His
gift, the beauty of the earth,
To
soften the blow of turbulence
So
relentlessly near;
With
every movement of the trees
And
the rustle of its leaves,
He
whispers:
“I
am here”
- CATHRYNE
ALLEN
Saturday, 25 July 2026
THE BEAUTY OF THE EARTH
ON SACRIFICE
"The World" by LDS Bookstore
“For a man to
lay down his all, his (1) character and reputation, his honour, and applause,
his good name among men, (2) houses, his lands, his (3) brothers and sisters,
his wife and children and even his (4) own life also….requires more than mere
belief or supposition that he is doing the will of God; but actual knowledge,
realizing that, when these sufferings are ended; he will enter into eternal
rest, and be a partaker of the glory of God” (Jerry A. Wilson, Lecture 6:5, The
Great Plan of Happiness, Insights From the Lectures on Faith, p 68)
Just as the
Saviour paid an enormous price for the gift of eternal life that is on offer to
all of us, we are asked to sacrifice our all here in mortality, to basically
become like Him and be worthy of such a gift.
Paul called
all things that he sacrificed and walked away from ‘but filth and dross for the
excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ’. A real Jew, circumcised, of the
stock of Israel, a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin, as he called himself
(Philippians 3:5,8; Romans 11:1), walked away from his Jewish upbringing,
family, lucrative career, and social standing amongst the Romans, and chose to
believe in the gifts of eternity.
As well defined
as the path of sacrifice is in the above quote, I wish to write about another form
of sacrifice and that is the sacrifice of ego and self-importance because I
believe this is the power base of all other forms of sacrifice. This is the
root out of which all forms of sacrifice can grow.
I have a
friend currently on vacation in Bali. She has been very impressed with the people’s
kindness and helpfulness. She has learnt a lot of their customs, among which is
the traditional responsibility among Balinese people to care for their aging
parents. She found it amazing that ‘the poorer they are, the more caring and
loving they are.
I replied to
her that it is a proven truth that when you are not spoilt and encumbered by
the comforts and luxuries of the world, you care about things that truly matter
much easier and better. I also pointed out that we are so intent on ‘having
things’ and we do not realize how that pursuit encourages and motivates
self-importance to the detriment of the important things like giving of
yourself to others which is one of the sacrifices we are asked to make.
We live in a
world of ego called “me, myself and I”. Somehow, we have lost the sight of
sacrifice as we seek to elevate ourselves instead. The nature of our world is
undergirded by possession of worldly things, of houses and lands, of honour and
applause. We cannot survive without two incomes, professional unfulfillment, a
house in a well to do neighbourhood, private schools, latest cars…..and so
called holidays essential for our mental health.
While
Balinese people live on scooters from the age of 17 and care for their aging
family members, a lot of us are relying on aged care homes to care for our parents
and grandparents so we can ‘get on with our lives’.
If we are to
secure that gift of eternal life by emulating the life of Him who can give it
to us, we need to place the self on the altar of sacrifice more often that we
do as sacrifice of self reveals the face of eternity and the view is glorious
because of the greatest sacrifice there ever was:
“For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Friday, 24 July 2026
HIS EARTHLY SUFFERING
I
heard You in my heart today
And
all You tried so hard to say.
My
soul split open and I could see
What
You suffered in Gethsemane.
My
tears spilled and climbed that hill
Where
Your suffering increased yet still.
My
sorrow spilt, I saw my guilt
As
You absolved me on that cross of Calvary
When
one day soon again we meet
I
will sorrow at Your feet.
My
hands raw from clutching still
That
gruesome cross of Calvary.
You
have my heart,
You
have my soul,
My
purchased self is Yours to own.
In
my memory, Your blood runs still
On
that ruthless hill of Calvary.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
HUMILITY 2
When Moses went up to Mount Sinai for the second time
with new plates the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there and
proclaimed His name:
“And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed,
The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin….” (Exodus 34:4-7)
There is real significance in this. When God restores
or renews covenants, He reveals himself by confirming His impeccable character so
His people can know Him, trust Him and follow Him. In other words, He is saying, this is who I am, who you are covenanting with. It is meant to build faith
in people and invite them back into a real relationship with Him. In this
instance, Israel had broken the covenant by worshipping the golden calf.
The Gospel of John records Christ’s proclamations of
who He is which identifies Him as the Saviour of all mankind. These
proclamations are known as the “7 I AMs:
·
I
am the bread of life (6:31,51)
·
I
am the light of the world (8:12)
·
I
am the door of the sheep (10:7,9)
·
I
am the good shepherd (10:11,14)
·
I
am the resurrection and life (11:25)
·
I
am the way, the truth and the life (14:6)
·
I
am the true vine (15:1,5)
I have often been amazed at the confidence with which Jesus
proclaimed Himself as the Messiah. The Jews expected Him to come in the clouds
of glory, not through the stench of a stable. Judging Him to be a mere mortal led
some to say that He was mad because of these proclamations (John 10:20) and some
that he was possessed of a devil (John 8:48; 8:52; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15). But
imagine if He didn’t openly proclaim what He was like and what He had to offer
as the Saviour of the world. Who would have had faith in Him if He held back
and denied His attributes and characteristics and His role in the human
experience? How blind the people of Jesus’s time were not to see that His
confidence was grounded in humility and not pride.
Sometimes we are reluctant to vocalise our good
qualities for fear that people will consider us prideful. Martin Luther said:
“True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud
from the contemplation of so fine a virtue.” I do not completely agree with
this statement. We are told that
humility is the mother of virtues and rightly so but I wonder if we know how to
properly appreciate it for our benefit.
