Warrnambool

A civic lady, peerly proud
Of excellences that here crowd
About her trim, well-ordered streets:
The visitor she warmly greets
E'er with a bland and kindly smile,
Full conscious of her grace the while
A grace that comes of duty done
Thro' long years in her grateful sun.

Fit cause for pride lies in her past:
Her solid buildings, reared to last,
And all her old-world atmosphere
Hinting at Holland quaintly here,
With windmills turning in the breeze
Wafted from her historic seas
That knew the sails of venturers
Long ere this pleasant land was hers.

The stone man's footprints, graved in stone,
About her ancient rocks are known;
Here, too, the Spaniard, 'neath her wave,
Found with his stately ship a grave.
And thus, thro' hist'ry, can she show
How men may wax and men may grow
By wisely planned development
To an estate of proud content.

So, 'mid her rich lands of the south
Cast from a burning mountain's mouth
She grows her fruits and lives her life
Remote from hectic city strife.
And who shall come to her wide sea,
Seeking her hospitality,
In this contented dame shall find
A gracious lady, calm and kind.

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus DennisReport problemRelated quotes
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Turn To Stone

The city streets are empty now the lights dont shine no more
And so the songs are way down low turning turning turning
A sound that flows into my mind the echoes of the daylight
Of everything that is alive in my blue world
I turn to stone when you are gone, I turn to stone.
Turn to stone when you comin home, I cant go on.
The dying embers of the night a fire that slowly fades till dawn
Still glow upon the wall so bright burning burning burning
The tired streets that hide away from here to everywhere they go
Roll past my door into the day in my blue world
I turn to stone when you are gone, I turn to stone.
Turn to stone when you comin home, I cant go on.
Turn to stone when you are gone, I turn to stone.
Yes, Im turnin to stone cos you aint comin home.
Why you aint comin home if Im turnin to stone?
Youve been gone for so long and I cant carry on,
Yes, Im turnin, Im turnin, Im turnin to stone.
The dancing shadows on the wall the two-step in the hall
Are all I see since youve been gone turning turning turning
Through all I sit here and I wait I turn to stone I turn to stone
You will return again some day to my blue world
I turn to stone when you are gone, I turn to stone.
Turn to stone when you comin home, I cant go on.
Turn to stone when you are gone, I turn to stone.
I turn to stone when you are gone, I turn to stone.
Turn to stone when you comin home, I cant go on.
Turn to stone when you are gone, I turn to stone.

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Kilmore

Kilmore cares not who comes nigh.
But, with a calm, incurious eye,
She sees the swift cars speeding by,
Then turns again to labor.
She is content to plod along.
With now a sigh, when things go wrong,
And now a smile and now a song
Or gossip with a neighbor.
Her mind dwells often in the past,
The roaring days that could not last
When men might travel not so fast,
And all the world was bigger.

She saw the coaches clatter down
To pause at her important town
With loud-voiced venturers strong and brown,
And many a bearded digger.
She saw the eager traffic flow
Upon the road to Bendigo,
With talk of many a golden show,
Of finds and fields exciting.
But wisely she contrived to hold
A treasure greater far than gold,
Where her rich pasture lands unfold
A scene far more inviting.

She smiles to dream of those old days
Of hearty men and hectic ways
When, maddened by the golden craze,
Men sought their fortunes blindly.
But she, who chose the better part
Of patient toil and simple art,
Lives on, content of mind and heart,
And generous and kindly.
So, wealthy now, she sits at ease
In this kind land of fields and trees,
Ignoring all our flippancies
And modern fads and crazes.
And, where old buildings, tumbling down,
Leave scars about her ancient town,
The hasty mock her homely gown;
The wise man waits and praises.

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Bacchus Marsh

Here she bides, a buxom lady,
Blest by peace and great content;
Dwelling by her byways shady,
Where the elm trees boughs are bent;
Shutting out the world's wild clamor,
Lending to her streets a glamour,
Gracious and beneficent.


