Poetry Saturday—Solitude

May 14, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

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Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
     Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
     But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
     Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
     But shrink from voicing care.


Rejoice, and men will seek you;


     Grieve, and they turn and go;


They want full measure of all your pleasure,


     But they do not need your woe.


Be glad, and your friends are many;


     Be sad, and you lose them all,


There are none to decline your nectared wine,


     But alone you must drink life’s gall.




Feast, and your halls are crowded;


     Fast, and the world goes by.


Succeed and give, and it helps you live,


     But no man can help you die.


There is room in the halls of pleasure


     For a large and lordly train,


But one by one we must all file on


     Through the narrow aisles of pain. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox




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Poetry Saturday—Courage

April 23, 2022 — Craig T. Owens 




Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.



There is a courage, a majestic thing


     That springs forth from the brow of pain, full-grown,


     Minerva-like, and dares all dangers known,


And all the threatening future yet may bring;


Crowned with the helmet of great suffering;


     Serene with that grand strength by martyrs shown,


     When at the stake they die and make no moan,


And even as the flames leap up are heard to sing:




A courage so sublime and unafraid,


     It wears its sorrows like a coat of mail;


     And Fate, the archer, passes by dismayed,


Knowing his best barbed arrows needs must fail


To pierce a soul so armored and arrayed


     That Death himself might look on it and quail. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox




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Poetry Saturday—Three Friends

August 7, 2021 — Craig T. Owens 




Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.



Of all the blessings which my life has known,


I value most, and most praise God for three:


Want, Loneliness, and Pain, those comrades true,




Who masqueraded in the garb of foes


For many a year, and filled my heart with dread.


Yet fickle joys, like false, pretentious friends,


Have proved less worthy than this trio. First,




Want taught me labour, led me up the steep


And toilsome paths to hills of pure delight,


Tried only by the feet that know fatigue,


And yet press on until the heights appear.




Then loneliness and hunger of the heart


Sent me upreaching to the realms of space,


Till all the silences grew eloquent,


And all their loving forces hailed me friend.




Last, pain taught prayer! placed in my hand the staff


Of close communion with the over-soul,


That I might lean upon it to the end,


And find myself made strong for any strife.




And then these three who had pursued my steps


Like stern, relentless foes, year after year,


Unmasked, and turned their faces full on me,


And lo! they were divinely beautiful,


For through them shown the lustrous eyes of Love. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox




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Poetry Saturday—Worthwhile

May 23, 2020 — Craig T. Owens 




It is easy enough to be pleasant


   When life flows along like a song,


But the man worthwhile is the one who will smile


   When everything goes dead wrong;


For the test of the heart is trouble,


   And it always comes with the years,


And the smile that is worth the praises of earth


   Is the smile that shines through tears.




It is easy enough to be prudent


   When nothing tempts you to stray:


When without or within no voice of sin


   Is luring your soul away;


But it’s only a negative virtue


   Until it is tried by fire,


And the life that is worth the honor of earth


   Is the one that resists desire.




By the cynic, the sad, the fallen


   Who had no strength for the strife,


The world’s highway is cumbered today;


   They make up the item of life.


But the virtue that conquers passion,


   And the sorrow that hides in a smile,


It is these that are worth the homage of earth,


   For we find them but once in a while. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox








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Poetry Saturday—Thanksgiving

November 30, 2019 — Craig T. Owens 




We walk on story fields of white 


And do not see the daisies, 


For blessings common in our sight 


We rarely offer praises. 


We sigh for some supreme delight 


To crown our lives with splendor, 


And quite ignore our daily store 


Of pleasures sweet and tender.




Our cares are bold and push their way 


Upon our thought and feeling; 


They hang about us all the day, 


Our time from pleasure stealing. 


So unobtrusive many a joy 


We pass by and forget it, 


But worry strives to own our lives, 


And conquers if we let it.




There’s not a day in all the year 


But holds some hidden pleasure, 


And, looking back, joys oft appear 


To brim the past’s wide measure. 


But blessings are like friends, I hold, 


Who love and labor near us. 


We ought to raise our notes of praise 


While living hearts can hear us.




Full many a blessing wears the guise 


Of worry or of trouble; 


Far-seeing is the soul, and wise, 


Who knows the mask is double. 


But he who has the faith and strength 


To thank his God for sorrow 


Has found a joy without alloy 


To gladden every morrow.




We ought to make the moments notes


Of happy, glad thanksgiving; 


The hours and days a silent phrase 


Of music we are living. 


And so the theme should swell and grow 


As weeks and months pass o’er us, 


And rise sublime at this good time, 


A grand thanksgiving chorus. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox






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Poetry Saturday—Thy Ship

August 17, 2019 — Craig T. Owens 




Hadst thou a ship, in whose vast hold lay stored


The priceless riches of all climes and lands,


Say, wouldst thou let it float upon the seas


Unpiloted, of fickle winds the sport,


And all the wild waves and hidden rocks the prey?




Thine is that ship; and in its depth concealed


Lies all the wealth of this vast universe—


Yea, lies some part of God’s omnipotence,


The legacy divine of every soul.


Thy will, O man, thy will is that great ship,


And yet behold it drifting here and there—


One moment lying motionless in port,


Then on the high seas by sudden impulse flung,


Then drying on the sands, and yet again


Sent forth on idle quests to no-man’s land


To carry nothing and to nothing bring;


Till, worn and fretted by the aimless strife


And buffeted by vacillating winds,


It founders on the rock, or springs a leak,


With all its unused treasures in the hold.




