It takes so little to make us sad,
Just a slighting word or a doubting sneer,
Just a scornful smile on some lips held dear;
And our footsteps lag, though the goal seemed near,
And we lose the courage and hope we had
So little it takes to make us sad.
It takes so little to make us glad,
Just a cheering clasp of a friendly hand,
Just a word from one who can understand;
And we finish the task we long had planned,
And we lose the doubt and the fear we had
So little it takes to make us glad.
Ida G. Morris
Music:
Recuerdos de la Alhambra-Francisco Tárrega
(performed by Ana Vidovic)
The Last Night of the Year
Isaac McLellan
(1806-1899)
Now the good old Year is dead and gone
To the grave of the Past, forever borne.
I heard last night his awful knell
Knolled gloomily by the midnight bell;
And I saw his hearse creep darkly by;
And the blackened pall on his coffin lie;
Then deepened the midnight's shadowy gloom!
And thus the good Year passed to his tomb!
Now ere we welcome the newborn year
Let us give to the Past one tribute tear;
Let us look once more on his pallid face--
One parting look, for a moment's space,
Ere the crumbling sod of the valley hide
The aged year which last night died;
For soon, very soon do men forget
Their friends upon whom Death's seal is set.
Cans't thou number the blessings, the past year shed,
With a liberal hand upon thine head!
Oh! number rather the stars that burn
With a blaze of light, by the moon's red urn;
Or the yellow sands of the sparkling sea;
Or the twinkling leaves of the wild wood-tree.
Thou can'st not number the blessings strewn,
By that prodigal year, now past and gone.
And let us bid to the coming year,
A hearty, and happy welcome here.
We know not whether its latest day
Will find us sorrowing, or find us gay,
We know not whether in weal or woe,
In health or in sickness, we do not know.
Perchance, we may still on our journey plod;
Perchance, we may lie 'neath the churchyard sod;
To this earth we may then no more belong,
Our names forgot, like a 'passing song.'
It is weak and unreasonable to imagine destiny has selected you for special suffering. Sorrow is no respecter of persons. Say to yourself with the beginning of this year that you are going to consider all your troubles as an education for your mind and soul; and that out of the experiences which you have passed through you are going to build a noble and splendid character, and a successful career.
Do not tell me you are too old. Age is all imagination. Ignore years and they will ignore you.
Eat moderately, and bathe freely in water as cold as nature's rainfall. Exercise thoroughly and regularly.
Be alive, from crown to toe. Breathe deeply, filling every cell of the lungs for at least five minutes, morning and night, and when you draw in long, full breaths, believe you are inhaling health, wisdom and success.
Anticipate good health. If it does not come at once, consider it a mere temporary delay, and continue to expect it.
Regard any physical ailment as a passing inconvenience, no more. Never for an instant believe you are permanently ill or disabled...
Think of your body as the silver jewel box, your mind as the silver lining, your spirit as the gem. Keep the box burnished and clear of dust, but remember always that the jewel within is the precious part of it.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
Albert Einstein
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s.
Henry Moore
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw
on a bank where they have no account.
Oscar Wilde
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
and next year’s words await another voice.
T.S. Eliot
I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans,
of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.
Anaïs Nin
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors,
and let each new year find you a better man.
Benjamin Franklin
One resolution I have made, and try always to keep,
is this — To rise above the little things.
John Burroughs
Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on,
with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
Hal Borland
What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal
on what you bring to the new year.
Vern McLellan
An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in.
A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
Bill Vaughn
New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.
Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
Mark Twain
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is
that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new
backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular person made
New Year resolutions, he or she would make no resolutions. Unless one
starts afresh about things, that person will certainly do nothing effective.
G.K. Chesterton
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.
Edith Lovejoy Pierce
We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential.
Ellen Goodman
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Alfred Tennyson
TO the assembled folk
At great St. Kavin’s spoke
Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve;
I give you joy, my friends,
That as the round year ends,
We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave.
On other festal days
For penitence or praise
Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving;
To-night we calendar
The rising of that star
Which lit the old world with new joy of living.
Ah, we disparage still
The Tidings of Good Will,
Discrediting Love’s gospel now as then!
And with the verbal creed
That God is love indeed,
Who dares make Love his god before all men?
Shall we not, therefore, friends,
Resolve to make amends
To that glad inspiration of the heart;
To grudge not, to cast out
Selfishness, malice, doubt,
Anger and fear; and for the better part,
To love so much, so well,
The spirit cannot tell
The range and sweep of her own boundary!
There is no period
Between the soul and God;
Love is the tide, God the eternal sea.
To-day we walk by love;
To strive is not enough,
Save against greed and ignorance and might.
We apprehend peace comes
Not with the roll of drums,
But in the still processions of the night.
