'Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,/ But spare your country's flag,' she said./ A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,/ Over the face of the leader came. |
Ah, that I were free again! Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay |
All the windows of my heart I open to the day. |
An ashen memory in its stead. |
And a nameless longing filled her breast, - A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known |
Beauty seen is never lost, God's colors all are fast. |
Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well. |
But, by all thy nature's weakness, Hidden faults and follies known, Be thou, in rebuking evil, Conscious of thine own. |
Clothe with life the weak intent, let me be the thing I meant |
Falsehoods which we spurn today, were the truths of long ago |
For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'. |
For somehow, not only at Christmas, but all the long year through, The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you. |
From the death of the old the new proceeds, and the life of truth from the death of creeds. |
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all. |
God fills the gaps of human need, Each crisis brings its word and deed |