With doubt and dismay you are smitten You think there’s no chance for you, son?
Why, the best books haven’t been written The best race hasn’t been run,
The best score hasn’t been made yet, The best song hasn’t been sung,
The best tune hasn’t been played yet, Cheer up, for the world is young!
No chance? Why the world is just eager For things that you ought to create
Its store of true wealth is still meagre Its needs are incessant and great,
It yearns for more power and beauty More laughter and love and romance,
More loyalty, labor and duty,
No chance—why there’s nothing but chance!
For the best verse hasn’t been rhymed yet, The best house hasn’t been planned,
The highest peak hasn’t been climbed yet, The mightiest rivers aren’t spanned,
Don’t worry and fret, faint hearted, The chances have just begun,
For the Best jobs haven’t been started, The Best work hasn’t been done.Berton Braley.
poet
Be The Best You Can ~ Poem by Douglas Malloch
Be The Best You Can
If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill Be a scrub in the valley—but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill; Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a bush be a bit of the grass, And some highway some happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass— But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew, There’s something for all of us here.
There’s big work to do and there’s lesser to do, And the task we must do is the near.
If you can’t be a highway then just be a trail, If you can’t be the sun be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail— Be the best of whatever you are!Douglas Malloch.
Life ~ A Poem by Charlotte Bronte
Life
LIFE, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life’s sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily
Enjoy them as they fly!
What though Death at times steps in,
And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O’er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet Hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!
By: Charlotte Bronte
Sea and Shore ~ Poem by Henry van Dyke
Music, I yield to thee;
As swimmer to the sea
I give my Spirit to the flood of song:
Bear me upon thy breast
In rapture and at rest,
Bathe me in pure delight and make me strong;
From strife and struggle bring release,
And draw the waves of passion into tides of peace.
Remember’d songs, most dear,
In living songs I hear,
While blending voices gently swing and sway
In melodies of love,
Whose mighty currents move,
With singing near and singing far away;
Sweet in the glow of morning light,
And sweeter still across the starlit gulf of night.
Music, in thee we float,
And lose the lonely note
Of self in thy celestial-ordered strain,
Until at last we find
The life to love resigned
In harmony of joy restored again;
And songs that cheered our mortal days
Break on the coast of light in endless hymns of praise.
A Community of the Spirit ~ Poem by Rumi
A Community of the Spirit
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
From Rumi
Aware ~ Poem by D. H. Lawrence
Aware
Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze,Divesting herself of her golden shift, and soEmerging white and exquisite; and I in amazeSee in the sky before me, a woman I did not knowI loved, but there she goes and her beauty hurts my heart;I follow her down the night, begging her not to depart.~ D. H. Lawrence
Gifts ~ Poem by Sara Teasdale
Gifts
I gave my first love laughter,
I gave my second tears,
I gave my third love silence
Through all the years.
My first love gave me singing,
My second eyes to see,
But oh, it was my third love
Who gave my soul to me.
A Prayer in Spring ~ Poem by Robert Frost
A Prayer in Spring
OH, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.
Someone Like You ~ Poem by James Foley
Someone Like You
Some one like you makes the heart seem the lighter,
Some one like you makes the day’s work worth while,
Some one like you makes the sun shine the brighter,
Some one like you makes a sigh half a smile.
Life’s an odd pattern of briers and roses,
Clouds sometimes darken, nor sun shining through,
Then the cloud lifts and the sun light discloses
Near to me, dear to me—Some one like you.
Poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
If there be some weaker one,
Give me strength to help him on;
If a blinder soul there be,
Let me guide him nearer Thee.
Make my mortal dreams come true
With the work I fain would do;
Clothe with life the weak intent,
Let me be the thing I meant;
Let me find in Thine employ
Peace that dearer is than joy!John Greenleaf Whittier.
