The Home Circle by Susan Coolidge

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 15, 1885

The Home Circle.

By Susan Coolidge

THE WORLD IS A LOOKING-GLASS.

THE world is a looking-glass Wherein we look all day, And each one sees reflected there His own true image, foul or fair, Sullen, or sad, or gay; Lit up with love or dark with hate, Or cheered by Heaven or soured by fate.

The sweet eyes meet an answering smile, The glad face fronts the sun; The mourner nothing sees but shade, And shivers, lonely and afraid; The guilty-hearted one Reads in the glass, without a doubt, His sin detected and found out.

The innocent child looks gaily in With frank and fearless gaze, And sees a face reflected there Bright as his own is and as fair; The old man full of days Peers with his tired eyes, and sees But weariness and vanities.

The world is a looking-glass Wherein ourselves are shown, Kindness for kindness, cheer for cheer, Coldness for gloom, repulse for fear, To every soul its own; We cannot change the world a whit, Only ourselves which look in it. —Susan Coolidge, in S. S. Times.