.\"\n\nHe walked the worn path to the pasture bars,\n   And leaned against the night; beyond the hill\nHe traced the slender pattern of the stars.\n   Then came and cupped a dipperful, to spill\n\nIt out upon the ground. “Let's go to bed\nA well was made for water, Ma,\" he said.","firstline":"He quaffed, and hung the dipper by the well.","periodical":"Saturday Evening Post; 6\/6\/1959, Vol. 231 Issue 49, p47","image":"pic148.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"said,quietness,black,gold,well,land,bars,leaned,against,pasture","likes":"3","lettercount":"544","wordcount":"139","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-03 11:22:43","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"149","title":"Dedication","verse":"\"Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.\" - Exodus 40:34","poem":"Now unto Thee, O Lord, we dedicate\n   This work of heart and hand, this house to be\nThy dwelling place. The humble and the great,\n   The rich, the poor, are all alike to Thee;\n\nAnd each has need of Thee. However far\n   The wandered may fare, when he shall come\nTo this, Thy house, oh let it be a star\n   To guide his soul to heaven and to home.\n\nBe pleased to take. Most Holy and Most High,\n   This house and make it Thine, For, Lord, unless\nThy presence shall remain to sanctify,\n   This structure is but toil and emptiness.\n\nFor all of those who need Thy tender touch,\n   Thy cleansing power, Thy redeeming grace,\nWe bring our little, Lord, now make it much.\n   Oh let Thy glory come and fill this place.","firstline":"Now unto Thee, O Lord, we dedicate","periodical":"","image":"pic149.jpg","style":"","keywords":"thy,thee,house,lord,come,need,most,place,emptiness,structure","likes":"1","lettercount":"547","wordcount":"157","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-04 18:20:50","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"150","title":"Delightful Bondage","verse":null,"poem":"She had been young once, but she was too tired\n   Most of the time now:  Children make a lot\nOf work for mothers. Twice a year he hired\n   Someone to help, and took her to a spot\n\nWhere there were shaded lights and muted strings\n   And food she had not fixed. He loved to see\nHer face light up:  She said, “It  gives me wings —\n   Alone, like this, just like we used to be.\"\n\nOver the salad plates her talk began:\n   “Isn't the small one smart? And Becky dear?\nI love her hair. When David is a man\n   He'll show them all!\" “Where shall we go from here?\"\n\nHe asked. She said — in either eye a star —\n“Let's go right home, and see just how they are!\"","firstline":"She had been young once, but she was too tired","periodical":"","image":"pic150.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"said,began,isn,smart,talk,small,plates,alone,used","likes":"2","lettercount":"537","wordcount":"151","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-08 20:41:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"151","title":"Departure","verse":null,"poem":"I have not known so still a day as this:\n   The drowsy moments, fraught with memory,\nSteal to the borders of departed bliss —\n   And come no more. As vessels put to sea,\n\nWith sails half-furled, reluctant to forego\n   The well-loved curve of friendly reef and hill,\nLazy with dreams, my quiet thoughts move——-slow\n   As wings that lift, and flutter, and are still.\n\nAll day I have not spoken — but my lips\n   Are tremulous with something more than sighs,\nGuarding a last word that forever slips\n   Farther into the silence; and my eyes,\n\nHungry with hope, turn often to the door —\nSeeking a shadow that will fall no more.","firstline":"I have not known so still a day as this:","periodical":"Contemporary Verse Magazine","image":"pic151.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"more,day,something,guarding,last,tremulous,sighs,lips,wings","likes":"0","lettercount":"520","wordcount":"129","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"152","title":"Departure","verse":null,"poem":"He whistled to his dog, and all was still;\n   I watched him disappear beyond the hill.\n“What be ye thinkin'?\" all the neighbors said\n   “Why be ye standin' there? The old man's dead\n\nSon, death and taxes comes to everyone.\"\n   I knew that they were right:  his  race was run\nAnd yet I stood where he had stood before,\n   Watching the sunlight through his sycamore,\n\nAnd knew he was not in that lonely grave....\nHe whistled to his dog. I saw him wave.","firstline":"He whistled to his dog, and all was still;","periodical":"","image":"pic152.jpg","style":"","keywords":"stood,whistled,knew,dog,run,race,right,before,watching,grave","likes":"3","lettercount":"364","wordcount":"97","linecount":"10","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 10:47:38","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"153","title":"Detachment","verse":null,"poem":"If on some perfect planet we could stand\n   And with disinterest view the lives we lead,\nSee, through our clearer eyes, the life indeed,\n   Stripped of its daily dole — the small demand ——-\n\nA clean-cut, naked fact; could we command\n   The strength that we assume, the pride — our creed\nWhereby in confidence we dare exceed,\n   Or say we do, all else Creation planned?\n\nCould we in that brief interval compare\n   With tree, with rock, that neither stir nor fret;\nWith humble soil, that doth no pride beget;\n   With all wild things that roam, and birds in air?\n\nWe could not. Yet we light our centuries\nWith, “Man shall have dominion over these.\"","firstline":"If on some perfect planet we could stand","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic153.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"pride,rock,tree,neither,fret,stir,compare,brief,exceed","likes":"0","lettercount":"541","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:57:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"154","title":"Discovery","verse":null,"poem":"It is not dead, — the beauty that we knew:\n   Long time it slept, Beloved, but today,\nBeneath an old log where one violet grew,\n   I found our hearts' young treasure laid away;\n\nI found the tender words that had grown cold\n   For lack of being said; I found the songs\nThat lit our every twilight hour of old,\n   And all the wonder that to love belongs.\n\nIt had not died, Beloved: when God found\n   That life would rob us of earth's little best,\nHe hid our golden secret underground,\n   And let a violet hold it to its breast —\n\nWell knowing I would pass along that way.\nI found all beauty we have known today.","firstline":"It is not dead, — the beauty that we knew:","periodical":"","image":"pic154.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"found,violet,today,old,beauty,beloved,rob,earth,best","likes":"2","lettercount":"484","wordcount":"134","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-25 06:06:00","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"155","title":"Displaced Person","verse":null,"poem":"Old woman, old woman,\n   Why do you sit\nWith the folded hands\n   That refuse to knit?\n\nOld woman, old woman,\n   What have they done\nWith your spinning wheel\n   And the wool you spun?\n\nOld woman, old woman,\n   Where are they now:\nThe hens you fed\n   And the brindled cow?\n\nOld woman, old woman,\n   Why do you sigh\nWhen the sirens blow\n   And the cars whiz by?\n\nOld woman, old woman,\n   Life is strange:\n\nTime is the wheel\nAnd the spokes are change.","firstline":"Old woman, old woman,","periodical":"","image":"pic155.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"woman,old,wheel,blow,sirens,cars,sigh,life,spokes,change","likes":"15","lettercount":"334","wordcount":"109","linecount":"20","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-06-07 06:38:10","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"156","title":"Doctors","verse":null,"poem":"Some men build bridges, arched against the sky,\n   Bright spans of splendor with the strength of steel;\nSome build skyscrapers, gaunt and gray and high,\n   Groping among the stars, as those who feel\n\nFor some remembered beauty lost in time.\n   These have their little hour of acclaim:\nOne moment lifted to the heights sublime —\n   The next, forgotten in the hall of fame.\n\nSane men build broken bodies:   stoop and take\n   The scattered puzzle of disrupted life\nAnd, fitting piece to piece together, make\n   Order from chaos, harmony from strife.\n\nThese build with God; and time cannot erase\nWhat they accomplish, nor obscure their place.","firstline":"Some men build bridges, arched against the sky,","periodical":"","image":"pic156.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"build,time,piece,their,these,men,bodies,stoop,broken","likes":"3","lettercount":"518","wordcount":"125","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 11:06:26","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"157","title":"Doggerel For Jenny","verse":null,"poem":"Dear God, bless Dad and Mommie too,\n   And Mike and Debbie, all life through;\nAnd bless all poodles, clipped and neat.\n   With ruffs around their necks and feet,\n\nWith slender legs and round-eyes stare —\n   God don't forget to bless Pierre.\nGod bless all aunts and cousins small,\n   And uncles short and uncles tall;\n\nAnd bless all bird dogs brave and wise\n   With tails that point, and friendly eyes\nAnd ears to hide them when they nod —\n   Remember “Mr. Gomery,\" God.\n\nGod bless all teachers, bad and good,\n   They try to do the things they should;\nAnd bless all Dachsunds long drawn out,\n   With ends that wiggle in and out\n\nOf all tight places where they squeeze —\nDear God, bless Schizo if you please.","firstline":"Dear God, bless Dad and Mommie too,","periodical":"","image":"pic157.jpg","style":"","keywords":"bless,god,eyes,dear,uncles,nod,hide,remember,gomery","likes":"0","lettercount":"577","wordcount":"150","linecount":"18","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"158","title":"Do Streets Remember?","verse":null,"poem":"Do streets remember, when the long dark makes\n   A little silence in between two days\nOf traffic, hew, somewhere, the sunrise breaks\n   Across gold hill-tops and the sudden rays\n\nFinger green branches? Do they then recall\n   Intimacies of earth that now they miss,\nRustle of windy branches and the small\n   Bird-talk at dawn? Do streets remember this?\n\nDo streets remember, or have they too long\n   Been burdened with the weight of life, the press\nOf countless footsteps, to call back the song\n   Of lark or robin? Does the weariness\n\nFrom crowded moments crush their dreaming — or\nDo streets remember beauty known before?","firstline":"Do streets remember, when the long dark makes","periodical":"","image":"pic158.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"streets,remember,branches,long,press,life,countless,footsteps,weight,dawn","likes":"2","lettercount":"505","wordcount":"121","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-18 22:27:33","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"159","title":"Double Trouble","verse":null,"poem":"For grappling with safety pins,\n   In such peculiar poses,\nFor wiping jelly from their chins\n   And butter from their noses,\n\nI pray for grace when day begins\n   And wisdom when it closes\nSay, was it I who thought that twins\n   Would be a bed of roses!","firstline":"For grappling with safety pins,","periodical":"","image":"pic159.jpg","style":"","keywords":"their,begins,day,grace,wisdom,closes,roses,bed,twins,thought","likes":"1","lettercount":"194","wordcount":"58","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-02 17:02:00","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"160","title":"Do You Remember?","verse":null,"poem":"Do you remember?\n\nDo you remember how, one night, we took\nThe lantern down and lit it, pulled our coats\nAbout our necks, and went to take a look\nAt the new spotted heifer? We had oats\n\nTo pacify the mother. I can hear,\nAs though it were but yesterday, your laugh,\nAs you discreetly stroked it:   You said, “Dear,\nIt's such a very wobbly little calf!\"\n\nDo you remember?\n\nTonight there will be dinner plates for six\nAnd candle-light on silver:  You  will move —\nThe perfect hostess — here and there to fix\nLast minute touches; and I shall approve,\n\nBut only faintly:  For I hear  the wind\nBanging our shutters, and, by lantern-light,\nI seem to see you rush, undisciplined,\nOut to a small calf bawling in the night.\n\nDo you remember?","firstline":"Do you remember?","periodical":"","image":"pic160.jpg","style":"","keywords":"remember,light,hear,calf,lantern,night,hostess,here,last","likes":"0","lettercount":"602","wordcount":"141","linecount":"19","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"161","title":"Dream House","verse":null,"poem":"The little house was lank and lean,\n   With weather-beaten seams,\nAnd often from its slim confines\n   I planned the house of dreams.\n\nSet high upon the hills of hope,\n   Above the winds of chance,\nThe house of dreams should be a place\n   Of beauty and romance.\n\nAnd now its turrets cut the sky,\n   Its lawns stretch far and wide,\nThe house of dreams is mine — but oh,\n   There's not a dream inside.\n\nWith wistful eyes the years I scan —\n   And in my heart I know\nMy dreams are in the little house\n   I lived in long ago.","firstline":"The little house was lank and lean,","periodical":"","image":"pic161.jpg","style":"","keywords":"house,dreams,its,little,wide,mine,stretch,cut,sky","likes":"2","lettercount":"407","wordcount":"123","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-15 16:46:56","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"162","title":"Dreams And Visions","verse":null,"poem":"Out of the past the old dreams came, and stood\nThronging the dark; and every dream was good——-\n\nSecret and lovely. Clothed in borrowed Light,\nThey moved in beauty on the fringe of night.\n\nEach was a dream of glory that had been.\nI reached forth eager hands to take them in,\n\nBut all escaped — no least one could I keep:\nFor dreams, though lovely, are for men asleep.\n\nOut of the future, then, a vision came:\nIt touched my sleeping soul, and broke in flame\n\nAlong the dark. As far as eye could see,\nI glimpsed the wonder that is yet to be.\n\nThe dreams were fair, but oh, the vision rose,\nSingle and high — more glorious than those,\n\nMore real, more near. I clasped it, with the cry,\n“Without a vision, Lord, thy people die!\"","firstline":"Out of the past the old dreams came, and stood","periodical":"","image":"pic162.jpg","style":"","keywords":"more,dreams,vision,lovely,dream,dark,came,glimpsed,wonder","likes":"5","lettercount":"608","wordcount":"139","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-06-26 10:23:41","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"163","title":"Drought, Part I","verse":null,"poem":"The gaunt trees closer pressed each hungry mouth\n   Unto the earth's dry breast, and day by day,\nWasted and worn by weary weeks of drought,\n   The lean hills lifted faces, ashen-gray,\n\nUp to the unrepentant sky. The streams\n   Long unreplenished from on high, had grown\nFrailer and feebler than forgotten dreams,\n   Dry gulches yielding only stick and stone.\n\nBeyond the cabin door she saw it all,\n   As one who sees, not seeing, for her heart\nBeat with a strange new ecstasy:  A small\n   Pink bundle stirred beneath the covers — part\n\nOf her and him; and in her flowing breast\nThere was no drought — only deep joy, sweet rest.","firstline":"The gaunt trees closer pressed each hungry mouth","periodical":"Westward Magazine","image":"pic163.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"dry,breast,day,drought,seeing,sees,heart,beat,strange","likes":"1","lettercount":"508","wordcount":"129","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 08:59:31","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"164","title":"Drought, Part II","verse":null,"poem":"From out the long-unanswering skies there swept\n   Remorse at last in one bright silver flood.\nUp from the startled earth the young green crept.\n   Hill, tree and stream drank wonder where each stood;\n\nThree weeks and transformation had its way:\n   Slim silver pencils scribbled leaf and flower\nUpon an empty page, long waste and gray,\n   Leaving the drought a half-remembered hour.\n\nWithin the cabin door she sat and stared.\n   Her eyes, deep-circled, bore the sombre stain\nOf agony; her hungry breast was bared\n   Night-long unto the keen cool edge of pain.\n\nEven the new mound in the pasture south\nWas turning green. But all her days were drought.","firstline":"From out the long-unanswering skies there swept","periodical":"Westward Magazine","image":"pic164.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"long,silver,green,drought,circled,deep,sombre,stain,eyes,bore","likes":"1","lettercount":"522","wordcount":"126","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 08:39:20","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"165","title":"Dual","verse":null,"poem":"Two women dwell within my heart,\n   Together—and alone;\nAnd one is mistress of herself,\n   And one of field and stone.\n\nMy first self rises with the clock\n   And preens before the glass;\nMy second, long before the sun.\n   Makes footprints in the grass.\n\nThe hand of her who molds my charm\n   Works well and tirelessly;\nMy dearer self wastes golden hours\n   In making mirth for me.\n\nBut spite of all my first can do\n   The lines of age make way.\nWhile she who courts the sun and rain\n   Is still as young as they.\n\nTwo women dwell within my heart,\n   And one belongs to Time,\nAnd one belongs to wind and star\n   And broken threads of rhyme.\n\nAnd when they come to burn her,\n   My first —- whose life is through —-\nA laugh will blow from some far hill,\n   “My dear, that wasn't you!