Fortune came to her full easy,
Asking little of man's toil;
So she prospered in those breezy
Days when wealth sprang from the soil
And kind earth, munificently,
As the placid seasons passed,
For man's fortune proffered gently
Rich and gracious gifts in plenty,
Drawn from out her storehouse vast.


Portly dame, untuned to trouble,
Destined through the years to be
While the ills of earth redouble
Sheltered in tranquility,
Asking neither fame nor glory,
And with quiet dilligence
Tending earth that tells the story
Of an age long gone and hoary,
And the young world's turbulence.


Brown hills, broody in the diatnce,
Fecund fields that won their worth
Out of nature's mad insistence
To remould her tortured earth
These have left their age-old traces
In the glacier's graven trail,
Thro' the wondrous green oasis
Where the pleasant river races
To the sea from this calm vale.

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Geelong

The earliest lady in the land,
Her pride of caste is high.
Where blue Corio's gleaming strand
Dream 'neath a peaceful sky,
She sat her down by her five towns,
And, garbed in best of homespun gowns,
She watched life pass her by.

A leisured lady then, and staid,
She mused beside her Bay,
While Barwon, in the You Yangs shade,
Droned thro' the drowsy day.
But now comes unaccustomed stir,
Since Henry, to enliven her,
Sent Lizzie here to stay.

A spiteful story men once spread,
Who sought to work her wrong,
About a woman who, they said,
Bore three sons hale and strong.
And, of the three, they used to tell,
Two still survived alive and well;
The third was in Geelong.

Now, she lives down that libelled past;
Life quickens in her streets;
Her mien grows brisk, her trade is vast;
With eager hands she meets
New ways, and bustles with a will;
But, fat and comfortable still,
Smiles upon all she greets.

Alert, yet sensible and sane,
As trade comes rushing in,
She shrewdly turns it to her gain
With sturdy will to win;
And still, withal contrives to wear
A kindly and complacent air.
And woollens next the skin.

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus DennisReport problemRelated quotes
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The City

You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, a better one than this.
Every effort of mine is a condemnation of fate;
and my heart is -- like a corpse -- buried.
How long will my mind remain in this wasteland.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years destroying and wasting."

You will find no new lands, you will find no other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
and you will grow gray in these same houses.
Always you will arrive in this city. Do not hope for any other --
There is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have destroyed your life here
in this little corner, you have ruinded it in the entire world.

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In some fields of grass under the hills (sestina)

This afternoon the peaks throw a big shade
with the black cliffs shining up on the hills,
while we lay together in the long grass,
I look in your eyes that are amber-green
while under my head there is a small stone
and you smile at me like the prettiest lady.

I had once known another charming lady;
that part of my life is now left in shade,
bad churchmen were casting stone upon stone,
while I had to flee from them to the hills
to pastures were everything is green
to find the Lord in divine fields of grass.

Under your head there is a crown of grass
and your mother is a gracious, kind lady,
around us everything is lovely green
while we are still resting in the cool shade,
we are softly chatting about life’s hills,
about walls of very hard granite stone.

Your eyes are much brighter than emerald stone
while all of your words are softer than grass,
reaching higher and beyond all the hills,
the high mountain which is dangerous lady,
while from our pain nothing gives any shade,
nowhere is a place of rest that is green.

Your summer dress is lovely, is bright green,
suddenly all our ails have turned to stone
I follow you further; see your small shade,
I am seen as one that woos any lady,
we walk past some flowers growing in grass,
climbing up higher into the foothills.

Bright streams are splashing down some of the hills,
with water transparent, sometimes cold and green,
love and lust burns like in a youthful lady
while I at that moment feel cold as stone,
we notice a deer feeding on lone grass
while our garments lie under a tree’s shade.

Far into the hills you want love till dusk’s shade,
where you peep like some green moss from the grass,
are tossing me with a stone like no lady.

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Colac

A lady plump and pleasing
And generous and free,
Her life is spent in sleek content
Beside her inland sea;
And, round its pleasant waters,
Her pastures, rich and green,
Their treasures yield from many a field
To make her way serene.

