Poems About Christian Life

Poems About Christian Life: NOTHING BUT LEAVES

Nothing but leaves; the spirit grieves
Over a wasted life;
Sin committed while conscience slept,
Promises made, but never kept,
Hatred, battle, and strife;
Nothing but leaves!

Nothing but leaves; no garnered sheaves
Of life's fair, ripened grain;
Words, idle words, for earnest deeds;
We sow our seeds,--lo! tares and weeds:
We reap, with toil and pain,
Nothing but leaves!

Nothing but leaves; memory weaves
No veil to screen the past:
As we retrace our weary way,
Counting each lost and misspent day,
We find, sadly, at last,
Nothing but leaves!

And shall we meet the Master so,
Bearing our withered leaves?
The Saviour looks for perfect fruit,
We stand before him, humbled, mute;
Waiting the words he breathes,--
"Nothing but leaves?"

LUCY E. AKERMAN

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Poems About Christian Life: SAID I NOT SO?

Said I not so,--that I would sin no more?
Witness, my God, I did;
Yet I am run again upon the score:
My faults cannot be hid.

What shall I do?--make vows and break them still?
'Twill be but labor lost;
My good cannot prevail against mine ill:
The business will be crost.

O, say not so; thou canst not tell what strength
Thy God may give thee at the length.
Renew thy vows, and if thou keep the last,
Thy God will pardon all that's past.
Vow while thou canst; while thou canst vow, thou may'st
Perhaps perform it when thou thinkest least.

Thy God hath not denied thee all,
Whilst he permits thee but to call.
Call to thy God for grace to keep
Thy vows; and if thou break them, weep.
Weep for thy broken vows, and vow again:
Vows made with tears cannot be still in vain.
Then once again
I vow to mend my ways;
Lord, say Amen,
And thine be all the praise.

GEORGE HERBERT

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Poems About Christian Life: THE WORLD

"And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment."--JOHN xvi. 8.

The world is wise, for the world is old;
Five thousand years their tale have told;
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be,--
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

The world is kind if we ask not too much;
It is sweet to the taste, and smooth to the touch;
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be,--
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

The world is strong, with an awful strength,
And full of life in its breadth and length;
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be,--
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

The world is so beautiful one may fear
Its borrowed beauty might make it too dear,
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be--
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

The world is good in its own poor way,
There is rest by night and high spirits by day;
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be,--
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

The cross shines fair, and the church-bell rings,
And the earth is peopled with holy things;
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be,--
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

What lackest thou, world? for God made thee of old;
Why,--thy faith hath gone out, and thy love grown cold;
Thou art not happy, as thou mightest be,
For the want of Christ's simplicity.

It is blood that thou lackest, thou poor old world!
Who shall make thy love hot for thee, frozen old world?
Thou art not happy, as thou mightest be,
For the love of dear Jesus is little in thee.

Poor world! if thou cravest a better day,
Remember that Christ must have his own way;
I mourn thou art not as thou mightest be,
But the love of God would do all for thee.

FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER

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Poems About Christian Life: THE SIFTING OF PETER

"Behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat."--LUKE xxii. 31.

In Saint Luke's Gospel we are told
How Peter in the days of old
Was sifted;
And now, though ages intervene,
Sin is the same, while time and scene
Are shifted.

Satan desires us, great and small,
As wheat, to sift us, and we all
Are tempted;
Not one, however rich or great,
Is by his station or estate
Exempted.

No house so safely guarded is
But he, by some device of his,
Can enter;
No heart hath armor so complete
But he can pierce with arrows fleet
Its centre.

For all at last the cock will crow
Who hear the warning voice, but go
Unheeding,
Till thrice and more they have denied
The Man of Sorrows, crucified
And bleeding.

One look of that pale suffering face
Will make us feel the deep disgrace
Of weakness;
We shall be sifted till the strength
Of self-conceit be changed at length
To meekness.

Wounds of the soul, though healed, will ache;
The reddening scars remain, and make
Confession;
Lost innocence returns no more;
We are not what we were before
Transgression.

But noble souls, through dust and heat,
Rise from disaster and defeat
The stronger.
And conscious still of the divine
Within them, lie on earth supine
No longer.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

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Poems About Christian Life: THE LADDER OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,
That makes another's virtues less;
The revel of the ruddy wine,
And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;
The strife for triumph more than truth;
The hardening of the heart, that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes
The action of the nobler will:--

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern--unseen before--
A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

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Poems About Christian Life: SAINT CHRISTOPHER

"Carry me across!"
The Syrian heard, rose up, and braced
His huge limbs to the accustomed toil:
"My child, see how the waters boil?
The night-black heavens look angry-faced;
But life is little loss.

