Transcribed from the 1885 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price,

DAILY THOUGHTS

Selected from the Writings
of
CHARLES KINGSLEY

BY HIS WIFE

second edition

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1885

p. iiPrinted by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.

p.iiiThis little Volume, selected from the MS. Note-books, Sermons and Private Letters, as well asfrom the published Works of my Husband, is dedicated to our children, and to all who feel the blessing of his influence on their daily life and thought.

F. E. K.

July 10, 1884.

p. 1January.

Welcome, wild North-easter!
   Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr:
   Ne’er a verse to thee.
. . . . .
Tired we are of summer,
   Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
   Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming
   Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter
   Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
   Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
   Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild-fowl;
   Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
   Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir forest
   Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snow-flakes
   Off the curdled sky.
. . . . .
Come; and strong within us
   Stir the Viking’s blood;
Bracing brain and sinew:
   Blow, thou wind of God!

Ode to North-east Wind.

p. 3New Year’s Day.  January 1. [3]

Gather you, gather you, angels of God—
   Freedom and Mercy and Truth;
Come! for the earth is grown coward and old;
   Come down and renew us her youth.
Wisdom, Self-sacrifice, Daring, and Love,
   Haste to the battlefield, stoop from above,
      To the day of the Lord at hand!

The Day of the Lord.  1847.

The Nineteenth Century.  January 2.

Now, and at no other time: in this same nineteenth century lies our work.  Let us thank God that we are here now, and joyfully try to understand where we are, and what our workis here.  As for all superstitions about “the good old times,” and fancies that they belonged to God, while this age belongs only to man, blind chance, and the evil one, let us cast them from us as the suggestions of an evil lying spirit, as the natural parents of laziness, pedantry, fanaticism, and unbelief.  And therefore let us not fear to ask the meaning of this present day, and of all its different voices—the pressing, noisy, complex present, where our workfield lies, the most intricate of all states of society, and of all schools of literature yet known.

Introductory Lecture, Queen’s College.
1848.

Forward.  January 3.

Let us forward.  God leads us.  Though blind, shall we be afraid to follow?  I do not see my way: I do not care to: but I know that He sees His way, and that I see Him.

Letters and Memories.  1848.

...