قراءة كتاب Poems of Cheer

It is easy enough to be pleasant
   When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
   When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
   And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
   Is the smile that shines through tears.

It is easy enough to be prudent
   When nothing tempts you to stray,
When without or within no voice of sin
   Is luring your soul away;
But it’s only a negative virtue
   Until it is tried by fire,
And the life that is worth the honour on earth
   Is the one that resists desire.

By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,
   Who had no strength for the strife,
The world’s highway is cumbered to-day—
   They make up the sum of life;
But the virtue that conquers passion,
   And the sorrow that hides in a smile—
It is these that are worth the homage on earth,
   For we find them but once in a while.

THE HOUSE OF LIFE

All wondering, and eager-eyed, within her portico
I made my plea to Hostess Life, one morning long ago.

“Pray show me this great house of thine, nor close a single door;
But let me wander where I will, and climb from floor to floor!

For many rooms, and curious things, and treasures great and small
Within your spacious mansion lie, and I would see them all.”

Then Hostess Life turned silently, her searching gaze on me,
And with no word, she reached her hand, and offered up the key.

It opened first the door of Hope, and long I lingered there,
Until I spied the room of Dreams, just higher by a stair.

And then a door whereon the one word “Happiness” was writ;
But when I tried the little key I could not make it fit.

It turned the lock of Pleasure’s room, where first all seemed so bright—
But after I had stayed awhile it somehow lost its light.

And wandering down a lonely hall, I came upon a room
Marked “Duty,” and I entered it—to lose myself in gloom.

Along the shadowy halls I groped my weary way about,
And found that from dull Duty’s room, a door of Toil led out.

It led out to another door, whereon a crimson stain
Made sullenly against the dark these words: “The Room of Pain.”

But oh the light, the light, the light, that spilled down from above
And upward wound, the stairs of Faith, right to the Tower of Love!

And when I came forth from that place, I tried the little key—
And lo! the door of Happiness swung open, wide and free.

A SONG OF LIFE

In the rapture of life and of living,
   I lift up my heart and rejoice,
And I thank the great Giver for giving
   The soul of my gladness a voice.
In the glow of the glorious weather,
   In the sweet-scented, sensuous air,
My burdens seem light as a feather—
   They are nothing to bear.

In the strength and the glory of power,
   In the pride and the pleasure of wealth
(For who dares dispute me my dower
   Of talents and youth-time and health?),
I can laugh at the world and its sages—
   I am greater than

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