\"","firstline":"Two women dwell within my heart,","periodical":"","image":"pic165.jpg","style":"","keywords":"self,sun,belongs,two,before,heart,dwell,within,women","likes":"1","lettercount":"620","wordcount":"181","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 13:40:52","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"166","title":"Dust","verse":null,"poem":"Oh Dust, when I survey thy poor abode,\nBehold thee outcast by some wayside road,\nBlown on by winds and scattered down the years,\nSomething in thee my highest self reveres:\n\nI think what part in the infinite plan\nIs thine to hold. Thou art to every man\nThe Alpha and Omega, last and first:\nFrom thee he first drew form, and when the worst\n\nThat death is guilty of has come to be,\nThrough thee he passes to Eternity.\nOh Dust, eternal Dust, that hath withstood\nThe blight of Time, how oft in careless mood\n\nThe hand of man hath lightly dealt with thee\nAs same lay creature; how relentlessly\nHath fingers, busy with some desk or shelf.\nLaid waste the precious atoms of thyself;\n\nOr feet, disdainful of a hidden worth,\nBrushed thee aside as simple clods of earth!\nThus “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.\"\nWho knows what sacred ashes of the dead\n\nIn thee have sought repose; what buried kings,\nWhat fallen statesmen speak; what poet sings;\nOr what forgotten heroes, laid to rest,\nFeel life resurgent in the quiet breast,\n\nWhen in the hall of Time some vagrant breeze\nDisturbs the sleeping dust of centuries\n\nAnd scatters it abroad? Along the way\nWe travel so indifferently, the clay\n\nOf Shakespeare or of Milton may be blown\nTo intimately mingle with our own.\n\nPerhaps some portion of proud Bonaparte\nLives on in thee, oh Dust; or that great heart\n\nThat slept in Lincoln's breast, finds life again\nIn just such contact with the common men\n\nAs thou art fellow to. Oh what a tomb\nFor buried greatness thou hast been! with room\n\nTo spare for crumbling leaves and withered flowers,\nTrees that have harbored oft the sun and showers\n\nOf passing springs: and bits of splintered stone —\nAll broken things in Nature hast thou known:\n\nAnd all earth-creatures, pale and hollow-eyed,\nWho pass in dust and know not they have died.\n\nAnd we, who all too-thoughtless tread above,\nKnow not what sins we may be guilty of,\n\nWhat blasphemy is ours, when we deface\nThis hallowed Dust — their final resting place.","firstline":"Oh Dust, when I survey thy poor abode,","periodical":"","image":"pic166.jpg","style":"","keywords":"thee,dust,thou,hath,time,art,man,guilty,oft,tread","likes":"0","lettercount":"1637","wordcount":"359","linecount":"46","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:11:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"167","title":"Dust Storm","verse":null,"poem":"The earth, a yellow witch gone mad\n   With long incessant drought,\nmoves in a dizzy dance, and from\n   Her gaping, thirsty mouth\n\nShe belches words, as hot as flame:\n   She flings them to the air.\nDry laughter crackles in her throat\n   And leaves but ashes there.\n\nHer reeling form, her scorching words,\n   Make madness in the sky;\nShe twists, and turns, and stabs, and stings,\n   And scratches out the eye.\n\nWhere are the friendly fields of grass —\n   The same earth we have known?\nLie down, lie down, you thirsty witch,\n   And leave the sky alone!\n\nShe does not hear. She will not stop,\n   Though all the lanes of sky\nBe clouded with her dusty screams.\n   Though every brave thing die.\n\nShe cannot cease:  she has gone mad\n   With hunger and with heat,\nShe does not know the place of earth\n   Is underneath the feet.","firstline":"The earth, a yellow witch gone mad","periodical":"","image":"pic167.jpg","style":"","keywords":"earth,sky,thirsty,witch,words,mad,lie,same,alone,hear","likes":"2","lettercount":"638","wordcount":"182","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-09-27 11:59:10","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"168","title":"Duty","verse":null,"poem":"Alone, into the beauty\n   Of the calm and holy night,\nI fled before stern Duty —\n   Sought refuge in delight.\n\nBut the gold and silver glory\n   Of the moon-beams all around\nTurned to monsters grim and hoary\n   Skirting wildly o'er the ground;\n\nAnd the cold and silent spaces,\n   Stretching far on either side,\nMocked me with an hundred faces\n   Of the Duty I denied ————\n\nFor the premised dream of beauty\n   Brought no swift and sure release...\nI went back and faced my Duty\n   And, returning, found my Peace.","firstline":"Alone, into the beauty","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic168.jpg","style":"","keywords":"duty,beauty,mocked,faces,denied,hundred,either,spaces,silent","likes":"3","lettercount":"424","wordcount":"113","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-02 17:02:18","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"169","title":"Easter","verse":null,"poem":"The withered plant that sleeps through dreary days,\n   Beneath the frozen sod,\nDreams of white blossoms that shall one day rise\n   And burst the clod.\n\nThe silent bird that shivers in the rain,\n   Upon a barren tree,\nKeeps in his heart the echo of glad notes\n   That are to be.\n\nGod plants within each smallest slumbering seed.\n   And every captive stream,\nThe ressurection hope, and winter long,\n   Of this they dream.\n\nThen wherefore, heart, be troubled, though the years\n   In ceaseless flight, grow dim?\nBright is the Easter premise — ye shall rise\n   Complete in Him.","firstline":"The withered plant that sleeps through dreary days,","periodical":"","image":"pic169.jpg","style":"","keywords":"rise,heart,hope,ressurection,winter,long,stream,seed,within,plants","likes":"3","lettercount":"456","wordcount":"120","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"170","title":"Easter———1938","verse":null,"poem":"Because war stalks the earth and man still bleeds,\n   Unmindful of the green way of the spring,\nLo, I will make a ritual of seeds.\n   Here in a garden plot — remembering\n\nNot so much fragrance, nor the long array\n   Of color bursting in bright buds uncurled,\nBut beauty nineteen hundred years away.\n   When One came back who briefly left the world.\n\nI will remember how one garden slept,\n   And woke to Ressurrection and to Life;\nAnd I will plant a garden, who have kept\n   A slender faith to dig with. Out of strife\n\nAnd turmoil, I will turn and break the sod —\nNot just for blood, but for the Son of God.","firstline":"Because war stalks the earth and man still bleeds,","periodical":"","image":"pic170.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"garden,woke,ressurection,life,plant,slept,world,came,away","likes":"0","lettercount":"484","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:58:02","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"171","title":"Easter Conversation","verse":null,"poem":"First tuck your tulip bulbs beneath the sod.\n   Then make a place for pansies. Did you know,\nDear little boy, that now you work with God?\n   He made a garden in the long ago;\n\nHe makes all gardens yet. No seed can sprout\n   Without His care. He sends the rain, the sun:\nNo flower wakes and pokes its bright face out\n   Unless He guards and cherishes each one.\n\nAnd did you know that, when His loved ones chose\n   A place for Jesus, after He had died,\nThey found a garden — and from there He rose,\n   That first glad Easter morning, glorified?\n\nSo make your garden, little boy, each spring:\nGod gives us gardens — for remembering.","firstline":"First tuck your tulip bulbs beneath the sod.","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic171.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"garden,god,gardens,boy,little,place,unless,jesus,face","likes":"2","lettercount":"504","wordcount":"135","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-04 18:20:29","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"172","title":"Easter Dawn","verse":"\"And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.\" - Mark 16:1","poem":"Softly, softly, step so softly.\n   We are bent upon\nHoly business. Bring the spices.\n   Sisters — it is dawn.\n\nSoftly, softly, step so softly.\n   Are we quite alone?\nI remember now — they sealed Him.\n   Who will roll the stone?\n\nSoftly, softly, step so softly.\n   See, the door is wide!\nSomeone has been here before us.\n   Let us go inside.\n\nSoftly, softly, step so softly.\n   What a cruel shame —\nHe is gone! Where had they laid Him?\n   Someone spoke my name!\n\nSoftly, softly, step so softly.\n   I am ready now.\nSisters, did you leave without me?\n   Master! Is it Thou?","firstline":"Softly, softly, step so softly.","periodical":"","image":"pic172.jpg","style":"","keywords":"softly,step,someone,sisters,before,inside,master,here,thou","likes":"2","lettercount":"454","wordcount":"131","linecount":"20","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-22 03:33:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"173","title":"Easter Lilies","verse":null,"poem":"How deftly Beauty's fingers work\n   To burst the frozen clod\nAnd lift a lily's face, is known\n   To no one else but God.\n\nYet somehow from the crumbling mold\n   Of yesterday's decay\nIs born the vesture that transcends\n   E'en Solomon's array.\n\nHow Holiness stoops down to burst\n   The iron grip of Hell\nAnd lift a sinner's face to God,\n   None but the Christ can tell.\n\nYet somehow from the black despair\n   That turns all glory dim,\nThe “new man\" awakens to become\n   God's “righteousness in Him\".","firstline":"How deftly Beauty's fingers work","periodical":"","image":"pic173.jpg","style":"","keywords":"god,face,burst,lift,somehow,christ,black,none,iron,grip","likes":"0","lettercount":"398","wordcount":"110","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"174","title":"Emmanuel","verse":null,"poem":"Jack Andrews thinks as you and I:\n   That prices must go down,\nThat streets and shops and millionaires\n   Are things that make a town.\n\nEmmanuel wears a strange sad smile:\n   Let prices rise or fall,\nOf these he thinks not — if indeed\n   Emmanuel thinks at all.\n\nHe has some very strange new books\n   And reads them all the time:\nHe smiles to see men fight for peace,\n   And shakes his head at crime.\n\nJack Andrews' thoughts advance the world;\n   But when they cross the brink,\nGod may forgive Emmanuel\n   For things he does not think.","firstline":"Jack Andrews thinks as you and I:","periodical":"","image":"pic174.jpg","style":"","keywords":"emmanuel,thinks,jack,strange,andrews,prices,head,crime,shakes,peace","likes":"0","lettercount":"419","wordcount":"120","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"175","title":"Encore","verse":null,"poem":"At trickery of bow and finger-tips\n   We sat aghast, the while he deftly played\nThe Mendelssohn Concerto; and our lips\n   Grew hushed with dreams at Schubert's Serenade;\n\nBach Air was like a call to holiness;\n   The Chopin Nocturne healing for our pain.\nAnd then he played — of infinite caress —\n   The Old Refrain.\n\nAll that we knew of beauty came to sit\n   Like peace upon our shoulders; the slow tides\nOf longing brimmed our vision. Bit by bit\n   Came back old songs, old faces, old firesides,\n\nCame back our mothers' lips, and, undismayed,\n   We lifted ours, for we were home again\nAfter a long, long journey — when he played\n   The Old Refrain.","firstline":"At trickery of bow and finger-tips","periodical":"","image":"pic175.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"old,played,came,lips,bit,refrain,back,long,upon","likes":"2","lettercount":"527","wordcount":"138","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-22 03:33:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"176","title":"Episode","verse":null,"poem":"You held our love between your hands,\nAs a child holds a toy balloon.\nBreath by breath you blew upon it.\nAnd with each breath I watched it expand,\nFull, round, perfect.\n\nThen from the depths of your thought,\nAs a child from the depths of his pockets,\nYou gathered a handful of words,\nSharp, cruel, relentless.\n\nEach word was a little, bright pin\nThat you drove in a moment of mischief\nInto the heart of love —\nAnd all that you had created\nVanished into the air,\nLeaving it flat and ugly.\n\nRun along, child,\nInto the sunshine of life.\n\nThere are other balloons\nBut I — I shall not play again.","firstline":"You held our love between your hands,","periodical":"","image":"pic176.jpg","style":"","keywords":"breath,child,depths,love,heart,created,vanished,moment,bright","likes":"2","lettercount":"487","wordcount":"113","linecount":"19","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-24 19:50:33","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"177","title":"Eternal","verse":null,"poem":"That night on lone Golgatha's hill.\nWhen shadows settled, dark and still,\nWell might the crowd have chattered on:\n“The Cross remains——-The Christ is gone.\"\n\nBut we, who know the God of grace,\nCan look upon that hallowed place\nAnd know the comfort that sustains:\nThe Cross is gone — the Christ remains.","firstline":"That night on lone Golgatha's hill.","periodical":"","image":"pic177.jpg","style":"","keywords":"christ,remains,cross,upon,grace,god,hallowed,place,sustains","likes":"0","lettercount":"272","wordcount":"53","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"178","title":"Even-Song","verse":null,"poem":"Now all the landscape dreaming lies\n   And rest to Man is given,\nBut never sleep the winking stars —\n   Those tireless eyes of Heaven;\n\nAll night across the vaulted sky\n   A countless host they wander,\nOr silent glide amongst the clouds\n   And quietly dream up yonder.\n\nHere in the dusk, while all things sleep,\n   I watch yon pale stars glowing,\nAnd though the shadows fold me close,\n   I rest content in knowing\n\nThat God above the careless world\n   An endless watch is keeping\nThrough little stars that blink and gleam\n   While other eyes are sleeping.","firstline":"Now all the landscape dreaming lies","periodical":"","image":"pic178.jpg","style":"","keywords":"stars,watch,while,sleep,eyes,rest,glowing,shadows,fold,close","likes":"3","lettercount":"440","wordcount":"119","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-03 11:22:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"179","title":"Evening Song","verse":null,"poem":"Love is a book that we have read together....\n   Oh, do not close it yet, though well we know\nEach dear familiar page. In stormy weather\n   We read it by the friendly firelight's glow;\n\nWhen April walked the world, we read it, drifted\n   Inch-deep with petal snow; and when we heard\nThe lovely lark, our eager faces lifted\n   But briefly to the sky—nor lost one word.\n\nLove is a book we shared... .Oh, let us linger\n   A little longer with it while we trace\nRemembered beauty with each toil-worn finger,\n   Touching again this thought, this time, this place\n\nTill sleep shall find us and we let it fall —\nRather than close it, saying, “This is all.\"","firstline":"Love is a book that we have read together....","periodical":"","image":"pic179.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"read,love,close,book,longer,while,remembered,little,trace","likes":"3","lettercount":"530","wordcount":"135","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2021-11-15 13:21:38","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"180","title":"Eventide Song","verse":null,"poem":"All things that I have loved in life full well\n   Return you to me when the twilight falls.\nLike homing pigeons they come back to tell\n   How beauty walks the world beyond these walls\nAnd, with it, you — a part of it and more\n   Than all of it:   for beauty cannot  go\nThe last long mile love travels — nor explore\n   The secret wonder we have come to know.\n\nNor time, nor distance, nor the need for touch,\n   Can now divide us: we have gone beyond\nThese limitations, who have loved so much.\n   Without a word, a handclasp to respond,\nYou come with twilight, and the fading sun.\n   This is to love you — this is to be one.","firstline":"All things that I have loved in life full well","periodical":"","image":"pic180.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"come,beauty,these,beyond,loved,twilight,love,explore,need","likes":"1","lettercount":"496","wordcount":"144","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"181","title":"Except Ye Become As Little Children","verse":null,"poem":"\n“It's just a little way\", he said,\n   “To Jesus' house, you know,\nAnd not so very long to wait\" —\n   Dear child, who told him so?\n\n“She's only just gone on ahead.\n   And we are going, too;\nWe'll see her up at Jesus' house.\"\n   I wonder how he knew!\n\nOh, Lord, forgive our feeble faith\n   That always asks to see;\nAnd thank Thee for a little child\n   To lead us tip to Thee.","firstline":"","periodical":"","image":"pic181.jpg","style":"","keywords":"thee,house,jesus,little,child,faith,feeble,forgive,always,thank","likes":"2","lettercount":"305","wordcount":"92","linecount":"13","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-03 11:22:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"182","title":"Expectant","verse":null,"poem":"Does Mother Earth, I wonder, know\n   What sleeps beneath her heart\nThroughout the Ancient Miracle\n   Of which she is a part?\n\nOr does she also speculate\n   And sometimes wish she knew:\nA Blackeyed Susan? Or two eyes\n   Of bright cornflower blue?\n\nA tall and sturdy hollyhock?\n   Or dainty Queen Ann's lace?\nThe gold of dandelion hair?\n   A pansy's baby face?