Home And Holidays

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 [...]

Who thinks how desolate and strangeTo me must seem the autumn’s change,When housed in attic or in chest,A lonely and unwilling guest,I lie through nights of bleak December,And think in silence, and remember.
I think of hempen fields, where IOnce played with insects floating by,And joyed alike in sun and rain,Unconscious of approaching pain.I dwell upon [...]

The fields were bleak and sodden. Not a wingOr note enlivened the depressing wood,A soiled and sullen, stubborn snowdrift stoodBeside the roadway. Winds came mutteringOf storms to be, and brought the chilly stingOf icebergs in their breath. Stalled cattle mooedForth plaintive pleadings for the earth’s green food.No gleam, no hint of hope in anything.
The sky [...]