Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... GOOD HOPE. "Good Hope " for this good land yet, If we would but dare and do; If we would but stand with ready hand To grasp ere the blessings go. "Good Hope" for this good land yet, If we would but stay life-streams, Which will past us flow while we, too slow, Stand rapt on the bank in dreams. "Good Hope" for this good land yet, If we would but cease to hope That the rain will drop and bring a crop While we idly sit and mope. "Good Hope" for this good land yet, If we work, e'en while we wait For the sun and rain to ripen grain We have sown, then left to fate. "Good Hope " for this good land yet, If we use each heav'n-sent gift As a means to an end, and do not spend Our best without care and thrift. "Good Hope " for this good land yet, If we live and struggle still To a better life, through toil and strife, With a stout heart and strong will. "Good Hope" for this good land yet, If our faith be active trust, And not blind belief, which, at each grief, Still mourns that what must be must. "Good Hope" for this good land yet, If we would but trust in God, And the Christ who came and took our name To bless, not to turn the sod. William Rodger Thomson. THE POET. The poet walks entranced o'er earth, And, dreaming-, touches Nature's strings, And calls grand harmonies to birth; Men listen wond'ring as he sings. He goeth oft to wild retreats, Where Nature broods in solitude; There, in the Muses' haunted seats, Enrapt he stands--as if he view'd Strange visions on the face of heav'n. His eye rolls o'er the boundless blue, And then, as if his sight had giv'n Wings to his soul, he soareth through Th' empyrean vault, and upward flies To scan deep mysteries, unseen By common souls, whose earth-bound eyes Are blinded with the dazzling sheen Of glorious...