A placid, laughing lady,
And prone to placid ways;
But yet, withal, she heeds the call
0f labor all her days
Of kind, congenial labor,
That holds nor fret nor stress
A farmer's wife whose busy life
Brings full, free happiness.

Men say the ocean covered
These fields in some dim age;
And seas, long fled, vast riches spread
To be the heritage
Of this plump Aphrodite,
Now risen from the wave
To thrive apace and wax in grace
On all the wealth they gave.

A happy, hearty lady,
She turns the gift to good,
And wins in toil from this rich soil
A fine fat livelihood.
Now, where seas long since thundered,
Her cars ply up and down
To evidence sound thrift and sense
In Colac's smiling town.

Her land of lakes and pastures
Could never harbor here,
In this lush place, a dour, hard race
Wed to an outlook drear.
And so she smiles and prospers,
A happy, hearty wife,
Whose ample charms, whose thriving farms
Reveal her zest in life.

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus DennisReport problemRelated quotes
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A Forest Scene

As I went down a forest place
At the closing of the year
To find me peace, and gather grace
In this green gladness here.
I saw a scene I knew of old,
In many a year gone by
A loveliness to have and hold
Here, with the gully waters cold,
And the bland, blue peeping sky.

And I saw the blue wrens trooping near,
And I heard the thrushes call,
And found surcease from worldly fear
For a peace was over all.
And my mind went back to long ago,
For here was a scene I knew
Where the gums and ancient tree ferns grow,
And the ever-lasting waters flow,
And life yields little new.

And I thought of the world - of the world of men,
Who ever seek them change,
And haste, and hectic, haste again
To a goal beyond their range.
And I heard the thrush and the blue wren there
Fluting their songs of glee
For them this world was passing fair,
And they found content and gladness there.
Why came not peace to me?

Then I saw life, as men see life
I who am but a man;
And I dreamed of a scene devoid of strife,
Built on the good God's plan.
And I came me back from that forest place,
With a dream to have and hold,
Of men with naught but life to face,
Of men grown young in simple grace,
And the birds and the bush grown old!

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Walhalla

Dark lady of the laggard dawn,
Hiding within her gully deep;
Long have night's curtains been withdrawn
Before her earliest sun-shaft's peep.
And, long before the sun sinks down,
Eve's eager shadows creep her way,
Committing to the sheltered town
Nought but a niggard glimpse of day.

And shy enough she seems these days
Who was, long since, belle of them all;
When booted diggers went their way
Around about her ramparts tall.
Full generous she was and proud,
Proffering gold by ton on ton,
Where once the toiling, teaming crowd
Made most of her ungenerous fun.

For rich she was beyond belief
Full rich enough to make man's strife;
But her youth, like her day, was brief
Too brief, but filled with glamorous life
While her wealth spread her wide renown,
While gold called to man's highest hopes
And urgent diggers crowded round
By these, her mighty timbered slopes.

Now, as calm days come and go
Peaceful her quiet hamlet sleeps
A full three thousand feet below
The far crests of her wooded steeps;
And nought, save gnarled old English trees,
Stir to recall dead day passed on,
To leave her with proud memories
Of great and golden youth long gone.

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus DennisReport problemRelated quotes
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By Grace Are Ye Saved

In grace the holy God
Did full salvation plan,
Electing in His sovereign grace
To save rebellious man.


Refrain

By grace are ye saved thro’ faith,
Thro’ faith, thro’ faith,
Thro’ faith, and that not of yourselves;
Thro’ faith, and that not of yourselves;
Not of works, not of works,
Not of works, not of works,
Not of works, lest any man should boast;
It is the gift of God;
Not of works, lest any man should boast;
It is the gift of God, it is the gift of God,
It is the gift of God, it is the gift of God,
The gift of God.


This grace of God appears
In Jesus Christ His Son;
He, lifted on the cross of shame,
The grace of God makes known.


Refrain


To all who do believe
In God, thro’ Christ revealed
By grace, they full salvation have,
And “Sons of God” are sealed.


