Show Me The Way

"Show Me The Way"

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox - 1883

Show me the way that leads to the true life.
I do not care what tempests may assail me,
I shall be given courage for the strife,
I know my strength will not desert or fail me;
I know that I shall conquer in the fray;
Show me the way

Show me the way up to a higher plane,
Where body shall be servant to the soul,
I do not care what tides of woe, or pain,
Across my life their angry waves may roll,
If I but reach the end I seek some day;
Show me the way.

Show me the way, and let me bravely climb
Above vain grieving for unworthy treasures;
Above all sorrow that finds balm in time -
Above small triumphs, or belittling pleasures;
Up to those heights where these things seem child's play:
Show me the way.

Show me the way to that calm, perfect peace
Which springs from an inward consciousness of right;
To where all conflicts with the flesh shall cease,
And self shall radiate with the spirit's light.
Though hard the journey and the strife, I pray
Show me the way.

Crossing the Bar

CROSSING THE BAR
by Alfred Lloyd Tennyson (1809-1892)

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me,
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

BE STRONG

BE STRONG
by Maltrie Davenport Babcock (1858-1902)

Be Strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle - face it; tis God's gift.

Be Strong!
Say not, "The days are evil. Who's to blame?"
And fold the hands and acquiesce - oh shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.

Be Strong!
It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long;
Faint not - fight on! To-morrow comes the song.

You Tell Me I Am Blind

MY WORLD
by Lily E. G. Hendrix (1885)
graduate of the Missouri School for the Blind

You tell me I am blind, but ah!
You know not what you say;
You little know the glorious things
That I behold each day;
There is a world I call my own,
All radiant with light!
A land as different from yours
As morning is from night.

Each morn I ope my weary eyes
Upon your world of gloom,
Its chill and darkness only give
A warning of the tomb;
I linger but a moment there,
And then I turn and hie
To that fair realm all lighted up
With hope of bye and bye.

Perhaps your world is not so dark
As it has seemed to me;
Perhaps that is the reason why
You think I cannot see;
You cannot know the rays that light
This inner world of mine,
Or you would never pity me
And say that I am blind.

Reveille

Reveille
by
Ronald Lewis Carton (1919)

In the place to which I go,
Better men than I have died.
Freeman friend and conscript foe,
Face to face and side by side,
In the shallow grave abide.

Melinite that scared their brains,
Gas that slew them in a snare,
War's inferno of strange pains,
What are these to them who share
That great boon of silence there?

When like blood the moon is red;
And a shadow hides the sun,
We shall wake, the so-long dead,
We shall know our quarrel done, --
Will God tell us who has won?

SILENT MYRIADS

At the center of Creation lies a spot of

ceaseless rest,

Where the silent spirit broodeth like a

dove upon its nest:

Round it runs the deep horizon in its golden

quiet curled,

Round it at the wheel of Motion spins the

fashion of the world.

Noiselessly thy gates swing open for their

bars are made of light,

Swinging on the raven darkness from the

outer-wall of night;

Crystal city of the Silent, built beyond

the sounds of sin,

Lift afar your swarming gateways, let the

silent myriads in.

(from the poem "Silence" by S. Miller Hageman, 1876)

Life's Hightway

Life's Highway
by
Edgar A. Guest (1916)

Tis good to walk life's highway wide,
Past cabin low and steeple,
And meet along the countryside
The smiling, friendly people.
For wheresoe'er a man may fare,
Though rough or smooth the mile is,
Or bright the day or dark and gray,
He'll come to where a smile is.

There's sorrow for the hearts of all
Before the journey closes;
But Junetime lines fill many a wall
With pink and scarlet roses,
And overhead the blue skies spread
A canopy of splendor
'Neath which we fare, despite our care,
To welcomes warm and tender.

And be the highway short or long
Which stretches out before us,
Man's ear will catch the heartening song
Of thrush or robin chorus.
By stream and brook on scenes he'll look,
Illuming Nature's pages
To glad his eye as he goes by,
Repeated through the ages.

The poorest man a friend may find,
The righest man no truer:
For kings, whom soldiers march behind,
God's sky is made no bluer.
'Spite care and strife, the joys of life,
The beauties richly blended,
And sun and star and blossoms are
For all mankind intended.