 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
CONTENT
Howe'er it be with some, the broad highway
Is better than the priestly path for me;
For when it was my task, from day to day,
To do official pieties, and pray,
I think I might have grown a Pharisee,
Pumping my heart, when it was dry as dust,
For words of faith and hope—because I must.
Is better than the priestly path for me;
For when it was my task, from day to day,
To do official pieties, and pray,
I think I might have grown a Pharisee,
Pumping my heart, when it was dry as dust,
For words of faith and hope—because I must.
Then are we at our highest, when we touch
The Infinite and Good in worship due,
Bowing in lowly reverence to such
As we deem holiest, and trusting much
Because the holiest is most pitying too:
Nothing so nobly human as the quest
That seeks true man in God, and there finds rest.
The Infinite and Good in worship due,
Bowing in lowly reverence to such
As we deem holiest, and trusting much
Because the holiest is most pitying too:
Nothing so nobly human as the quest
That seeks true man in God, and there finds rest.
248
But he who all day handles sacred tasks,
While his thoughts travail with the world, and he
Nor hopes to get from God the thing he asks,
Nor yet to hide from God the heart he masks
To others—how it wounds his soul to be
Praying-machine, until the day's chief sin
Is the chief duty he has done therein!
While his thoughts travail with the world, and he
Nor hopes to get from God the thing he asks,
Nor yet to hide from God the heart he masks
To others—how it wounds his soul to be
Praying-machine, until the day's chief sin
Is the chief duty he has done therein!
I did not turn a Pharisee; I fought
Against the perils that my life beset,
And when I felt no worship, worshipped not,
And when my heart was merry, mirth I sought,
Entangling jests like gay moths in a net,
And laughed, and made laugh, though I saw, the while,
They fancied not a priest so given to smile.
Against the perils that my life beset,
And when I felt no worship, worshipped not,
And when my heart was merry, mirth I sought,
Entangling jests like gay moths in a net,
And laughed, and made laugh, though I saw, the while,
They fancied not a priest so given to smile.
Be the road stormy, be it calm and mild,
Yet snares are spread there, pitfalls too are dug:
The pious mother, longing that her child
May keep his white robe clean and undefiled,
Dreams of a peaceful parsonage and snug,
Where the world comes not, neither any snare;
Yet world and flesh and devil, too, are there.
Yet snares are spread there, pitfalls too are dug:
The pious mother, longing that her child
May keep his white robe clean and undefiled,
Dreams of a peaceful parsonage and snug,
Where the world comes not, neither any snare;
Yet world and flesh and devil, too, are there.
Just past their teens, we task young souls to do
What needs a large experience deeply-tried;
And oft I marvel they remain so true,
Freshening the old, and bringing forth the new,
And with the growing life still growing wide;
For the cloud-incense of the altar hides
The true form of the God who there abides.
What needs a large experience deeply-tried;
And oft I marvel they remain so true,
Freshening the old, and bringing forth the new,
And with the growing life still growing wide;
For the cloud-incense of the altar hides
The true form of the God who there abides.
But now I do my work with hand and head,
And do my worship with a separate heart;
With a good conscience earning daily bread,
And by the Heavenly Father duly fed,
I keep the worship and the work apart;
And yet the work has worship in it too,
But willing service, not a task I do.
And do my worship with a separate heart;
With a good conscience earning daily bread,
And by the Heavenly Father duly fed,
I keep the worship and the work apart;
And yet the work has worship in it too,
But willing service, not a task I do.
My heart is more at one, my soul more calm,
My Sunday more a welcome joy to me,
Whose rest is sweetened by the folded palm,
The bended knee, and the uplifted psalm,
While once it was a fretful troubled sea
Vexed by the thought of human praise or blame,
And only partly lit by the Great Name.
My Sunday more a welcome joy to me,
Whose rest is sweetened by the folded palm,
The bended knee, and the uplifted psalm,
While once it was a fretful troubled sea
Vexed by the thought of human praise or blame,
And only partly lit by the Great Name.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |