Morning Prayer 1902

   I discovered the edge worn old poetry tome "Poems of Love" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1850-1919) at a  community book sale last year. A First Edition printed in 1905. Wow. And double wow.  One of my favourite things: ancient, maybe even forgotten, books of poems.  Pages stained, it has seen better years. But I love it. It is completely intact.On the inside page someone has penned: "All my love, Donna".....

The author: Ella Wheeler Wilox,  started writing as a child and continued till the day she died. She believed in the good in our world, and on every poem she wrote , she  spoke of hope for all and how we can rise above any challenge.......

MORNING PRAYER 1902
Let me today do something that shall take a little sadness from the world's vast store,

 And may I be so favoured as to make of joy's too scanty sum a little more.

 Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;

Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,

 Or sin by silence when I should defend.

 However meagre by my worldy wealth,

 Let me give something...........

 That shall aid my kind...............

 A word of courage...........

 Or a thought of health,

 Dropped as I pass

 For troubled hearts to find.

Let me tonight look back across the span

 Between dawn and dark.....

 
 And to my conscience say...........

 Because of ........

Some good act....................... 

 To beast or man,

 The world is better that I lived today.

Photographs by Michelle McConachie Woods 2016
"Morning Prayer" 1902 by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
   From "Poems of Love" printed by Billings and Sons, Guildford (first edition 1905)