And we perceive, not awe
But love is the great law
That binds the world together safe and whole.
The splendid planets run
Their courses in the sun;
Love is the gravitation of the soul.
In the profound unknown,
Illumined, fair, and lone,
Each star is set to shimmer in its place.
In the profound divine
Each soul is set to shine,
And its unique appointed orbit trace.
There is no near nor far,
Where glorious Algebar
Swings round his mighty circuit through the night,
Yet where without a sound
The winged seed comes to ground,
And the red leaf seems hardly to alight.
One force, one lore, one need
For satellite and seed,
In the serene benignity for all.
Letting her time-glass run
With star-dust, sun by sun,
In Nature’s thought there is no great nor small.
There is no far nor near
Within the spirit’s sphere.
The summer sunset’s scarlet-yellow wings
Are tinged with the same dye
That paints the tulip’s ply.
And what is colour but the soul of things?
(The earth was without form;
God moulded it with storm,
Ice, flood, and tempest, gleaming tint and hue;
Lest it should come to ill
For lack of spirit still,
He gave it colour,—let the love shine through.)…
Of old, men said, ‘Sin not;
By every line and jot
Ye shall abide; man’s heart is false and vile.’
Christ said, ‘By love alone
In man’s heart is God known;
Obey the word no falsehood can defile.’
And since that day we prove
Only how great is love,
Nor to this hour its greatness half believe.
For to what other power
Will life give equal dower,
Or chaos grant one moment of reprieve!
Look down the ages’ line,
Where slowly the divine
Evinces energy, puts forth control;
See mighty love alone
Transmuting stock and stone,
Infusing being, helping sense and soul.
And what is energy,
In-working, which bids be
The starry pageant and the life of earth?
What is the genesis
Of every joy and bliss,
Each action dared, each beauty brought to birth?
What hangs the sun on high?
What swells the growing rye?
What bids the loons cry on the Northern lake?
What stirs in swamp and swale,
When April winds prevail,
And all the dwellers of the ground awake?
What lurks in the deep gaze
Of the old wolf? Amaze,
Hope, recognition, gladness, anger, fear.
But deeper than all these
Love muses, yearns, and sees,
And is the self that does not change nor veer.
Not love of self alone,
Struggle for lair and bone,
But self-denying love of mate and young,
Love that is kind and wise,
Knows trust and sacrifice,
And croons the old dark universal tongue.
And who has understood
Our brothers of the wood,
Save he who puts off guile and every guise
Of violence,—made truce
With panther, bear, and moose,
As beings like ourselves whom love makes wise?
For they, too, do love’s will,
Our lesser clansmen still;
The House of Many Mansions holds us all;
Courageous, glad and hale,
They go forth on the trail,
Hearing the message, hearkening to the call.
Open the door to-night
Within your heart, and light
The lantern of love there to shine afar.
On a tumultuous sea
Some straining craft, maybe,
With bearings lost, shall sight love’s silver star.
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
And etched on vacant places
Are half forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know--
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Mary Magdalen
On meeting Jesus for the first time
Khalil Gibran
It was in the month of June when I saw Him for the first time. He was walking in the wheatfield when I passed by with my handmaidens, and He was alone.
The rhythm of His step was different from other men's, and the movement of His body was like naught I had seen before.
Men do not pace the earth in that manner. And even now I do not know whether He walked fast or slow.
My handmaidens pointed their fingers at Him and spoke in shy whispers to one another. And I stayed my steps for a moment, and raised my hand to hail Him. But He did not turn His face, and He did not look at me. And I hated Him. I was swept back into myself, and I was as cold as if I had been in a snow-drift. And I shivered.
That night I beheld Him in my dreaming; and they told me afterward that I screamed in my sleep and was restless upon my bed.
It was in the month of August that I saw Him again, through my window. He was sitting in the shadow of the cypress tree across my garden, and He was as still as if He had been carved out of stone, like the statues in Antioch and other cities of the North Country.
And my slave, the Egyptian, came to me and said, "That man is here again. He is sitting there across your garden."
And I gazed at Him, and my soul quivered within me, for He was beautiful.
His body was single and each part seemed to love every other part.
Then I clothed myself with raiment of Damascus, and I left my house and walked towards Him.
Was it my aloneness, or was it His fragrance, that drew me to Him? Was it a hunger in my eyes that desired comeliness, or was it His beauty that sought the light of my eyes?
Even now I do not know.
I walked to him with my scented garments and my golden sandals, the sandals the Roman captain had given me, even these sandals. And when I reached Him, I said, "Good-morrow to you."
And He said, "Good-morrow to you, Miriam."
And He looked at me, and His night-eyes saw me as no man had seen me. And suddenly I was as if naked, and I was shy.
Yet He had only said, "Good-morrow to you."
And then I said to Him, "Will you not come to my house?"