Go save thy ship, thou sluggard; take the wheel


And steer to knowledge, glory, and success.


Great mariners have made the pathway plain


For thee to follow; hold thou to the course


Of Concentration Channel, and all things


Shall come in answer to thy swerveless wish


As comes the needle to the magnet’s call,


Or sunlight to the prisoned blade of grass


That yearns all winter for the kiss of spring. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox








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Poetry Saturday—Thanksgiving

May 4, 2019 — Craig T. Owens 




We walk on story fields of white 


And do not see the daisies, 


For blessings common in our sight 


We rarely offer praises. 


We sigh for some supreme delight 


To crown our lives with splendor, 


And quite ignore our daily store 


Of pleasures sweet and tender.




Our cares are bold and push their way 


Upon our thought and feeling; 


They hang about us all the day, 


Our time from pleasure stealing. 


So unobtrusive many a joy 


We pass by and forget it, 


But worry strives to own our lives, 


And conquers if we let it.




There’s not a day in all the year 


But holds some hidden pleasure, 


And, looking back, joys oft appear 


To brim the past’s wide measure. 


But blessings are like friends, I hold, 


Who love and labor near us. 


We ought to raise our notes of praise 


While living hearts can hear us.




Full many a blessing wears the guise 


Of worry or of trouble; 


Far-seeing is the soul, and wise, 


Who knows the mask is double. 


But he who has the faith and strength 


To thank his God for sorrow 


Has found a joy without alloy 


To gladden every morrow.




We ought to make the moments notes


Of happy, glad thanksgiving; 


The hours and days a silent phrase 


Of music we are living. 


And so the theme should swell and grow 


As weeks and months pass o’er us, 


And rise sublime at this good time, 


A grand thanksgiving chorus. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox






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Poetry Saturday—Unanswered Prayers

March 30, 2019 — Craig T. Owens 




Like some schoolmaster kind in being stern,


Who hears the children crying o’er their slates


And calling, “Help me, master!” yet helps not,


Since in his silence and refusal lies


Their self-development, so God abides


Unheeding many prayers. He is not deaf


To any cry sent up from earnest hearts;


He hears and strengthens when He must deny.


He sees as weeping o’er life’s hard sums;


But should He give the key and dry our tears,


What would it profit us when school were done


And not one lesson mastered?




     What a world


Were this if all our prayers were answered. Not


In famed Pandora’s box were such vast ills


As lie in human hearts. Should our desires,


Voiced one by one in prayer, ascend to God


And come back as events shaped to our wish,


What chaos would result!




     In my fierce youth


I sighed out breath enough to move a fleet,


Voicing wild prayers to heaven for fancied boons


Which were denied; and that denial bends


My knees to prayer of gratitude each day


Of my maturer years. Yet from those prayers


I rose always regirded for the strife


And conscious of new strength. Pray on, sad heart,


That which thou pleadest may not be given,


But in the lofty altitude where souls


Who supplicate God’s grace are lifted, there


Thou shalt find help to bear thy daily lot


Which is not elsewhere found. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox






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Poetry Saturday—Smiles

December 1, 2018 — Craig T. Owens 




Smile a little, smile a little, 


    As you go along, 


Not alone when life is pleasant, 


    But when things go wrong. 


Care delights to see you frowning, 


    Loves to hear you sigh; 


Turn a smiling face upon her, 


    Quick the dame will fly.




Smile a little, smile a little, 


    All along the road; 


Every life must have its burden, 


    Every heart its load. 


Why sit down in gloom and darkness, 


    With your grief to sup? 


As you drink Fate’s bitter tonic 


    Smile across the cup.




Smile upon the troubled pilgrims 


    Whom you pass and meet; 


Frowns are thorns, and smiles are blossoms 


    Oft for weary feet. 


Do not make the way seem harder 


    By a sullen face, 


Smile a little, smile a little, 


    Brighten up the place.




Smile upon your undone labor; 


    Not for one who grieves 


O’er his task, waits wealth or glory; 


    He who smiles achieves. 


Though you meet with loss and sorrow 


    In the passing years, 


Smile a little, smile a little, 


    Even through your tears. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox






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Poetry Saturday—Christmas Fancies

December 23, 2017 — Craig T. Owens 




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— 


When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.




Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near, 


We see, with strange emotion that is not free from fear, 


    That continent Elysian 


    Long vanished from our vision, 


Youth’s lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear, 


Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.




When gloomy gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth, 


The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth, 


    And draws from youth’s recesses 


    Some memory it possesses, 


And, gazing through the lens of time, exaggerates its worth, 


When gloomy gray December is roused to Christmas mirth.




When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis 


Each heart recalls some folly that lit the world with bliss. 


    Not all the seers and sages 


    With wisdom of the ages 


Can give the mind such pleasure as memories of that kiss 


When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis.




For life was made for loving, and love alone repays, 


As passing years are proving, for all of Time’s sad ways. 


    There lies a sting in pleasure, 


    And fame gives shallow measure, 


And wealth is but a phantom that mocks the restless days, 


For life was made for loving, and only loving pays.




When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes, 


And silences are melting to soft, melodious rhymes, 


    Let Love, the world’s beginning, 


    End fear and hate and sinning; 


Let Love, the God Eternal, be worshiped in all climes 


When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes. —Ella Wheeler Wilcox








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