A Little Prayer
We should strive to bring what happiness we can to others. More still, we should strive to bring them no unhappiness. When we come to die, it is, as George Eliot once said, not our kindness or our patience or our generosity that we shall regret, but our intolerance and our harshness.
That I may not in blindness grope,
But that I may with vision clear
Know when to speak a word of hope
Or add a little wholesome cheer.
That tempered winds may softly blow
Where little children, thinly clad,
Sit dreaming, when the flame is low,
Of comforts they have never had.
That through the year which lies ahead
No heart shall ache, no cheek be wet,
For any word that I have said
Or profit I have tried to get.