Precept and Practice – AUGUST 14 – Love
Only, but this is rare !
When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear, When our world-deafened ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caressed, —
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast, And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean we say, and what we would we know!
A man becomes aware of his life’s flow,
And hears its winding murmur, and he sees The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast, And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.
(Matthew Arnold)
oooOOOooo
From the Introduction to Precept and Practice
The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.
The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;- with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;- with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.
CONSTANCE M. WHISHAW
Suffolk Vicar 