\n\nDoes Mother Earth, I wonder know\n   Just what the seed will be —\nOr must she wait her time, as I\n   With hushed expectancy?","firstline":"Does Mother Earth, I wonder, know","periodical":"","image":"pic182.jpg","style":"","keywords":"mother,wonder,earth,lace,gold,dandelion,ann,hollyhock,sturdy,hair","likes":"1","lettercount":"379","wordcount":"108","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 13:19:09","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"183","title":"Expendable For God","verse":null,"poem":"Let me but be expendable for God,\n   Not longing for the tumult and the strife.\nStrong winds obey His will — so does the clod\n   That lies inert and holds the germ of life.\nThis simple clod, mere dust beneath the feet,\n   Another Spring will quicken into flower.\nWith like obedience my heart would meet\n   The quiet challenge of this lonely hour.\n\nLet me but rest within my Father's will —\n   No doubt, no questioning, no vain desire.\nHe understands it all, come good or ill.\n   This life has been invested:   I aspire\nTo naught beyond the present's narrow rim —\n   Only to be expendable for Him.","firstline":"Let me but be expendable for God,","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic183.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"life,expendable,clod,doubt,vain,desire,questioning,within,challenge","likes":"0","lettercount":"484","wordcount":"130","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:58:24","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"184","title":"Experience","verse":null,"poem":"Small, white lamb in the field.\nChild in the garden,\nHumming-bird passing\nIn swift fantastic flutter\nOf frenzied wings,\nBe careful how you scatter it,\nThe life that is in you,\nCapering\nRunning\nBeating the air with it.\nI too was young once,\nA long time ago.","firstline":"Small, white lamb in the field.","periodical":"","image":"pic184.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"capering,running,life,scatter,careful,beating,air,ago,time,long","likes":"0","lettercount":"210","wordcount":"47","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"185","title":"Faithful And Fruitful","verse":null,"poem":"Faithful and fruitful I would be —\n   But oh, how weak is the flesh!\nHoly Spirit, I come to Thee:\n   Touch me, fill me afresh.\n\nFaithful and fruitful? Who can hope,\n   Alone, to reach such a goal?\nHoly Spirit, I falter, grope —\n   Cleanse me, strengthen, control.\n\nFaithful and fruitful only when\n   Bereft of self I shall be.\nHoly Spirit, anoint me — then\n   The faith, the fruit, are of Thee.","firstline":"Faithful and fruitful I would be —","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic185.jpg","style":"","keywords":"holy,faithful,spirit,fruitful,thee,strengthen,cleanse,grope,control","likes":"1","lettercount":"323","wordcount":"89","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 12:47:59","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"186","title":"Fallen Aviator","verse":null,"poem":"He cried for the moon when a baby,\n   Lifting his small hands high;\nThey mocked his young presumption\n   And countered, “Let him cry.\"\n\nHe cried for the moon, and he found it\n   Once in a far, still place:\nAlone he lay and held it\n   All night upon his face.\n\nHe cried for the moon, and they mocked him:\n   Does he who was born to try\nWings for the great adventure\n   Now counter, “Let them cry?\"","firstline":"He cried for the moon when a baby,","periodical":"","image":"pic186.jpg","style":"","keywords":"cried,moon,cry,mocked,adventure,counter,night,held,upon,face","likes":"0","lettercount":"314","wordcount":"93","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"187","title":"Fallen Star","verse":null,"poem":"Out of heaven something fell;\n   We have caught it in our well.\nThere you are —\n   Right beneath that silver splash.\nWhy, it didn't even crash!\nIt's a star!","firstline":"Out of heaven something fell;","periodical":"","image":"pic187.jpg","style":"","keywords":"splash,silver,didn,even,star,crash,beneath,right,fell,something","likes":"2","lettercount":"128","wordcount":"35","linecount":"6","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"188","title":"Fantasy","verse":null,"poem":"The day is a giant.\nI have seen him riding upon the hill-tops,\nBooted and spurred,\nProud in the armor of morning.\n\nI have watched the sunlight\nGlint on his bridle and helmet\nMaking him gorgeous and splendid;\nI have heard the hoofs of his charger\n\nAnd the long, long stride of their coming,\nTerrible, swift, relentless.\nThe day is a giant\nRiding upon the edge of the world.\n\nThe night is a little black slave,\nI have seen him, stricken with terror,\nRunning before the day,\nHelpless, bewildered:\n\nSoft is the sound of his going,\nFootsteps that sink in the star-dust,\nTimid, uncertain.\nThe night is a little black slave\n\nFleeing before the giant.\nAnd yet —\nIf morning found me alone\nUpon a high hill-top\n\nWhere I could hear the Day\nGalloping, galloping,\nI should not turn to the giant\nEyes that were frightened and pleading,\n\nStraight in the path of his coming\nI should stand as a grim wall stands —\nAnd laugh in his face.\nBut if, in the hush of the twilight,\n\nA little black slave should whisper\nSoftly, persistent,\nBrushing my cheek with dreams\nKinder than hands are,\n\nIf I heard through the stretches of silence\nThe patter of footsteps that vanish,\nAnd felt the breath of the night\nTrembling upon me.\n\nOut of the cover of darkness,\nI should run, I should run!","firstline":"The day is a giant.","periodical":"","image":"pic188.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"upon,day,giant,night,black,little,slave,coming,long,before","likes":"0","lettercount":"1032","wordcount":"230","linecount":"42","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"189","title":"Farewell To Sixty-Sixth","verse":null,"poem":"1. We've had a lot of happiness within this dear old school;\n   We tried to master many things, and make of each a tool.\n   How often, in the years ahead, we will turn back and sigh—\n   Remembering the day we stood, to say our last goodbye.\n\nCHORUS:\n   Farewell to Sixty-Sixth,\n   We will be true,\n   Wherever we may go,\n   We'll think of you;\n\n   Whatever life may bring,\n   One thing we know—-\n   This is the garden where\n   We learned to grow.\n\n2. The sun comes up, the sun goes down; but, speeding on its way,\n   The sun is always hastening to bring another day;\n   So, whether here, or whether there, beyond the farther hill,\n   Remember—when you think of us—we shall be shining still.","firstline":"1. We've had a lot of happiness within this dear old school;","periodical":"","image":"pic189.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"sun,bring,think,whether,day,grow,learned,garden,wherever","likes":"1","lettercount":"549","wordcount":"163","linecount":"17","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 13:41:27","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"190","title":"Farewell","verse":null,"poem":"(Dedicated to our Pastor and read by the author at the meeting\nof Presbytery held in Pasadena, Tuesday, March 10, 1942, at\nwhich time the request of the Rev. L. David Cowie for dissolution\nof the pastorate between himself and the Vermont Avenue Pres-\nbyterian Church was concurred).\n\nHe asked us to dissolve the pastorate:\n   Now didn't he know better than to ask\nA thing like that of simple folk? 'Twould rate\n   More than a miracle for such a task.\n\nYou can't dissolve the ties of love that bind\n   A pastor to his people. We will let\nHim go——-because he asks it——-but he'll find.\n   Day after day that he is with us yet.\n\nHe touched our lives and made them beautiful\n   With Christ. His every sermon came to be\nA pebble dropped into a silent pool,\n   Whose ripples spread to fringe eternity.\n\nThese are the facts, and what is there to say?\n   What is expected of us anyhow?\nWith words you can't explain the truth away —\n   You can't say, “This HAS been, but isn't now.\"\n\nNow, as for God, HIS way is perfect:   So\n   When God is calling, we must all obey;\nYet even God, who says that he must go,\n   Knows, in a larger sense, that he must stay.\n\nHe will be here in youthful eyes that learned,\n   Through his clear sight, more perfectly to see;\nIn aged forms, whose captive spirits yearned\n   To know the Truth — and found it made them free!\n\nO, you can take away the well-loved face,\n   The brilliant mind, in which we placed great stock;\nBut you cannot dissolve the work of grace\n   That binds THIS man forever to THIS flock.\n\nHe will be ours, wherever he may roam,\n   As seasons change, and wheels of time revolve;\nHe built himself an everlasting home\n   Within our hearts....and that you can't dissolve.","firstline":"(Dedicated to our Pastor and read by the author at the meeting","periodical":"","image":"pic190.jpg","style":"","keywords":"dissolve,god,time,himself,day,whose,more,pastorate,away","likes":"13","lettercount":"1384","wordcount":"358","linecount":"37","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-06-26 10:21:05","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"191","title":"Farm Album: Girl At The Pasture Bars","verse":null,"poem":"She dropped her hand upon the pasture bars;\n   Briefly it lay, a slender gleam of white.\nI saw her lift her eyes unto the stars,\n   As though she asked a question of the night.\nSlowly she gathered stillness to herself\n   And wrapped it gracefully about her form....\nOh I shall keep this picture on a shelf\n   Of memory forever:  it shall warm.\n\nDull days of drab endeavor. Who would guess\n   The simple act of driving cattle could\nBe fraught with such exquisite loveliness,\n   Or that so many grander pictures would\n\nBe tossed from Time, replaced by this small one —\nA young girl dreaming when the day is done?","firstline":"She dropped her hand upon the pasture bars;","periodical":"","image":"pic191.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"driving,act,cattle,fraught,exquisite,such,simple,guess,dull,warm","likes":"0","lettercount":"487","wordcount":"128","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"192","title":"Farm Album: Boy At The Woodpile","verse":null,"poem":"His dogged footsteps grew a little lax\n   The while he climbed the hill and crossed the yard;\nBut when he grasped the handle of the ax\n   There came into his being something hard\nAnd fierce. The light of conquest in his eye,\n   He bowed a straight course to the very core\nOf every log. I watched the bright chips fly\n   And knew he conquered worlds beyond his door.\n\nSo dull the ax blade and so brief his strength,\n   It seemed but folly to rely on such.....\nAnd yet, how often I shall glimpse the length\n   Of his gaunt shadow with me, and shall touch\n\nAgain this farm-boy, cutting clean and true,\nStraight at the heart of what he had to do.","firstline":"His dogged footsteps grew a little lax","periodical":"","image":"pic192.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"straight,blade,brief,seemed,folly,strength,dull,conquered,knew,worlds","likes":"5","lettercount":"502","wordcount":"139","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-03 11:22:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"193","title":"Farm Album: Old Man AT The Well","verse":null,"poem":"The old man let the battered bucket down\n   And leaned his elbows on the well's cool brink.\nAnd some there were who thought he came to frown;\n   But some there were who knew he came to drink,\nNot of this water but of other things:\n   The lazy length of summers he had known.\nStark winters, burnished autumns, other springs,\n   And all the sons and daughters that were grown.\n\nThough well he knew that anything so small\n   As his tin bucket could not hold the half\nOf those lost dreams, he would not move till all\n   Remembrance was accomplished..... I shall quaff,\n\nWith all bright waters in each future place,\nThe long, long story written on his face.","firstline":"The old man let the battered bucket down","periodical":"","image":"pic193.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"well,came,other,long,knew,bucket,lost,dreams,till,those","likes":"0","lettercount":"516","wordcount":"135","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:59:12","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"194","title":"Father of Science","verse":null,"poem":"Galileo, how could you know\nSo many things, so long ago?\nA swaying lamp could “go and come\":\nAnd make you see a pendulum.\n\nFor distant stars your mind would grope\nUntil you dreamed a telescope.\nWhile other people had their fun\nYou found the sunspots on the sun.\n\nAnd while they rattled dish and spoon,\nYou saw the mountains on the moon.\nAnd all the moons that travel 'round\nThe planet Jupiter, you found,\n\nSo many things, remote and strange:\nHow Venus' shape would seem to change;\nHow many million stars unite\nTo give the Milky Way its light.\n\nFather of Science, I think I know\nWhat made you wise so long ago:\nYou never could sit down and wait —\nYou simply must investigate!\n\nRight now, beyond our sight and sound,\nAre wonders waiting to be found.\nHow very much we need today\nInquiring minds to lead the way.\n\nFather of Science, help us see\nThe many marvels yet to be!","firstline":"Galileo, how could you know","periodical":"","image":"pic194.jpg","style":"","keywords":"many,found,science,while,stars,father,ago,long,never,sit","likes":"1","lettercount":"712","wordcount":"163","linecount":"26","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 09:29:38","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"195","title":"Fellowship","verse":null,"poem":"Then I remember how He toiled to bring\n   His healing ministry to all who came,\nWhen I recall His lonely suffering\n   In dark Gethsemane, the cruel shame\n\nOf death by crucifixion — then I turn\n   From something in myself that always sighs\nFor easy comforts; then indeed I spurn\n   The pleasant pastures and the cloudless skies.\n\nHow do I dare to speak of gain or loss.\n   Of flimsy favors I might hope to win,\nWhen He has borne the anguish of the Cross?\n   Dear Son of God, so smitten for my sin!\n\nI choose the path His bleeding feet have known.\nHow could I walk another road — alone?","firstline":"Then I remember how He toiled to bring","periodical":"","image":"pic195.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"hope,win,anquish,favors,borne,flimsy,dare,skies,speak","likes":"0","lettercount":"467","wordcount":"127","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:59:25","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"196","title":"First Christmas","verse":null,"poem":"Choose a very tiny tree,\n   With a single star:\nThere was one that other night,\n   Shining bright and far.\n\nChoose a little, woolly lamb,\n   With a music box:\nThere were shepherds on that night,\n   Watching over flocks.\n\nLet it play a lullaby,\n   Soft and sweet and mild,\nSuch as Mary might have sung\n   To the sleeping child.\n\nMany Christmases will be\n   Full of fuss and fret.\nLet them wait — he is so small:\n   Please — not yet, not yet!","firstline":"Choose a very tiny tree,","periodical":"Good Housekeeping Magazine","image":"pic196.jpg","style":"","keywords":"night,choose,mary,sleeping,sung,mild,sweet,child,such","likes":"3","lettercount":"346","wordcount":"104","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"197","title":"First Day of School","verse":null,"poem":"At last they have departed.\n   What is wrong?\nThis is the day I prayed for,\n   Sumner long.\n\nThis is the boon by mothers\n   Coveted,\nA time to shout. Why do I\n   Mope instead?\n\nWhy do I dream and dawdle,\n   Sit and stare,\nAnd listen for the noise that\n   Isn't there?","firstline":"At last they have departed.","periodical":"","image":"pic197.jpg","style":"","keywords":"dawdle,dream,instead,mope,sit,stare,isn,noise,listen,shout","likes":"0","lettercount":"198","wordcount":"68","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"198","title":"First Love","verse":null,"poem":"Out of Bear Hollow a lone cry steals,\nA cry that is moving along on wheels,\nAnd gathering volume, to lift and flout\nItself on space, with a mighty shout.\n\nHe knows how the little fawn will lie\nClose in the covert while it goes by;\nHe knows how the frightened birds will wheel\nOver that mass of swaying steel.\n\nHe knows it all:   how his own shy heart\nWill go stark wild, and his eyes will smart,\nHis head grow hot, and his hands grow numb —\nBut still he must watch the dark thing come.\n\nIn years to be he will make a choice\nOf girls he knows, and her patient voice\nWill almost suit him — but never quite.\nWhen time is a huddle of day and night,\n\nAnd out of the hollow it comes, he'll stand,\nA foaming bucket in either hand,\nSearching dusk with a wishful glance\nFor his first — and maybe — his last romance.\n\nA girl's heart is a very private place:\n   Her first love seldom is the boy next door,\nThe lanky one with freckles on his face,\n   Though he may often think he is. Before\n\nShe knows of his existence, there is one\n   To whom her heart is given, who will be\nHer measure of a man. She knows that none\n   Can every be so brave, or wise, as he.\n\nShe loves an older man, and all her life\n   She keeps a comer of her heart for him;\nAnd even when she is a loving wife,\n   If she should hear his name her eyes may brim\n\nWith sudden tears. But, try to understand —\nHer father was the first to hold her hand!","firstline":"Out of Bear Hollow a lone cry steals,","periodical":"","image":"pic198.jpg","style":"","keywords":"knows,heart,grow,hand,man,eyes,hollow,cry,love","likes":"0","lettercount":"1125","wordcount":"303","linecount":"34","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:14:13","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"199","title":"Finding","verse":null,"poem":"The house oppressed with heavy weight of gloom;\n   More still than thought the stealthy silence crept\nIn circles 'round, until my troubled room\n   Became a sea of emptiness. I wept —\n\nI wept for you, — the words you might have said.