Refrain

poem by Daniel Webster MoodyReport problemRelated quotes
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The Best Smile

It was a portrait
Of six feet height
Full size Lady Grace,
Minus lips on her face.

With all his skill
The artist failed still,
To give her a smile,
Free from any style.

He scanned every mile,
For that unseen smile,
One lovely to admire,
Forever, the world over.

Smiles, smiles every where,
But not a smile there,
New, true and plain,
His lady should own.

His wife smiled.
His girl smiled.
His servant smiled.
His boss smiled.

The milkmaid smiled.
The cartman smiled.
The beggar smiled.
The neighbour smiled.

The dandy smiled.
The waiter smiled.
The grocer smiled.
The councilor smiled.

He saw an ambitious smile,
Not an aesthetic smile,
And a cunning smile,
Not a winning smile.

He saw a dubious smile,
Not a divine smile,
And a greedy smile,
Not a graceful smile.

He saw a mischievous smile,
Not a magnanimous smile,
And a voluptuous smile,
Not a virtuous smile.

Smiles, with strings, he found,
Wherever he went round,
But not the best one,
The Lady Grace won.

The smile, the best,
He found at last,
From his own child,
Rocking in the cradle.

Now the Lady Grace smiled.
Thanks to the child.
The portrait was acclaimed,
The best of its kind.

(Longest word in English is 'Smiles'
Because there is a mile between 'S' and 'S')

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Anzac Square: What The Digger Said

Said the Digger: 'Soon forgot! Soon forgot, the deeds of war.
Better so, may be. . . Why not?
Beauty fades and laurels rot;
Last year's roses are no more.
Fame?' the one-armed Digger said,
'What of glory when you're dead?'

'Stone and brass,' the Digger said. 'Stone and brass: tho' these endure,
Marble flaunting o'er my head
Would be dead, as I'd be dead.
How may any man be sure
That the hearts of men shall hold
Memories of tales once told?

This alone I surely know: earth I am, and earth shall be,
Only Mother Earth can show,
When I go where all men go,
Aught of this that had been me.
Mother Earth, once stained so red,
She must know,' the Digger said.

'Would you raise, in braggart heaps, stone, cold stone, to mark the fame
Of full many a man who sleeps
Where the earth of Anzac keeps
Guard o'er legions lacking name
Plinth and pillar reared to show
Pomp and pride they cannot know?

'They ask no portentous pile, boasting to a heedless sky,
Stirring men a little while,
Subject, then, for sigh or smile,
Not for this do soldiers die,
With our passing let Pride be,
All we ask is Memory:

'Memory of such fair worth as a fighting man may claim,
And a plot of hallowed earth
In the city of our birth:
Earth that bears a hallowed name.
Let it be envisioned there:
Anzac worth in Anzac Square.


'Memory,' the Digger said. 'If so be the city judge
Soldiers worthy, who have bled.
Worthy of her love, the dead,
Shall the city, then, begrudge
One wide acre of her soil
For who saved the whole from spoil?

'Here, it may be, by God's grace, our son's sons may sit at last,
In the People's market place,
Knowing truly, as they trace
Memory of me long past,
'Tis enshrined forever there:
Anzac worth in Anzac Square.'

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Old Town Types No.1 - The Old Town

Fierce on the wheat-sown Mallee plain
The ruthless summer suns burned down,
And dust-storms, heralding the rain,
Swept thro' the street and on again
While tradesfolk cursed in the old white town.
Of sand and line-stone stoutly built,
She'd lived to prosper and to wilt,
Because, as all wiseacres knew,
'They went and brought the railway thro'.'

Deep-voiced, bewhiskered townsfolk these,
Remnant of pioneering days,
Full of high tales and memories
Of wild, rough work and wilder sprees,
When coach and teamster went their ways;
When men pushed out to newer land
And cash came easy to the hand
And went: The golden days men knew
'Before that put that railway thro'.'

