Calm when the great world's news with power My listening spirit stir; Let not the tidings of the hour E'er find too fond an ear; Calm as the ray of sun or star Which storms assail in vain; Moving unruffled through earth's war, The eternal calm to gain. --Horatius Bonar. Father, take not away The burden of the day, But help me that I bear it As Christ his burden bore When cross and thorn he wore And none with him could share it; In his name help I pray! I only ask for grace To see that patient face And my impatient one; Ask that mine grow like His-- Sign of an inward peace From trust in thee alone, Unchanged by time or place. And they who do their souls no wrong, But keep at eve the faith of morn, Shall daily hear the angel-song, To-day the Prince of Peace is born. --James Russell Lowell. Drop thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of thy peace. Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and thy balm; Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still, small voice of calm! --John Greenleaf Whittier. As flows the river calm and deep. In silence toward the sea, So floweth ever, and ceaseth never, The love of God to me. What peace He bringeth to my heart, Deep as the soundless sea; How sweetly singeth the soul that clingeth, My loving Lord, to thee. He fails never. If He cannot work by us He will work through us. Let our souls be calm. We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars, Impatient that we're nothing. Get work, get work; be sure 'tis better Than what you work to get. --Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Calm Soul of all things, make it mine To feel amid the city's jar, That there abides a peace of thine Man did not make and cannot mar. The will to neither strive nor cry, The power to feel with others give; Calm, calm me more, nor let me die Before I have begun to live. --Matthew Arnold. What secret trouble stirs thy heart? Why all this fret and flurry? Dost thou not know that what is best In this too restless world is rest From over-work and hurry? --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. We bless thee for thy peace, O God, Deep as the boundless sea, It falls like sunshine on the road, Of those who trust in thee; That peace which suffers and is strong, Trusts where it cannot see: Deems not the trial way too long, But leaves the end with thee.