LOVE’S DART.
My heart is filled with joy today;
There’s peace within my soul.
My cup is running o’er with bliss,
There’s love in pleasure’s bowl.
I will not think of aught that’s sad;
I’ll happy be today.
Tomorrow may bring pain and grief,
But love will each allay.
Life’s bowl is filled with happiness,
There’s naught that I regret.
It is so full of love and joy
I would not it forget.
The god of love peeped in at morn,
From bow, he sent a dart,
In aim he was so accurate
It lodged within my heart.
WEEDS.
A weed was in my garden growing;
I nurtured it with tender care,
It grew to be a flower of beauty
With col’ring rich and fragrance rare.
It only needed love, and culture
To bring out beauty from its heart;
It ever had been timid, shrinking,
But now it proudly took a part
With other flowers whose birth was higher.
Though coming up from out the sod
It gave to all sweet ministration,
It was a thought, a part of God.
Now if a little weed so humble,
A higher place in life could gain
By care, and love, and sweet attention,
Why not a human weed attain
Conditions better, and by struggling,
Arise from out its low estate?
But it needs help and cultivation
To rise above its seeming fate.
It needs but pruning, needs but watching.
From human weed ’twill rise to be
A flower of love, with soul of beauty;
It needs though, love and sympathy.
Though but a weed in Life’s bright garden,
It is not crushed by th’ heel of Fate.
It only needs a new awakening
To enter Life’s bright golden gate.
Then give at least as much attention
To human weed as garden flower,
And thus you will enrich creation,
And God will blessings on you shower.
THE BLIND BEGGAR’S APPEAL.
Just close your eyes and try to walk
Along the crowded thoroughfare;
And ask each passer-by for help,
Then know the insults I must bear.
I’m hungry, homeless, cold and sick.
I’ve groped around the livelong day;
No pitying word have I once heard,
No one has stopped me on my way
A little pittance to dole out
To me, who as a little child
Had mother love, and father’s care,
Enough to eat, enough to wear.
O God have pity! And now take
The poor blind beggar who does crave
Some resting place upon the earth;
E’en though that place should be the grave.
I seek some shelter from the cold;
Some place to lay my weary head.—
Some day I shall have covering warm,
But that will be when I am dead.
Sometime sweet flowers will cover me,
The grass grow green upon my grave.
My weary body will have rest,
My soul return to God who gave
The poor blind beggar rest at last,
A place to rest beneath the sod,
A covering of sweet flowers and grass.—
So patiently I’ll kiss the rod
Though it may scourge my body weak,
Though I be hungry, blind and poor,
I’ll bear my burdens patiently,
And thank my God that I them bore.
THE THREADS OF LIFE.
I count my age by what I’ve done
And not by months, and years.
I count from smiles, and happiness,
And not from pain, and tears.
By these I’ve lived an hundred years,
May live an hundred more.
I’ll count the sunbeams in my life,
The clouds I will ignore.
I’ll count the good that I have done.
Alas! That will not do.
If by that standard I should count,
My years would be too few.
Turn back O wheel of Time I pray—
Another chance I crave.
I would more worthy be of life,
More worthy of the grave.
But I have failed through thoughtlessness,
Through ignorance also;
But thoughtlessness and ignorance
Excuse me not, I know.
I must pick up the threads of life,
And weave them o’er again,
For every stitch I’ve dropped in past,
Has left on soul a stain.
Life’s shuttle I must hold with care,
Life’s web must perfect be.
I weave not for this world alone,
But for eternity.
MEMORY’S BOOK.
I ope the book at mother’s side,
And turn the leaves so pure.
I read the pages with delight;
Their innocence allure.
I turn the leaves with greatest care,
I find there naught of pain;
’Tis happy childhood’s joyous days,
And were not lived in vain.
I turn another leaf, and find
Some things I would forget;
Some selfish thought, some unkind act,
And much that I regret.
Again I turn a leaf, and there
I see inscribed thereon,
Mistakes, and errors, selfishness,
Yet many victories won.
Full many times I conquered self,
And overcame much ill.
These memories are the dearest ones,
And linger with me still.
One memory sweet has its own place,
Has its own sacred nest.
’Tis buried deep within my heart,
And rests there—let it rest.
O childhood days come back again!
When at my mother’s knee
I learned the songs my mother sang,
In our cottage by the sea.