The Best Picture
Oh, good painter, tell me true,
Has your hand the cunning to draw
Shapes of things that you never saw?
Aye? Well, here is an order for you.
When you have done
With woods and corn fields and gracing herds,
A lady, the loveliest ever the sun
Looked down upon you must paint for me:
Oh, if I only could make you see
The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman’s soul, and the angel’s face
That are beaming on me all the while
I need not speak these foolish words:
Yet one word tells you all I would say,—
She is my mother: you will agree
That all the rest may be thrown away.
—Alice Cary.
Greatness Measured By Service
Jesus called the ten to him, and said:
“Those who are regarded as ruling among the Gentiles lord it over them, as you know, and their great men oppress them. But among you it is not so. No, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to take the first place among you must be the servant of all; for even the Son of Man came, not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
—Mark.
The home and civilization will perish together.
The Confusion Of Values
For a cap and bells our lives we pay.
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking,
‘Tis heaven alone that is given away,
‘Tis only God that may be had for the asking.
—James Russell Lowell.