Odd bits and pieces of poetry

This post contains some odd bits and pieces of poetry that have little more in common than that I like a verse or two or three of it.

Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold
And upon the throne be wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.
-- From The Present Crisis by James Russell Lowell, 1844

We cleared our camp where the buffalo feed,
Unheard-of streams were our flagons;
And I sowed my sons like the apple-seed
On the trail of the Western wagons.
They were right, tight boys, never sulky or slow,
A fruitful, a goodly muster.
The eldest died at the Alamo.
The youngest fell with Custer.
The letter that told it burned my hand.
Yet we smiled and said, "So be it!"
But I could not live when they fenced the land,
For it broke my heart to see it.
-- From The Ballad of William Sycamore by Stephen Vincent Benet - 1923

I will not take that bitter thrust which rent my heart today
As coming from an earthly soul -- though it was meant that way
But I will look beyond the tool because my life is planned
I take the cup my father gives, I take it from His hand.
-- From The Cup from His Hand by unknown (heard on the radio)