Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LIVING PRESENT, by ALICE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LIVING PRESENT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Friends, let us slight no pleasant spring
Last Line: As if himself and god were all.
Subject(s): Conduct Of Life


FRIENDS, let us slight no pleasant spring
That bubbles up in life's dry sands,
And yet be careful what good thing
We touch with sacrilegious hands.

Our blessings should be sought, not claimed, --
Cherished, not watched with jealous eye;
Love is too precious to be named,
Save with a reverence deep and high.

In all that lives, exists the power
To avenge the invasion of its right;
We cannot bruise and break our flower,
And have our flower, alive and bright.

Let us think less of what appears, --
More of what is; for this, hold I,
It is the sentence no man hears
That makes us live, or makes us die.

Trust hearsay less; seek more to prove
And know if things be what they seem;
Not sink supinely in some groove,
And hope and hope, and dream and dream.

Some days must needs be full of gloom,
Yet must we use them as we may;
Talk less about the years to come, --
Live, love, and labor more, to-day.

What our hand findeth, do with might;
Ask less for help, but stand or fall,
Each one of us, in life's great fight,
As if himself and God were all.





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