They do me wrong who say I come no more
When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door
And bid you wake and ride to fight and win.
Wail not for precious chances passed away,
Weep not for golden ages on the wane!
Each night I burn the records of the day;
At sunrise every soul is born again.
Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,
To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb;
My judgments seal the dead past with its dead
But never bind a moment yet to come.
Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep;
I lend my arm to all who say "I can!"
No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep
But yet might rise and be again a man.
Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?
Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow?
Then turn from blotted archives of the past
And find the future's pages white as snow.
Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell!
Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven!
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.
--Walter Malone.
Though life is made up of mere bubbles
'Tis better than many aver,
For while we've a whole lot of troubles
The most of them never occur.
--Nixon Waterman.
A happy lot must sure be his--
The lord, not slave, of things--
Who values life by what it is
And not by what it brings.
--John Sterling.