\n   Your fresh young laughter floating on the air;\nAnd then for very loneliness I fled,\n   Running into the night with my despair.\n\nLightly you came across the dreaming down:\n   You were the wind that trembled at my face,\nYou were a white star brooding on the town,\n   And you were sea-mist drifting into space....\n\nLong moments then I stood, nor even stirred —\nHolding a dream more sweet than any word.","firstline":"The house oppressed with heavy weight of gloom;","periodical":"","image":"pic199.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"sea,wept,more,star,brooding,white,town,trembled,came","likes":"4","lettercount":"520","wordcount":"131","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 11:05:58","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"200","title":"First Pussy Willow","verse":null,"poem":"Step up lightly,\n   Still and quick! —\nSpring has fastened\n   On a stick.\n\nWearing still\n   Her winter hood,\nSpring has crept\n   Into the wood.\n\nIn her little\n   Furry blouse,\nCrept us softly\n   As a mouse.\n\nNow beside\n   The frozen stream\nSoft gray garments\n   Sway and gleam.\n\nNature magic,\n   What a trick! —\nSpring has fastened\n   On a stick.","firstline":"Step up lightly,","periodical":"Sun Magazine","image":"pic200.jpg","style":"","keywords":"spring,stick,crept,fastened,garments,gray,frozen,beside,stream","likes":"1","lettercount":"267","wordcount":"88","linecount":"20","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 16:38:58","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"201","title":"Flight","verse":null,"poem":"I have come home to stay with you again,\n   Who have been gone a long, long journeying:\nWalking with weeping alders in the rain,\n   Chasing a butterfly on gusty wing;\n\nI have climbed mountain-peaks, where shining crags\n   Beckoned with sunlight, I have dipped the face\nDeeply into the heart of purple flags\n   Lining a rock-pool in some secret place;\n\nThere were green country lanes that I went down,\n   Where wild grape tangled with the snowy plum.\nI have been gone a long while from this town,\n   Oh, long enough for you to wake and thumb\n\nFive pages through, and doze again — for me\nTo spread the cloth, light candles for our tea.","firstline":"I have come home to stay with you again,","periodical":"","image":"pic201.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"long,tangled,grape,snowy,wild,plum,while,country,secret,pool","likes":"1","lettercount":"506","wordcount":"131","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 17:04:37","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"202","title":"For All..Christmas...Forever","verse":null,"poem":"Of old a white star led the way\nTo where the little Christ Child lay.\nThe green tree is the symbol now\nOf all the star meant:   Every bough\n\nTo which the bright adornments cling\nIs weighted with remembering.\nThe children of the world all stand,\nEach holding tip an empty hand....\n\nFeeling the need of something far,\nSecret, and shining, as a star:\nSomething to reach for and to press\nAgainst this hour of loneliness.\n\nO, God of Christmas, God of love,\nWho stooped to earth from heaven above,\nBe pleased to bend above our tree\nAnd light, anew, for all to see,\n\nThe star of Faith that shall recall\nChristmas forever.....and for all.","firstline":"Of old a white star led the way","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic202.jpg","style":"","keywords":"star,christmas,above,something,god,tree,hour,loneliness,press,far","likes":"0","lettercount":"510","wordcount":"117","linecount":"18","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"203","title":"For A Young Christian","verse":null,"poem":"There is magic in the moonlight.\nThere is wonder in the why\nThat the morning gilds the hilltops\nWith the promise of the day;\n\nThere is glory in a garden\nWhen the dawn has just begun\nAnd the sunbeams all are sifted\nLike rose petals, one by one.\n\nBut there is no earthly splendor\nThat can ever quite compare\nWith a yielded young life showing\nThat the hand of God is there.","firstline":"There is magic in the moonlight.","periodical":"","image":"pic203.jpg","style":"","keywords":"ever,quite,splendor,earthly,petals,compare,yielded,hand,god,showing","likes":"1","lettercount":"297","wordcount":"72","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-11 04:09:06","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"204","title":"Forest Silence","verse":null,"poem":"Beneath the peace of forest sanctity\n    The hills lie silent as forgotten tombs,\nAsleep in calm and grave solemnity.\n    No learned lips pronouncing ancient dooms\n\nMay here intrude, nor any echo find\n    Its way along these halls where late hath fled\nThe shy soft footsteps of the forest wind.\n    Here broods the quiet of the buried dead.\n\nAnd here is holiness, remote and rare\n    As hidden wings that pass and then are still,\nIt touches trees and hovers in the air\n    Till Beauty walks upon each sleeping hill.\n\nAnd silence in so frail a mold is cast,\nI fear — I fear the wonder cannot last!","firstline":"Beneath the peace of forest sanctity","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic204.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"here,fear,forest,pass,wings,trees,hovers,hidden,touches,remote","likes":"0","lettercount":"470","wordcount":"130","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:14:28","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"205","title":"Forest Twilight","verse":null,"poem":"Do not speak to me now.\nDo not move:\nSomething stirs in the bough\nAbove,\n\nSomething creeps through the brush;\nDo not start:\nLet us stand in the hush,\nApart;\n\nLet us wait for the sound\nTo increase,\nMoving close to the ground,\nAnd cease.\n\nLet us hear, through the dark,\nLittle feet\nScratching claws on the bark,\nRetreat.\n\nDo not speak to me lest\nWe should miss\nSomething. Day was a quest\nFor this.","firstline":"Do not speak to me now.","periodical":"","image":"pic205.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"something,speak,little,dark,feet,cease,scratching,hear,bark,day","likes":"1","lettercount":"317","wordcount":"75","linecount":"20","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 15:53:31","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"206","title":"Four-Year Old","verse":null,"poem":"When she walks she does not walk\nAs the grown-ups do:\nMusic twitches at her toes,\nLaughter lifts her shoe.\n\nLifts it up and puts it down\nTwinkle-swift as rain,\nLifts it up and runs with it\nAnd puts it down again.\n\nShe is like a butterfly\nDancing in the sun,\nWhen she walks she cannot walk —\nHer feet must skip and run.","firstline":"When she walks she does not walk","periodical":"","image":"pic206.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"lifts,puts,walks,walk,dancing,butterfly,sun,cannot,run,skip","likes":"2","lettercount":"259","wordcount":"64","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 10:48:05","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"207","title":"Frames","verse":null,"poem":"That loveliness may be encompassed, man,\n   With artistry of thought, devised the frame\nTo hold a picture. But a better plan\n   My window gives me:  here the very same\n\nEnclosure frames two pictures, for I see\n   Outside today a sidewalk splashed with rain,\nA wild wet world; but who looks in at me\n   Sees warmth and comfort through the window-pane.\n\nLove is a frame, reversible like this,\n   Through it you look at me and I at you.\nIf for you falls discouragement, dismiss\n   The thought, Beloved, raise your eyes, look through\n\nThe window-frame of love — and find a place\nOf peace and shelter in my lifted face.","firstline":"That loveliness may be encompassed, man,","periodical":"","image":"pic207.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"frame,window,love,thought,comfort,pane,reversible,warmth,sees,wet","likes":"1","lettercount":"491","wordcount":"127","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-07 04:31:55","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"208","title":"Freedom","verse":null,"poem":"Today we took our hunger to the hills,\n   Our lean heart-hunger that, for Beauty's sake,\nHad borne through crowded days an hundred ills,\n   But durst no longer. “Lest our spirits break\"\n\nI said, “Beloved, let us leave it all,\n   Laugh in the sun and for one hour be\nTall as the top-most hill we climb is tall,\n   Free for a moment as the wind is free.\"\n\nA wonder met us where the trees began —\n   And I was Pippa playing with a song,\nThe shepherd David you — or was it Pan?\n   What matter? In that hour, all we long\n\nTo know we captured, all our hunger craves.\nWe shall go back to toil — but not as slaves.","firstline":"Today we took our hunger to the hills,","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic208.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"hunger,free,hour,tall,began,took,pippa,playing,trees","likes":"0","lettercount":"497","wordcount":"137","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:10:47","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"209","title":"Friendship Garden","verse":null,"poem":"She lingers alone in the twilight\nAnd fingers the roses with pride,\nFor this is her Garden of Friendship —\nShe calls it her “beauty outside.\"\n\nBut we, who have known her and loved her,\nAre sure that no rose could begin,\nFor sweetness and grace of demeanor,\nTo compare with her beauty within.\n\nThe beauty of patience and courage.\nTriumphant, whatever the test;\nThe beauty of humble submission,\nAcknowledging God's way is best.\n\nI too have a Garden of Friendship\nWhere flourish, so straight and so tall,\nThe bravest I've known among women —\nBut she overtowers than all.","firstline":"She lingers alone in the twilight","periodical":"","image":"pic209.jpg","style":"","keywords":"beauty,friendship,garden,humble,submission,acknowledging,courage,triumphant,test","likes":"0","lettercount":"483","wordcount":"100","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"210","title":"Fruition","verse":null,"poem":"Like worn old women with their bearing over\n   The fallow fields dream all day in the sun;\nNo more they stir to whispers in the clover,\n   No more they sway where ripened ripples run\n\nAlong the wheat. Though hills come down to meet them\n   Beyond the fence, with talk of trees, they seem\nTo lift no single grass blade up to greet them,\n   But lie in lazy lengths, content to dream.\n\nSo rests the heart that has known love's fruition:\n   Untouched by change, unmoved by circumstance.\nBeyond desire. Secure in the position\n   That, after all life's fever and romance,\n\nThere yet are dreams, contentment clean and sweet:\nThe harvest gathered and the task complete.","firstline":"Like worn old women with their bearing over","periodical":"","image":"pic210.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"more,beyond,dream,fruition,greet,untouched,change,circumstance,unmoved,love","likes":"1","lettercount":"527","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-12-01 02:20:52","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"211","title":"Fugitive","verse":null,"poem":"My thoughts are lone gulls flying far\n   Across a winter sea;\nA safe shore-line where snug nests are\n   Is not for me.\n\nMy thoughts are lone gulls borne along\n   Out through a troubled night,\nThe cadence of their wings a song;\n   A blur of light.\n\nI cannot call my lone thoughts back\n   To smug security;\nThe common days, the beaten track,\n   Are not for me.","firstline":"My thoughts are lone gulls flying far","periodical":"Vermonter Magazine","image":"pic211.jpg","style":"","keywords":"lone,thoughts,gulls,blur,light,song,wings,their,cannot,smug","likes":"1","lettercount":"275","wordcount":"83","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 13:18:41","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"212","title":"Garment Of Praise","verse":null,"poem":"Like to a worn-out garment, cast aside,\n   From oft my heart the heavy spirit fell,\nAs, moving through the darkness, far and -wide,\n   A rising tide of song began to swell.\n\nSong after song came crowding to be heard,\n   Till heaviness was lost is ecstasy——\nAnd all earth's faces vanished and were blurred\n   In one Face, strangely beautiful to see.\n\nFor all the songs are one song, and the face\n   Is one Face only, when the heart has known\nThe matchless Christ and His redeeming grace.\n   There cannot be another:  He alone\n\nMoves on the fringe of all our nights and days—\nAnd clothes us with the garment of His praise.","firstline":"Like to a wam-out garment, cast aside,","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic212.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"song,face,heart,songs,earth,matchless,beautiful,strangely,blurred","likes":"1","lettercount":"505","wordcount":"130","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-07 01:30:56","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"213","title":"Gates","verse":null,"poem":"I have gone through a lifetime of gates open wide\n   And gates that were hard to undo,\nBut I only remember, when night settled down.\n   The gate that I never went through.\n\nThe gates that walked into green fields I forget\n   And those that unveiled oceans blue,\nBut I always keep wondering what lay beyond\n   The gate that I never went through.\n\nPerhaps little dreams that have died would have lived\n   And maybe the false would be true,\nAnd age might be youth—if my hand had unlocked\n   The gate that I never went through.","firstline":"I have gone through a lifetime of gates open wide","periodical":"","image":"pic213.jpg","style":"","keywords":"never,gate,gates,dreams,died,lived,little,beyond,keep,wondering","likes":"0","lettercount":"416","wordcount":"112","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"214","title":"Gift For Christmas","verse":null,"poem":"What can I give to men whose empty eyes\n   Trouble my thinking at this Christmastide?\nLord make me humble, loving, strong and wise,\n   That I may give them Christ, the crucified.\n\nLet me not choose the lesser gifts of earth,\n   That pass in dust and are futility:\nLord, at this sacred season of Thy birth,\n   Lead me from giving things to giving Thee.\n\nWhat can I give to Thee, oh God, above?\n   (There is so little that our God could need)\nAnd yet, in all my dreams, Thy heart of Love\n   Is wounded still:   I see it break and bleed\n\nWith naught to staunch the flow — except I bring\n   Some ransomed soul, called home from wandering.","firstline":"What can I give to men whose empty eyes","periodical":"","image":"pic214.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"lord,giving,god,thee,thy,love,wounded,heart,need,above","likes":"2","lettercount":"498","wordcount":"140","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-19 14:13:39","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"215","title":"Give Me Some Mountains","verse":null,"poem":"Give me some mountains, for my heart is weary\n    Of field and fence, of houses in a row,\nOf gray rain falling desolate and dreary,\n   Of naked trees etched dark against the snow.\n\nGive me some mountains, far and high and splendid,\n   Some little hills to snuggle at their feet:\nWhen dawn is breaking and the long night ended\n   Give me a place where earth and heaven meet.\n\nGive me some mountains, this is all too little:\n   The level land, the neat concentric lives.\nWith pies to bake, with sticks to carve and whittle.\n   Day after day the lonely spirit strives\n\nTo fit the pattern—but these tears belie it.\nGive me some reaching-up, some strength to try it.","firstline":"Give me some mountains, for my heart is weary","periodical":"","image":"pic215.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"mountains,little,day,strength,concentric,lives,pies,bake,neat,land","likes":"1","lettercount":"528","wordcount":"137","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-09-27 09:39:29","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"216","title":"God's Afterward — And Now","verse":"\"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous....nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.\" - Hebrews 12:11","poem":"God's afterward—how sweet it is\n   To know He holds my hand,\nAnd some day, in His afterward,\n   This heart will understand!\n\nThis heart will know why tears must fall,\n   As raindrops drench the earth,\nWhy winter always must precede\n   The springtime's gladsome birth.\n\nGod's afterward will be replete\n   With joy for every pain,\nLike morning coming after night,\n   Or sunshine after rain.\n\nI thank Him for His afterward,\n   In gratitude I bow;\nBut I can wait——-1 am content\n   To know He holds me now.","firstline":"God's afterward—how sweet it is","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic216.jpg","style":"","keywords":"afterward,heart,god,after,holds,morning,coming,pain,joy","likes":"3","lettercount":"409","wordcount":"108","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-07-02 14:36:57","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"217","title":"God Comfort You","verse":"\"Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.\" - II Corinthians 1:4","poem":"God comfort you, that you may comfort those\n   Who know like sorrow when your tears are dried.\nThere is no heartbreak but the Savior knows:\n   He understands and cares. No faith is tried\n\nBeyond its measure. As the falling rain\n   Reclothes the barren bough, so may your grief\nReach out beyond the sharp, thin edge of pain\nTo find the bud, the blossom and the leaf.\n\nGod comfort you, that all your years may bring\n   Rich harvest to a sorrow-laden world.