With valor and resource.

From undiscovered regions
Only the angels know,
Great winds of aspiration
Perpetually blow,

To free the sap of impulse
From torpor of distrust,
And into flowers of joyance
Quicken the sentient dust.

From nowhere of a sudden
Loom sudden clouds of fault,
With thunders of oppression
And lightnings of revolt.

With hush of apprehension
And quaking of the heart,
There breed the storms of anger,
And floods of sorrow start.

And there shall fall,--how gently!--
To make them fertile yet,
The rain of absolution
On acres of regret.

Till snows of mercy cover
The dream that shall come true,
When time makes all things wondrous,
And life makes all things new.

Here and Now

Where is Heaven? Is it not
Just a friendly garden plot,
Walled with stone and roofed with sun,
Where the days pass one by one,
Not too fast and not too slow,
Looking backward as they go
At the beauties left behind
To transport the pensive mind!

Is it not a greening ground
With a river for its bound,
And a wood-thrush to prolong
Fragrant twilights with his song,
When the peonies in June
Wait the rising of the moon,
And the music of the stream
Voices its immortal dream!

There each morning will renew
The miracle of light and dew,
And the soul may joy to praise
The Lord of roses and of days;
There the caravan of noon
Halts to hear the cricket's tune,
Fifing there for all who pass
The anthem of the summer grass!

Does not Heaven begin that day
When the eager heart can say,
Surely God is in this place,
I have seen Him face to face
In the loveliness of flowers,
In the service of the showers,
And His voice has talked to me
In the sunlit apple tree.

I can feel Him in my heart,
When the tears of knowledge start
For another's joy or woe,
Where the lonely soul must go.
Yea, I learned His very look,
When we walked beside the brook,
And you smiled and touched my hand.
God is love... I understand.

The Angel of Joy

There is no grief for me
Nor sadness any more;
For since I first knew thee
Great Joy has kept my door.

That angel of the calm
All-comprehending smile,
No menace can dismay,
No falsity beguile.

Out of the house of life
Before him fled away
Languor, regret, and strife
And sorrow on that day.

Grim fear, unma