JULY FOURTEENTH
Reading edition
Bastille destroyed 1789.
Jane Baillie Welch Carlyle born 1801.
Owen Wister born 1860.
Sail fast, sail fast, Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams; Sweep lordly o'er the drowned Past, Fly glittering through the sun's strange beams; Sail fast, sail fast. Breath of new buds from off some drying lea, With news about the Future scent the sea; My brain is beating like the heart of Haste. I'll loose me a bird upon this Present waste; Go, trembling song, And stay not long; O, stay not long; Thou art only a gray and sober dove, But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love. —Sidney Lanier.
God speed thee, pretty bird; may thy small nest, With little ones all in good time be blest. I love thee much; For well thou managest that life of thine, Well I!—O ask not what I do with mine! Would I were such! —Jane Welch Carlyle.
Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they?
—Matthew 6. 26.
My Father, may I start this day with more faith in myself and greater love for thy world. May my soul be awakened to the highest and be ready for the joys of to-day. Amen.