Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

I. The Divine Element—(God, Christ, the Holy Spirit)

Hope of the Human Heart

Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton (1809–1885)

GOD is good,

And flight is destined for the callow wing,

And the high appetite implies the food,

And souls most reach the level whence they spring;

O Life of very life! set free our powers,

Hasten the travail of the yearning hours.

Thou, to whom old Philosophy bent low,

To the wise few mysteriously revealed;

Thou, whom each humble Christian worships now,

In the poor hamlet and the open field:

Once an idea, now Comforter and Friend,

Hope of the human heart, descend, descend!