Life sat.All day the soft wind played with her hair,
and the young, young face looked out across the water.
She was waiting--she was waiting; but she could not tell for what.
All day the waves ran up and up on the sand, and ran back again,
and the pink shells rolled. Life sat waiting; all day,
with the sunlight in her eye's, she sat there til grown weary,
she laid her head upon her knee and fell asleep, waiting still.
Then a keel grated on the sand, and then a step was on the shore--
Life awoke and heard it. A hand was laid upon her,
and a great shudder passed through her. She looked up,
and saw over her the strange,wide eye's of Love--
and Life now knew for whom she had sat there waiting.
And Love drew Life up to him.
And of that meeting was born a thing rare and beautiful--Joy,
First-Joy was it called. The sunlight when it shines upon the
merry water is not so glad; the rose-buds, when they turn back
their lips for the suns first kiss are not so ruddy.
It's tiny pulses beat quick. It was so warm, so soft!
It never spoke, but laughed and played in the sunshine:
and Love and Life rejoiced exceedingly. Neither whispered
it to the other, but deep in it's own heart each said ,
"It shall be our's forever".
Then there came a time--was it after week's ? was it after month's?
(Love and Life do not measure time)--when the thing was not
as it had been. Still it played; still it laughed;
still it stained it's mouth with purple berries;
but sometimes the little hand's hung weary, and the little eye's
looked out heavily across the water.
Love and Life dared not look into each other's eye's,
dared not say, "What ail's our darling?" Each heart whispered
to itself "It is nothing, it is nothing,
tommorrow it will laugh out clear". But tommorrow and tommorrow came.
They journeyed on, and the child played beside them, but
heavily, more heavily.
One day Life and Love lay down to sleep; and when they awoke,
it was gone: only, near them on the grass, sat a little stranger,
with wide-open eye's, very soft and sad.
Neither noticed it; but they walked apart, weeping bitterly,
"Oh, our Joy! our lost Joy! shall we see you no more forever?"
The little soft and sad eyed stranger slipped a hand into one hand
of each, and drew them closer, and Life and Love walked on
with it between them. And when Life looked down in anguish,
she saw her tear's reflected in it's soft eye's.
And when Love mad with pain, cried out, "I am weary!
I can journey no further. The light is all behind,
the dark is all before," a little rosy finger pointed where the
sunlight lay upon the hill-side's. Alway's it's large eye's
were sad and thoughtful: alway's the lttle brave mouth
was smiling quietly.
When on the sharp stone's Life cut her feet,
he wiped the blood upon his garment's, and kissed the wounded feet
with his little lip's. When in the desert Love lay down faint
(for Love itself grow's faint), he ran over the hot sand with his
little naked feet, and even there in the desert found water
in the hole's in the rock's to moisten Love's lip's with.
He was no burden-- he never weighted them;
he only helped the forward on their journey.
When they came to the dark ravine where the icicles hang from the
rock's--for Love and Life must pass through strange drear places--
there where all is cold, and the snow lies thick, he took their
freezing hand's and held them against his beating little heart,
and warmed them-- and softly he drew them on and on.
And when they came beyond, into the land of sunshine and flower's,
strangely the great eye's lit up,
and dimples broke out upon the face. Brightly laughing,
it ran over the soft grass; gathered honey from the hollow tree,
and brought it them on the palm of it's hand;
carried them water in the leaves of the lily, and gathered flowers
and wreathed them round their head's, softly laughing all the while.
He touched them as their Joy had touched them,
but his fingers clung more tenderly.
So they wandered on, through the dark lands and the light,
always with that little brave smiling one between them.
Sometimes they remembered that first radiant joy,
and whispered to themselves, "Oh, could we but find him also !"
At last they came to where Refection sits;
that strange old woman who has always one elbow on her knee,
and her chin in her hand, and who steals light out of the past
to shed on the future.
And Love and Life cried out, "O, wise one ! tell us:
when we first met, a lovely radiant thing belonged to us--
gladness without a tear, sunshine without shade.
Oh ! how did we sin that we lost it ?
Where shall we go that we may find it?"
And she, the wise old woman, answered, "To have it back,
will you give up that which walks beside you now?"
And in agony Love and Life cried ,"No!" "give up this !"
said Life."When the thorns have pierced me, who will suck the
poison out? When my head throbs, who will lay his tiny hands
upon it and still the beating? In the cold and the dark,
who will warm my freezing heart?"
And Love cried out "Better let me die ! Without Joy I can live;
without this I cannot, Let me rather die, not lose it !"
And the wise old woman answered, "O fools and blind !
What you once had is that which you have now ! When Love and Life
first met, a radiant thing is born, without a shade.
When the road begins to roughen, when the shades begin to darken,
when the days are hard, and the nights cool and long--
then it begins to change.
Love and Life will not see it, will not know it--
till one day they start up suddenly, crying,`O God !
O God ! we have lost it ! where is it?`
They do not understand that they could not carry the laughing
thing unchanged into the desert, and the frost, and the snow.
They do not know that what walks beside them still is the Joy
grown older. The grave, sweet, tender thing--
warm in the coldest snows, brave in the dreariest of deserts--
its name is Sympathy; it is the perfect Love."
I loved it so much I wanted to share it,
It is a small book, maybe 5 inches tall by 3 inches wide
and very old, and crumbly now, she gave it to me probably 10 yrs ago.
She was born 5-7-1892, shortly after this book was published.
I'm sure it was her mother's, as it is an original