\nWithin your heart, where now the bright tears cling;\n   The seed of something wonderful lies curled:\n\nCompassion's flower for the ones who may\nWalk, in the future, where you walk today.","firstline":"God comfort you, that you may comfort those","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic217.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"comfort,walk,god,tears,beyond,sorrow,laden,world,heart,harvest","likes":"1","lettercount":"511","wordcount":"127","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-04-15 06:59:55","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"218","title":"God Gave His Son","verse":null,"poem":"God gave His Son — and we must give Him too.\n   Though carols sound from every crowded store,\nThough chimes ring out along the avenue\n   And every heart seems lighter, there is more:\n\nThis is not Christmas that we hear and feel,\n   This sudden glow that comes to everyone:\nThe season can be only vital, real,\n   Because God loved — and gave His only Son.\n\nGod loved, and we must love the troubled throng:\n   Look deep within their hearts and see their need\nOf something more than atmosphere, than song;\n   Of something larger, even, than a creed.\n\nThis is the task that Christians have to do.\nGod gave His Son — and we must give Him too.","firstline":"God gave His Son — and we must give Him too.","periodical":"Moody Monthly Magazine","image":"pic218.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"god,son,their,something,loved,more,within,deep,love","likes":"4","lettercount":"518","wordcount":"135","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-09-09 20:09:02","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"219","title":"God's Gifts","verse":null,"poem":"God gave us ears, because there would be music:\nGreat symphonies of wind and sea, and small\nBright bird notes falling, instruments and voices;\nHe gave us ears that we might hear them all.\n\nGod gave us eyes, because there would be beauty:\nBrown summer fields, all green and tender springs,\nFall's pageantry and winter's long white silence;\nHe gave us eyes to look upon these things.\n\nGod gave us hands, because there would be labor:\nSmall simple tasks, and great ambitious schemes\nWrought out in steel, or marble, or on canvas;\nHe gave us hands with which to shape our dreams.\n\nGod gave us hearts, because there would be longing\nTo share with those around and Him above,\nThe beauty and the music and the labor.\nHe gave us hearts—because there would be love.","firstline":"God gave us ears, because there would be music:","periodical":"War Cry Magazine","image":"pic219.jpg","style":"","keywords":"because,god,beauty,small,eyes,hearts,labor,hands,ears,music","likes":"0","lettercount":"625","wordcount":"135","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"220","title":"God Keeps A Pear Tree","verse":null,"poem":"All through the long, dark, dreary days, the same\n   Monotonous drab landscape met my view\nBeyond the window pane, until there came\n   A pear tree suddenly. And then I knew\n\nHow winter-long it was for this, for this,\n   The window waited, confident and sure,\nTo frame this glory, to receive this kiss\n   Of petals drifting, delicate and pure.\n\nGod keeps a pear tree for earth's darkest hour,\n   Somewhere, somewhere beyond the time of loss,\nIts white fulfillment fragilely in flower.\n   God keeps a pear tree just to lift and toss\n\nIts ghostly branches, just to stand and bless\nWith peace and comfort all the comfortless.","firstline":"All through the long, dark, dreary days, the same","periodical":"Oregonian","image":"pic220.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"tree,pear,window,its,beyond,somewhere,long,keeps,god,white","likes":"2","lettercount":"496","wordcount":"123","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-03-04 13:09:12","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"221","title":"God Is Calling You","verse":null,"poem":"1. From life's conflict and confusion,\n   God is calling you:\n   Earthly dreams are but delusion,\n   God is calling you;\n\n   Through the world of His designing,\n   By the stars forever shining,\n   In the dark cloud's silver lining,\n   God is calling you.\n\nCHORUS:\n\n   God is calling, God is calling.\n   Through the darkness of the night —\n   Hear His gently accents falling;\n   “Come to Christ, who is the Light.\"\n   By His love, that knows no measure,\n   To a life completely new,\n\n   To an Everlasting Treasure —\n   God is calling, calling you.\n   From your sinning and your sorrow,\n   God is calling you;\n   To a beautiful tomorrow,\n   God is calling you.\n\n2. Out of trials that surround you,\n   From the problems that confound you,\n   By His wonders all around you,\n   God is calling you.\n   To the glory of redemption\n   God is calling you:\n\n   On your life He has preemption,\n   God is calling you.\n   Every thing in His creation\n   Now awaits that consummation —\n   To the beauty of Salvation,\n   God is calling you.","firstline":"1. From life's conflict and confusion,","periodical":"","image":"pic221.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"calling,god,life,sorrow,beautiful,sining,trials,tomorrow,everlasting","likes":"1","lettercount":"784","wordcount":"257","linecount":"33","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-17 08:31:43","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"222","title":"God's Gate of Love","verse":null,"poem":"1. God comes to those who need Him most,\n   He fills the heart that trusts His grace\n   For all the lonely, and the lost,\n   At Calvary God made a place.\n\nCHORUS:\n   At Calvary, where Jesus died,\n   God's gate of love stands open wide;\n   Now all, who trust, from sin are free —\n   God dries all tears at Calvary.\n\n2. When shadows fall God waits to bless,\n   When storms arise He says, “Be still!\"\n   Weep not for all life's emptiness:\n   The cluttered heart He cannot fill.\n\n3. When clouds engulf and skies are gray,\n   God holds the sunshine in His hands:\n   Christ is the Light, the Truth, the Way,\n   Oh come to Him — He understands.","firstline":"1. God comes to those who need Him most,","periodical":"","image":"pic222.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"god,calvary,heart,cluttered,emptiness,life,cannot,storms,waits","likes":"1","lettercount":"499","wordcount":"154","linecount":"17","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 11:07:20","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"223","title":"God Loves You","verse":null,"poem":"When you think that all is lost,\n   God loves you:\nHe has proved it at such costs,\n   God loves you.\n\nJesus left His home on high,\n   Came to earth that He might die —\nHe will never pass you by:\n   God loves you, God loves you!\n\nFor your sake the Savior died,\n   God loves you;\nHeaven's gate is open wide,\n   God loves you.\n\nBy His grace all things are new,\n   There is nothing left to do —\nChrist has done it all for you:\n   God loves you, God loves you!\n\nThough your soul be stained with sin,\n   God loves you;\nJesus died your soul to win,\n   God loves you,\n\nCome to Him, oh do not wait,\n   Lest tomorrow be too late —\nSinner, do not hesitate:\n   God loves you, God loves you.","firstline":"When you think that all is lost,","periodical":"","image":"pic223.jpg","style":"","keywords":"loves,god,left,soul,jesus,died,lost,stained,sin","likes":"1","lettercount":"524","wordcount":"168","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 10:08:02","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"224","title":"God's Love","verse":null,"poem":"1. However dark the night may be,\n   There is a Light from Calvary.\n   A Light that shines around, above,\n   The Light of God's eternal love.\n\nCHORUS:\n   The love of God is like a star,\n   It shines on you just where you are;\n   The darkest night cannot erase\n   The love of God, nor change His grace.\n\n2. When earthly loves have ceased to be,\n   When time becomes eternity.\n   More fresh and pure than morning dew,\n   The love of God will still be new.\n\n3. Though lost in sin, though clothed with shame,\n   It was for you the Savior came:\n   However far your feet may roam,\n   The love of God still calls you home.\n\n4. Can you ignore, can you neglect,\n   Can you deny, can you reject,\n   The Light that shines from one dark Hill,\n   The Light that says, God loves you still?","firstline":"1. However dark the night may be,","periodical":"","image":"pic224.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"god,love,light,shines,night,dark,loves,however,clothed,shame","likes":"2","lettercount":"583","wordcount":"189","linecount":"21","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-18 22:27:32","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"225","title":"God's Treasure","verse":null,"poem":"1. God has a treasure, boundless in measure,\n   He wants to give it away:\n   Christ has revealed it, God's Spirit sealed it\n   Won't you accept it today?\n\nCHORUS:\n   Won't you take the Treasure,\n   Won't you make it yours?\n   Christ the Lord is waiting,\n   Gently He implores;\n\n2. Angels up in heaven\n   Look with longing too ——\n   When they start rejoicing,\n   Let it be for you!\n\n3. Jesus, by dying, ended our trying,\n   Now we are saved by His grace:\n   All who believe it, gladly receive it,\n   One day may look on His face.\n\n4. All through the ages one theme engages\n   Saints in the glory above:\n   Anthems are swelling, constantly telling\n   Only of Christ and His love.","firstline":"1. God has a treasure, boundless in measure,","periodical":"","image":"pic225.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"won,christ,treasure,god,day,gladly,receive,believe,saved","likes":"0","lettercount":"521","wordcount":"165","linecount":"21","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"226","title":"God With Us","verse":null,"poem":"In the carpenter shop of Joseph\nThere was more than the bright tools made;\nSometimes a Song in the silence,\nOr a Light where the young Lad played.\n\nIn the home of Mary and Martha\nThere was more than the guest who came:\nSometimes a Voice in the darkness,\nOr out of the shadow, Flame.\n\nIn the judgment hall of Pilate\nThere was more than a man forsooth:\nThere was a Peace and a Presence——\nAnd the Answer to “What is truth?\"","firstline":"In the carpenter shop of Joseph","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic226.jpg","style":"","keywords":"more,sometimes,judgement,hall,flame,voice,pilate,shadow,darkness","likes":"1","lettercount":"356","wordcount":"82","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-07-02 14:36:56","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"227","title":"God Understands","verse":null,"poem":"God sees the way\n   My feet must roam,\nHe knows the day\n   I shall go home.\n\nWhen shadows fall\n   I'll trust His grace:\nGod knows it all —-\n   One day I'll see His face.\n\nGod understands\n   What is to be,\nWithin His hands\n   He holds the key.\n\nWhen life shall end\n   I'll trust His grace:\nGod is my friend —\n   One day I'll see His face.\n\nGod never fails:\n   When day grows dark\nHe'll set the sails,\n   He'll guide the bark.\n\nWhen I explore\n   The whole of grace —\nI'll ask no more\n   Than just to see His face.","firstline":"God sees the way","periodical":"","image":"pic227.jpg","style":"","keywords":"god,day,grace,face,trust,knows,more,dark,grows","likes":"1","lettercount":"390","wordcount":"135","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-03-03 08:27:48","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"228","title":"Go Ye Into All The World","verse":"\"And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.\" - John 21:6","poem":"How many millions alien to grace,\n   Will pass into a lost eternity,\nThe while we fish in the accustomed place!\n   Launch out, launch out into the farther sea!\n\nThe oft repeated message scarcely wakes\n   The lazy listeners, who dose and nod\nWhile countless numbers perish — for whose sakes\n   The Saviour died. Give them the Word of God!\n\n“For God so loved the world.\" Not just the few\n   Who by good fortune have the chance to hear\nIn quiet church and comfortable pew\n   The story, week by week, and year by year.\n\nChrist's great commission is the simple call,\n“Go Ye.\" The Gospel is for all, for all.","firstline":"How many millions alien to grace,","periodical":"King's Business","image":"pic228.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"year,week,launch,god,while,sakes,few,good,fortune,world","likes":"1","lettercount":"492","wordcount":"126","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-08-01 19:49:19","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"229","title":"Go Youth, Get Wisdom","verse":null,"poem":"Speed, winged hours, and hasten that far day\n   When wrinkled Time shall burden us with age:\nWe flinch not—youth is sweet, but all its way\n   Is but the preface to that greater page\n\nWhere soon, (how soon!) to us shall be revealed\n   The mysteries of Life. We may not guess\nWhat truths, what golden wisdoms lie concealed\n   Behind the years that fringe youth's happiness.\n\nSpeed, winged hours, and if the future bring\n   Too much of pain, too little of the old\nWild joy that first we knew, remembering\n   Is comfort often when the best is told;\n\nAnd wisdom shall be ours; and we shall trade\nReality for dreams that cannot fade.","firstline":"Speed, winged hours, and hasten that far day","periodical":"New York Herald","image":"pic229.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"youth,speed,soon,winged,hours,old,little,wild,joy,bring","likes":"3","lettercount":"502","wordcount":"129","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-10 16:32:13","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"230","title":"Grandmothers, Teach Them The Word","verse":"\"When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother, Lois...\" — II Timothy 1:5","poem":"Timothy, Timothy, when you were three\nDid Grandmother Lois take you on her knee?\n\nDid Grandmother Lois look into your face,\nAnd was she the first one to speak of His grace?\n\nAnd was she the first one to tell why He came,\nThe first one to teach you to lisp out His name?\n\nThe first one to teach you that those who receive\nMist carry the Gospel, that all may believe?\n\nGrandmothers, Grandmothers, teach them the Word,\nThat today's little Timothy's might know the Lord!","firstline":"Timothy, Timothy, when you were three","periodical":"","image":"pic230.jpg","style":"","keywords":"teach,timothy,grandmothers,lois,grandmother,gospel,believe,today,lord,timothys","likes":"1","lettercount":"376","wordcount":"86","linecount":"10","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 16:32:56","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"231","title":"Gratitude","verse":null,"poem":"For poplars lifted to the sun\n   And silver-flanked,\nFor slow buds bursting one by one,\n   For joy unleashed and dreams begun.\n\nNow God be thanked.\n\nFor moonlight drifting from the place\n   Of clouds high-banked,\nTo show a chaste and lovely face;\n   For morning dew and cobweb lace,\n\nNow God be thanked.\n\nWhen I am short on gratitude,\n   And hard to please\nWith common comforts, daily food,\n   Lord, send white daybreak through the wood\n\nI'm on my knees.\n\n\nFor poplars, lifted to the sun\nAnd silver-flanked,\nFor slow buds bursting one by one,\nFor joy unleashed and dreams begun,\n\nNow God be thanked.\n\nFor moonlight, drifting from the place\nOf clouds high-banked,\nTo show a chaste and lovely face;\nFor morning dew and cobweb lace,\n\nNow God be thanked.\n\nWhen I am short on gratitude,\nAnd hard to please\nWith common comforts, daily food,\nLord send -white daybreak through a wood\n   \nI'm on my knees.","firstline":"For poplars lifted to the sun","periodical":"","image":"pic231.jpg","style":"","keywords":"god,thanked,short,gratitude,lace,cobweb,face,morning,dew,hard","likes":"1","lettercount":"709","wordcount":"177","linecount":"32","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 17:27:19","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"232","title":"Gray Lady (The Red Cross worker)","verse":null,"poem":"She does not sing of beauty now:  her days\nHave grown too full of countless ministries.\nAn alien, down dear remembered ways,\nShe walks as one who neither hears nor sees\nThe meadow-lark, the clean slant of the sail,\nThe vagrant petal drifting with the wind;\n\nNo longer lured by every winding trail.\nShe does not sing of beauty:   But  her touch\nIs full of all the beauty she has known,\nLight winds, cool raindrops; the fevered clutch\nFeebly at her to make her peace their own.\nAnd some there are who miss her songs; but some\nWho know she need not sing.......She has become.","firstline":"She does not sing of beauty now:  her days","periodical":"","image":"pic232.jpg","style":"","keywords":"beauty,sing,full,winds,cool,raindrops,light,winding,lured,fevered","likes":"0","lettercount":"463","wordcount":"109","linecount":"13","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"233","title":"Great Mind In The Crowd","verse":null,"poem":"The silent isolation of great peaks\n   Was suddenly upon us when you came\nStrolling into our common days and weeks.\n   We could have coped with brilliance, but our shame\n\nWas naked at your silence. You could say\n   More words than we had thought of, but you stood\nRemote and let our small minds have their way,\n   And smiled, no doubt, to see we thought they could.\n\nYou were as near as voices and a touch,\n   As close as firelight; yet you were as far\nAs some great ice-berg in the frozen clutch\n   Of that long night beneath the polar star.\n\nFlesh of our flesh, of bone and brawn our kind,\nBut alien forever in the mind.","firstline":"The silent isolation of great peaks","periodical":"","image":"pic233.