Poet: Strickland Gillilan
My wee one walked the narrow wall
What child but hungers thus to go?
Her eyes alert lest she might fall
On that rough-bouldered pave below.
At length she stopped, and thus her plea
As though o'erfull of care her cup:
"Please, Daddy, hold my hand for me
So when I walk I can look up."
All-Father, when we walk the ways
That teem with pitfalls for our feet,
That baby plea of bygone days
Might in our sorest need be meet.
Tired out with watchfulness and care,
With strife for paltry bite and sup,
"Thou hold our hands," we make our prayer,
"That while we walk we may look up."
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Poet: Strickland Gillilan
Remember now that other darkest hour
When you were ready to cry quits with life?
Your last defeat had shorn you of your power;
No more you'd be a "hero in the strife."
Now that the dark has come to you again,
Remember: All life's best has come since then!
Remember when no single ray of hope
Came to you through the gloom of baffledness?
Remember how you could not even grope
Through that thick murk of piteous distress?
How can remembering but help you, when
Your finest triumphs all have come since then?
Remember well, and you can mock Despair;
Remember well, and you can only smile;
Remember well, and you can flout at Care;
Remember; shorten Sorrow's little while.
Remember well and you can never grieve;
Remember, and you only can believe!
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Poet: Strickland Gillilan
Petty worry, here's a chair - come in and sit.
Note my momentary absence; pardon it.
There's a potent bit of knowledge hid somewhere
That can cope with you and rid me of your care.
Through the knothole known as ignorance you came -
It is I and I alone must bear the blame.
Yet there somewhere is a fact you can't resist -
I shall find it, and its help I shall enlist.
Or if, seeking out the knowledge that you fear,
I should find it not, though seeking far and near,
There's a sure and strong protector that I know
Who will come and give one look - and out you'll go.
This protector who will change you to a wraith
Is my never-failing friend whose name is Faith.
Summoned always when Sir Knowledge can't be found,
Faith will come, and then I dare you linger round!
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Poet: Strickland Gillilan
When a baby smiles at you, smile right back again;
If he look askance at you, smile your sweetest then.
He has come into a world big and strange and new.
He must learn what sort of world - learn from such as you.
You have been upon the road quite a little while!
He will judge if life is good, by your frown or smile.
When a child looks up at you, smile into his eyes.
He has all of life ahead - life that sternly tries
All the courage he can find, buy or beg or borrow!
Smile to show this new earth-guest not all life is sorrow
. You have seen, as well he knows, more of life than he-
Smile and let him understand life holds jollity.
When a child's eyes search your face, as all child-eyes do,
Looking for the net effect life has had on you,
Let him see a smile of hope - smile of cheerfulness;
Smile that shows him you have found more than bleak distress.
You, who know the road, assure every girl and boy
That the grown-ups' world contains heaps and heaps of joy.
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Poet: Strickland Gillilan
The clouds were red when the dawn came up
Were red with a glint of copper sheen.
The chalice of morn was a glittering cup
And the world was gay in the dewy green.
But the sun rose high and the clouds grew gray
With only a softened silver glow.
And the world looked old and far from gay,
But burdened instead with a weight of woe.
Yet at night when the sun goes down again
In the ruddy west, we shall see once more
The gold and the glitter past tongue or pen,
Shall see the red of the dawn and more!
Our lives and our days are alike in this:
Both have their glorious morns, then come
The gray and the grime that we may not miss,
Till hope shines forth in the evening's gloam.
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Poet: Strickland Gillilan
My life shall touch a dozen lives before this day is done -
Leave countless marks for good or ill ere sets this evening's sun.
Shall fair or foul its imprint prove, on those my life shall hail?
Shall benison my impress be, or shall a blight prevail?
When to the last great reckoning the lives I meet must go,
Shall this wee, fleeting touch of mine have added joy or woe?
Shall He who looks their records o'er — of name and time and place -
Say: "Here a blessed influence came," or "Here is evil's trace"?
From out each point of contact of my life with other lives
Flows ever that which helps the one who for the summit strives.
The troubled souls encountered - does it sweeten with its touch,
Or does it more embitter those embittered overmuch?
Does love through every handclasp flow in sympathy's caress?
Do those that I have greeted know a newborn hopefulness?
Are tolerance and charity the keynote of my song
As I go plodding onward with earth's eager, anxious throng?
My life must touch a million lives in some way ere I go
From this dear world of struggle to the land I do not know.
So this the wish I always wish, the prayer I ever pray:
Let my life help the other lives it touches by the way!
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Poet: Strickland Gillilan
See where Boy left the engine of his train,
A stumbling block to bring somebody pain.
I know he should be disciplined, and still
This time I shall not chide. Next time I will!
From out the way the hindering things I shove
Doing a kindly deed for one I love.
The little girl has strewn her paper dolls
Where Mother's watchful eye most sternly falls.
I start to call the child, to put away
The rubbish; then I hear her at her play,
And sigh and put in place her treasures trove
Doing a kindly thing for one I love.
'Tis Mother's work — this "picking up the room"
To make all ready for the mop and broom.
But she is busied in the garden close
In loving care of bergamot and rose.
So gladly I attack the chaos of
The room — a kindly deed for one I love.
A board with bristling nails that yearn to hurt
Soft baby feet with canvas shoon begirt
Such things our parent eyes and parent hands
See and remove, to sate our love's demands.
There is no joy this simple joy above
Just doing kindly things for those we love.
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Poet: Strickland Gillilan
Most every day brings some grave situation,
Not to be feared, but faced.
Alternatives offer, in state and in nation,
Not to be feared, but faced.
Dilemmas confront us each hour of the day,
Presenting both right and erroneous way.
These quandaries shouldn't depress us; for they
Aren't to be feared, but faced.
Each day of our life brings a problem or two,
Not to be feared, but solved.
We've off with the old one, let's on with the new -
Not to be feared, but solved.
The puzzle involving the right and the wrong;
The question how not to be weak, but be strong;
These "sums" in life's school-day come bobbing along,
Not to be feared, but solved.
Each day in the field there arises a foe,
Not to be feared, but fought.
He's not to be dodged or avoided, you know -
Not to be feared, but fought.
There's nothing on earth unmistakably right
That we may maintain without strenuous fight.
Intrenched we find always iniquitous might -
Not to be feared, but fought.
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Poet: Strickland Gillilan
When home from school's long day he drifts
And to my gaze his fresh face lifts.
I read the tale of all the joys
And sorrows that are every boy's -
I knew them once. I feel them yet,
Through later living's deeper fret.
But still I hold him close, and say
"Son, tell me all about your day."
He tells me - whimpering o'er each grief,
And laughing next in swift relief:
The big, bad boy who hid his hat;
The girl who slipped from where she sat,
To meet with Teacher's well-earned frown;
And how the littlest boy fell down!
I list - not that I do not know,
But only that I love him so.
When, at life's troublous school day's close,
Each world-worn pupil homeward goes,
Straight to the Father's eyes we'll raise
Our own, prepared for blame or praise.
He'll slip an arm around, and say:
"Child, tell me all about your day."
Not that Our Father does not know,
But only that He loves us so.
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