And He said, "Am I not already in your house?"
I did not know what He meant then, but I know now.
And I said, "Will you not have wine and bread with me?"
And He said, "Yes, Miriam, but not now."
Not now, not now, He said. And the voice of the sea was in those two words, and the voice of the wind and the trees. And when He said them unto me, life spoke to death.
For mind you, my friend, I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from this self which you now see. I belonged to all men, and to none. They called me harlot, and a woman possessed of seven devils. I was cursed, and I was envied.
But when His dawn-eyes looked into my eyes all the stars of my night faded away, and I became Miriam, only Miriam, a woman lost to the earth she had known, and finding herself in new places.
And now again I said to Him, "Come into my house and share bread and wine with me."
And He said, "Why do you bid me to be your guest?"
And I said, "I beg you to come into my house." And it was all that was sod in me, and all that was sky in me calling unto Him.
Then He looked at me, and the noontide of His eyes was upon me, and He said, "You have many lovers, and yet I alone love you. Other men love themselves in your nearness. I love you in your self. Other men see a beauty in you that shall fade away sooner than their own years. But I see in you a beauty that shall not fade away, and in the autumn of your days that beauty shall not be afraid to gaze at itself in the mirror, and it shall not be offended.
"I alone love the unseen in you."
Then He said in a low voice, "Go away now. If this cypress tree is yours and you would not have me sit in its shadow, I will walk my way."
And I cried to Him and I said, "Master, come to my house. I have incense to burn for you, and a silver basin for your feet. You are a stranger and yet not a stranger. I entreat you, come to my house."
Then He stood up and looked at me even as the seasons might look down upon the field, and He smiled. And He said again: "All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself."
And then He walked away.
But no other man ever walked the way He walked. Was it a breath born in my garden that moved to the east? Or was it a storm that would shake all things to their foundations?
I knew not, but on that day the sunset of His eyes slew the dragon in me, and I became a woman, I became Miriam, Miriam of Mijdel.
I love Love—though he has wings,
And like light can flee,
But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee—
Thou art love and life! Oh come,
Make once more my heart thy home.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The house is like a garden,
The children are the flowers,
The gardener should come methinks
And walk among his bowers,
Oh! lock the door on worry
And shut your cares away,
Not time of year, but love and cheer,
Will make a holiday.
The Husband
Impossible! You women do not know
The toil it takes to make a business grow.
I cannot join you until very late,
So hurry home, nor let the dinner wait.
The Wife
The feast will be like Hamlet
Without a Hamlet part:
The home is but a house, dear,
Till you supply the heart.
The Xmas gift I long for
You need not toil to buy;
Oh! give me back one thing I lack -
The love-light in your eye.
The Husband
Of course I love you, and the children too.
Be sensible, my dear, it is for you
I work so hard to make my business pay.
There, now, run home, enjoy your holiday.
The Wife (turning)
He does not mean to wound me,
I know his heart is kind.
Alas! that man can love us
And be so blind, so blind.
A little time for pleasure,
A little time for play;
A word to prove the life of love
And frighten care away!
Tho' poor my lot in some small cot
That were a holiday.
The Husband (musing)
She has not meant to wound me, nor to vex -
Zounds! but 'tis difficult to please the sex.
I've housed and gowned her like a very queen
Yet there she goes, with discontented mien.
I gave her diamonds only yesterday:
Some women are like that, do what you may.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
Khalil Gibran
When the hand of Life is heavy and night songless, it is the time for love and trust.
And how light the hand life becomes and how songful the night, when one is loving and trusting all.
From Kahlil Gibran letter
When We tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new.
This restless craving in the souls of men
Spurs them to climb, and seek the mountain view.
So let who will erect an altar shrine
To meek-browed Constancy, and sing her praise.
Unto enlivening Change I shall build mine,
Who lends new zest, and interest to my days.
Ella Wehleer Wilcox
Be mild, and cleave to gentle things,
thy glory and thy happiness be there.
I listened, motionless and still; and, as I mounted up the hill,
the music in my heart I bore, long after it was heard no more.
Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams.
What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how; instruct them how the mind of man becomes a thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells...
Let me but feel thy look's embrace,
Transparent, pure, and warm,
And I'll not ask to touch thy face,
Or fold thee in mine arm.
For in thine eyes a girl doth rise,
Arrayed in candid bliss,
And draws me to her with a charm
More close than any kiss.
Henry Van Dyke
One thing is sure, O comrades, that the love
That fights to keep us rooted in the earth,
But also urges us to dare the stars,
This irresistible, this ancient power
Wedged in the soul, unshakable, is the light
That burns our roots and leaves us free for Space.
Philip José Farmer
The only gold is love,
A coin that we have minted from the light
Of others who have cared for us on Earth
And who have deposited in us the power
That nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars.
