Be it my only wisdom here,
To serve the Lord with filial fear,
     With loving gratitude;
Superior sense may I display
By shunning every evil way,
     And walking in the good.

Oh, may I still from sin depart,
A wise and understanding heart,
     Jesus, in me be given!
And let me through thy Spirit know
To glorify my God below,
     And find my way to heaven.

-- Charles Wesley

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

-- William Blake

De Profundis

 O Father, in that hour
     When Earth all succouring power
     Shall disavow;
When spear and shield and crown
In faintness are cast down;
     Sustain us Thou!

By Him who bowed to take
The death-cup for our sake,
     The thorn, the rod;
From whom the last dismay
Was not to pass away;
     Aid us, O God!

-- Mrs. Hemans, ne'e Browne

A Divine Epigram

 The door of death is made of gold
That mortal eyes can not behold;
But when the mortal eyes are closed,
And cold and pale the limbs reposed,
The soul awakes, and wondering sees
In her mild hand the golden keys.

-- William Blake

The Contrite Heart

The Lord will happiness divine
On contrite hearts bestow;
Then tell me, gracious God, is mine
A contrite heart or no.

I hear, but seem to hear in vain,
Insensible as steel;
If aught is felt, 'tis only pain,
To find I cannot feel.

My best desires are faint and few,
I fain wold strive for more;
But when I cry, "My strength renew!"
Seem weaker than before.

O make this heart rejoice or ache,
Decide this doubt for me;
And if it be not broken, break, --
And heal it if it be.

-- William Cowper

The Shepherd Boy's Song in the Valley of Humiliation

 He that is down needs fear no fall,
     He that is low no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
     Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,
     Little be it or much;
And, Lord, contentment still I crave
     Because thou savest such.

Fulness to such a burden is
     That go on to pilgrimage;
Here little and hereafter bliss
     Is best from age to age.

-- John Bunyan

from The Dear Bargain

 O my Saviour, make me see,
How dearly Thou hast paid for me,
That lost again my life may prove,
As then in death, so now in love.

-- Richard Crashaw

Divinity

 Love God, and love your neighbour.  Watch and pray.
Do as you would be done unto.
O dark instructions; ev'n as dark as day!
Who can these Gordian knots undo?

-- George Herbert

from Earth and Heaven

 Gaze but upon the house where man embow'rs;
With flow'rs and rushes pave'd is his way,
Where all the creatures are his servitors,
The winds do sweep his chambers every day,
And clouds do wash his rooms, the ceiling gay
     Starred aloft the gilded knobs embrave:
     If such a house God to another gave,
How shine those glittering courts He for Himself will have!

-- Giles Fletcher

Upon God

 God, when he takes my goods and chattels hence,
Gives me a portion, giving patience:
What is in God is God; if so it be
He patience giver, He gives Himself to me.

-- Robert Herrick

 "Your task ... to build a better world," God said.
I answered, "How ...?
This world is such a large vast place,
So complicated now,
And I so small and useless am.
There's nothing I can do."
But God in all his wisdom said,
"Just build a better you."

-- Anonymous

 The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky --
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

 One ship drives east and another drives west
With selfsame winds that blow:
It's the set of the sails and not the gales
That tells them where to go.

Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate,

As we voyage along through life;

It's the set of the soul that decides the goal,

And not the calm or the strife.

-- Anonymous

 These things are beautiful beyond belief:

The pleasant weakness that comes after pain,

The radiant greeness that comes after rain,

The deepened faith that follows after grief,

And the awakening to love again.

-- Anonymous