Poems

Our pasture fences are massed with berries on bushes whose roots are rain-drenched, and the fruit which is plump and sun-ripened is abundant in bounty for him who parries thorny thrusts to pluck it from stems enmeshed. Sturdy resolve furthers growth in fields of mental endeavor, and richly blessed is the sweet extra fruitage by Love ripened, the largess of grace for him who yields personal sense to the touch of Truth's persuasion.

Push back your wide horizons day by day. Enlarge your borders.

How love-impelled that Hebrew mother's act! How comprehensive must have been her prayer, As, taking God's protection for a fact, She loosed the infant Moses to His care! No slightest jot of time could she devote To outlining his future, or to think Of self, but cast his tiny ark afloat Among the rushes at the river's brink. What mother by her thought, or word, or deed Would be a stumbling block to her loved child, Knowing that mortal planning may impede The heavenward progress of the undefiled? While human bondage shackles liberty, The perfect child of God is always free.

Here swift winds have raced, Blowing clean the rock, Scouring the earth. Here the sun has poured Its brilliant clarity, Its cleansing fire.

Sweet are the uses of our sorrows when, Facing at length the sheer futility Of mortal yearning for the unattained, We turn to God's dear promises and rest— As babe with head upon the mother's breast. And blest shall we be when all the buffeting (Spindrift of hate and sting of homeless wrath Lashing at wings downbent to fancied goal) Drives us to soar, ceasing our earthward quest— A wind-blown bird returning to the nest.

The Rock on which I build Is Love Immovable. Rains descend.

Bright and luminous the cloud Overshadowing your head, Clear the voice that speaks aloud, Comforting the few words said. Cherish silence, wait upon Listening's own interim: "This is my beloved Son"; Oh, be still and "hear ye him.

The chastisements of Mind are merciful, Regenerative, kind—like tender hands Stretched forth to save and heal. The changeable, Incontinent desires of sin-ruled lands, All wrapped in winter dreams of loneliness, Shall melt away beneath the purging rays Of Love's warm light.

Does the rose know how many are blessed by its being or question who shares in bestowal so gifted? Like fragrance diffused is the essence of loving, and counts not, nor can count, the hearts that are lifted.

It was a little town where he was born, Our Bethlehem. The good and simple folk who followed him.