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LIFE'S HARMONIES.
LET no man pray that he know not sorrow,
Let no soul ask to be free from pain,
For the gall of to-day is the sweet
of to-morrow,
And the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain.
Through want of a thing does its worth redouble,
Through
hunger's pangs does the feast content,
And only the heart that has harbored trouble,
Can fully rejoice when joy is sent.
Let
no man shrink from the bitter tonics
Of grief, and yearning, and need, and strife,
For the rarest chords in the soul's
harmonies,
Are found in the minor strains of life.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Don't Quit
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will
When
the road you're trudging seems all uphill
When
the funds are low and the debts are high
And
you want to smile, but you have to sigh
When
care is pressing you down a bit
Rest,
you must - but don't you quit
Life
is queer with its twists and turns
As
everyone of us sometimes learns
And
many a failure turns about
When
he might have won had he stuck it out
Don't
give up, though the pace seems slow
You
might succeed with another blow
Success
is failure turned inside out, the silver tint of the clouds of doubt
And
you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far
So
stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's
when things seem worst, That you MUST NOT QUIT!
(Author Unknown)
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Great poem from the best loved poems of the american people.
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Vagabond's House
When I have a house . . . as I sometimes
may . . .
I'll suit my fancy in every way.
I'll fill it with things that have caught my eye
In drifting from Iceland
to Molokai.
It won't be correct or in period style,
But . . . oh, I've thought for a long, long while
Of all the
corners and all the nooks,
Of all the bookshelves and all the books,
The great big table, the deep soft chairs,
And
the Chinese rug at the foot of the stairs
(It's an old, old rug from far Chow Wan
That a Chinese princess once walked
on).
My house will stand on the side of a hill
By a slow, broad river, deep and still,
With a tall lone pine
on guard nearby
Where the birds can sing and the storm winds cry.
A flagstone walk, with lazy curves,
Will lead to
the door where a Pan's head serves
As a knocker there, like a vibrant drum,
To let me know that a friend has come,
And
the door will squeak as I swing it wide
To welcome you to the cheer inside.
For I’ll have good friends who
can sit and chat
Or simply sit, when it comes to that,
By the fireplace where the fir logs blaze
And the smoke rolls
up in a weaving haze.
I’ll want a woodbox, scarred and rough
For leaves and bark and odorous stuff,
Like resinous
knots and cones and gums,
To toss on the flames when winter comes.
And I hope a cricket will stay around,
For I love
it’s creaky lonesome sound.
There’ll be driftwood powder to burn on logs
And a shaggy rug for a couple
of dogs,
Boreas, winner of prize and cup,
And Mickey, a lovable gutter-pup.
Thoroughbreds, both of them, right from
the start,
One by breeding, the other by heart.
There are times when only a dog will do
For a friend . . . when you’re
beaten, sick and blue
And the world’s all wrong, for he won’t care
If you break and cry, or gouch and swear,
For
he’ll let you know as he licks your hands
That he’s downright sorry . . . and understands.
I’ll
have on a bench a box inlaid
With dragon-plaques of milk white jade
To hold my own particular brand
Of cigarettes
brought from the Pharaohs land,
With a cloisonne bowl on a lizards skin
To flick my cigarette ashes in.
And a squat
blue jar for a certain blend
Of pipe tobacco, I’ll have to send
To a quaint old chap I chanced to meet
In his
fusty shop on a London street.
A long low shelf of teak will hold
My best-loved books in leather and gold,
While
magazines lie on a bowlegged stand,
In a polyglot mixture close at hand.
I’ll have on a table a rich brocade
That
I think the pixies must have made,
For the dull gold thread on blues and grays
Weaves a pattern of Puck . . . the Magic
Maze.
On the mantlepiece I’ll have a place
For a little mud god with a painted face
That was given to me .
. . oh, long ago,
By a Philippine maid in Olangapo.
Then just in range of a lazy reach . . .
A bulging bowl of
Indian beech
Will brim with things that are good to munch,
Hickory nuts to crack and crunch;
Big fat raisins and
sun-dried dates,
And curious fruits from the Malay Straits;
Maple sugar and cookies brown
With good hard cider to
wash them down;
Wine-sap apples, pick of the crop,
And ears of corn to shell and pop
With plenty of butter and lots
of salt . . .
If you don’t get filled it’s not my fault.
And there where the shadows fall I’ve
planned
To have a magnificent concert-grand
With polished wood and ivory keys,
For wild discordant rhapsodies,
For
wailing minor Hindu songs,
For Chinese chants and clanging gongs,
For flippant jazz, and for lullabies,
And moody
things that I’ll improvise
To play the long gray dusk away
And bid goodbye to another day.
Pictures . .
. I think I’ll have but three:
One, in oil, of a windswept sea
With the flying scud and the waves whipped white
. . .
(I know the chap who can paint it right)
In lapis blue and deep jade green . . .
A great big smashing fine
marine
That’ll make you feel the spray in your face.
I’ll hang it over my fireplace.
The second picture . . . a freakish thing . . .