Yet even in those days of stress -
Or seeming stress - the old town knew
Nothing of wnat or wretchedness;
For wealth was there and work to bless
All men who sought them work to do.
To me, a child in those far years,
Now as a time-dimmed dream appears
The olden life that once I knew
After the railway wandered thro'.

Like myths in some long-fabled tale -
Figures and scenes to conjure with
They seem. Yet 'spite the deepening veil,
Their memories grow never stales;
Big George, the lumper; Toll, the smith;
Long John, the snob - long have they slept
While suns burned down and dustorm swept
Across the Mallee plains they knew
Before men brought the railway thro'.

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus DennisReport problemRelated quotes
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Our Lady of Immaculate Conception!

I searched for a lady
With beauty, not external,
But of the heart,
And I found no one,
And still I find none!

I searched for a lady
With eyes without envy,
But glowing innocence,
And I found no one,
And still I find none!

I searched for a lady
With modesty, not vanity,
And heart full of piety,
And I found no one,
And still I find none!

I searched for a lady
With grace, not of movements,
But of the soul,
And I found no one,
And still I find none!

I searched for a lady
With wisdom, not knowledge,
And full of kindness,
And I found no one,
And still I find none!

I searched for a lady
With virtues, not vices,
And one who’s exemplary,
And I found no one,
And still I find none!

Where can I find her?
-One without sin, not earthly,
One born immaculate:
And it was Mother Mary-
The Mother of Jesus:
She was that only one!

Copyright by Dr John Celes 4-28-2000

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A Beauty Hint

Sweet, think how much the better it would be
If you thro' life should thus preserve your beauty.
It really doesn't matter much to me;
But don't you think you owe the world a duty,
And don't you think that thro' some kindly thought -
Of me, for instance - beauty were well bought?

Those wrinkles on your face, dear,
Those bags beneath your eyes
Are but the evil trace, dear,
Of temper, spite and lies.
Why can't you be a saint, dear,
Like dear old Joan of Arc;
Be pleasant - which you ain't, dear,
And do not be a nark.

Consider, sweetheart, if you smiled always
How much, thro' weeks, your face might be improving;
In place of which, in these unhappy days,
You go to beauty shops for the removing
Of wrinkles, blemishes and ugly warts.
Why, when a smile will serve, seek these resorts?

Why can't you raise a grin, sweet,
And be a little beauty?
For ugliness is sin, sweet,
And loveliness a duty.
So, for my sake, why can't you make
An effort to he glad.
Just think of me and joyful be;
For I am not too bad.

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Seems So Long

Lady love and lady cared
But lady went away,
And left me all alone to suffer.
And now I feel its not fair
For me to fall in love
The truth is the real me you must uncover.
Seems so long, since Ive heard the sound
Its been so long, since Ive trusted in someone else,
Had to see it all for myself,
Its been so long, that the world seems cold,
But I think its time in my life to find myself again.
Lady loved and lady stayed,
Until she was too pleased
She knew I wouldnt leave for her to suffer.
Id never make her suffer.
Now I believe youre just like me,
In that you understand,
And want me for your man to always love me.
You can believe its seems so long, since Ive touched a wanting hand
Oh, it seems so long, since Ive trusted in someone else,
Had to see this world for myself,
And its been so long that the world seems cold,
Now I think Ive found someone to make me trust in someone again.
I believe that I can trust in you.

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The Kindly Copper

Oh, for that kindly copper
I knew long years ago,
A stalwart man and proper,
Crime's unrelenting foe.
He was for me a shield, a friend
Who sole concern was to defend
Such just rights as I know.

My bedtime thoughts went with him
What time his forthright feet,
In slow and measured rhythm,
Patrolled his midnight beat;
And, knowing he was on my side,
I blessed him, snugly satisfied,
Our concord was complete.

And now, tho' we've neglected
No duty, sought no change,
This friend I once respected
Half hostile grows, and strange.
They've made of him a hybrid thing:
And jobs we both dislike now bring
Him well within my range.

His stern eye holds suspicions
I feel I don't deserve
Re rules and requisitions
That fairly get my nerve.
And, when I motor thro' the land,
His great, prohibitive, red hand
Restrains my merry verve.

