The Home Circle by Mrs. Norton

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 13, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 11.

The Home Circle.

By Mrs. Norton

THE CARELESS WORD.

A WORD is ringing through my brain— It was not meant to give me pain; It had no tone to bid it stay, When other things had passed away; It had no meaning more than all Which in an idle hour do fall; It was, when first the sound I heard, A lightly uttered, careless word.

It was the first, the only one Of those which lips forever gone Breathed in their love—which had for me Rebuke of harshness at my glee; And if those lips were here to say, "Beloved, let it pass away," Ah! then, perchance—but I have heard The last dear tone—the careless word.

Oh, ye who, meeting, sigh to part, Whose words are treasures to some heart, Deal gently, ere the dark days come, When earth hath but for one a home; Lest, musing o'er the past, like me, They feel their hearts wrung bitterly, And, heeding not what else they heard, Dwell weeping on a careless word. —Mrs. Norton.