Is gaudy and bright as a macaw’s wing,
An impressionist
smear called “Sin”,
A nude on a striped zebra skin
By a Danish girl I knew in France.
My respectable
friends will look askance
At the purple eyes and the scarlet hair,
At the pallid face and the evil stare
Of the sinister,
beautiful vampire face.
I shouldn’t have it about the place,
But I like . . . while I loathe . . . the beastly
thing,
And that’s the way that one feels about sin.
The picture I love the best of all
Will hang alone
on my study wall
Where the sunset’s glow and the moon’s cold gleam
Will fall on the face, and make it seem
That
the eyes in the picture are meeting mine,
That the lips are curved in the fine sweet line
Of that wistful, tender, provocative
smile
That has stirred my heart for a wondrous while.
It’s a sketch of the girl who loved too well
To tie me
down to that bit of Hell
That a drifter knows when he know’s he’s held
By the soft, strong chains that passions
weld.
It was best for her and for me, I know,
That she measured my love and bade me go _
For we both have our
great illusion yet
Unsoiled, unspoiled by vain regret.
I won’t deny that it makes me sad
To know that I’ve
missed what I might have had.
It’s a clean sweet memory, quite apart,
And I’ve been faithful . . . in my
heart.
All these things I will have about,
Not a one could I do without;
Cedar and sandalwood chips to burn
In
the tarnished bowl of a copper urn;
A paperweight of meteorite
That seared and scorched the sky one night,
A moro
kris . . . my paper knife . . .
Once slit the throat of a Rajah’s wife.
The beams of my house will be fragrant
wood
That once in a teeming jungle stood
As a proud tall tree where the leopards crouched
And the parrots screamed
and the black men crouched.
The roof must have a rakish dip
To shadowy eaves where the rain can drip
In a damp
persistent tuneful way;
It’s a cheerful sound on a gloomy day.
And I want a shingle loose somewhere
To wail
like a banshee in despair
When the wind is high and the storm-gods race _
And I am snug by my fireplace.
I hope
a couple of birds will nest
Around the house. I’ll do my best
To make them happy, so every year
They’ll
raise their brood of fledglings here.
When I have my house I’ll suit myself
And have what I call my “Condiment
Shelf”,
Filled with all manner of herbs and spice,
Curry and chutney for meats and rice,
Pots and bottles of
extracts rare . . .
Onions and garlic will both be there . . .
And soya and saffron and savoury goo
And stuff that
I’ll buy from an old Hindu;
Ginger with syrup in quaint stone jars;
Almonds and figs in tinselled bars;
Astrakhan
caviare, highly prized,
And citron and orange peel crystallised;
Anchovy paste and poha jam;
Basil and chilli and
marjoram;
And flavours that come from Samarkand;
And, hung with a string from a handy hook,
Will be a dog-eared,
well-thumbed book
That is pasted full of recipes
>From France and Spain and the Caribbees;
Roots and leaves and
herbs to use
For curious soups and odd ragouts.
I’ll have a cook that I’ll name “Oh Joy”,
A
sleek, fat, yellow-faced China boy
Who can roast a pig or mix a drinkl,
(You can’t improve on a slant-eyed Chink).
On
the gray-stone hearth there’ll be a mat
For a scrappy, swaggering yellow cat
With a war-scarred face from a hundred
fights
With neighbours’ cats on moonlight nights.
A wise old Tom who can hold his own
And make my dogs let
him alone.
I’ll have a window-seat broad and deep
Where I can sprawl to read or sleep,
With windows placed
so I can turn
And watch the sunsets blaze and burn
Beyond high peaks that scar the sky
Like bare white wolf-fangs
that defy
The very gods. I’ll have a nook
For a savage idol that I took
>From a ruined temple in Peru,
A
demon-chaser named Mang-Chu
To guard my house by night and day
And keep all evil things away.
Pewter and bronze
and hammered brass;
Old carved wood and gleaming glass;
Candles and polychrome candlesticks,
And peasant lamps with
floating wicks;
Dragons in silk on a Mandarin suit
In a chest that is filled with vagabond-loot.
All of the beautiful,
useless things
That a vagabond’s aimless drifting brings.
Then, when my house is all complete
I’ll
stretch me out on the window seat
With a favourite book and a cigarette,
And a long cool drink that Oh Joy will get;
And
I’ll look about at my bachelor-nest
While the sun goes zooming down the west,
And the hot gold light will fall
on my face
And make me think of some heathen place
That I’ve failed to see . . . that I’ve missed some way
. . .
A place that I’d planned to find some day,
And I’ll feel the lure of it driving me.
Oh damn! I
know what the end will be _
I’ll go. And my house will fall away
While the mice by night and the moths by
day
Will nibble the covers off all my books,
And the spiders weave in the shadowed nooks.
And my dogs . . . I’ll
see that they have a home
While I follow the sun, while I drift and roam
To the ends of the earth like a chip on the
stream,
Like a straw on the wind, like a vagrant dream;
And the thought will strike with a swift sharp pain
That
I probably never will build again
This house that I’ll have in some far day _
Well . . . it’s just a dream
house, anyway.
