Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul. Various

      —Edwin Markham.

      ———

      Honor and shame from no condition rise;

      Act well your part, there all the honor lies

      —Alexander Pope.

      ———

      How wretched is the man with honors crowned,

      Who, having not the one thing needful found,

      Dies, known to all, but to himself unknown.

      —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

      ———

      He fought a thousand glorious wars,

      And more than half the world was his,

      And somewhere, now, in yonder stars,

      Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is.

      —William Makepeace Thackeray.

      ———

      Howe'er it be, it seems to me

      'Tis only noble to be good;

      Kind hearts are more than coronets,

      And simple faith than Norman blood.

      —Alfred Tennyson.

      ———

      I've learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed,

      Not the applauding thunder at its heels

      Which men call fame.

      —Alexander Smith.

      ———

      It is worth while to live!

      Be of good cheer;

      Love casts out fear;

      Rise up, achieve.

      —Christina G. Rossetti.

      ———

      No endeavor is in vain;

      Its reward is in the doing,

      And the rapture of pursuing

      Is the prize the vanquished gain.

      —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

      ———

      Far better in its place the lowliest bird

      Should sing aright to Him the lowliest song,

      Than that a seraph strayed should take the word

      And sing His glory wrong.

      —Jean Ingelow.

      ———

      Often ornateness

      Goes with greatness.

      Oftener felicity

      Comes of simplicity.

      —William Watson.

      

      ———

      A jewel is a jewel still, though lying in the dust,

      And sand is sand, though up to heaven by the tempest thrust.

      —From the Persian.

      ———

      Vulgar souls surpass a rare one in the headlong rush;

      As the hard and worthless stones a precious pearl will crush.

      —From the Persian.

      ———

      Be noble! and the nobleness that lies

      In other men, sleeping, but never dead,

      Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

      —James Russell Lowell.

      ———

      The mean of soul are sure their faults to gloss,

      And find a secret gain in others' loss.

      —John Boyle O'Reilly.

      ———

      Ah, a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

      Or what's heaven for?

      —Robert Browning.

      ———

      Though thy name be spread abroad,

      Like winged seed, from shore to shore,

      What thou art before thy God,

      That thou art and nothing more.

      ———

      My business is not to remake myself,

      But make the absolute best of what God made.

      —Robert Browning.

      ———

      For never land long lease of empire won

      Whose sons sat silent when base deeds were done.

      —James Russell Lowell.

      ———

      He that would free from malice pass his days

      Must live obscure and never merit praise.

      —John Gay.

      ———

      Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,

      Before a thousand peering littlenesses.

      —Alfred Tennyson.

      ———

      The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life,

      Try to be Shakespeare—leave the rest to fate.

      —Robert Browning.

      ———

      Unblemished let me live, or die unknown;

      O, grant an honest fame, or grant me none.

      —Alexander Pope.

      ———

      With fame in just proportion envy grows;

      The man that makes a character makes foes.

      —Edward Young.

      ———

      'Tis not what man does which exalts him,

      But what man would do.

      —Robert Browning.

      ———

      Better have failed in the high aim, as I,

      Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed.

      —Robert Browning.

      ———

      The simple, silent, selfless man

      Is worth a world of tonguesters.

      —Alfred Tennyson.

DUTY

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LOYALTY, FAITHFULNESS, CONSCIENCE, ZEAL

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