Charles Augustus Keeler

A Light Through the Storm Charles Augustus Keeler

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... YOUTH AND AGE. In youth love shimmers like the vaulted bow, In age more like the waning moon doth show. In fitful youth a sudden beauty gleams, In waxing age a dimming glory streams. Youth catches at the shadows of a ray, Age watches the eternal in its play. But youth outgrows its fervor year by year, And age goes tottering onward to its bier. The world moves onward, upward. Youth and age Mere phantoms prove in life's eternal page. Did Christ Once Walk the Earth? 43 DID CHRIST ONCE WALK THE EARTH? Did Christ once walk the earth, and did he say "Love one another"? And did those words confront you on your way, And did you smother Within your darkly brooding breasts the sign? Oh selfish mortals! Spurning the essence of the true divine, And heaven's blest portals! Could we but write upon the zenith sky These words abiding, We would not see the haggard care-worn eye, All faith deriding. Come, come, my brothers, write upon your hearts This God-sent token, Blaze it upon the sky, in homes, in marts,--The spell is broken. A FLEETING VISION. In the gloom of the night, In the white-gray light Of the moon big and round, With no murmur of sound, A mighty form gleamed Where the wannish light streamed, A man huge and stark As he loomed thro' the dark, With each muscle at strain In a tension of pain. One knee touched the earth, And his huge body's girth Was ribbed with bands Of tough fibered strands. On his neck was a stone, His firm lips checked a moan; He was motionless, still; A Fleeting Vision. 45 Not a twitch, not a thrill Showed the vigor of life--Proved the depth of his strife. What is strength? What is might?" I cried at the sight. Then the night wrapped the form In the mist of the storm. W THE NEW DEMOCRACY. Hammers are pounding, and forges are hot...