The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68

Selections of Poetry to Accompany and Illustrate the Catechism of the Duties of Life

Selections of Poetry to Accompany and Illustrate the Catechism of the Duties of Life.

Doing Good Deeds.

My dearest maid, I have no song to give you,
No lark could pipe in skies so dull and grey;
Yet ere we part, one lesson I will leave you,
For every day,

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,
Do noble, noble things, not dream them all day long;
And so make life, death, and the vast forever,
One grand, sweet song.
C. Kingsley (In a young lady's album).

Work.

Work! 'tis a noble and a manly word,
For Nature all around us works incessant.
Our mother earth, the vast and mighty ocean,
The stars, the planets, and the glorious sun,
All, all fulfil their mission: so must I .
Be mine to work while it is called today,
For fast the night of Death approaches,
Wherein no man may work. . . .
Hence, indolence! hence, sloth! hence, idleness!
Though not in halls of state, nor scenes of pomp
And glory lay my field of work and toil;
Though in some humble and forgotten place
My task I find and follow day by day,—
Still would I rather have the consciousness
That I have bravely done that duty next my hand.
Than aimed at great things and accomplished nought.
'Tis not the work we do, but how 'tis done,
That stamps with dignity our lot in life.

G. W. Russell,

Promptness in Action.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Shakespeare.

True Nobility.

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.

Tennyson

National Greatness.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade,
A breath can make them as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

Goldsmith.