Pocket Book of Inspirational Verse (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions)

By Fall River Press

This pocket-sized treasury collects poems that will inspire you take the ideas they express to heart and change your outlook. It features more than 100 poems by some of the world’s best-loved poets—Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman, and Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to name but a few—on themes sure to motivate and provide emotional uplift for any reader:
 

• Inspiration
• Encouragement
• Compassion
• Courage
• Hope
• Faith
• Joy
• Peace
• Reflection

 

Pocket Book of Inspirational Verse is one of Barnes & Noble's Collectible Editions classics. Each volume features authoritative texts by the world's greatest authors in an elegantly designed bonded-leather binding, with distinctive gilt edging.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fall River Press
• Release date: Dec 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781435168589

Book preview

INSPIRATION

It Couldn’t Be Done

EDGAR A. GUEST

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That maybe it couldn’t, but he would be one

Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you’ll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it";

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing

That cannot be done, and you’ll do it.

Challenge

JEAN NETTE

Life, I challenge you to try me,

Doom me to unending pain;

Stay my hand, becloud my vision,

Break my heart and then—again.

Shatter every dream I’ve cherished,

Fill my heart with ruthless fear;

Follow every smile that cheers me

With a bitter, blinding tear.

Thus I dare you; you can try me,

Seek to make me cringe and moan,

Still my unbound soul defies you,

I’ll withstand you—and, alone!

Clear the Way

CHARLES MACKAY

Men of thought! be up and stirring,

Night and day;

Sow the seed—withdraw the curtain—

CLEAR THE WAY!

Men of action, aid and cheer them,

As ye may!

There’s a fount about to stream,

There’s a light about to gleam,

There’s a warmth about to glow,

There’s a flower about to blow;

There’s midnight blackness changing

Into gray!

Men of thought and men of action,

CLEAR THE WAY!

Once the welcome light has broken,

Who shall say

What the unimagined glories

Of the day?

What the evil that shall perish

In its ray?

Aid it, hopes of honest men;

Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;

Aid it, paper—aid it, type—

Aid it, for the hour is ripe,

And our earnest must not slacken

Into play.

Men of thought and men of action,

CLEAR THE WAY!

Lo! a cloud’s about to vanish

From the day;

And a brazen wrong to crumble

Into clay!

Lo! The right’s about to conquer,

CLEAR THE WAY!

With the right shall many more

Enter, smiling at the door;

With the giant Wrong shall fall

Many others great and small,

That for ages long have held us

For their prey;

Men of thought and men of action,

CLEAR THE WAY!

Gradatim

J. G. HOLLAND

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;

But we build the ladder by which we rise;

From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,

And we mount to its summit, round by round.

I count this thing to be grandly true:

That a noble deed is a step towards God,—

Lifting the soul from the common clod

To a purer air and a broader view.

We rise by the things that are under feet;

By what we have mastered of good and gain;

By the pride deposed and the passion slain,

And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,

When the morning calls us to life and light,

But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night,

Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.

We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray,

And we think that we mount the air on wings

Beyond the recall of sensual things,

While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.

Wings for the angels, but feet for men!

We may borrow the wings to find the way—

We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray;

But our feet must rise, or we fall again.

Only in dreams is a ladder thrown

From the weary earth to the sapphire walls;

But the dreams depart, and the vision falls,

And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;

But we build the ladder by which we rise

From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,

And we mount to its summit, round by round.

The Kingdom of Man

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

What of the outer drear,

As long as there’s inner light;

As long as the sun of cheer

Shines ardently bright?

As long as the soul’s a-wing,

As long as the heart is true,

What power hath trouble to bring

A sorrow to you?

No bar can encage the soul,

Nor capture the spirit free,

As long as old earth shall roll,

Or hours shall be.

Our world is the world within,

Our life is the thought we take,

And never an outer sin

Can mar it or break.

Brood not on the rich man’s land,

Sigh not for miser’s gold,

Holding in reach of your hand

The treasure untold

That lies in the mines of heart,

That rests in the soul alone,

Bid worry and care depart,