Poems

Do countless cares and duties cram Your days, a dull relentless grind, And yet, for all your faithfulness, Bear meager fruit and with frustration Fill your mind? Then look about you and consider well The promise of all nature's loveliness, And watch how God unveils to you His mode of work. If you would make your life complete, Let go the stress And pause at times to see A tremulous harebell flowering at your feet Or, hidden in long grass, pure sparkling rills, And after storms maybe A double rainbow arching wooded hills.

In the words of the young man whom Jesus met. She too asked: "Lord, 'what lack I yet?' What do I need to heal this case And error's picture to erase? Do I need more humility, More meekness, and less vanity? Lack I still yet a motive pure, A little faith that will endure? Is it more gratitude I need, More honesty of thought and deed? What is my need, all else above?" The answer came, "To love, to love!".

I come from night's deep cavern with old dreams Like strands of cobweb clinging to my thought. On towards the light I climb, past morning beams.

How often do we lend a hand To a precious little lamb in need Of help along the treacherous path. But do we often stop to heed The bleating call of older sheep Which we pass along the way, Or near a threatening precipice? We should lead those gone astray Into the arms of Love again.

So often I have looked around to see Whose harsh note marred Life's lovely symphony; But now I find it to be more divine Just to make sure that harsh note is not mine.

I Prayed and knew that I would sometime find A sort of holy dial or instrument To measure how I know and love the truth. To tell me daily, hourly, how I stand.

Experiencing joy but glimpsed hereto, Forgetting pain; Heaven new viewed, What can I do to show My gratitude? I can re-form my thought to see the world As ruled by Love; The eternal right Of man, man honest in God's sight. I can reflect the rainbow rays, The here of heaven, In humble praise And live to bless Those seeking roses in the Wilderness.

I eat the bread of Truth; so fed and strengthened. I can grasp the cup of earth's experience with hold more sure.

Why fear the wilderness? Although at first It may seem desolation, nothing more, Yet this experience is meant to be One of progression to a higher goal. Here Hagar, wandering blindly, cut adrift From safe, familiar moorings she had known, For the first time could hear the angel voice Which bade her rise and trust the care of God.

What , tempted with discouragement? After a day in the dusty villages and steaming lanes, in the press of self-centered multitudes in the noisy market, a day of mental combat and earnest deep endeavor, "he, could there do no mighty work" because of their unbelief. Ah, but Truth is always at our side— not now true, now untrue, but forever immutable, irresistible, irreversible; Truth ever apparent, our most dear companion, perpetually operative through the power of Love to comfort, bless, and cure; and even there "he laid his hands upon a few sick folk.