Don Blanding
.
I'll make changes to this site on a regular basis, sharing news, views, experiences, photos...whatever occurs to me. Check
back often!
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THE WINDS OF FATE
One ship drives east and another drives west,
With the
self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
That
tell them the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the winds of fate,
As we voyage along through life,
'Tis the set of the soul
That decides its goal
And not the calm or the strife.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1850-1919
If you like theese poems than you will love" The Best Loved Poems of the American people." Most of theese poems are in
this book. (My favorite poetry book of all time.) I have included a link to overstock.com below. They have the best price.
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"Drop a Pebble in the Water"
Drop a pebble in the water,
just
a splash, and it’s gone;
But there's half a hundred ripples
circling on and on and on,
Spreading, spreading
from the center,
flowing on out to sea.
And there is no way of telling
where the end is going to be.
Drop
a pebble in the water;
in a minute you will forget,
But there's little waves a-flowing
and there's ripples circling
yet,
And those little waves a-flowing
to a great big wave have grown;
You've disturbed a mighty river
just
by dropping in a stone.
Drop an unkind or careless word:
in a minute it is gone;
But there's half a hundred ripples
circling
on and on and on,
They keep spreading, spreading,
spreading from the center as they go,
And there is no way to
stop them,
once you've started the flow.
Drop an unkind or careless word:
in a minute you forget;
But there's
little waves a-flowing,
and there's ripples circling yet.
And perhaps in some sad heart
a mighty wave of tears
you've stirred,
And disturbed a life that was happy
where you dropped that unkind word.
Drop a word of cheer
and kindness:
just a flash and it is gone;
But there is half a hundred ripples
circling on and on and on,
Bearing
hope and joy and comfort
on each splashing, dashing wave,
Till you wouldn't believe the volume
of the one kind word
you gave.
Drop a word of cheer and kindness:
in a minute you will forget;
But there's gladness still a-swelling,
and
there's joy circling yet.
And you've rolled a wave of comfort
whose sweet music can be heard,
Over miles and
miles of water
just by dropping one kind word.
Drop a pebble in the water,
just
a splash, and it’s gone;
But there's half a hundred ripples
circling on and on and on,
Spreading, spreading
from the center,
flowing on out to sea.
And there is no way of telling
where the end is going to be.
Drop
a pebble in the water;
in a minute you will forget,
But there's little waves a-flowing
and there's ripples circling
yet,
And those little waves a-flowing
to a great big wave have grown;
You've disturbed a mighty river
just
by dropping in a stone.
Drop an unkind or careless word:
in a minute it is gone;
But there's half a hundred ripples
circling
on and on and on,
They keep spreading, spreading,
spreading from the center as they go,
And there is no way to
stop them,
once you've started the flow.
Drop an unkind or careless word:
in a minute you forget;
But there's
little waves a-flowing,
and there's ripples circling yet.
And perhaps in some sad heart
a mighty wave of tears
you've stirred,
And disturbed a life that was happy
where you dropped that unkind word.
Drop a word of cheer
and kindness:
just a flash and it is gone;
But there is half a hundred ripples
circling on and on and on,
Bearing
hope and joy and comfort
on each splashing, dashing wave,
Till you wouldn't believe the volume
of the one kind word
you gave.
Drop a word of cheer and kindness:
in a minute you will forget;
But there's gladness still a-swelling,
and
there's joy circling yet.
And you've rolled a wave of comfort
whose sweet music can be heard,
Over miles and
miles of water
just by dropping one kind word.
Drop a pebble in the water,
just
a splash, and it’s gone;
But there's half a hundred ripples
circling on and on and on,
Spreading, spreading
from the center,
flowing on out to sea.
And there is no way of telling
where the end is going to be.
Drop
a pebble in the water;
in a minute you will forget,
But there's little waves a-flowing
and there's ripples circling
yet,
And those little waves a-flowing
to a great big wave have grown;
You've disturbed a mighty river
just
by dropping in a stone.
Drop an unkind or careless word:
in a minute it is gone;
But there's half a hundred ripples
circling
on and on and on,
They keep spreading, spreading,
spreading from the center as they go,
And there is no way to
stop them,
once you've started the flow.
Drop an unkind or careless word:
in a minute you forget;
But there's
little waves a-flowing,
and there's ripples circling yet.
And perhaps in some sad heart
a mighty wave of tears
you've stirred,
And disturbed a life that was happy
where you dropped that unkind word.
Drop a word of cheer
and kindness:
just a flash and it is gone;
But there is half a hundred ripples
circling on and on and on,
Bearing
hope and joy and comfort
on each splashing, dashing wave,
Till you wouldn't believe the volume
of the one kind word
you gave.
Drop a word of cheer and kindness:
in a minute you will forget;
But there's gladness still a-swelling,
and
there's joy circling yet.
And you've rolled a wave of comfort
whose sweet music can be heard,
Over miles and
miles of water
just by dropping one kind word.
James W. Foley
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