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"thought,great,flesh,berg,frozen,clutch,ice,far,voices,touch","likes":"0","lettercount":"482","wordcount":"115","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"234","title":"Greatness","verse":null,"poem":"There is a greatness that is not achieved.....\n   A thing apart from any glorious deed.......\nIt is the greatness of brave hearts that bleed,\n   Yet wear a smile for human wrongs received;\n\nThe greatness of old trees that long have grieved\n   O'er too-forgetful leaves their roots must feed,\nYet make no murmur to the gossip weed\n   But cast their shade that man may be relieved.\n\nThe greatness of endeavor comes or goes\n   By conscious effort. Here is something more:\nA quiet greatness that just grows and grows,\n   Root, stalk and branch, out of the very core\n\nOf life. And he who wears it never knows\nHe has the thing most men are searching for.","firstline":"There is a greatness that is not achieved.....","periodical":"","image":"pic234.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"greatness,their,long,grows,conscious,effort,here,most,men,goes","likes":"0","lettercount":"518","wordcount":"133","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"235","title":"Great Thoughts You Weary Me","verse":null,"poem":"Great thoughts you weary me,\nDignified and stem,\nComing in your robes of state,\nUrging me to learn.\n\nSerious and scholarly,\nGray heads in a row;\nGreat thoughts you weary me.\nYou weary me so!\n\nI have need of little thoughts,\nIntimate and kind:\nFootsteps of departing leaves,\nLaughter of the wind,\n\nShy white fingers of the rain\nCreeping through my hair,\nAnd the breath of waking buds\nAnd blossoms in the air.\n\nI have been so long from these,\nA prisoner with books.\nAlmost I do forget the stars\nAnd how a robin looks!\n\nGreat thoughts I cannot stay;\nThere is that in me\nWhich thirsts to taste the sea-fog's lips,\nWhich hungers for a tree!\n\nI am tired of being wise;\nLet me rise and go\nTo those who little knowledge have\nAnd little need to know.","firstline":"Great thoughts you weary me,","periodical":"","image":"pic235.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"thoughts,great,weary,little,need,forget,almost,stars,robin,looks","likes":"1","lettercount":"597","wordcount":"139","linecount":"28","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 16:21:01","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"236","title":"Grief Came To Me Smiling","verse":null,"poem":"Grief came to be weeping,\n   I pitied and yet\nThe moment she passed me\n   My heart could forget.\n\nGrief came to me smiling,\n   So careless and wise,\nBut fathoms deep lingered\n   The pain in her eyes.\n\nAnd always it haunts me,\n   Forever I see\nThe make of a smile where\n   A sorrow should be.","firstline":"Grief came to be weeping,","periodical":"Sun Magazine","image":"pic236.jpg","style":"","keywords":"came,grief,eyes,pain,lingered,always,haunts,sorrow,smile,forever","likes":"1","lettercount":"218","wordcount":"72","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-23 12:56:18","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"237","title":"Grow Old Along With Me","verse":null,"poem":"Feeling a little old, dear?\n    Really you shouldn't mind:\nEven though years are tough, dear,\n    “Uncle\" is always kind:\n\nJust stick around a while, dear,\n    Manage to stay alive —\nThere will be double exemption\n   When you are sixty-five.\n\nFeeling a little older,\n    Darling, but I don't care:\nWhat though the road is rough, dear?\n    “Uncle\" is always fair:\n\nWe have his solemn promise,\n    (Why should our hearts be blue?)\n“You can make all you want, kids,\n   After you're seventy-two.\"\n\nChorus:\n\nWhy should we cry about it?\n    Surely it could be worse:\nChange in the years before us\n    Means change in our empty purse.\n\nLinger a little longer,\n    Then it will all come true —\nWhen you are five and sixty\n   And I am seventy-two.","firstline":"Feeling a little old, dear?","periodical":"Recorded - Vanity Records","image":"pic237.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"dear,little,seventy,always,five,sixty,two,uncle,change,years","likes":"2","lettercount":"593","wordcount":"170","linecount":"25","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-18 22:27:33","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"238","title":"Gumdrops","verse":null,"poem":"The hopeful-hearted little Miss\n    Withdrew one from the sack,\nAnd though she longed for licorice,\n    She did not put it back.\n\nThe hated green thing in her hand,\n    She turned from north to south,\nBut after every side was scanned,\n    She plopped it in her mouth.\n\nToo young to set the world on fire\n    With singing or with sums,\nShe yet had learned to curb desire\n    And take life as it comes.","firstline":"The hopeful-hearted little Miss","periodical":"","image":"pic238.jpg","style":"","keywords":"young,set,mouth,plopped,side,scanned,world,fire,desire,life","likes":"0","lettercount":"303","wordcount":"96","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"239","title":"Have Faith In God","verse":null,"poem":"\n“Immovable as mountains,\" men will say —\n   And yet our God says, “Faith the size of one\nSnail mustard seed\" will be enough to sway\n   A mountain, if we say to it, “Begone.\"\n\nNo one but God could issue such commands:\n   He, only, holds the key to certainty;\nAnd yet, he places it within our hands\n   With just these simple words, “Believe in Me.\"\n\nBlot out the stars, erase the oceans, thrust\n   The universe aside — one thing endures:\nThe Word of God. In that the heart can trust.\n   Have faith in God. His blessed Book assures\n\nThe faithful that to ask is to receive;\nNot one is turned away who will believe.","firstline":"","periodical":"Time of Singing Magazine","image":"pic239.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"god,faith,believe,thrust,universe,aside,oceans,blot,words","likes":"0","lettercount":"513","wordcount":"132","linecount":"15","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"240","title":"Hay-Cock House","verse":null,"poem":"1. Do you remember the hay-cock house\n   We built on the Hannibal Farm,\n   When you were eight and I was six?\n   You fell and broke your arm\n\n   Jumping off from its “chimney-top\".\n   We lived there for a week,\n   With cows for friends, and dust for food,\n   And your cheek on my cheek.\n\nCHORUS:\n    Oh, the hay-cock house,\n    The hay-cock house,\n    Down by the barbed-wire fence \n    We shook straw out of our ears for days....\n    We hadn't a bit of sense!\n\n2. Do you remember the hay-cock house\n   We built on the edge of the mart,\n   Called life, when you and I were grown?\n   I fell and broke my heart.\n\n   Jumping off from its tall desire.\n   We lived there years and years,\n   With work to do and joy to share,\n   And your tears, and my tears.\n\nCHORUS:\n   Oh, the hay-cock house.\n   The hay-cock house!\n   Love counts no consequence:\n   We shake dreams out of our old hearts still\n   We haven't a bit of sense!","firstline":"1. Do you rananber the hay-cock house","periodical":"","image":"pic240.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"cock,house,hay,tears,its,off,cheek,bit,sense,jumping","likes":"2","lettercount":"681","wordcount":"240","linecount":"28","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-01-18 08:25:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"241","title":"He Holds My Hand","verse":null,"poem":"He took my hand, when I was lost in sinning.\n   He took my hand within His nail-pierced own;\nEach day with Christ is now a fresh beginning,\n   He holds my hand — I walk no more alone.\n\nChorus:\n   He holds my hand, the Savior holds my hand,\n   He holds my life and all the dreams I planned;\n   I walk beside Him to a fairer land,\n   Since Christ, the blessed Savior, holds my hand.\n\nHe holds my hand when I am burdened, weary,\n   He holds my hand and gives me peace and rest;\nNo day with Him is desolate or dreary:\n   He holds my hand; I know His way is best.\n\nHe holds my hand when I am deep in sorrow,\n   He holds my hand and wipes my tears away;\nI trust His grace for every dark tomorrow —\n   I know that He will lead me all the way.","firstline":"He took my hand, when I was lost in sinning.","periodical":"","image":"pic241.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"hand,holds,christ,walk,savior,took,day,desolate,dreary","likes":"4","lettercount":"567","wordcount":"178","linecount":"17","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-27 01:10:25","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"242","title":"He Just Said","verse":null,"poem":"He did not take of this or that\n   To make the earth and sea,\nThe constellations of the stars ......\n   He just said, “Let there be.\"\n\nHe did not summon rod and lash\n   To execute His will:\nWhen tempests tossed a tiny ship,\n   He just said, “Peace, be still.\"\n\nWhen those who should have known Him best\n   Released a startled cry,\nHe did not turn to miracles,\n   He just said, “It is I.\"\n\nHis “It is I,\" and “Let there be,\"\n   Have never passed away.\nTo know He is, to know He can,\n   Are all we need today.","firstline":"He did not take of this or that","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic242.jpg","style":"","keywords":"said,cry,turn,startled,best,released,miracles,never,today,need","likes":"0","lettercount":"413","wordcount":"122","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:16:10","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"243","title":"Highway to God","verse":null,"poem":"The highways of the world are straight and broad,\n   But crowded with confusion and with strife.\nChoose wisely, soul:   The  highway to our God\n   Leads past the wellspring of eternal life.\n\nThe signposts of the world may lead astray,\n   The profits that they premise prove but loss;\nBut he who finds the Life, the Truth, the Way,\n   Need only heed the signpost of the Cross.\n\nThe highways of the world are all ablaze\n   With neon lights. God's highway has but one:\nSufficient light for all earth's nights and days\n   The heart can find in God's beloved Son.\n\nAnd by that Light, down little lanes of love,\n   The heart can move to heal the world's distress;\nUntil at last, in God's great home above,\n   We dwell with Him, who is our righteousness.","firstline":"The highways of the world are straight and broad,","periodical":"World Outlook Magazine","image":"pic243.jpg","style":"","keywords":"god,world,highway,heart,life,light,highways,ablaze,beloved,son","likes":"5","lettercount":"587","wordcount":"158","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 11:16:29","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"244","title":"How Nice!","verse":null,"poem":"Now Jesus had a mother\n   When He was very wee —\nA mother who was human —\n   So that makes Him like me!\n\nNo matter what she looked like —\n   Tall, short, or plump, or slim —\nI know that Jesus loved her,\n   So that makes me like Him!\n\nHow nice to be like Jesus\n   Along this pilgrim way;\nHow nice to love our mothers,\n   And tell them so today!","firstline":"Now Jesus had a mother","periodical":"","image":"pic244.jpg","style":"","keywords":"jesus,nice,mother,along,pilgrim,mothers,today,loved,love","likes":"3","lettercount":"278","wordcount":"88","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 10:48:05","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"245","title":"Harvest","verse":"\"The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.\" — Mathew 9:37","poem":"The mellow light now lingers on the land:\n    It is the twilight time. The golden grain\nLies stacked and ready; and the com shocks stand\n    Like sentinels against the coming rain;\n\nOn withered vines the pumpkins loose their hold:\n    A shiver in the com stalks seems to tell\nThat winter's hands now reach for sunnier's gold.\n    This is the earth's bright yield. Oh, guard it well.\n\nIt is the twilight time in other fields.\n    Now ripe unto the hardest. Send the Word:\nFor winter comes; and night. The present yields\n    Eternal increase — these must know the Lord.\n\nLook to the lost. Let naught obscure your view:\nThe fields are white — the laborers are few.","firstline":"The mellow light now lingers on the land:","periodical":"World Outlook Magazine","image":"pic245.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"winter,fields,time,twilight,com,word,unto,send,hardest","likes":"2","lettercount":"532","wordcount":"140","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 17:10:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"246","title":"Harvest Evening","verse":null,"poem":"Against the bam he piles the pumpkins high.\n   So fraught with labor,\nHe leaves the golden pumpkin in the sky\n   Unto his neighbor.\n\nBeside the sink she stands, and sifts and stirs.\n   So busy baking —\nWhen all the sugar-cookie stars are hers\n   For just the taking.\n\nThe night goes by in glory. Lost in cares,\n   They miss its beauty.\nThe harvest of indifference is theirs;\n   And dust and duty.","firstline":"Against the bam he piles the pumpkins high.","periodical":"","image":"pic246.jpg","style":"","keywords":"night,goes,glory,taking,stars,sugar,cooky,lost,cares","likes":"1","lettercount":"312","wordcount":"88","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-07-22 09:26:15","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"247","title":"Heart, Build A Fire","verse":null,"poem":"Heart, build a fire against the night.\n   Against the time of chill,\nWhen winter woods stand stark and white,\n   When earth is cold and still.\n\nHeart, build a fire and feed it'well,\n   Far, sooner than it seems,\nAge leaves us with a hollow shell\n   Of empty, broken, dreams.\n\nHeart, build a fire of love and faith\n   Against the time of storm:\nWhen all things vanish, just the wraith\n   Of these will keep us warm.","firstline":"Heart, build a fire against the night.","periodical":"","image":"pic247.jpg","style":"","keywords":"against,fire,build,heart,time,broken,dreams,empty,hollow,shell","likes":"0","lettercount":"321","wordcount":"92","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"248","title":"Have Faith in God","verse":null,"poem":"“Immovable as mountains,\" men will say —\n   And yet our God says, “Faith the size of one\nSnail mustard seed: will be enough to sway\n   A mountain, if we say to it, “Begone.\"\n\nNo one but God could issue such commands:\n   He, only, holds the key to certainty;\nAnd yet, he places it within our hands\n   With just these simple words, “Believe in Me.\"\n\nBlot out the stars, erase the oceans, thrust\n   The universe aside — one thing endures:\nThe Word of God. In that the heart can trust.\n   Have faith in God. His blessed Book assures\n\nThe faithful that to ask is to receive;\nNot one is turned away who will believe.","firstline":"“Immovable as mountains,\" men will say —","periodical":"Time of Singing Magazine","image":"pic248.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"god,faith,believe,thrust,universe,aside,oceans,blot,words","likes":"0","lettercount":"513","wordcount":"131","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"249","title":"He's Coming Again","verse":null,"poem":"The Lord is soon coming, with shout from on high —\nThose who believe will never die!\nAccept Him as Saviour and join Him above,\nThe King of the Kingdom of Love.\n\nREFRAIN:\n\nHe's coming again, in the clouds of the air,\nFor those who have faith to receive Him:\nHe told of a day when we' 11 meet Him up there —\nOh wonderful day! I believe Him!\n\nAnd deep in my heart there is planted a song,\nThat echoes all day, though the way may be long:\n“He's coming again. He's caning again,\nHe's coming again, my Lord Jesus!\"\n\nThe trumpet shall sound and the dead shall arise —\nThey who believed, they who were wise! —\nThen we who remain will be caught up with than.,\nTo meet with Lord of the skies.\n\nThe Great Tribulation today may begin:\nKingdoms will fall, life will be grim;\nOh why will you linger? Repent of your sin\nAnd spend your forever with Him!\n\nThough shadows may lengthen and midnight descend,\nDo not lose faith, life will not end:\nMake ready to meet Him — the Groom will soon come\nTo take His beloved Bride home!","firstline":"The Lord is soon coming, with shout from on high —","periodical":"","image":"pic249.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"coming,meet,day,lord,life,soon,faith,believe,those","likes":"0","lettercount":"843","wordcount":"196","linecount":"25","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"250","title":"He Passes","verse":null,"poem":"He passes. Let the voice of song be hushed\n   A little time. Within the saddened heart\nLet only dreams of music that he brushed\n   From strings, now silent, wake again and start;\n\nBring to this place no verbal offering\n   Of melody. The master plays no more:\nLay down the bow, Life is a broken string —\n   And silence fitting tribute at Death's door.\n\nHe passes. For a time be still.......And then\n   From hands that learned of him to wield the bow,\nLet there be song, and in the lives of men\n   Let there be strength that his life taught to grow;\n\nLet us go forward from the place of tears\nTo carry beauty down the troubled years.\n\n(In loving memory of Christiaan Timmner, Master Musician)","firstline":"He passes. Let the voice of song be hushed","periodical":"","image":"pic250.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"passes,bow,master,place,time,life,song,lives,men,strength","likes":"1","lettercount":"550","wordcount":"143","linecount":"15","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-11-04 00:47:17","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"251","title":"He Who Creates","verse":null,"poem":"Within his heart there is a lonely place\n   Where even love dare not intrude: like some\nPale star that floats upon the rim of space,\n   Remote and unapproachable. There come\n\nTo this still place no tender word, no touch,\n   No shared rememberings, no dream discussed.