Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two. Various
The Broken Pinion
I walked through the woodland meadows, |
Where sweet the thrushes sing; |
And I found on a bed of mosses |
A bird with a broken wing. |
I healed its wound, and each morning |
It sang its old sweet strain, |
But the bird with a broken pinion |
Never soared as high again. |
I found a young life broken |
By sin's seductive art; |
And touched with a Christlike pity, |
I took him to my heart. |
He lived with a noble purpose |
And struggled not in vain; |
But the life that sin had stricken |
Never soared as high again. |
But the bird with a broken pinion |
Kept another from the snare; |
And the life that sin had stricken |
Raised another from despair. |
Each loss has its compensation, |
There is healing for every pain; |
But the bird with a broken pinion |
Never soars as high again. |
Hezekiah Butterworth. |
Jamie Douglas
It was in the days when Claverhouse |
Was scouring moor and glen, |
To change, with fire and bloody sword, |
The faith of Scottish men. |
They had made a covenant with the Lord |
Firm in their faith to bide, |
Nor break to Him their plighted word, |
Whatever might betide. |
The sun was well-nigh setting, |
When o'er the heather wild, |
And up the narrow mountain-path, |
Alone there walked a child. |
He was a bonny, blithesome lad, |
Sturdy and strong of limb— |
A father's pride, a mother's love, |
Were fast bound up in him. |
His bright blue eyes glanced fearless round, |
His step was firm and light; |
What was it underneath his plaid |
His little hands grasped tight? |
It was bannocks which, that very morn, |
His mother made with care. |
From out her scanty store of meal; |
And now, with many a prayer, |
Had sent by Jamie her ane boy, |
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