POETRY

A SONG OF SERVICE

If all my pain and all my tears,
And all that I have learned throughout the years
Could make some perfect song
To lift some fallen head
To lite some darkened mind,
I should feel that not in vain
I served mankind.

Marguerite Few

GIFT

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all men, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.

THE WINDS OF FATE

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.

Like the winds of the sea are the ways 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.

Ell Wheeler Wilcox

The inner half of every cloud
Is bright and shining;
Therefore turn my clouds about,
And always wear them inside out
To show the lining.

Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

They might not need me; but they might.
I'll let my head be just in sight;
A smile as small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity.

Emily Dickinson

REGRET

I have wept in the night
For the shortness of sight
That to somebody's need made me blind;

But I never have yet
Felt a tinge of regret
For being a little too kind.

COURTESY

Of Courtesy, it is much less
Than Courage of Heart or Holiness,
Yet in my walks it seems to me
That the Grace of God is in Courtesy.

Hilaire Belloc

A house is built of log and stone,
Of tiles and posts and piers;
A home is built of loving deeds
That stand a thousand years.

Victor Hugo

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