Philip José Farmer
Yes, we hope to seed a new, rich earth.
We hope to breed a race of men whose power
Dwells in hearts as open as all Space
Itself, who ask for nothing but the light
That rinses the heart of hate so that the stars
Above will be below when man has Love.
Philip José Farmer
There has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and women. It is not yet time to write a creed. Wait until the chains are broken—until dungeons are not regarded as temples. Wait until solemnity is not mistaken for wisdom—until mental cowardice ceases to be known as reverence. Wait until the living are considered the equals of the dead—until the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. Wait until what we know can be spoken without regard to what others may believe. Wait until teachers take the place of preachers—until followers become investigators. Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.
Robert G.Ingersoll
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart — the best brain.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves. We must purposely be kind and generous, or we miss the best part of existence. The heart which goes out of itself gets large and full. This is the great secret of the inner life. We do ourselves the most good doing something for others.
Horace Mann
All men who know not where to look for truth, save in the narrow well of self, will find their own image at the bottom and mistake it for what they are seeking.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Never give out while there is hope; but hope not beyond reason,
for that shows more desire than judgment.
William Penn
If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we
are more than logical. We are human beings, and we
have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.
Jacques Cousteau
It is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded;
for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however
frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
Samuel Johnson
Cemeteries are full of unfulfilled dreams. . . countless echoes of "could
have" and "should have". . . countless books unwritten. . . countless songs
unsung. . . I want to live my life in such a way that when my body is laid
to rest, it will be a well needed rest from a life well lived, a song well sung,
a book well written, opportunities well explored, and a love well expressed.
Steve Maraboli
Looking from outside into an open window one never sees as much as when one looks through a closed window.
There is nothing more profound, more mysterious, more pregnant, more insidious, more dazzling than a window lighted by a single candle.
What one can see out in the sunlight is always less interesting than what goes on behind a windowpane.
In that black or luminous square life lives, life dreams, life suffers.
Across the ocean of roofs I can see a middle-aged woman, her face already lined, who is forever bending over something and who never goes out.
Out of her face, her dress, and her gestures, out of practically nothing at all, I have made up this woman's story, or rather legend, and sometimes I tell it to myself and weep.
If it had been an old man I could have made up his just as well.
And I go to bed proud to have lived and to have suffered in some one besides myself.
Perhaps you will say "Are you sure that your story is the really one?"
But what does it matter what reality is outside myself, so long as it has helped me to live, to feel that I am, and what I am?
Is It Not Pleasant
Charles Baudelaire
Is it not pleasant, now we are tired,
and tarnished, like other men, to search for those fires
in the furthest East, where, again, we might see
morning's new dawn, and, in mad history,
hear the echoes, that vanish behind us, the sighs
of the young loves, God gives, at the start of our lives?
The original text in french
Les Fenêtres
Charles Baudelaire - Le Spleen de Paris
Celui qui regarde du dehors à travers une fenêtre ouverte, ne voit jamais autant de choses que celui qui regarde une fenêtre fermée. Il n’est pas d’objet plus profond, plus mystérieux, plus fécond, plus ténébreux, plus éblouissant qu’une fenêtre éclairée d’une chandelle. Ce qu’on peut voir au soleil est toujours moins intéressant que ce qui se passe derrière une vitre. Dans ce trou noir ou lumineux vit la vie, rêve la vie, souffre la vie.
Par delà des vagues de toits, j’aperçois une femme mûre, ridée déjà, pauvre, toujours penchée sur quelque chose, et qui ne sort jamais. Avec son visage, avec son vêtement, avec son geste, avec presque rien, j’ai refait l’histoire de cette femme, ou plutôt sa légende, et quelquefois je me la raconte à moi-même en pleurant.
Si c’eût été un pauvre vieux homme, j’aurais refait la sienne tout aussi aisément.
Et je me couche, fier d’avoir vécu et souffert dans d’autres que moi-même.
Peut-être me direz-vous : « Es-tu sûr que cette légende soit la vraie ? » Qu’importe ce que peut être la réalité placée hors de moi, si elle m’a aidé à vivre, à sentir que je suis et ce que je suis ?
N'est ce pas qu'il est doux
Charles Baudelaire
N'est-ce pas qu'il est doux, maintenant que nous sommes
Fatigués et flétris comme les autres hommes,
De chercher quelquefois à l'Orient lointain
Si nous voyons encore les rougeurs du matin,
Et, quand nous avançons dans la rude carrière,
D'écouter les échos qui chantent en arrière
Et les chuchotements de ces jeunes amours
Que le Seigneur a mis au début de nos jours ?
There are plenty of good reasons for fighting...but no good reason to ever hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive....it's that part of an imbecile that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.
Kurt Vonnegut,Mother Night
There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
John Steinbeck