\nThough two may love and long, however much,\n   One enters here alone — because he must.\n\nBeside the deep and limpid pool of thought\n   One stoops, alone, and kneels; and takes away\nThe word, the song, the truth that must be taught\n   The burning beauty for the common day.\n\nNone other goes with him, nor great, nor small.\nBut what he brings away he brings for all.","firstline":"Within his heart there is a lonely place","periodical":"","image":"pic251.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"word,away,love,place,brings,alone,kneels,stoops,takes,thought","likes":"1","lettercount":"506","wordcount":"130","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-15 11:17:22","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"252","title":"Hiding Place","verse":null,"poem":"The quick tears fell, close pressed the laurel boughs.\n   Cool was the earth unto a child's hot face:\nWith small hands clenched I sobbed, “Oh little house\n   Shut in by leaves, you are my hiding place.\"\n\nThere often, fresh from punishment, I came\n   And flung myself, face down, upon the fern,\nBuried the eyes to hide my weepings' shame,\n   Learning the first hard truths a child must learn.\n\nOh Heart, where can we run for hiding now\n   From prying eyes, where sob the lone grief out?\nNo little leaf leans low, no laurel bough\n   Stoops down to screen. These city walls are stout,\n\nBut oh, they cannot shut man's secret ills\nAway from pity's gaze - that takes the hills.","firstline":"The quick tears fell, close pressed the laurel boughs.","periodical":"","image":"pic252.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"face,little,shut,hiding,child,eyes,laurel,leaf,lone,grief","likes":"0","lettercount":"536","wordcount":"138","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 15:01:13","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"253","title":"Hills Have No Envy","verse":null,"poem":"Hills have no envy, not the shadowed peace\n   Of quiet valleys, nor the blue expanse\nOf sunlit waters woos them, no wild geese\n   Winging the trackless heavens for romance.\n\nHills have been set too long 'twixt earth and sky\n   To know desire; their years of gamering\nHave yielded satisfaction: for the tie\n   That binds contentment in remembering.\n\nHills have no envy. Though the brunt of storms\n   Age-long they bear, this high thought lifts them up,\nRuns like a fire through all their being, warms\n   Their confidence and makes a brimming cup\n\nOf barren years:   since first the dawn of Time\nHills have been man's encouragement to climb.","firstline":"Hills have no envy, not the shadowed peace","periodical":"New York American Magazine","image":"pic253.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"hills,their,long,envy,years,bear,thought,high,age,brunt","likes":"0","lettercount":"510","wordcount":"127","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:06:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"254","title":"His Face","verse":"\"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.\" - II Corinthians 4:6","poem":"When once, upon life's pathway,\n   The face of Christ appears,\nHow little all our laughter,\n   How transient all our tears!\n\nThe things we thought important\n   Are only fragments blown\nTo vanish in the distance.\n   When once the Lord is known.\n\nHow tawdry is earth's tinsel!\n   When Jesus takes His place,\nThe end of all seeking\n   Is written in one Face.","firstline":"When once, upon life's pathway,","periodical":"Sunday School Times","image":"pic254.jpg","style":"","keywords":"face,earth,tinsel,tawdry,jesus,lord,distance,takes,written,seeking","likes":"2","lettercount":"276","wordcount":"78","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-04-08 20:41:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"255","title":"How Much More God","verse":null,"poem":"Man spends his strength on granite and on steel.\nHe builds his structures reaching for the sky.\nAbove their puny pretense, quite alone,\nThe timeless mountains stand aloof and high.\n\nMan writes his name in symphony and song,\nAlong the path where weary mortals plod\nHe seeks articulation. There remains\nMore music in the silences of God.\n\nMan flings his feeble flutters into space\nAnd prides himself on progress and on change.\nThe silent stars, eternities away,\nMaintain their secret orbs remote and strange.\n\nMan breaks the alabaster of his heart.\nBut all the precious ointment, sacrificed\nTo voice his human love, is lost beside\nGod's love, unspeakable, in Jesus Christ. ","firstline":"Man spends his strength on granite and on steel.","periodical":"Christianity Today Magazine","image":"pic255.jpg","style":"","keywords":"man,love,their,god,change,silent,stars,away,maintain,eternities","likes":"3","lettercount":"557","wordcount":"112","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2021-11-15 13:21:37","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"256","title":"How Shall I Say It?","verse":null,"poem":"How shall I say I love him — this proud man\n   Who compasses my moments and my days?\nIf I could sing as only poets can.\n    Then might I strike some lofty note of praise\n\nTo voice the wonder, Yet, within my heart\n    Sometimes I hear a whisper, sweet and small,\n“He chose you on that day that saw love start,\n    Because you were a woman first of all\".\n\nSo I will say it in a woman's way:\n    Bright jonquils on the table, lemon pie,\nHis slippers by the fire. These shall say\n    “I love you, love you, love you.\" I could die\n\nWith joy to show him, but instead I live\nTo be his woman — and to give and give.","firstline":"How shall I say I love him — this proud man","periodical":"Radio Club Magazine","image":"pic256.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"love,woman,bright,table,jonquils,start,chose,day,lemon","likes":"1","lettercount":"484","wordcount":"145","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 10:24:05","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"257","title":"Hospital Memories","verse":null,"poem":"I have remembered nights of winter rain.\n    Gray dawns of mist-smoke rising from a hill,\nAnd through these latter days of weary pain\n   These that I loved have fortified my will;\n\nBeauty of hawthorn, dewy-sweet at morn,\n    Touch of the sea-wind, stinging sharp and kind,\nGlint of the sunrise on a field of corn —\n    Because of these I still may keep my mind.\n\nI can look out on days that follow days\n    Gray-garbed and lonely down that corridor,\nAnd face the new with neither blame nor praise,\n    Because within the vast, unmeasured store\n\nOf memory' s wealth my soul can find again\nMist of the dawn and fragrance of the rain. ","firstline":"I have remembered nights of winter rain.","periodical":"Radio P.C. Magazine","image":"pic257.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"days,these,mist,gray,because,rain,new,face,corridor,garbed","likes":"2","lettercount":"500","wordcount":"136","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-11-22 13:38:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"258","title":"Hungry Hawk","verse":null,"poem":"In circled flight he mounts up to the sky\n    And rests, as one who waits upon a stair;\nThen suddenly, and swifter than the eye.\n    Comes sliding down the banister of air.\n\nNo pleasure cruise is his, no idle whim\n    To stretch the wings and lightly float away;\nThis is dark business, sinister and grim:\n    He takes the air that he might take the prey.\n\nMy heart is like a hungry hawk in flight,\n    My heart is like a lonely searching bird;\nIt scans the dark and listens through the night,\n   Eager to pounce upon your whispered word.\n\nMy heart is like a lonely hawk in flight,\n   My hearts knows hunger like the searching bird's\nIt scans the dark and listens through the night,\n   Eager to pounce upon remembered words.","firstline":"In circled flight he mounts up to the sky","periodical":"","image":"pic258.jpg","style":"","keywords":"heart,upon,dark,flight,scans,listens,night,bird,searching,hawk","likes":"5","lettercount":"562","wordcount":"159","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-01-18 08:25:08","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"259","title":"Hymn of Peace","verse":null,"poem":"Spirit of love and light\nShine through earth's troubled night,\nHeal our distress.\nConflict and fears abound, \nGross darkness all around —\nOnly in Thee is found\nPower to bless.\n\nSpirit of God forgive\nOur erring ways, and live\nIn every soul;\nThat man's extremity,\nMost Holy One, may be\nGod's opportunity\nTo take control.\n\nSpirit of light and love,\nCome like a gentle dove,\nOn wings of peace.\nEnter the heart of man:\nOnly Thy presence can\nFulfill God's righteous plan —\nThat wars may cease.","firstline":"Spirit of love and light","periodical":"","image":"pic259.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"spirit,god,man,love,light,come,gentle,control,holy","likes":"3","lettercount":"410","wordcount":"88","linecount":"21","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-08 14:44:30","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"260","title":"Knitting Song For An Old Woman","verse":null,"poem":"Over and under.\nThat's how it goes;\nWhat I am thinking\nNobody knows.\n\nMaking a sweater,\nThat's all they see:\nOver and under\nOne, two and three.\n\nOver and under,\nBack through the years,\nVoices that I hear\nNobody hears.\n\n“Tends to her knitting\",\nThat's all they say.\nNobody guesses -\nHow could they, pray?\n\nHow could they know that\nOne, two and three,\nIs more than a sweater,\nMore than they see?\n\n1-fore than some piece-work,\nOut in the sun,\nTo an old woman\nWhose work is done.\n\nOut of her memories\nHigh on a shelf.\nLife is the sweater\nShe knits for herself.\n\nLove is the needle,\nAnd dreams are the wool,\nWith which an old woman\nMakes age beautiful.","firstline":"Over and under.","periodical":"","image":"pic260.jpg","style":"shortline","keywords":"nobody,over,sweater,under,work,old,woman,three,more,two","likes":"1","lettercount":"525","wordcount":"122","linecount":"32","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-09-06 11:48:59","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"261","title":"Tea Time","verse":null,"poem":"I have come to see things\nLovelier than rhyme.\nTime to set the tea things -\nWhat a happy time!\n\nTime to set the tea things:\n   Round and round we go;\nWill I ever be things\n   In life's little show?\n\nWill I ever be things\n   In a gown of silk?\nTime to set the tea things:\n   Butter, sugar, milk.\n\nTime to set the tea things\n   Not a sonnet done !\nDaddy and the wee things,\n   Though, are lots of fun.\n\nDaddy and the wee things,\n   What a group to miss!\nI have set the tea things,\n   Often, thinking this.\n\nI have set the tea things\n   With a heart so full\nI have come to see things\n   Plain, are beautiful.","firstline":"I have come to see timings","periodical":"","image":"pic261.jpg","style":"","keywords":"set,tea,time,come,daddy,wee,round,ever,full,lots","likes":"1","lettercount":"453","wordcount":"149","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 16:24:53","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"262","title":"Mixing Bowl","verse":null,"poem":"Light are the words that the memory turns\nDeep in the bowl of life,\nLight as the eggs that my beater whips,\nBut dear to the heart of a wife.\n\nSweet is the love that is mixed with than,\nSweet as the sugar crushed\nHere in my yellow mixing bowl -\nLove that cannot be hushed.\n\nFine is the faith that will stand the test.\nSunny or stormy weather -\nFine as the flour I sift in now,\nBinding it all together.","firstline":"Light are the words that the manory turns","periodical":"","image":"pic262.jpg","style":"","keywords":"sweet,bowl,light,fine,love,faith,hushed,mixing,cannot,stand","likes":"0","lettercount":"317","wordcount":"82","linecount":"12","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"263","title":"In Times Like These","verse":null,"poem":"\n“Soul, take your ease,\" in praise of idleness\n   One man exclaimed - and drew his knickers on\n“In times of economic storm and stress\n   One learns a lot of golf twixt dawn and dawn,\n\nTomorrow may bring back the daily grind -\n   This is the hour of opportunities.\nSoul, take your ease, the road to pleasure find\n   One has the leisure in such times as these.\"\n\nAnother cried: “Soul, find a book and steep\n   Yourself in learning - strive against the day\nWhen strong men may be needed; study, keep\n   One step ahead.\" These things I heard two say.\n\n“Not from the east\", where finished is the test.\n“Cometh promotion, neither from the west.\"","firstline":"","periodical":"","image":"pic263.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"soul,times,dawn,these,ease,day,men,needed,against,strong","likes":"2","lettercount":"534","wordcount":"133","linecount":"15","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-14 11:02:46","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"264","title":"Last Leaves","verse":null,"poem":"It falls....Weep, Heart, but know your tears are vain\nThe trees' green spring is but a crimson stain:\nLong since, the lark his parting song has sung,\nThe last rose faded; but while yet there clung\n\nOne leaf unto the branch the heart could sing -\nBut now it falls. Weep, Heart, weep for the Spring .\nWeep for the promise made.\nWeep for the vows unpaid.\n\nWeep for the hopes diminished,\nWeep - and when you have finished,\nLean close your tear-stained face to earth and hear,\nSweeter than music falling on the ear,\n\nHer answer: “Not a Spring, forgotten, lies\nIn fallen leaves; for when the last leaf dies,\nGod's hands most wisely crush it, bit by bit,\nBack into dust - and make new Springs of it.\"\n\nIt falls - Weep, Heart, but not a tear avails\nTo call the lone dream back - the last dream fails:\nLaughter and love have left life's laden bough\nLong since. With only dreams for comfort, now\n\nThe last dream falls - and withers in the grass.\nWeep Heart, that beauty fails, that dreams must pass,\nWeep for the stricken ways,\nWeep for the empty days,\n\nWeep for the doubts that hover,\nWeep and, when weeping over.\nLean close and hear your own heart give you back\nWisdom enough to fill life's little lack:\n\n“No dream is lost: the hope that bade you lift\nYour face to dreams is God's unfailing gift.\nIn other lives and loves the dream endures -\nNot less itself because no longer yours.\"","firstline":"It falls....Weep, Heart, but know your tears are vain","periodical":"","image":"pic264.jpg","style":"","keywords":"weep,heart,dream,last,falls,spring,back,dreams,face,leaf","likes":"1","lettercount":"1123","wordcount":"258","linecount":"32","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 15:56:49","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"265","title":"Home Thoughts At Sea","verse":null,"poem":"All day, across the blue brow of the sea,\n  Trail lives of creamy foam,\nLifted in sudden light, have been to me\n  A hawthorn hedge at home -\n\nIn such a way, on Spring nights, moves the urge\n   To beauty in between\nHedgerows - and breaks, at last, a whitening surge\n   Of blossoms on the green -\n\nIn such a way, and yet more intimate.\n  More dear, the still foam lies,\nThat is white fragrance by the garden gate.\n  And glory in the eyes.\n\nThe fabric is not lightly tom apart\n  Of which old dreams are knit,\nWhen, still, a hawthorn hedge can stab my heart\n  Just to remember it.","firstline":"All day, across the blue brow of the sea,","periodical":"","image":"pic265.jpg","style":"","keywords":"hedge,such,more,foam,hawthorn,white,fragrance,garden,gate,lies","likes":"2","lettercount":"446","wordcount":"128","linecount":"16","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2021-11-15 13:21:38","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"266","title":"Quarrel","verse":null,"poem":"All that can be buried let us bury\n    Far out of sight:\nYou can smile again and I'll be merry.\n    This much is right.\n\n“What we couldn't have we never hoped for\",\n    This be our cry.\nYou can leave behind the things we groped for,\n    And so can I.\n\nYes:  And, Heart,  before we drop the shovel,\n    Turning to run,\nLife will merge into a dreary hovel,\n    Lost to the sun.\n\nLife will be a house whose every rafter\n    Echoes your tread;\nYou will start, at dusk, to hear my laughter\n    Back from the dead.\n\nAll that can be buried - yes, but, lover,\n    Here is the foil:\nWe have erred again:  You  cannot cover\n    Love up with soil.","firstline":"All that can be buried let us bury","periodical":"","image":"pic266.jpg","style":"","keywords":"yes,buried,life,echoes,tread,start,rafter,house,lost,sun","likes":"1","lettercount":"476","wordcount":"163","linecount":"20","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 08:08:30","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"267","title":"River Songs","verse":null,"poem":"I -   Windy Willow\n\n   Windy willow, in the sun\n   Lifted high,\n   You are ripples on a pool\n   Made of sky:\n\n   You have silver water speech\n   In your slender arms, that reach\n   Hither, yonder. They beseech\n   Like a cry.\n\n   Windy willow, by the light\n   Of the moon,\n   You are echoes of an old\n   River tune:\n\n   You have choruses of frogs,\n   Water slopping fallen logs,\n   And the long cool drip of fogs,\n   In your croon.\n\n   Windy willow, river-taught\n   You would be\n   If I met you in a park,\n   Suddenly:\n\n   More the lifting and the lull\n   Of bright waters deep and full,\n   More the slow still river-pull.\n   Than a tree.\n\nII -  Redwinged Blackbirds\n\n   Breathless on the rivers brink\n   One can only stand and drink\n   Deeply, thirstily, of them:\n   Blackbirds on a rush's stem.