Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow

of death,

I will fear no evil:

For thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me
In the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life:

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

IMMORTALITY

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

Foil'd by our fellowmen, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, Patience! in another life, we say,

The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn

The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?
No, no! the energy of life may be

Kept on after the grave, but not begun;

And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,

From strength to strength advancing only he, His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

LET ME LIVE OUT MY YEARS

BY JOHN G. Neihardt

Let me live out my years in heat of blood!
Let me die drunken with the dreamer's wine!
Let me not see this soul-house built of mud
Go toppling to the dust-a vacant shrine.

Let me go quickly, like a candle light
Snuffed out just at the heyday of its glow.

Give me high noon-and let it then be night!
Thus would I go.

And grant that when I face the grisly Thing,
My song may trumpet down the gray Perhaps.
Let me be as a tune-swept fiddlestring
That feels the Master Melody—and snaps!

TO ALTHEA, FROM PRISON

BY RICHARD LOVELACE

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage;

If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

PROTEST IN PASSING

BY LEONORA SPEYER

This house of flesh was never loved of me,
Though I have known much love beneath its roof,
Always was I a guest who stood aloof,

Loth to accept such hospitality.

When the house slumbered, how I woke! for then

I knew of half-escapes along the night,

But now there comes a safer, swifter flight:
I go; nor need endure these rooms again.

I have been cowed too long by closed-in walls,
By masonry of muscle, blood and bone;
This quaking house of flesh that was my own,
High roof-tree of the heart, see how it falls!
I go . . . but pause upon the threshold's rust
To shake from off my feet my own dead dust.

THE RIDERLESS HORSE

BY HAROLD TROWBRIDGE PULSIFER

Close ranks and ride on!
Though his saddle be bare,

The bullet is sped,

Now the dead

Cannot care.

Close ranks and ride on!
Let the pitiless stride
Of the host that he led,
Though his saddle be red,
Sweep on like the tide.
Close ranks and ride on!
The banner he bore
For God and the right
Never faltered before.
Quick, up with it, then!
For the right! For the light!
Lest legions of men

Be lost in the night!

HORSEMAN SPRINGING FROM THE DARK: A DREAM

BY LILLA CABOT PERRY

"Horseman, springing from the dark,
Horseman, flying wild and free,
Tell me what shall be thy road,
Whither speedest far from me?"

"From the dark into the light,

From the small unto the great,
From the valleys dark I ride

Over the hills to conquer fate!"

"Take me with thee, horseman mine!

Let me madly ride with thee!" As he turned I met his eyes,

My own soul looked back at me!

IF THIS WERE FAITH

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

God, if this were enough,

That I see things bare to the buff
And up to the buttocks in mire;
That I ask nor hope nor hire,
Nut in the husk,

Nor dawn beyond the dusk,

Nor life beyond death:

God, if this were faith?

Having felt thy wind in my face

Spit sorrow and disgrace,

Having seen thine evil doom

In Golgotha and Khartoum,

And the brutes, the work of thine hands,

Fill with injustice lands

And stain with blood the sea:

If still in my veins the glee

Of the black night and the sun

And the lost battle, run:

If, an adept,

The iniquitous lists I still accept