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Poems from Eastern Sources: The Steadfast Prince; and Other Poems cover

Poems from Eastern Sources: The Steadfast Prince; and Other Poems

Chapter 35: ST. CHRYSOSTOM.
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About This Book

A varied poetic collection draws on Eastern legends, scriptural and European sources to present translations, adaptations, and original pieces that retell myths, parables, and ballads. Narrative poems render tales such as Alexander's quest and other legendary or folkloric episodes; lyric sequences explore seasons, love, faith, mortality, and moral aphorisms; additional pieces adapt German and Latin sources and include sonnets, ballads, and short fragments. The tone alternates between descriptive narrative, reflective meditation, and moral reflection, often framing Eastern imagery—gardens, fountains, courts, and deserts—to examine desire, righteousness, steadfastness, and the relationship between life and death. Notes clarify sources and degrees of translation.

ST. CHRYSOSTOM.

’Tis not by action only, not by deed,
Though that be just and holy, pure and wise,
That man may to his last perfection rise;
Of suffering as of doing he has need:
Thus prospers with due change the heavenly seed,
While stormy night succeeds to sunny day;
Thus the good metal, proven every way,
From the last dross that clung to it is freed.
And thus for thee, O glorious man, on whom
Love well deserved, and honour waited long,
In thy last years in place of timely ease
There did remain another loftier doom,
Pain, travail, exile, peril, scorn and wrong—
Glorious before, but glorified through these.