Poems

Think you while loving matter, love is pure; While clasping things of earth, your wealth secure? Think you the search for pleasure, happiness, Or life, is Life, while clothed in mortal dress? How often we would justify desire. Possessing loved ones will, we think, inspire Some endless joy.

Teach me to love, To know, to do Thy will, that I may share all good with those Who seek their woes to still. Teach me to love, That every word and deed May give to all a lasting peace And comfort in their need.

I pressed my cup of joy against my heart— It must be held so close to save it all! But with each hurried, anxious step some part Was lost. In tears I watched the last drop fall.

My heart is weary, Lord. Oh, let me know The power of Truth which Thou canst e'er bestow, So that these earnest longings, ill-expressed, Find comfort in Thy love, and I am blessed.

This thy privilege, thy part— To love the Lord with all thy heart; With all thy soul, with all thy mind, In Him thy loving service find. In sweet obedience let His hand Guide thee to reach the promised land.

Are you afraid? Then love, For Love doth cast out fear. And are you poor? Then count Your blessings ever here.

All through the night the storm is raging, The howling wind, the torrent's roar; Destructive elements seem waging An endless fight—earth shrinks before Their seeming power—but with the morning She smiles again, her battle won; With shining tears her face adorning She greets the coming of the sun. And so may I, when storms of error Have surged about me through the night, Be still and know its phantom terror Will flee before the coming light.

As by Bethesda, weak, afflicted sore, I lie, so wearily, day after day, My hope seems centered in some troubled pool, But no one comes to help me on my way. Unmindfully, I see not present good— Self-pitying, absorbed in mine own pain; Forgetting to give thanks for what I have; Forgetting to rejoice in others' gain.

Our God is Love—before His tender caring All pain must go, all sin and sorrow cease. Our God is good, with man His goodness sharing: From Mind there flows abundant grace and peace.

A pilgrim and a stranger Upon the great highway, He learned the truth that man is The guest of God today! Disheartened, spent, forsaken, In futile quest and tryst, He rose to learn that man is Ambassador for Christ!