• Laughing, the blind boys
    Run ’round their college lawn,
    Playing such games of buff
    Over its dappled grass!

    See the blind frolicsome
    Girls in blue pinafores,
    Turning their skipping ropes!

    How full and rich a world
    Theirs to inhabit is!
    Sweet scent of grass and bloom,
    Playmates’ glad symphony.
    Cool touch...

  • Sonnet Cxlvi.
    poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
    Fooled by those rebel powers that thee array,
    Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
    Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
    Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
    Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
    Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
    Eat up thy charge?...

  • A Trodden daisy, from the sward,
      With tearful eye I took,
    And on its ruined glories I,
      With moving heart, did look;
    For, crushed and broken though it was,
      That little flower was fair;
    And oh! I loved the dying bud,
      For God was there!

    I stood upon the sea-beat shore,
      The waves came rushing on;
    The...

  • Rocked in the cradle of the deep
    I lay me down in peace to sleep;
    Secure I rest upon the wave,
    For thou, O Lord! hast power to save.
    I know thou wilt not slight my call,
    For thou dost mark the sparrow’s fall;
    And calm and peaceful shall I sleep,
    Rocked in the cradle of the deep.

    When in the dead of night I lie
    And gaze...

  • Good-bye, proud world, I’m going home:
    Thou art not my friend, and I’m not thine.
    Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
    A river-ark on the ocean brine,
    Long I’ve been tossed like the driven foam,
    But now, proud world, I’m going home.

    Good-bye to Flattery’s fawning face;
    To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
    To upstart Wealth’s...

  • Our God, our help in ages past,
      Our hope for years to come,
    Our shelter from the stormy blast,
      And our eternal home,—

    Under the shadow of thy throne
      Thy saints have dwelt secure;
    Sufficient is thine arm alone,
      And our defence is sure.

    Before the hills in order stood,
      Or earth received her frame,
    From...

  • From the German by Frederic Henry Hedge
    “Ein’ Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott”

    A MIGHTY fortress is our God,
      A bulwark never failing;
    Our helper he amid the flood
      Of mortal ills prevailing.
    For still our ancient foe
    Doth seek to work us woe;
    His craft and power are great,
    And, armed with equal hate,
      On earth is not...

  • I Love, and have some cause to love, the earth,—
      She is my Maker’s creature, therefore good;
    She is my mother, for she gave me birth;
      She is my tender nurse, she gives me food:
      But what ’s a creature, Lord, compared with thee?
      Or what ’s my mother or my nurse to me?

    I love the air,—her dainty sweets refresh
      My drooping soul,...

  • I Worship thee, sweet will of God!
      And all thy ways adore;
    And every day I live, I seem
      To love thee more and more.

    Thou wert the end, the blessèd rule
      Of our Saviour’s toils and tears;
    Thou wert the passion of his heart
      Those three and thirty years.

    And he hath breathed into my soul
      A special love of thee,...

  • Whichever way the wind doth blow,
    Some heart is glad to have it so;
    Then blow it east or blow it west,
    The wind that blows, that wind is best.

    My little craft sails not alone:
    A thousand fleets from every zone
    Are out upon a thousand seas;
    And what for me were favoring breeze
    Might dash another, with the shock
    Of doom,...