RICHARD H. STODDARD

There is no hope the future will but turn the old sand in the falling glass of time.

Once, when the days were ages, And the old Earth was young, The high gods and the sages From Nature's golden pages Her open secrets wrung.

Heaven is not gone, but we are blind with tears, Groping our way along the downward slope of Years!

With no companion but the constant Muse, Who sought me when I needed her ah, when Did I not need her, solitary else?

There is no death-the thing that we call death Is but another, sadder name for life, Which is itself an insufficient name, Faint recognition of that unknown life- That Power whose shadow is the Universe.

Silence is the speech of love, The music of the spheres above.

Children are the keys of Paradise. They alone are good and wise, because their thoughts, their very lives are prayer.

Day and night my thoughts incline To the blandishments of wine, Jars were made to drain, I think; Wine, I know, was made to drink.

We love in others what we lack in ourselves, and would be everything, but what we are.

We grow like flowers, and bear desire, The odor of the human flowers.

There is no hope the future will but turn the old sand in the falling glass of time.

A voice of greeting from the wind was sent; The mists enfolded me with soft white arms; The birds did sing to lap me in content, The rivers wove their charms, And every little daisy in the grass Did look up in my face, and smile to see me pass!

Day and night my thoughts incline To the blandishments of wine, Jars were made to drain, I think; Wine, I know, was made to drink.

Heaven is not gone, but we are blind with tears, Groping our way along the downward slope of Years!

There are gains for all our losses, There are balms for all our pain: But when youth, the dream, departs, It takes something from our hearts, And it never comes again.

Once, when the days were ages, And the old Earth was young, The high gods and the sages From Nature's golden pages Her open secrets wrung.

There is no death-the thing that we call death Is but another, sadder name for life, Which is itself an insufficient name, Faint recognition of that unknown life- That Power whose shadow is the Universe.

Silence is the speech of love, The music of the spheres above.

Given the books of a man, it is not difficult, I think, to detect therein the personality of the man, and the station in life to which he was born.

A face at the window, a tap on the pane, who is it that wants me tonight in the rain?

We have two lives about us,Two worlds in which we dwell,Within us and without us,Alternate Heaven and Hell:-Without, the somber Real,Within, our hearts of hearts, the beautiful Ideal.

Children are the keys of Paradise. They alone are good and wise, because their thoughts, their very lives are prayer.

With no companion but the constant Muse, Who sought me when I needed her ah, when Did I not need her, solitary else?