Let us sing along, beguiling
  Grief to smiling
    In the song. 
  With the promises of heaven
  Let us leaven
    The day long,
  Gilding all the duller seemings
  With the roselight of our dreamings,
  Splashing clouds with sunlight’s gleamings,
    Here and there and all along.

  Let us live along, the sorrow
  Of to-morrow
    Never heed. 
  In the pages of the present
  What is pleasant
    Only read. 
  Bells but pealing, never knelling,
  Hearts with gladness ever swelling. 
  Tides of charity up welling
    In our every dream and deed.

  Let us hope along together,
  Be the weather
      What it may,
  Where the sunlight glad is shining,
  Not repining
      By the way. 
  Seek to add our meed and measure
  To the old Earth’s joy and treasure,
  Quaff the crystal cup of pleasure,
      Not to-morrow, but to-day.

James W. Foley.

From “The Voices of Song.”

OPPORTUNITY

Procrastination is not only the thief of time; it is also the grave of opportunity.

  In an old city by the storied shores
  Where the bright summit of Olympus soars,
  A cryptic statue mounted towards the light—­
  Heel-winged, tip-toed, and poised for instant flight.

  “O statue, tell your name,” a traveler cried,
  And solemnly the marble lips replied: 
  “Men call me Opportunity:  I lift
  My winged feet from earth to show how swift
  My flight, how short my stay—­
  How Fate is ever waiting on the way.”

  “But why that tossing ringlet on your brow?”
  “That men may seize me any moment:  Now,
  NOW is my other name:  to-day my date: 
  O traveler, to-morrow is too late!”

Edwin Markham.

From “The Gates of Paradise, and Other Poems.”

TO A YOUNG MAN

“Jones write a book!  Impossible!  I knew his father.”  This attitude towards distinction of any sort, whether in authorship or in the field of action, is characteristic of many of us.  We think transcendent ability is entirely above and apart from the things of ordinary life.  Yet genius itself has been defined as common sense in an uncommon degree.  The great men are human.  Shakespeare remembered this when he said, “I think the king is but a man as I am.”  We should take heart at the thought that since the great are like us, we may develop ourselves until we are like them.

  The great were once as you. 
  They whom men magnify to-day
  Once groped and blundered on life’s way,
  Were fearful of themselves, and thought
  By magic was men’s greatness wrought. 
  They feared to try what they could do;
  Yet Fame hath crowned with her success
  The selfsame gifts that you possess.