Perhaps to me the years will bring a surcease
Of grief that seems to choke my throbbing breast.
Bitter-sweets of memory, someday, may bring me peace
And change to comfort this mute feeling of unrest.
– Circa 1929
Life is never just a round of pleasure.
Life is all the things we’ve loved and lost.
Life is giving of ourselves in fullest measure
For all that’s right and counting not the cost.
Life is growing, learning, gaining by our errors;
The richness of a living that’s worthwhile.
Life is all the little things together,
Bound by deeds of love-, a handclasp and a smile.
Life is all our heartaches and our sorrows
Softened by the passing of the years;
Forgiving from the heart loved ones who often
Have caused us hours of worry-, countless tears.
Life is rich and full, and glowing with the goodness
Of all God surely meant that it should be;
Life is living with God being ever near us
Not just today but for eternity.
– Circa 1955
I feel like I could write and write
And never, never stop;
Like I could whip and lash at words
Until exhausted they must drop.
As though I could reach out and touch
The furthest star in time;
To bring to earth tormented tunes
Of reason and of rhyme.
I feel as though the whole, wide world
Were mine to quench with fire;
To hear the echoing words rip back
Aloft the highest spire.
I feel as though if untold wealth
Were scattered at my feet;
It is as naught if could write
And write, nor stop for sleep.
I feel as though my quivering soul
Is filled with words that seek;
An outlet from an inner voice
Long stilled, but now must speak.
What is this vibrant yearning
That seeks to rip the cord;
Of silence long entombed within
Yet aching to be heard?
What is this urge within me
For a pen to capture fast;
Words which spill like water dammed
Now loosed and rushing past?
Peace! Peace! My soul be still
And let time take its lingering space;
There’s room and time for all men’s works
Within the human race.
Let not the heart be hasty
Nor let the hand be swift;
Lest the desire to spill it forth
Divide the mended rift.
Lest God looks down and frowns upon
The urgent need of man;
Be still my heart, nor overdue
The things one must and can.
– Circa 1925 at 14 years of age
To-day in the field called “Flanders”
And the land that is named “No-Man’s”
Lie buried a host of treasures;
Lie buried a score of plans.
They sleep, for the warfare is ended
Those soldiers we love and know.
And the price it cast for a war not lost
You’ll find where the poppies blow.
To-day in the world is gladness;
But in hearts there is sorrow too,
For Flander’s Field is remembered -,
It was stained for me and you.
For some sleep ‘neath the wooden crosses,
And some where we do not know;
But the torch they bore, sheds its glory o’er
Where the blood-red poppies blow.
To-day all our hearts are thankful
As we join in a song to God
For the many things He gives us -,
Those who sleep beneath the sod;
So still bravely we’ll carry onward
That torch with its fiery glow.
When the day is done we will meet the one
Who sleeps where the poppies blow.
– Circa 1928
Sleep on! O soldier son, beneath
Thy narrow plot of land,
Although thy work is not yet done,
We mothers understand.
Thy soul is calling from the womb
Of earth, who sought to give
A resting place to you and those
Who died that we might live.
“O was it all for nought”? you ask,
This youth so early gone?
These sons whose broken bodies lay
All scattered in the dawn?
O men, whose minds are scheming minds,
Who yearn for power thru war,
Do we not count, who died for peace?
We too, would sleep once more
The tramp of marching feet is heard,
The whine of shot and shell;
O God forbid another youth
Should taste of fire and hell
Our mothers’ gave, our fathers’ gave
Our sisters and our wives,
Our sweethearts too smiled us good-bye,
Bravely, with tear stung eyes.
Now we have risen from our graves,
We men, you thought were dead;
How could we sleep with hatred’s cry
And slaughter over head?
O world whose restless passions toss
And turn within thy breast
Give unto us, who died for peace
The solace of sweet rest.
This Easter tide when earth sends forth
Its tendril shoots of green,
The roots of all the living plants
Are lying there, unseen;
And He, who died that life might come
Thru His great sacrifice;
Knows that we, too, were crucified,
That we, too, paid the price.
Our cavalry for some unmarked
For some, a simple cross;
And mothers know as Mary did
The bitterness of loss.
But not in vain did Her son die,
O world, we too, would feel;
The peace we sought to give is thine
This Easter to reveal.
O let us hear you say those words
And find that spirit too;
That hovers over all the earth
When Easter time is due.
Peace, perfect peace be thine, sleep;
Remembered ‘neath the sod,
Thy rest is won; and now we leave
Thee in the hands of God.
– Circa 1935
My Tryst
You may be gay with a heart rejoicing;
But I am gay with a heart grown sad.
You keep your tryst with a world’s thanksgiving
But I keep tryst with a little lad.
To you, it may seem long years remembering
Yet to me it seems but yesterday,
With his shoulders straight, his proud eyes smiling
He waved his hand as he went away.
He paid the price for a world’s rejoicing;
He paid the price for a war not lost
How empty now are the words of valor;
How trying still is the bitter cross.
Still I rejoice with a world rejoicing
Still I give thanks that I smiled to him.
– Circa 1957
Let not the March of Time forget
The serried ranks of those
Who paid in drops of blood and sweat;
To them we owe a life-long debt
The years can never close.
Let not this day pass on as lost,
Lest we forget the price they paid;
Lest we forget the cost.
– Circa 1955
I sent my son in all his youth
To climb the girdled peaks of fame;
To seek of life, the way, the truth;
And there to write his name.
He went from me with smiling eyes,
He marched to war undaunted, brave.
Ah! Little did I realize
He went, but to his grave.
They sent to me a book to keep.
It once was his, who is no more.
I clutched it to my heart; to weep
Alone, I shut the door.
The storm passed on, but left its mark:
Where once the love of life had been
There wavered an unwilling spark;
God would not let me in.
I sent my son in all his youth
But he came back to me, no more;
He wrote within the book of Truth
And opened the door.
But I was left behind to learn
That life is Death, and Death is Life.
God did not mean that I should turn
Backward the page of strife.
And as I struggled seeing not,
His book I held as one asleep;
There dropped a pressed for-get-me-not;
It fluttered at my feet.
I stooped to hold the little bloom;
Yet as I stooped, I stopped to smile,
For in the shadows of my room
I found life still worthwhile.
– Circa 1947
A rose for a beautiful lady
To welcome you back to-day;
A rose to say you’ve been sadly missed
The time you have been away.
Just a rose to say that I love you;
You are gentle, considerate and kind,
One of God’s special creations
In body and spirit and mind.
Just a rose from one of your patients
And as well from a friend, I say;
God bless and keep you always
In good health from day unto day.
May you always be my doctor
Till the sands of my life are run;
For I trust you; I’ve faith in your judgement,
You are a “most wonderful one”.
– Circa 1995
My life is full of little things;
I know not whence they come:
The sweeping of a spider’s web,
The picking of a plum;
The singing in the morning
As I scrub, dust or mend-,
For little things a pleasure
To dreary tasks will lend.
My life is full of little things:
A babe whose fingers twine
Around my neck; whose soul must feel
The need and call of mine.
Putting on the coffee pot
When six o’clock draws near;
Setting cigars close at hand
Beside a cosy chair.
Making oatmeal in the morning
The right consistency;
Tending baby’s little wants
When e’er she comes to me.
All the thousand little things-,
My work, our babe, his smile,
Combine to make the biggest things
For they make life worthwhile.
– Circa 1939
