Here are a couple of more poems from my Great Grandmother's copy book. These are both by John Greenleaf Whittier, a Quaker poet from Massachusetts.
Yet, on life’s current, he who drifts
Is one with him who rows or sails;
And he who wanders widest lifts
No more of beauty’s jealous vails
Than he who from his doorway sees
The miracle of flowers and trees,
Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air,
And from cloud minarets hears the sunset call to prayer.
Whittier
Better to stem with heart and hand
The roaring tide of life, than lie,
Unmindful, on its flowery strand,
Of God’s occasions drifting by!
Better with naked nerve to bear
The needles of this goading air
Than, in lap of sensual ease, forego
The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know.
Whittier
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