"I'll carry thee with joy,
If needs be, safe as nestling dove:
For o'er this stream I pilgrims bring
In service to one Christ, a King
Whom I have never seen, yet love."
"I thank thee," said the boy.

Cheerful, Arprobus took
The burden on his shoulders great,
And stepped into the waves once more;
When lo! they leaping rise and roar,
And 'neath the little child's light weight
The tottering giant shook.

"Who art thou?" cried he wild,v Struggling in middle of the ford:
"Boy as thou look'st, it seems to me
The whole world's load I bear in thee,
Yet--" "For the sake of Christ, thy Lord,
Carry me," said the child.

No more Arprobus swerved,
But gained the farther bank, and then
A voice cried, "Hence Christopheros be!
For carrying thou hast carried Me,
The King of angels and of men,
The Master thou hast served."

And in the moonlight blue
The saint saw,--not the wandering boy,
But him who walked upon the sea
And o'er the plains of Galilee,
Till, filled with mystic, awful joy,
His dear Lord Christ he knew.

Oh, little is all loss,
And brief the space 'twixt shore and shore,
If thou, Lord Jesus, on us lay,
Through the deep waters of our way,
The burden that Christopheros bore,--
To carry thee across.

DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK

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Poems About Christian Life: SCORN NOT THE LEAST

When words are weak and foes encountering strong,
Where mightier do assault than do defend,
The feebler part puts up enforced wrong,
And silent sees that speech could not amend.
Yet higher powers most think though they repine,--
When sun is set, the little stars will shine.

While pike doth range, the silly tench doth fly,
And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish;
Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by;
These fleet afloat while those do fill the dish.
There is a time even for the worms to creep.
And suck the dew while all their foes do sleep.

The merlin cannot ever soar on high,
Nor greedy greyhound still pursue the chase;
The tender lark will find a time to fly.
And fearful hare to run a quiet race.
He that high-growth on cedars did bestow,
Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow.

In Haman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept,
Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe;
The Lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept,
Yet he to heaven, to hell did Dives go.
We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May,
Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL

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Poems About Christian Life: THE WIDOW'S MITES

Two mites, two drops, yet all her house and land,
Fall from a steady heart, though trembling hand:
The other's wanton wealth foams high, and brave;
The other cast away, she only gave.

RICHARD CRASHAW

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Poems About Christian Life: EXAMPLE

We scatter seeds with careless hand,
And dream we ne'er shall see them more;
But for a thousand years
Their fruit appears,
In weeds that mar the land,
Or healthful store.

The deeds we do, the words we say,--
Into still air they seem to fleet,
We count them ever past;
But they shall last,--
In the dread judgment they
And we shall meet.

I charge thee by the years gone by,
For the love's sake of brethren dear,
Keep thou the one true way,
In work and play,
Lest in that world their cry
Of woe thou hear.

JOHN KEBLE.

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Poems About Christian Life: SMALL BEGINNINGS

A traveller through a dusty road strewed acorns on the lea;
And one took root and sprouted up, and grew into a tree.
Love sought its shade, at evening time, to breath its early vows;
And age was pleased, in heats of noon, to bask beneath its boughs;
The dormouse loved its dangling twigs, the birds sweet music bore;
It stood a glory in its place, a blessing evermore.

A little spring had lost its way amid the grass and fern,
A passing stranger scooped a well, where weary men might turn;
He walled it in, and hung with care a ladle at the brink;
He thought not of the deed he did, but judged that toil might drink.
He passed again, and lo! the well, by summers never dried,
Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues, and saved a life besides.

A dreamer dropped a random thought; 't was old, and yet 't was new;
A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being true.
It shone upon a genial mind, and lo! its light became
A lamp of life, a beacon ray, a monitory flame.
The thought was small; its issue great; a watch-fire on the hill,
It shed its radiance far adown, and cheers the valley still!

A nameless man, amid the crowd that thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of Hope and Love, unstudied, from the heart;
A whisper on the tumult thrown,--a transitory breath,--
It raised a brother from the dust; it saved a soul from death.
O germ! O fount! O word of love! O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first, but mighty at the last.

CHARLES MACKAY

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Poems About Christian Life: I WOULD I WERE AN EXCELLENT DIVINE

I would I were an excellent divine.
That had the Bible at my fingers' ends;
That men might hear out of this mouth of mine
How God doth make his enemies his friends;
Rather than with a thundering and long prayer
Be led into presumption, or despair.

This would I be, and would none other be,
But a religious servant of my God;
And know there is none other God but he.
And willingly to suffer mercy's rod,--
Joy in his grace, and live but in his love,
And seek my bliss but in the world above.

