p. 11 | UNDER THE DAISIES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 17, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 37.

UNDER THE DAISIES.

It is strange what a deal of trouble we take, What a sacrifice most of us willingly make, How the lips will smile tho the heart may ache, And we bend to the ways of the world for the sake Of its poor and scanty praises. And time runs on with such pitiless flow That our lives are wasted before we know What work to finish before we go To our long rest under the daisies.

And too often we fall in a useless fight, For wrong is so much in the place of right, And the end is so far beyond our sight, 'Tis as when one starts on a chase by night, An unknown shade pursuing. Even so do we see, when our race is run, That of all we have striven for little is won, And of all the work our strength has done, How little was worth the doing!

So most of us travel with very poor speed, Failing in thought where we conquer in deed, Least brave in the hour of greatest need, And making a riddle that few may read Of our life's intricate mazes. Such a labyrinth of right and wrong, Is it strange that a heart once brave and strong Should falter at last, and most earnestly long For a calm sleep under the daisies?

But if one poor troubled heart can say, "His kindness softened my life's rough way," And the tears fall over the lifeless clay, We shall stand up in heaven in brighter array Than if all earth rang with our praises. For the good we have done shall never fade, Tho the work be wrought and wages paid, And the wearied frame of the laborer laid All peacefully under the daisies.

—Selected.