Poem February 21, 1901 Issue

Our Blessings

Alice Cary

Our blessings should be sought, not claimed,—
Cherished, not watched with jealous eye;
Love is too precious to be named,
Save with a reverence deep and high

In all that lives, exists the power
To avenge the invasion of its right;
We cannot bruise and break our flower,
And have our flower alive and bright.

Let us think less of what appears,—
More of what is; for this, hold I,
It is the sentence no man hears
That makes us live, or makes us die.

Trust hearsay less; seek more to prove
And know if things be what they seem;
Not sink supinely in some groove,
And hope and hope, and dream and dream.

Some days must needs be full of gloom,
Yet must we use them as we may;
Talk less about the years to come,—
Live, love, and labor more, to-day.

What our hand findeth, do with might;
Ask less for help, but stand or fall,
Each one of us, in life's great fight,
As if himself and God were all.

Alice Cary.

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