June Poetry Corner: What I Live For

I live for those who love me,

Whose hearts are kind and true;

For the Heaven that smiles above me,

And awaits my spirit too;

For all human ties that bind me,

For the task by God assigned me,

For the bright hopes yet to find me,

And the good that I can do.

I live to learn their story

Who suffered for my sake;

To emulate their glory,

And follow in their wake;

Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,

The heroic of all ages,

Whose deeds crowd History's pages,

And Time's great volume sake.

A Beautiful Day In Cannon Hill Park

Birmingham, England

I live to hold communion

With all that is divine,

To feel there is a union

'Twixt Nature's heart and mine;

To profit by affliction,

Reap truth from fields of fiction,

Grow wiser from conviction,

And fulfill God's grand design.

I live to hail that season

By gifted ones foretold,

When men shall live by reason,

And not alone by gold;

When man to man united,

And every wrong thing righted,

The whole world shall be lighted

As Eden was of old.

I live for those who love me,

For those who know me true,

For the Heaven that smiles above me,

And awaits 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.

"What I Live For"

George Linnaeus Banks

(1821-1881)

British Journalist 

Poet, Actor, Playwright

Native son of Birmingham, England