- Man is a living lie--a bitter jest
- Upon himself--a conscious grain of sand
- Lost in a desert of unconsciousness.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Grand Canyon"
- What is Fortune, what is Fame?
- Futile gold and phantom name--
- Riches buried in a cave,
- Glory written on a grave.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Talisman"
- Merely to live without a pain
- Is little gladness, little gain,
- Ah, welcome joy tho' mixt with grief--
- The thorn-set flower that crowns the leaf.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Thorn and Rose"
What we do belongs to what we are; and what we are is what becomes of us.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Ships and Havens"
Genius is talent set on fire by courage.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Courage," Counsels by the Way
- Peace without Justice is a low estate,—
- A coward cringing to an iron Fate!
- But Peace through Justice is the great ideal,—
- We'll pay the price of war to make it real.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Price of Peace"
- With two bright eyes, my star, my love,
- Thou lookest on the stars above:
- Ah, would that I the heaven might be
- With a million eyes to look on thee.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Starlight"
- A tear that trembles for a little while
- Upon the trembling eyelid, till the world
- Wavers within its circle like a dream,
- Holds more of meaning in its narrow orb
- Than all the distant landscape that it blurs.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Dulciora"
- This is the gospel of labour, ring it, ye bells of the kirk!
- The Lord of Love came down from above, to live with the men who work.
- This is the rose that He planted, here in the thorn-curst soil:
- Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but the blessing of Earth is toil.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Toiling of Felix"
Courage is the standing army of the soul which keeps it from conquest, pillage, and slavery.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Courage," Counsels by the Way
- Like water spilt upon the ground--alas,
- Our little lives flow swiftly on and pass;
- Yet may they bring rich harvests and green grass!
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Epigrams and Greetings"
- A flawless cup: how delicate and fine
- The flowing curve of every jewelled line!
- Look, turn it up or down, 'tis perfect still--
- But holds no drop of life's heart-warming wine.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Empty Quatrain"
- Man said, "I am tired of kings!
- Sons of the robber-chiefs of yore,
- They make me pay for their lust and their war;
- I am the puppet, they pull the strings;
- The blood of my heart is the wine they drink.
- I will govern myself for awhile I think,
- And see what that brings!"
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Remarks About Kings"
- In warlike pomp, with banners flowing,
- The regiments of autumn stood:
- I saw their gold and scarlet glowing
- From every hillside, every wood.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Fall of the Leaves"
Fidelity is simply daring to be true in small things as well as great.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Courage," Counsels by the Way
- A little while the rose,
- And after that the thorn;
- An hour of dewy morn,
- And then the glamour goes.
- Ah, love in beauty born,
- A little while the rose!
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Roseleaf"
- Time is
- Too Slow for those who Wait,
- Too Swift for those who Fear,
- Too Long for those who Grieve,
- Too Short for those who Rejoice;
- But for those who Love,
- Time is not.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "For Katrina's Sun-Dial in Her Garden of Yaddo"
- A peaceful man must fight
- For that which peace demands,—
- Freedom and faith, honor and right,
- Defend with heart and hands.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Peaceful Warrior"
Subjection to fear is weakness, bondage, feverish unrest. To be afraid is to have no soul that we can call our own; it is to be at the beck and call of alien powers, to be chained and driven and tormented; it is to lose the life itself in the anxious care to keep it.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Courage," Counsels by the Way
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Prison and the Angel"
- What is Friendship? Something deep
- That the heart can spend and keep:
- Wealth that greatens while we give,
- Praise that heartens us to live.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Talisman"
- The shadow by my finger cast
- Divides the future from the past:
- Before it, sleeps the unborn hour,
- In darkness, and beyond thy power:
- Behind its unreturning line,
- The vanished hour, no longer thine:
- One hour alone is in thy hands--
- The NOW on which the shadow stands.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Sun-Dial at Wells College"
- Life is an arrow, therefore you must know
- What mark to aim at, how to use the bow--
- Then draw it to the head and let it go!
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Epigrams and Greetings"
- Religion? Yes, I know it well; I've heard its prayers and creeds,
- And seen men put them all to shame with poor, half-hearted deeds.
- They follow Christ, but far away; they wander and they doubt.
- I'll serve him in a better way, and live his precepts out.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Another Chance"
The brave man is intelligent; he faces danger because he understands it and is prepared to meet it. The drunkard who runs, in the delirium of intoxication, into a burning house is not brave; he is only stupid. But the clear-eyed hero who makes his way, with every sense alert and every nerve strung, into the hell of flames to rescue some little child, proves his courage.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Courage," Counsels by the Way
- So in the heart,
- When, fading slowly down the past,
- Fond memories depart,
- And each that leaves it seems the last;
- Long after all the rest are flown,
- Returns a solitary tone,—
- The after-echo of departed years,—
- And touches all the soul to tears.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The After-Echo"
We are all swimmers in God's mighty sea.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "Epigrams and Greetings"
- Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
- May keep the path, but will not reach the goal;
- While he who walks in love may wander far,
- But God will bring him where the Blessed are.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Way"
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