courage

The Christian race.

Isa. 40:28-31.

Awake, our souls; away, our fears,
Let every trembling thought begone;
Awake, and run the heav'nly race,
And put a cheerful courage on.

True, 'tis a strait and thorny road,
And mortal spirits tire and faint;
But they forget the mighty God,
That feeds the strength of every saint.

Thee, mighty God! whose matchless power
Is ever new and ever young,
And firm endures, while endless years
Their everlasting circles run.

Strength from heaven.

Isa. 40:27-30.

Whence do our mournful thoughts arise?
And where's our courage fled?
Have restless sin and raging hell
Struck all our comforts dead?

Have we forgot th' almighty name
That formed the earth and sea?
And can an all-creating arm
Grow weary or decay?

Treasures of everlasting might
In our Jehovah dwell;
He gives the conquest to the weak
And treads their foes to hell.

Mere mortal power shall fade and die,
And youthful vigor cease:

Ah, ye gods! ye great immortals
In the spacious heavens above us!
Would ye on this earth but give us
Steadfast minds and dauntless courage
We, oh kindly ones, would leave you
All your spacious heavens above us!

June 22, 1611

THE SHALLOP ON HUDSON BAY

One sail in sight upon the lonely sea
And only one, God knows! For never ship
But mine broke through the icy gates that guard
These waters, greater grown than any since
We left the shores of England. We were first,
My men, to battle in between the bergs
And floes to these wide waves. This gulf is mine;
I name it! and that flying sail is mine!
And there, hull-down below that flying sail,
The ship that staggers home is mine, mine, mine!
My ship Discoverie!

Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve!
Not one of these poor men who died
But did within his soul believe
That death for thee was glorified.

Ever they watched it hovering near
That mystery 'yond thought to plumb,
Perchance sometimes in loathèd fear
They heard cold Danger whisper, Come! --

Heard and obeyed. O, if thou weep
Such courage and honour, beauty, care,
Be it for joy that those who sleep
Only thy joy could share.

Oh, he was a handsome trotter, and he couldn't be completer,
He had such a splendid action and he trotted to this metre,
Such a pace and such a courage, such a record-killing power,
That he did his mile in two-fifteen, his twenty in the hour.
When he trotted on the Bathurst road the pace it was a panter,
But he broke the poet's rhythm when he broke out in a canter -

As we were remarking the pace was a panter,
But just as we liked it he broke in a canter,
And rattled along with a motion terrific,

From the play "Mother Courage"

You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him,
To him complexities seemed plain.
He cursed the hour that gave birth to him
And saw that everything was vain.
How great and wise was Solomon.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's wisdom that had brought him to this state.
How fortunate the man with none.

You saw courageous Caesar next
You know what he became.
They deified him in his life

Time’s finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! And yet the half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,
Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.

To those who burn the candle to the stick,
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is sadder than early death.
We cannot count on raveled threads of age
Whereof to weave a fabric. We must use
The warp and woof the ready present yields
And toils while daylight lasts. When I bethink

IT MAY have been a fragment of that higher
Truth dreams, at times, disclose;
It may have been to Fond Illusion nigher—
But thus the story goes:
A fierce sun glared upon a gaunt land, stricken
With barrenness and thirst,
Where Nature’s pulse with joy of Spring would quicken
No more; a land accurst.

Gray salt-bush grimmer made the desolation—
Like mocking immortelles
Strewn on the graveyard of a perished nation
Whose name no record tells.

No faintest sign of distant water glimmered

From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;

But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the Second Book of Euclid.

This he perched upon a tripod -
Crouched beneath its dusky cover -
Stretched his hand, enforcing silence -
Said, "Be motionless, I beg you!"