His Journey's Just Begun - by E. Brenneman

Don't think of him
As gone away-
His journey's just begun,
Life holds so many facets-
This earth is only one...
Just think of him as resting
From the sorrows and the tears
In a place of warmth and comfort
Where there are no days and years.
Think how he must be wishing
That we could know today
How nothing but our sadness
Can really pass away.
And think of him as living
In the hearts of those he touched...
For nothing loved is ever lost-
And he was loved so much.

I Heard an Angel - by William Blake

I heard an Angel singing 
When the day was springing,
"Mercy, Pity, Peace
Is the world's release."

Thus he sung all day
Over the new mown hay,
Till the sun went down
And haycocks looked brown.

I heard a Devil curse
Over the heath and the furze,
"Mercy could be no more,
If there was nobody poor,

And pity no more could be,
If all were as happy as we."
At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown.

Down pour'd the heavy rain
Over the new reap'd grain ...
And Miseries' increase
Is Mercy, Pity, Peace. 

In As Much - by G.W. Russell

When for love it was fain of
The wild heart was chidden,
When the white limbs were clothed
And the beauty was hidden;

For the scorn that was done to
The least of her graces,
The Mother veiled over
And hid from our faces.

The high soul of nature,
The deep and the wonder,
Her towers up in heaven,
And the fairyland under.

The Mother then whispered,
"The wrong done by thee
To the least limb of beauty
Was done unto me."

Kids Who Are Different - by Digby Wolfe

Here's to the kids who are different,
The kids who don't always get A's,
The kids who have ears twice the size of their peers,
And noses that go on for days...
Here's to the kids who are different,
The kids they call crazy or dumb,
The kids who don't fit, with the guts and the grit,
Who dance to a different drum...
Here's to the kids who are different,
The kids with the mischievous streak,
For when they have grown, as history's shown,
It's their difference that makes them unique.

Light - by Francis W. Bourdillon

The night has a thousand eyes,
The day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When its love is done.

A Little Boy's Dream - by Katherine Mansfield

To and fro, to and fro
In my little boat I go
Sailing far across the sea
All alone, just little me.
And the sea is big and strong
And the journey very long.
To and fro, to and fro
In my little boat I go.

Sea and sky, sea and sky,
Quietly on the deck I lie,
Having just a little rest.
I have really done my best
In an awful pirate fight,
But we cdaptured them all right.
Sea and sky, sea and sky,
Quietly on the deck I lie--

Far away, far away
From my home and from my play,
On a journey without end
Only with the sea for friend
And the fishes in the sea.
But they swim away from me
Far away, far away
From my home and from my play.

Then he cried "O Mother dear."
And he woke and sat upright,
They were in the rocking chair,
Mother's arms around him--tight.

A Little Girl's Prayer - by Katherine Mansfield

Grant me the moment, the lovely moment
That I may lean forth to see
The other buds, the other blooms,
The other leaves on the tree:

That I may take into my bosom
The breeze that is like his brother,
But stiller, lighter, whose faint laughter
Exhoes the joy of the other.

Above on the blue and white cloud-spaces
There are small clouds at play.
I watch their remote, mysterious play-time
In the other far-away.

Grant I may hear the small birds singing
the song that the silence knows...
(The Light and the Shadow whisper together,
The lovely moment grows,

Ripples into the air like water
Away and away without sound,
And the little girl gets up from her praying
On the cold ground)

The Lover Tells of the Rose
in His Heart - by W.B. Yeats

All things uncomely and broken, 
all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, 
the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, 
splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms 
a rose in the deeps of my heart.

The wrong of unshapely things 
is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew 
and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, 
remade, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms 
a rose in the deeps of my heart.

Loving Memories - by Unknown Author

Your gentle face and patient smile
With sadness we recall
You had a kindly word for each
And died beloved by all.

The voice is mute and stilled the heart
That loved us well and true,
Ah, bitter was the trial to part
From one so good as you.

You are not forgotten loved one
Nor will you ever be
As long as life and memory last
We will remember thee.

