Quotes

A selection of quotes and short poems found scattered among my grandmother’s papers. I am not bothering to look for sources for the unattributed this time.

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There is no surprise more magical that the surprise of being loved! It is God’s finger on man’s shoulder

–Charles Morgan

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Honesty is the world’s greatest labor-saving device.

–Dr. Henry Cohen

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When you wake up, get up -
And when you get up, do something!

–unattributed

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Sitting still and wishing
Makes no person great.
The good Lords sends the fishing,
But you must dig the bait.

–unattributed

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Music is love in search of a word.

–unattributed

An untitled poem

Back to poems today, this one, untitled and unattributed found among my grandmother’s papers:

She thought when night had finally ended day.
Dear Lord tonight I am too tired to pray
And wearily she closed her eyes in sleep.
Slipping far into the shadows deep.

Up in Heaven the dear Lord heard and smiled
Today she soothed a little crying child.
She stopped her work to take old Ella Koop
A fragrant warming bowl of her good soup.
Her house was orderly, her garden tended
Her children fed, their clothes all clean and mended.

Her husband home from work found happiness
And quiet peace in her deep gentleness.
The dear Lord smiled again
Too tired to pray,
Her hands have offered Prayer of love all day.

Edit: I’ve done some searching, which I should have done beforehand, I suppose. It would appear that this poem is entitled Too Tired To Pray and was written by Jane Coffin. There are some quotation marks in the original which really make a bit more sense of the poem, but I’ve left it as my grandmother typed it up.

The Bentztown Bard

Continuing in my series of poems and the like from papers recieved from my grandmother’s apartment when she went into hospice:

Folger McKinsey, the Bentztown Bard, wrote a column in the Baltimore Sun called Good Morning from 1906 to 1948.  It was so popular that it was reprinted for some time afterward.  This column consisted of poems, and my grandmother had clipped a few and saved them. Each column began with the following poem, written by Carlotta Perry:

It was only a glad “Good Morning”
As she passed along the way.
But it spread the morning’s glory
Over the livelong day!

The poems are here.

More information on B.B. is here.

Bread Upon The Waters

Amongst my grandmother’s papers, a letter an poem to my great-grandfather upon my great-grandmother’s death.  Letter and poem after the jump.  I have retained all spelling errors from the original.

A Message from Paradise

The first poem found in my grandmother’s papers:

A Message from Paradise

What mean you by this weeping
To break my very heart?
We both are in God’s keeping
And therefore cannot part.

You there – I here – though severed
We still at heart are one;
I only just in sunshine,
The shadows scarcely gone.

What if the clouds surround you,
You can the brightness see;
‘Tis only “just a little way”
That leads from you to me.

I was so very weary,
Surely you cannot mourn
That I a little sooner
Should lay my burden down.

Then weep not, weep not, darling, -
God wipes away all tears;
‘Tis only “just a little while”
Though you may call it years.

–Adelaide Proctor