PATIENCE WITH THE LIVING

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Sweet friend, when you and I are gone
Beyond earth's weary labor,
When small shall be our need of grace
From comrade or from neighbor,
Then hands that would not lift a stone,
Where stones were thick to cumber
Our steep hill path, will scatter flowers
Above our pillowed slumber.

Sweet friend, perchance both thou and I,
Ere love is past forgiving,
Should take the earnest lesson home---
Be patient with the living.
Today's repressed rebuke may save
Our blinding tears tomorrow.
Then patience, e'en when keenest edge
May whet a nameless sorrow.

'Tis easy to be gentle when
Death's silence shames our clamor,
And easy to discern the best,
Through memory's mystic glamour;
But wise it were for thee and me,
Ere love is past forgiving,
To take the earnest lesson home---
Be patient with the living.

Margaret E. Sangster