Favorite Poems To Recite?

[Maccabeus]

Psalm 22 [23] [b]The Lord ruleth me[/b] aka: The Lord Is My Shepherd
DRV.

[Aya Sophia]

[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]A Birthday[/font][/size]

[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]My heart is like a singing bird[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Whose heart is in a watered shoot:[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]My heart is like an apple-tree[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]My heart is like a rainbow shell[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]That Paddles in a halcyon sea;[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]My heart is gladder than all these[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Because my love is come to me.[/font][/size]

[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Raise me dais of silk and down;[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Hang it with vair and purple dyes;[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Carve it in doves and pomegranates,[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]And peacocks with a hundred eyes;[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Work it in gold and silver grapes,[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Because the birthday of my life[/font][/size]
[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif]Is come, my love is come to me.[/font][/size]

[size=4][font=trebuchet ms, helvetica, sans-serif] by Christina Rossetti[/font][/size]

Edited September 29, 2011 by Aya Sophia

[i<3franciscans]

The Touch of the Masters Hand[center] [left][b]Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
thought it scarcely worth his while to waste much time on the old violin,
but held it up with a smile; "What am I bidden, good folks," he cried,
"Who'll start the bidding for me?" "A dollar, a dollar"; then two!" "Only
two? Two dollars, and who'll make it three? Three dollars, once; three
dollars twice; going for three.." But no, from the room, far back, a
gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow; Then, wiping the The Archon
from the old violin, and tightening the loose strings, he played a melody
pure and sweet as caroling angel sings.

The music ceased, and the auctioneer, with a voice that was quiet and low,
said; "What am I bid for the old violin?" And he held it up with the bow.
A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two? Two thousand! And who'll make
it three? Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice, and going and
gone," said he. The people cheered, but some of them cried, "We do not
quite understnad what changed its worth." Swift came the reply: "The touch
of a master's hand."

And many a man with life out of tune, and battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin, A
"mess of pottage," a glass of wine; a game - and he travels on. "He is
going" once, and "going twice, He's going and almost gone." But the Master
comes, and the foolish crowd never can quite understand the worth of a soul
and the change that's wrought by the touch of the Master's hand.[/b][/left] [right][i]Myra 'Brooks' Welch[/i][/right] [/center]

[Aya Sophia]

[quote name='i<3franciscans' timestamp='1317324208' post='2312448']
The Touch of the Masters Hand[center] [/center]
[b] gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow; Then, wiping the The Archon[/b]
[b] from the old violin, [/b]
[b] [/b]
[/quote]

Fiddling, even in our Favorite Poem thread - is nothing sacred

[bernadette d]

[font="Arial"][size="+2"][color="RED"]IF.....[/color][/size][/font]


[font="Arial"]IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:[/font]

[font="Arial"]If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: [/font]

[font="Arial"]If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'[/font]

[font="Arial"]If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son![/font]

[bernadette d]

Song of the Shirt - a poem by Thomas Hood


With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt."

"Work! work! work!
While the pickle is crowing aloof!
And work work work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's Oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!

"Work work work
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work work work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

"Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch stitch stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

But why do I talk of Death?
That Phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear its terrible shape,
It seems so like my own
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work work work!
My Labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread and rags.
That shatter'd roof and this naked floor
A table a broken chair
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

"Work work work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work work work!
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,
As well as the weary hand.

"Work work work,
In the dull December light,
And work work work,
When the weather is warm and bright
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the spring.

Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!

Oh! but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
Would that its tone could reach the Rich!
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

[faithcecelia]

IN SCHOOL.

"I used to go to a bright school
Where Youth and Frolic taught in turn;
But idle scholar that I was,
I liked to play, I would not learn;
So the Great Teacher did ordain
That I should try the School of Pain.

"One of the infant class I am
With little, easy lessons, set
In a great book; the higher class
Have harder ones than I, and yet
I find mine hard, and can't restrain
My tears while studying thus with Pain.

"There are two Teachers in the school,
One has a gentle voice and low,
And smiles upon her scholars, as
She softly passes to and fro.
Her name is Love; 'tis very plain
She shuns the sharper teacher, Pain.

"Or so I sometimes think; and then,
At other times, they meet and kiss,
And look so strangely like, that I
Am puzzled to tell how it is,
Or whence the change which makes it vain
To guess if it be--Love or Pain.

"They tell me if I study well,
And learn my lessons, I shall be
Moved upward to that higher class
Where dear Love teaches constantly;
And I work hard, in hopes to gain
Reward, and get away from Pain.

"Yet Pain is sometimes kind, and helps
Me on when I am very dull;
I thank him often in my heart;
But Love is far more beautiful;
Under her tender, gentle reign
I must learn faster than of Pain.

"So I will do my very best,
Nor chide the clock, nor call it slow;
That when the Teacher calls me up
To see if I am fit to go,
I may to Love's high class attain,
And bid a sweet good-by to Pain."

[MissMaro]

Among others, I love Shakespeare's sonnet 104 and:

Sweetest Love, I do not Go

John Donne

SWEETEST love, I do not go
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last, ’tis best
Thus to use myself in jest,
By feignèd death to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here to-day;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way.
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Hastier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man’s power,
That, if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall.
But come bad chance,
And we join to it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o’er us t’ advance.

When thou sigh’st, thou sigh’st no wind,
But sigh’st my soul away;
When thou weep’st, unkindly kind,
My life’s blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov’st me as thou say’st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill.
Destiny may take thy part
And may thy fears fulfil;
But think that we
Are but turned aside to sleep:
They who one another keep
Alive, ne’er parted be.

[bernadette d]

You may have noticed that I love poetry!!

