Thursday, November 19, 2015

a thousand gentle influences


From The Cloud of Witness:

 I would not choose
To lack a relish for the thing that God
Thinks worth. Among my own I will be good;
A helper to all those that look to me.
This farm is God's, as much as yonder town;
These men and maidens, kine and horses, his;
And need his laws of truth made rules of fact;
Or else the earth is not redeemed from ill....

And for the crowds of men, in whom a soul
Cries through the windows of their hollow eyes
For bare humanity, and leave to grow,--
Would I could help them! But all crowds are made
Of individuals; and their grief, and pain,
And thirst, and hunger, all are of the one,
Not of the many. And the power that helps
Enters the individual, and extends
Thence in a thousand gentle influences
To other hearts
.


By George Macdonald 
from a longer poem here.






3 comments:

melissa said...

That's a comfort.

And I'm thinking you bought the Cloud book?!! Lovely for you.

podso said...

Love it, and such a beautiful image to go with it,

Bonnie said...

I have an old copy of the book. I have a box of the new copies, too , in the basement to try to sell here at some CM meetings.