Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume IV. The Higher Life. 1904. | | | | III. Faith: Hope: Love: Service | | What I Live For | | George Linnæus Banks (1821–1881) |
| | | I LIVE for those who love me, | |
| Whose hearts are kind and true, | |
| For heaven that smiles above me, | |
| And waits my spirit, too; | |
| For all the ties that bind me, | 5 |
| For all the tasks assigned me, | |
| And bright hopes left behind me, | |
| And good that I can do. | |
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| I live to learn their story | |
| Who’ve suffered for my sake, | 10 |
| To emulate their glory, | |
| And follow in their wake; | |
| Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages, | |
| The noble of all ages, | |
| Whose deeds crown history’s pages, | 15 |
| And Time’s great volume make. | |
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| I live to hold communion | |
| With all that is divine, | |
| To feel there is a union | |
| ’Twixt Nature’s heart and mine; | 20 |
| To profit by affliction, | |
| Reap truths from fields of fiction, | |
| And, wiser from conviction, | |
| Fulfil each grand design. | |
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| I live to hail that season, | 25 |
| By gifted minds foretold, | |
| When men shall rule by reason, | |
| And not alone by gold; | |
| When man to man united, | |
| And every wrong thing righted, | 30 |
| The whole world shall be lighted | |
| As Eden was of old. | |
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| I live for those who love me, | |
| Whose hearts are kind and true, | |
| For heaven that smiles above me, | 35 |
| And waits my spirit too; | |
| For the cause that lacks assistance, | |
| For the wrong that needs resistance, | |
| For the future in the distance, | |
| And the good that I can do. | 40 | | | |
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