if, when I kneel to pray,
With eager lips I say:
“Lord, give me all the things that I desire,—
Health, wealth, fame, friends, brave heart, religious fire,
The power to sway my fellow-men at will,
And strength for mighty works to banish ill,”—
In such a prayer as this
The blessing I must miss.
Or if I only...
When i forth fare beyond this narrow earth,
With all its metes and bounds of now and here,
And brooding clouds of ignorance and fear
That overhung me on my day of birth,
Wherethrough the jocund sun’s perennial mirth
Has shone more inly bright each coming year
With some new glory of that outer sphere
Where length and breadth and height are...
I wonder, dear, if you had been
The maiden queen’s pet maid of honor,
A flower of that fair time wherein
A court of roses smiled upon her,
And I, erewhile, by Trojan wall
Had fiercely fought for Grecian glory,
Beheld the pride of Priam fall,
And home in Athens told the story,
Whether we, wandering in the glow...
If suddenly upon the street
My gracious Saviour I should meet,
And he should say, “As I love thee,
What love hast thou to offer me?”
Then what could this poor heart of mine
Dare offer to that heart divine?
His eye would pierce my outward show,
His thought my inmost thought would know;
And if I said, “I love thee, Lord,”
...
