High Noon

Time's finger on the dial of my life     Points to high noon! and yet the half-spent day     Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,     Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.     To those who burn the candle to the stick,     The sputtering socket yields but little light.     Long life is sadder than an early death.     We cannot count on raveled threads of age     Whereof to weave a fabric. We must use     The warp and woof the ready present yields     And toil while daylight lasts. When I bethink     How brief the past, the future still more brief,     Calls on to action, action! Not for me     Is time for retrospection or for dreams,     Not time for self-laudation or remorse.     Have I done nobly? Then I must not let     Dead yesterday unborn to-morrow shame.     Have I done wrong? Well, let the bitter taste     Of fruit that turned to ashes on my lip     Be my reminder in temptation's hour,     And keep me silent when I would condemn.     Sometimes it takes the acid of a sin     To cleanse the clouded windows of our souls     So pity may shine through them.          Looking back,     My faults and errors seem like stepping-stones     That led the way to knowledge of the truth     And made me value virtue; sorrows shine     In rainbow colors o'er the gulf of years,     Where lie forgotten pleasures.         Looking forth,     Out to the western sky still bright with noon,     I feel well spurred and booted for the strife     That ends not till Nirvana is attained.     Battling with fate, with men and with myself,     Up the steep summit of my life's forenoon,     Three things I learned, three things of precious worth     To guide and help me down the western slope.     I have learned how to pray, and toil, and save.     To pray for courage to receive what comes,     Knowing what comes to be divinely sent.     To toil for universal good, since thus     And only thus can good come unto me.     To save, by giving whatsoe'er I have     To those who have not, this alone is gain.