There is a psychological benefit in the mere physical act of whistling.
When the body makes music, the spirit falls into harmonies too and the
discords that assail us cease to make themselves heard.
When times are bad an' folks are sad
An' gloomy day by day,
Jest try your best at lookin' glad
An' whistle 'em away.
Don't mind how troubles bristle,
Jest take a rose or thistle.
Hold your own
An' change your tone
An' whistle, whistle, whistle!
A song is worth a world o' sighs.
When red the lightnings play,
Look for the rainbow in the skies
An' whistle 'em away.
Don't mind how troubles bristle,
The rose comes with the thistle.
Hold your own
An' change your tone
An' whistle, whistle, whistle!
Each day comes with a life that's new,
A strange, continued story
But still beneath a bend o' blue
The world rolls on to glory.
Don't mind how troubles bristle,
Jest take a rose or thistle.
Hold your own
An' change your tone
An' whistle, whistle, whistle!
_Frank L. Stanton._
[Illustration: GRANTLAND RICE]
"MIGHT HAVE BEEN"
"Yes, it's pretty hard," the optimistic old woman admitted. "I have to
get along with only two teeth, one in the upper jaw and one in the
lower--but thank God, they meet."
Here's to "The days that might have been";
Here's to "The life I might have led";
The fame I might have gathered in--
The glory ways I might have sped.
Great "Might Have Been," I drink to you
Upon a throne where thousands hail--
And then--there looms another view--
I also "might have been" in jail.
O "Land of Might Have Been," we turn
With aching hearts to where you wait;
Where crimson fires of glory burn,
And laurel crowns the guarding gate;
We may not see across your fields
The sightless skulls that knew their woe--
The broken spears--the shattered shields--
That "might have been" as truly so.
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen"--
So wails the poet in his pain--
The saddest are, "It might have been,"
And world-wide runs the dull refrain.
The saddest? Yes--but in the jar
This thought brings to me with its curse,
I sometimes think the gladdest are
"It might have been a blamed sight worse."
_Grantland Rice._