\n   \n   Glossy black and shining green,\n   With the scarlet touch between:\n   Here is color that defies\n   All attempt to analyze.\n   \n   Blackbirds on a rush's stem!\n   I have touched the garments hem\n   Of fulfillment. I can clutch\n   All of beauty in this much.\n\n\nIII - River Twilight\n\n   Day is a covey of sunbeams\n   Caught in the older trees;\n   Night is a hardened hunter\n   Crouching upon his knees.\n\n   Ever the silence deepens,\n   Ever the shadows fall;\n   The evening star is a bird-dog\n   Waiting the hunting call.\n\n   Wounded wing, in the water\n   Beat it to flecks of foam:\n   Light goes out on the river -\n   Run, little birds, run home.\n\n\nIV -  Blue Interval\n\n   This has been an azure moment\n   Uttered shyly, in three words:\n   Bright blue sky and deep blue water,\n   And the blue, blue wings of birds\n\n   Wings of herons lifting lightly,\n   Slowly at the rivers edge,\n   In a curve of beauty binding\n   Sky and water like a pledge.\n\n   Life will give me back this moment,\n   By all waters:   I shall start,\n   Suddenly, to feel the beating\n   Of blue wings against my heart.","firstline":"I -   Windy Willow","periodical":"","image":"pic267.jpg","style":"song","keywords":"blue,river,water,willow,windy,blackbirds,sky,wings,beauty,run","likes":"20","lettercount":"1367","wordcount":"508","linecount":"68","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-01 05:07:07","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"268","title":"Supper Song","verse":null,"poem":"Oh never I set out the evening meal\n   Or scatter the food about,\nBut I think, how life is a table cloth\n   And love is the feast spread out.\n\nHow one is seated at either end,\n   And love is the meal between,\nWhere two may nibble a -whole life long\n   And share in the fat and the lean.\n\nAnd whether they dine on the food of faith\n   Or drink of the cup of care,\nI think how two, to the journey's end,\n   Rejoice in this simple fare.\n\nFor though they may hunger, little or much\n   They know that the meal suffices,\nWhere love is the daily butter and bread\n   And love is the sugar and spices.\n\nSo never I set out the evening meal,\n   But softly to One above\nI whisper thanks for the table cloth\n   Of life - and the feast of love.","firstline":"Oh never I set out the evening meal","periodical":"","image":"pic268.jpg","style":"","keywords":"love,meal,life,table,never,end,two,feast,cloth,think","likes":"0","lettercount":"553","wordcount":"174","linecount":"20","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"269","title":"Sweeping Song","verse":null,"poem":"In the loaded dustpan,\n   Just before I spill it,\nLet me see, besides trash,\n   What there is to fill it.\n\nI have swept up courage\n   With this slender token\nTaken from the window -\n   Fragile moth wings broken.\n\nI have swept up wisdom\n   Fallen from the fetters\nOf a book, in this page\n   With its yellow letters.\n\nI have swept down patience,\n   In the silver leaving\nOf an old gray spider\n   Busy with her weaving.\n\nI have swept ambition\n   Out in little pieces -\nWhere a child's hands folded:\n   Paper in white creases.\n\nSing a song of cleaning:\n   Sweeping is a pleasure\nLittle, dirty dustpan\n    You are full of treasure!","firstline":"In the loaded dustpan,","periodical":"","image":"pic269.jpg","style":"","keywords":"swept,dustpan,little,ambition,child,hands,weaving,pieces,busy,leaving","likes":"3","lettercount":"475","wordcount":"147","linecount":"24","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-07-26 14:08:22","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"270","title":"The Slew Stars Came","verse":null,"poem":"The slew stars came this evening, and their shining\n   Is not a radiance, but still white words\nHeard somewhile and remembered, starting, humming,\n   A love song in the heart, Like honing birds,\n\nWings tilted to the sunset, dipping, drifting,\n   The slow stars come and lean above the hills;\nTheir coming is white fingers reaching, lifting\n   The drab days disappointments and it's ills.\n\nThe slow stars came this evening. All that battered\n   The quick self pity and the stern regret,\nSeem suddenly more vague than shadows - smothered\n   By the swift joy that there is beauty yet.\n\nThat there is beauty, high above regretting,\nNow God be thanked for stars - and forgetting.","firstline":"The slew stars came this evening, and their shining","periodical":"","image":"pic270.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"stars,beauty,white,above,slow,their,came,evening,self,stem","likes":"0","lettercount":"544","wordcount":"131","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"271","title":"Two Married: The Heights","verse":null,"poem":"Do you remember how we came that day,\n   Breathless with love, unto a hill and stood,\nMy lips athirst to drink the wine of play,\n   Before I must fulfill my womanhood?\n\nYour hand on mine was sudden secret fire,\n   It promised wonder, fear and ecstasy;\nOur dreams were high and white as stars, yea higher —\n   They were the hope of things we shall not see.\n\nDo you recall how, even going down,\n   Our spirits seemed to soar? The dusk that came\nAnd hung a cold gray silence on the town,\n   For us was leaping glory and a flame.\n\nYou drew me close, your hands caressed my head;\nAnd “All our days shall be as this,\" you said.","firstline":"Do you remember how we came that day,","periodical":"","image":"pic271.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"came,seemed,spirits,soar,dusk,hung,going,recall,higher,yea","likes":"0","lettercount":"495","wordcount":"136","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"272","title":"Two Married: Descent","verse":null,"poem":"Sometimes that promised glory haunts my sleep,\n   Who all day long in dull monotony\nTraverse with you the common days and keep\n   The steady pace your footsteps set for me.\n\nAbove the deadly level of our lives,\n   Somewhere, I know, are other heights to climb;\nBut all the little tasks of husbands, wives,\n   Forbid the quest — we no more have the time.\n\nI fear, I fear sometimes when nights are still,\n   That something in my heart will rise and break.\nI dare not look too long upon a hill,\n   Or think on beauty, sleeping or awake —\n\nLest you should find me some tempestuous June,\nCrying my mad white hunger to the moon.","firstline":"Sometimes that promised glory haunts my sleep,","periodical":"","image":"pic272.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"fear,long,sometimes,heart,rise,break,dare,something,nights","likes":"0","lettercount":"500","wordcount":"132","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"273","title":"Two Married: Flight","verse":null,"poem":"All night between my dreams the thought of you\n   Was daybreak falling from a green-gold tree,\nWas beauty mirrored in a drop of dew.\n   It woke an old, old urge; it troubled me.\n\nSomewhile before the dawn I left your bed,\n   Nor bound the soft confusion of my hair,\nMore still than silence from your side I fled —\n   You, dreaming of a desk, an easy chair.\n\nThe world was waking wonder where I ran,\n   Gray pools of shadow leapt beneath my feet;\nAnd at the dawn's edge, where the woods began,\n   I found you waiting, eager and most sweet —\n\nYour laughter sunlight, and the wind your kiss.\nLong in the woods I drank remembered bliss.","firstline":"All night between my dreams the thought of you","periodical":"","image":"pic273.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"dawn,woods,old,leapt,shadow,beneath,feet,between,edge","likes":"0","lettercount":"507","wordcount":"135","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"274","title":"Certainties","verse":null,"poem":"My heart is young — the breath of blowing trees\n   Is more than all the wisdom I have known.\nHow shall I hedge myself with certainties:\n   A dinner gong, the mail, a telephone?\n\nHow shall I move among these common things\n   And decently observe my household rites,\nWhen love is calling, calling for its wings,\n   When all my heart is thirsting for the heights?\n\nWhen we are dust, these daily tasks will move\n   As well without us. Dear, how soon, how soon\nWe have forgotten what it is to love!\n   The moon, that was high hope, is just the moon,\n\nThe stars are stars; no wonder stirs a tree.\nAnd life itself is one more certainty.","firstline":"My heart is young — the breath of blowing trees","periodical":"","image":"pic274.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"heart,these,calling,soon,stars,moon,move,love,more,dear","likes":"1","lettercount":"499","wordcount":"134","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-18 22:27:33","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"275","title":"My Gifts ","verse":null,"poem":"Long years I wrought upon my little gifts;\n   Then came and knocked at your half-open door—\nTimid and tremulous.  You smiled at me \n   And bade me enter—I could ask no more \n   \nKneeling beside you I unwrapped my gifts—\n   Unfolding each that you might look and see:\nSweet Innocence, and Faith, and Hope, and Trust,\n   And Loyalty to Truth, and Modesty.\n   \nAnd over all and compassing the rest,\n   A Love as high and holy as the stars:\nBuilder of Youth's divinest dreams,\n   The Great One Dream—all these were yours.\n   \nYou took each gift up in your smooth white hands,\n   And fingered it a moment—as a child \nMight play with some new toy—then growing tired,\n   You tossed each in the corner there—and smiled.\n   \nOh! you were kind—you called me goodly names,\n   You looked into my eyes and bade me stay;\nBut I, who builded -all- upon my dreams,\n   Must take my little gifts and go away.\n   \nI shall not seek another altar shrine \n   On which to lay the gifts I made for you: \nI could not give them now to some one else—\n   My childish dreams that never will come true.\n   \nBut there's a quiet place out in the woods,\n   Where all night long the sad winds come and play;\nThere I shall go and dig a little grave \n   Beneath the trees—and lay my gifts away.\n\nThe kindly leaves will whisper over me,\n   The lonely stars will watch me from above;\nAnd I shall come away again, content \n   To pity you—O you, who cannot love.","firstline":"Long years I wrought upon my little gifts;","periodical":"","image":"pic275.jpg","style":"","keywords":"gifts,dreams,away,little,come,smiled,stars,over,love","likes":"1","lettercount":"1154","wordcount":"335","linecount":"38","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2019-11-16 09:58:14","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"276","title":"Dawn——and Dawn","verse":null,"poem":"Dawn——and a flush of crimson\nHeralds the coming sun;\nSomewhere a lark is chanting\nHis morning requiem.\n.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .\nDawn——and a mist of silver\nWraps every blade and leaf;\nMy lone heart keeps repeating\nThe burden of its grief.","firstline":"Dawn——and a flush of crimson","periodical":"Out West Magazine; June 1920, Vol. LXXV No. 6","image":"pic276.jpg","style":"","keywords":"dawn,lone,leaf,blade,heart,wraps,keeps,grief,its","likes":"0","lettercount":"208","wordcount":"59","linecount":"9","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 14:00:18","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"277","title":"SEA LOVER ","verse":null,"poem":"I may not sleep as others do when night \n   Lets down the quiet curtain of her dreams—\nFar in the lavish splendor of the light \n   The mad moon squanders from her hoard of beams \nOne waits, and all his silence is a prayer,\n   A still, white prayer that mounts to something higher,\nAnd bursts at last, a full cry, on the air—\n   The rising flood tide of his young desire.\n\nIt is the sea-my lover. From afar \n   He comes to deck my beauty: moon-soft pearls \nAre flung about my neck, a silver star \n   Burns for my hair, and lightly he unfurls \nFold after fold of gray chiffon, mist spun.\n   I stoop, I yield——Beloved, I am won!","firstline":"I may not sleep as others do when night ","periodical":"Lyric West; Vol.II No.IV, August 1922","image":"pic277.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"fold,moon,prayer,silver,flung,about,pearls,neck,beauty","likes":"56","lettercount":"505","wordcount":"144","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2022-04-01 06:10:18","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"278","title":"THERE IS NO WORD ","verse":null,"poem":"White cliffs where for a moment starlight gleams,\n   Gray ocean ebbing to a sound not heard,\nAnd silver sand dunes burdened with their dreams,\n   Are things too beautiful for any word.\nThere is a language that may sing in part \n   The grace and wonder of the sea by day:\nBright flecks of foam, blue waves that leap and start,\n   And mad cap winds that turn the foam to spray.———\n\nBut who shall dare to utter with the lips \n   A beauty like to this; for here is wrought \nOf moonlight and of mist a web that slips \nToo subtly into place——and speech is caught. . . . \n   Across the gray seascape the thought flies far———\nBut lips are silent as the white cliffs are.","firstline":"White cliffs where for a moment starlight gleams,","periodical":"Lyric West; Vol.II No.IV, August 1922","image":"pic278.jpg","style":"sonnet","keywords":"gray,lips,foam,cliffs,white,dare,utter,beauty,here","likes":"10","lettercount":"564","wordcount":"147","linecount":"14","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-05-30 02:31:04","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33","comments":"0"},{"id":"279","title":"The Tiger City","verse":"","poem":"Behind the bars of circumstances,\n   Denied the food of dreams\nThe city in its tawny pride\n   A restless tiger seems.\n\nEnsnared in meshes of desire,\n   Of poverty and sins,\nThe Tiger City moves its jaws\n   And swallows men—and grinds.\n\nA loathsome thing; and I should fear\n   Destruction it imparts,\nDid I not feel beneath its skin\n   The pulse of human hearts;\n\nDid I not know that back of all \n   The fury it expends\nThe Tiger has a kindly need,\n   That hungers most for friends.\n\nSo I will stroke the city's back,\n   And give it dreams to eat—\nSome day the Tiger may curl up,\n   A kitten at my feet!","firstline":"","periodical":"Lyric West","image":"","style":"","keywords":"","likes":"0","lettercount":"0","wordcount":"0","linecount":"0","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-18 02:04:28","created":"2016-12-18 02:04:28","comments":"0"}];
var shortLinedPoems = [{"id":"279","title":"The Tiger City","verse":"","poem":"Behind the bars of circumstances,\n   Denied the food of dreams\nThe city in its tawny pride\n   A restless tiger seems.\n\nEnsnared in meshes of desire,\n   Of poverty and sins,\nThe Tiger City moves its jaws\n   And swallows men—and grinds.\n\nA loathsome thing; and I should fear\n   Destruction it imparts,\nDid I not feel beneath its skin\n   The pulse of human hearts;\n\nDid I not know that back of all \n   The fury it expends\nThe Tiger has a kindly need,\n   That hungers most for friends.\n\nSo I will stroke the city's back,\n   And give it dreams to eat—\nSome day the Tiger may curl up,\n   A kitten at my feet!","firstline":"","periodical":"Lyric West","image":"","style":"","keywords":"","likes":"0","lettercount":"0","wordcount":"0","linecount":"0","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-18 02:04:28","created":"2016-12-18 02:04:28"},{"id":"187","title":"Fallen Star","verse":null,"poem":"Out of heaven something fell;\n   We have caught it in our well.\nThere you are —\n   Right beneath that silver splash.\nWhy, it didn't even crash!\nIt's a star!","firstline":"Out of heaven something fell;","periodical":"","image":"pic187.jpg","style":"","keywords":"splash,silver,didn,even,star,crash,beneath,right,fell,something","likes":"2","lettercount":"128","wordcount":"35","linecount":"6","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2016-12-15 01:07:51","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33"},{"id":"98","title":"Child's Prayer","verse":null,"poem":"In Bethlehem the streets were dim,\nAs shadows fell; but over Him\nGod lit a star, and heaven smiled,\nAnd there was light around the Child..\nNow it is dark again:   Oh, let\nMy candle shine, lest men forget.","firstline":"In Bethlehem the streets were dim,","periodical":"","image":"pic098.jpg","style":"","keywords":"dark,child,around,light,candle,shine,forget,men,lest,smiled","likes":"2","lettercount":"164","wordcount":"41","linecount":"6","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-12-03 11:22:42","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33"},{"id":"140","title":"Dawn","verse":null,"poem":"Dawn — and a flush of crimson\nHeralds the coming sun;\nSomewhere a lark is chanting\nHis morning requiem.\n\nDawn — and a mist of silver\nWraps every blade and leaf;\nMy lone heart keeps repeating\nThe burden of its grief.","firstline":"Dawn — and a flush of crimson","periodical":"Overland Monthly","image":"pic140.jpg","style":"","keywords":"dawn,lone,leaf,blade,heart,wraps,keeps,grief,its","likes":"1","lettercount":"186","wordcount":"41","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2018-10-31 05:22:37","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33"},{"id":"143","title":"Day Before Winter","verse":null,"poem":"The earth has gone back to her sleeping\nAs one who returns\nToo tired to extinguish the embers,\nForgotten there burns\n\nThe goldenrod. Here for a moment\nMay one, grown alarmed\nBy something too sinister, chilly,\nReach out and be warmed.","firstline":"The earth has gone back to her sleeping","periodical":"Holland's Magazine","image":"pic143.jpg","style":"","keywords":"alarmed,grown,moment,something,sinister,warmed,reach,chilly,here,goldenrod","likes":"1","lettercount":"192","wordcount":"41","linecount":"8","linelength":"0","featured":"0","lastUpdated":"2020-10-08 18:18:13","created":"2016-11-27 17:34:33"}];