[size=3] [/size]
[b][size=4]Please Mrs Butler[/size][/b][size=3] [/size]
[size=3] [/size]
[size=2]Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps copying my [url="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/please-mrs-butler/"][color=blue]work[/color][/url], Miss.
What shall I do?

Go and sit in the hall, dear.
Go and sit in the sink.
Take your [url="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/please-mrs-butler/"][color=blue]books[/color][/url] on the roof, my lamb.
Do whatever you think.

Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps taking my rubber, Miss.
What shall I do?

Keep it in your hand, dear.
Hide it up your vest.
Swallow it if you like, love.
Do what you think best.

Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Drew
Keeps calling me rude names, Miss.
What shall I do?

Lock yourself in the cupboard, dear.
Run away to sea.
Do whatever you can, my flower.
But don't ask me!

[/size]
[size=3] [/size]
[size=3] [/size]
[size=3] [/size]

[size=4]Allan Ahlberg[/size]

[bernadette d]

[b] The Donkey[/b]

By [url="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/g-k-chesterton"] G. K. Chesterton[/url]
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

[Totus Tuus]

Mine is long but worth the read. It's the most beautiful poem ever written in my humble opinion.



[b] [color="009000"][i]The Hound of Heaven[/i][/color][/b]

[b] [color="009000"]by[/color][/b]

[b] [color="009000"]Francis Thompson (1859-1907)[/color][/b]

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat--and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet--
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities
(For, though I knew His love Who followed,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest having Him, I must have naught beside);
But if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon;
With thy young skyey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover!
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet--
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat--
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

I sought no more that after which I strayed
In face of man or maid;
But still within the little children's eyes
Seems something, something that replies;
[i]They[/i] at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children, Nature's--share
With me," said I, "your delicate fellowship;
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning
With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses'
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured daïs,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."
So it was done;
[i]I[/i] in their delicate fellowship was one--
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.
[i]I[/i] knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;
All that's born or dies
Rose and drooped with--made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine--
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's gray cheek.
For ah! we know not what each other says,
These things and I; in sound [i]I[/i] speak--
[i]Their[/i] sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts of her tenderness;
Never did any milk of hers once bless
My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noisèd Feet
A voice comes yet more fleet--
"Lo naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee;
I am defenseless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years--
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
Ah! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
Ah! must--
Designer infinite!--
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;
And now my heart is a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
Such is; what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mist confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With blooming robes, purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields
Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing,
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught," He said,
"And human love needs human meriting,
How hast thou merited--
Of all man's clotted clay rhe dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms.
But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for the at home;
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

Halts by me that footfall;
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstreched caressingly?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

[color="009000"][i]Francis Thompson (1859-1907)[/i] [/color]

[Totus Tuus]

And this is my favorite Shakespeare sonnet, #116


Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

[Papist]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3][b][color=#333333][i][b]Hymn To Mary[/b] written by John Wyse (1825-98)[/i][/color][/b][/size][/font]

[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]I’ll sing a hymn to Mary,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]The Mother of my God,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]The Virgin of all virgins,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Of David’s royal blood.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]O teach me, holy Mary,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]A loving song to frame,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]When wicked men blaspheme thee,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]To love and bless thy name.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]O Lily of the Valley,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]O Mystic Rose, what tree,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Or flower, e’en the fairest,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Is half so fair as thee?[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]O let me, tho’ so lowly[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Recite my Mother’s fame.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]When wicked men blaspheme thee,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]I’ll love and bless thy name.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]O noble Tower of David,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Of gold and ivory.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]The Ark of God’s own promise,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]The gate of Heav’n to me.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]To live and not to love thee[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Would fill my soul with shame;[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]When wicked men blaspheme thee,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]I’ll love and bless thy name.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]The saints are high in glory,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]With golden crowns so bright;[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]But brighter far is Mary,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Upon her throne of light.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Oh that which God did give thee,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Let mortal ne’er disclaim;[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]When wicked men blaspheme thee,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]I’ll love and bless thy name.[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]But in the crown of Mary,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]There lies a wonderous gem,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]As Queen of all the angels,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]Which Mary shares with them;[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]No sin hath e’er defiled thee,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]So doth our faith proclaim;[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]When wicked men blaspheme thee,[/size][/font]
[font=arial,helvetica,sans-serif][size=3]I’ll love and bless thy name.[/size][/font]

Edited December 10, 2011 by Papist

[bernadette d]

[b] He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven[/b]

[b] W B Yeats[/b]

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

[Guest hermanita]

The Cedar Tree

[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]In the beginning, in the unbeginning[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]of endlessness and of eternity,[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]God saw this tree.[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]He saw these cedar branches bending low[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]under the full exhaustion of the snow.[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]And since He set no wind of day to rising,[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]this burden of beauty and this burden of cold,[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]whether the wood breaks or the branches hold[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]must be of His devising.[/b][/size][/font]

[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b][i]There is a cedar similarly decked[/i][/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b][i]deep in the winter of my intellect[/i][/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b][i]under the snow, the snow,[/i][/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b][i]the scales of light its limitations tell.[/i][/b][/size][/font]

[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]I clasp this thought: from all eternity[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]God who is good looked down upon this tree[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]white in the weighted air,[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]and of another cedar reckoned well.[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]He knew how much each tree, each twig could bear.[/b][/size][/font]
[font=CenturionOld][size=3][b]He counted every snowflake as it fell.[/b][/size][/font]

[color=#ff0000][b]Copyright permission to publish has been given by the[/b][/color]
[color=#ff0000][b]Carmel of the Mother of God, Pewaukee Wisconsin. All rights reserved. [/b][/color]

Edited December 10, 2011 by hermanita