BE PATIENT WITH THE LIVING.
By Anonymous
Dear friends, when you and I are gone
Beyond earth's weary labor,
When small our need of help or love
From comrade or from neighbor,
Past all the strife, the toil, the care,
Past all the sorrows, grief, and sighing,
What do we gain, what do we lose,
Alas! by simply dying? Then lips too chary of their praise
Will tell our merit over,
And eyes too blind our faults to see
Shall no defect discover.
Then hands that would not lift a stone,
When stones were thick to cumber,
Upon our graves will scatter flowers
When we unconscious slumber. Dear friend, perchance both you and I,
Ere love is past forgiving,
Should take the earnest lesson home—
"Be patient with the living."
To-day's repressed rebuke may save
Our blinding tears to-morrow,
Then patient, e'en when keenest edged,
May whet a nameless sorrow. "Tis easy to be gentle when
Death's silence shames our clamor,
And easy to discern the best
Through memory's mystic glamour,
But wise it were for you and me,
Ere love is past forgiving,
To take the tender lesson home—
"Be patient with the living."