And what is Life? — An hour-glass on the run, A mist retreating from the morning sun, A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream. Its length? — A minute's pause, a moment's thought. And Happiness? — A bubble on the stream, That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought. And what is Hope? — The puffing ga…
THIS cosmic dust beneath our feet Rising to hurry down the street, Borne by the wind and blown astray In its erratic, senseless way, Is the same stuff as you and I— With knowledge and desire put by. Thousands of times since time began It has been used for making man, Freighted like us with every se…
Did you meet that trouble that came your way With a resolute heart and cheerful? Or hide your face from the light of day With a craven soul and fearful; For a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce, It isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts, But only, how did you take it? You are beaten to e…
When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the night’s starred face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace T…
Where are the Poets, unto whom belong The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent, But with the utmost tension of the thong? Where are the stately argosies of song, Whose rushing keels made music as they went Sailing in search of some new c…
Certainly the most destructive vice that a person can have, more than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins… Is self pity. Self pity will destroy relationships. It will destroy everything that’s good. It will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. It is…
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness… That most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does…
Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong. In life and in love and in business and in friendships and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do; make good art. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art! Leg crushed and then e…
The sound of rain’s patient jig, like a blindman’s cane tapping, pondering. Reminding us Earth can’t always see, that she has blind spells When she must rap all inches of soil with her white-grey cane. The tinkling of rain against a river, almond-eyed rain, looking out on the myriad-subtle world, S…
Here in the years when life was bright With dewy mornings and sunset light, In the pleasant season of leafy June, In each idle, holiday afternoon I lov'd to wander with willow wand— I lov'd on the river border to stand And take the trout or the yellow bream That leap'd, that glanc'd athwart the str…
Gold are the great trees overhead, And gold the leaf-strewn grass, As though a cloth of gold were spread To let a seraph pass. And where the pageant should go by, Meadow and wood and stream, The world is all of lacquered gold, Expectant as a dream. Against the sunset's burning gold, Etched in dark…
“Little by little,” an acorn said, As it slowly sank in its mossy bed, “I am improving every day, Hidden deep in the earth away.” Little by little, each day it grew; Little by little, it sipped the dew; Downward it sent out a thread-like root; Up in the air sprung a tiny shoot. Day after day, and y…