And I would frame a kind of faithful prayer,
For all estates within the state of grace,
That careful love might never know despair.
Nor servile fear might faithful love deface;
And this would I both day and night devise
To make my humble spirit's exercise.

And I would read the rules of sacred life;
Persuade the troubled soul to patience;
The husband care, and comfort to the wife,
To child and servant due obedience;
Faith to the friend, and to the neighbor peace,
That love might live, and quarrels all might cease.

Prayer for the health of all that are diseased,
Confession unto all that are convicted,
And patience unto all that are displeased,
And comfort unto all that are afflicted,
And mercy unto all that have offended,
And grace to all, that all may be amended.

NICHOLAS BRETON

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Poems About Christian Life: JUDGE NOT

Judge not; the workings of his brain
And of his heart thou canst not see;
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,
In God's pure light may only be
A scar, brought from some well-won field,
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.

The look, the air, that frets thy sight
May be a token that below
The soul has closed in deadly fight
With some infernal fiery foe,
Whose glance would scorch thy smiling grace
And cast thee shuddering on thy face!

The fall thou darest to despise,--
May be the angel's slackened hand
Has suffered it, that he may rise
And take a firmer, surer stand;
Or, trusting less to earthly things,
May henceforth learn to use his wings.

And judge none lost; but wait and see,
With hopeful pity, not disdain;
The depth of the abyss may be
The measure of the height of pain
And love and glory that may raise
This soul to God in after days!

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER

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Poems About Christian Life: STONE THE WOMAN, LET THE MAN GO FREE

Yes, stone the woman, let the man go free!
Draw back your skirts, lest they perchance may touch
Her garment as she passes; but to him
Put forth a willing hand to clasp with his
That led her to destruction and disgrace.
Shut up from her the sacred ways of toil,
That she no more may win an honest meal;
But ope to him all honorable paths
Where he may win distinction; give to him
Fair, pressed-down measures of life's sweetest joys.
Pass her, O maiden, with a pure, proud face,
If she puts out a poor, polluted palm;
But lay thy hand in his on bridal day,
And swear to cling to him with wifely love
And tender reverence. Trust him who led
A sister woman to a fearful fate.

Yes, stone the woman, let the man go free!
Let one soul suffer for the guilt of two--
It is the doctrine of a hurried world,
Too out of breath for holding balances
Where nice distinctions and injustices
Are calmly weighed. But ah, how will it be
On that strange day of fire and flame,
When men shall wither with a mystic fear,
And all shall stand before the one true Judge?
Shall sex make then a difference in sin?
Shall He, the Searcher of the hidden heart,
In His eternal and divine decree
Condemn the woman and forgive the man?

ANONYMOUS

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Poems About Christian Life: CONSCIENCE AND REMORSE

"Good-bye," I said to my Conscience--
"Good-bye for aye and aye;"
And I put her hands off harshly,
And turned my face away:
And Conscience, smitten sorely,
Returned not from that day.

But a time came when my spirit
Grew weary of its pace:
And I cried, "Come back, my Conscience,
I long to see thy face;"
But Conscience cried, "I cannot,--
Remorse sits in my place."

PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR

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Poems About Christian Life: EASY TO DRIFT

Easy to drift to the open sea,
The tides are eager and swift and strong,
And whistling and free are the rushing winds,--
But O, to get back is hard and long.

Easy as told in Arabian tale,
To free from his jar the evil sprite
Till he rises like smoke to stupendous size,--
But O, nevermore can we prison him tight.

Easy as told in an English tale,
To fashion a Frankenstein, body and soul,
And breathe in his bosom a breath of life,--
But O, we create what we cannot control.

Easy to drift to the sea of doubt,
Easy to hurt what we cannot heal,
Easy to rouse what we cannot soothe,
Easy to speak what we do not feel,
Easy to show what we ought to conceal,
Easy to think that fancy is fate,--
And O, the wisdom that comes too late!

OLIVER HUCKEL

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Poems About Christian Life: FATHER, THY WILL BE DONE!

He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower,
Alike they're needful for the flower;
And joys and tears alike are sent
To give the soul fit nourishment:
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father, thy will, not mine, be done!

Can loving children e'er reprove
With murmurs whom they trust and love?
Creator, I would ever be
A trusting, loving child to thee:
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father, thy will, not mine, be done!

Oh, ne'er will I at life repine;
Enough that thou hast made it mine;
When falls the shadow cold of death,
I yet will sing with parting breath:
As comes to me or shade or sun,
Father, thy will, not mine, be done!

SARAH FLOWER ADAMS

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