We miss you now, our hearts are sore,
As time goes by we miss you more,
Your loving smile, your gentle face,
No one can fill your vacant place.

The Man in the Glass - by Unknown Author

Submitted by Bob McComb

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what THAT man has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass;
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.


Some people may think you a straight-shootin' chum
And call you a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.

He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end.
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life
And get pats on your back as you pass.
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.

The Mystery - by Ralph Hodgson

He came and took me by the hand
Up to a red rose tree,
He kept His meaning to Himself
But gave a rose to me.

I did not pray Him to lay bare
The mystery to me.
Enough the rose was Heaven to smell,
And His own face to see.

Poem - by Donald Justice

This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.

Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish.  And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.

It is not sad, really, only empty.
Once perhaps it was sad, no one knows why.
It prefers to remember nothing.
Nostalgias were peeled from it long ago.

Your type of beauty has no place here.
Night is the sky over this poem.
It is too black for stars.
And do not look for any illumination.

You neither can nor should understand what it means.
Listen, it comes without guitar,
Neither in rags nor any purple fashion.
And there is nothing in it to comfort you.

Close your eyes, yawn.  It will be over soon.
You will forget the poem, but not before
It has forgotten you.  And it does not matter.
It has been most beautiful in its erasures.

O bleached mirrors!  Oceans of the drowned!
Nor is one silence equal to another.
And it does not matter what you think.
This poem is not addressed to you.

The Poet's Testament - by George Santayana

I give back to the earth what the earth gave,
All to the furrow, nothing to the grave,
The candle's out, the spirit's vigil spent;
Sight may not follow where the vision went.

I leave you but the sound of many a word
In mocking echoes haply overheard,
I sang to heaven.  My exile made me free,
From world to world, from all worlds carried me.

Spared by the Furies, for the Fates were kind,
I paced the pillared cloisters of the mind;
All times my present, everywhere my place,
Nor fear, nor hope, nor envy saw my face.

Blow what winds would, the ancient truth was mine,
And friendship mellowed in the flush of wine,
And heavenly laughter, shaking from its wings
Atoms of light and tears for mortal things.

To trembling harmonies of field and cloud,
Of flesh and spirit was my worship vowed.
Let form, let music, let all-quickening air
Fulfil in beauty my imperfect prayer.

Refuge - by G.W. Russell

Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by,
And Night, the dark-blue hunter, followed fast,
Ceaseless pursuit and flight were in the sky,
But the long chase had ceased for us at last.

We watched together while the driven fawn
Hid in the golden thicket of the day.
We, from whose hearts pursuit and flight were gone,
Knew on the hunter's breast her refuge lay.

Remembrance - by Walter De La Mare

The sky was like a waterdrop
In shadow of a thorn,
Clear, tranquil, beautiful,
Forlorn.

Lightning along its margin ran;
A rumor of the sea
Rose in profundity and sank
Into infinity.

Lofty and few the elms, the stars
In the vast boughs most bright;
I stood a dreamer in a dream
In the unstirring night.

Not wonder, worship, not even peace
Seemed in my heart to be:
Only the memory of one,
Of all most dead to me.

The Road Not Taken - by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 
And sorry I could not travel both 
And be one traveller, long I stood 
And looked down one as far as I could 
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair, 
And having perhaps the better claim, 
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; 
Though as for that the passing there 
Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay 
In leaves no step had trodden black. 
Oh, I kept the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way, 
I doubted if I should ever come back. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh 
Somewhere ages and ages hence: 
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- 
I took the one less traveled by, 
And that has made all the difference.

The Roadside Fire - by Robert Louis Stevenson

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and me
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

The Rose Beyond the Wall - by Unknown Author

A rose once grew where all could see,
Sheltered beside a garden wall,
And, as the days passed swiftly by,
It spread its branches, straight and tall...

One day, a beam of light shone through
A crevice that had opened wide-
The rose bent gently toward its warmth
Then passed beyond to the other side...

Now, you who deeply feel its loss,
Be comforted - the rose blooms there-
It's beauty even greater now,
Nurtured by God's own loving care.