They give him duties menial
Jobs that no proud cop asks;
So that he, once so genial,
No more in favor basks.
And I am quite convinced the pop
ularity of any cop
Must suffer thro' these tasks.

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Greek from Ancient Times

Antioch is proud of its splendid buildings,
its beautiful streets, the lovely countryside around it,
its teeming population;
proud too of its glorious kings, its artists
and sages, its very rich
yet prudent merchants. But far more
than all this, Antioch is proud to be a city
Greek from ancient times, related to Argos
through Ione, founded by Argive colonists
in honor of Inachos' daughter.

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Welcome

Prince of the race whose Empire is the Sea,
We welcome thee!
Thy ensign floats above our harbour-mouth.
A fairy’s hand
Has decked the great Queen City of the South.
By arch and roof, in bannered street and stand,
The vast crowd waits.
The cannon thunder greeting from the strand.
But in our hearts a deeper note vibrates—
The loving welcome of a loyal land.
’Tis the same race that from the iron North
Went faring forth,
Flying the flag of England at the fore;
Nor saw again
The masted city, with its ceaseless roar,
The flower-flecked meadow and the leafy lane,
The steepled hill,
Or ivied ruin rising from the plain,
But for a sign that they remembered still,
Built Greater Britains over all the main.

For thee, and her who comes with thee to grace
Our land and race,
Five million hearts beat with a welcome leal,
North, South and West.
Not in a day was built this Commonweal!
Slow, with our lives, we built it; nor confes’t
How stern our fears,
Thro’ drought and flood, in fever and unrest.
Its tale: the courage of laborious years.
And for a seal: the life-blood of our best.

Is she not fair whose morning thrills the East?
Youngest, not least,
Of all those Britains that one isle has sown,
One faith impearled
In world-wide union. We can hold our own—
’Gainst us in vain all envious shafts are hurled
If still we be
The Sons of Freedom, ’neath one flag unfurled,
Co-heirs of Fame and Wardens of the Sea,
One tongue, one race, one heart before the world!

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Our Mountain Cemetery

Lonely and silent and calm it lies
’Neath rosy dawn or midnight skies;
So densely peopled, yet so still,
The murmuring voice of mountain rill,
The plaint the wind ’mid branches wakes,
Alone the solemn silence breaks.

Whatever changes the seasons bring,—
The birds, the buds of joyous spring,
The glories that come with the falling year
The snows and storms of winter drear,—
Are all unmarked in this lone spot,
Its shrouded inmates feel them not.

Thoughts full of import, earnest and deep,
Must the feeling heart in their spirit steep,
Here, where Death’s footprints meet the sight:
The long chill rows of tombstones white,
The graves so thickly, widely spread,
Within this city of the Dead.

Say, who could tell what aching sighs,
What tears from heavy, grief-dimmed eyes,
Have here been shed in silent woe,
Mourning the cold, still form below;
Or o’er past harshness, coldness, hate,
Grieving, alas! too late—too late!

Oh, man, vain dreamer of this life,
Seeking ’mid restless toil and strife
For wealth, for happiness, for fame,
Thirsting to make thyself a name,
See, unto what thy course doth tend,
Of all thy toils—there is the end.

Woman, of grace or beauty proud,
Seeking alone gay fashion’s crowd,—
Thine aim, admiring looks to win,
E’en at the price of folly or sin,
That beauty now to thee so dear,
Would’st thou know its fate?
Look around thee, here.

But not alone such lessons stern
May we within the grave-yard learn:
’Tis here the servant wise and good,
Who loyal to his trust hath stood,
Will joyously at length lay down
The heavy cross to receive the crown.

And hope, sweet messenger of God,
Poised lightly ’bove the charnel sod,
With upturned brow and radiant eyes,
Pointing unto the distant skies,
Whispers: “Oh, weary child of care,
Look up! thy heavenly home is there!”

poem by Rosanna Eleanor LeprohonReport problemRelated quotes
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