A LIFE LESSON* There! little girl, don't cry! And your play-house, too, But childish troubles will soon pass by.- There! little girl, don't cry! But life and love will soon come by.— There! little girl, don't cry! There! little girl, don't cry! They have broken your heart, I know; Of your youthful dreams Are things of the long ago; But Heaven holds all for which you sigh.- There! little girl, don't cry! --James Whitcomb Riley. EXERCISES 1. What picture is given in the first stanza? 2. What consolation? 3. What period of life is dealt with in stanza two? 4. Explain "life and love will soon come by." Used by *From Riley's Child Rhymes, copyright, 1905. special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. 5. Then what shall soothe the grief at this time? 6. What next period is interpreted? 7. What consolations for grief in age? 8. What then does Riley represent to be the world's attitude toward grief? 9. What deeper note of consolation for suffering and grief is sounded in this poem? ADDITIONAL READINGS HENRY VAUGHN: The Retreat. JOHN BURROUGHS: Waiting. LOWELL: The First Snowfall. WHITTIER: The Eternal Goodness. The Barefoot Boy. A ROSE TO THE LIVING A rose to the living is more Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead; A rose to the living is more, If graciously given before The hungering spirit is fled, A rose to the living is more Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead. -Nixon Waterman. THE GREAT THING I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving; to reach the port of heaven we must sail, sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.-Oliver Wendell Holmes. THE TAPESTRY WEAVERS AMONG products of the hands, no work is more attractive or more highly prized than finely designed oriental tapestries. Moreover, weaving is one of the most primitive and most fundamental of the handicrafts, and in some form or other is familiar to every one. The poets of all ages have, therefore, readily seized upon weaving as a symbol of life; for example: "God's ways are dark, but soon or late In the following poem the author has based his symbol-interpretation of life on "the ways of the tapestry weavers." The finest quality of tapestry was woven on high-warp vertical looms. The long warp threads were hung on movable cylinder rollers supported by uprights of wood or iron. The weaver worked at the back of the loom where he first sketched the design on the warp threads, then with painstaking care wrought out the woven design. The complete pattern in colors, or cartoon, as it was called, was placed above or immediately behind the workman so that he might refer to it in order to weave the design with perfectly matched and harmoniously blended colors. If he wished to see his real work, he had to step to the front of the loom, or wait until the web was "loosed and turned." The poet has seen in the patient, plodding weaver the symbol of every life, and has drawn us into sympathy with the exquisite moral lesson to be gleaned. The Catholic Church had this poem printed in a tract which was scattered far and wide as a powerful instrument to influence humanity toward the fulfilment of its highest visions. THE TAPESTRY WEAVERS Let us take to our hearts a lesson-no lesson can braver be From the ways of the tapestry weavers on the other side of the sea. Above their heads the pattern hangs; they study it with care. The while their fingers deftly work, their eyes are fastened there. They tell this curious thing, besides, of the patient, plodding weaver: He works on the wrong side evermore, but works for the right side ever. It is only when the weaving stops, and the web is loosed and turned, That he sees his real handiwork-that his marvelous skill is learned. Ah! the sight of its delicate beauty, how it pays him for all the cost! No rarer, daintier work than his was ever done by the frost. Then the master bringeth him golden hire, and giveth him praise as well; And how happy the heart of the weaver is no tongue but his own can tell. The years of man are the looms of God, let down from the place of the sun, Wherein we are weaving alway, till the mystic web is done. Weaving blindly, but weaving surely, each for himself his fate. We may not see how the right side looks, we can only weave and wait. But, looking above for the pattern, no weaver need have fear. Only let him look clear into heaven-the Perfect Pattern is there. If he keeps the face of our Saviour forever and always in sight, His toil shall be sweeter than honey, his weaving is sure to be right. And when his task is ended, and the web is turned and shown, He shall hear the voice of the Master. It shall say to him, "Well done!" And the white-winged angels of heaven, to bear him thence, shall come down; And God for his wage shall give him, not coin, but a golden crown. -Anson G. Chester. |