There is one person we should affirm our humility to
and that is ourselves. There would have to be a day when our trials and obedience have humbled us enough to be able to say to
ourselves: I am humble enough to be corrected, I am humble enough to admit I am
wrong, I am humble enough to be teachable, I am humble enough to be chastised,
I am humble enough to receive instruction, to be taught, to receive help, to
apologise, to correct a wrong, to make restitution when I have caused damage. I
love a person who can say, “when I’m wrong, I’m wrong”….We should be able to
acknowledge humility within us when it is for our benefit and the benefit of
our fellowman.
The Book of Mormon tells us that humility before God
will grant us these four things (Mosiah 4:12-13):
·
We
will be filled with the love of God;
·
We
will grow in knowledge of Him’
·
We
will retain a remission of our sins;
·
We
will love our fellowman
We want this, don’t we? So the commitment should be: I
choose to be humble enough to believe in a higher power than myself, to be
taught about Him, to obey Him, to amend my ways and recognize I am no better
than my fellowman. That’s humility – minimizing self-importance and finding a
healthy place for it on your priority list.
One man in the scriptures who knew full well who he
was, what he became and by what power he got there was Paul who said: “For I am
the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I
persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am…..” (1
Corinthians 15:9,10). In other words, I was wrong, I was humble enough to repent
and accept salvation from Him who saved me from the jaws of hell. That’s
humility.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Thursday, 23 July 2026
THE MESSIANIC HOPE
The messianic hope is the expectation of an Anointed
Deliverer that has its roots in pre-mortal life and that was prophesied about
extensively in the scriptures (Abraham 3:27; Moses 4:1,2).
The English word Messiah comes from the Hebrew Meshiach,
meaning ‘anointed’. The Greek equivalent is Christos. The Hebrew
word Yeshua (Jesus in Greek) means ‘Saviour’ or ‘deliverer’. The two
words combined denote one anointed of God to save or deliver His people.
The Old Testament prophets prophesied of the Messiah
in incredible detail. The prophecies tell of him being born of a virgin (Isaiah
7:14); that He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2); that He would be raised
a prophet like unto Moses (Deut 18:15);
that He would be of the lineage of David
(Genesis 49:10; Jeremiah 23:5-6) and that He would have the government upon his
shoulder (Isaiah 9:6,7).
The New Testament prophecies revealed the life and
mission of the Messiah in detail. The writers of the four Gospels especially pointed
out how Jesus Christ fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies that referred to
the coming Messiah, the references of which are too extensive to record here.
The most well known messianic prophecy belongs to
Isaiah who spoke of Him dualistically. Isaiah 53 describes the role of Christ as
a ‘suffering servant’, ‘a man of sorrows’, one who stands ‘as a sheep before
her shearers’, one who takes our transgressions upon Himself. The other picture
of the Messiah is that of the “King of Glory” contained in Isaiah 9, which
paints a picture of deliverance, political power, and the destruction of the
enemies of Israel. They speak of two time periods which the Jewish population
of Christ’s time either did not understand or they chose to ignore. The ‘suffering
servant’ was a reference to Messiah’s first advent when He would deliver His people spiritually and
the King of Glory who would be sitting on the throne of David and have the
government upon His shoulder refers to the Millenial reign.
The Jews of Christ’s first advent recognized that
Jesus was from the lineage of David but
when He refused to take up the sword against Rome and take upon himself the
government of their nation, His crucifixion was seen by the majority as a proof
that He could not have been the promised deliverer. Remember the mocking: “He
saved others, himself he cannot save. Let Christ the King of Israel descend now
from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with
him reviled him.” ( Mark 15:31, 32).
This is where the Jewish nation went wrong in their
expectation of the Messiah:
From the time of the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.
until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70….the Palestinian
remnant of Israel was subjected to the rule of many great powers: the
Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, the Ptolemies, the Seleucids, and finally the
Romans.
During this great period of bondage to different
powers, the Jewish people came to see the Messiah not as one who would provide
Atonement for their sins but one who would deliver them from their enemies by
physical force. They wanted freedom from people who ruled them.
And so the Jews looked beyond the mark which was
Christ (Jacob 4:14) and crucified their God. When He did not come in a manner
that they anticipated, they looked beyond Him for another who should come…..and
they wait still.
Oh that I were an angel and could have the wish of
mine heart!!!! I would shout from the rooftops to unbelieving Israel: your King will
come!!!!
“Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil
shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against
Jerusalem to battle….then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those
nations….and his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives…and one
shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer,
Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” (Zechariah 13:6;
14:1-4)
THE PLAN
“As Neal A. Maxwell has said, we rightly praise God
when requested blessings are received, “but transcending all such praise should
be our everlasting praise to God for His plan of happiness – for making us the
very center of His work and purposes! (A Wonderful Flood of Light, p
59). Though we are here in mortality, separated from God by the veil, his “work
and his glory” are to bring to pass our “immortality and eternal life” (Moses
1:39).
“While many people will live their mortal existence
without even knowing of the plan, it is incumbent upon those who are members of
the restored Church to have a deep and appropriate understanding of the plan.
We cannot live our lives as “perpetual youth” with only a shallow knowledge of
the work that God is preparing for us.
“When David O. McKay was only 13 years of age, John
Smith, the Patriarch to the Church, stopped at the home of Bishop David McKay
to give blessings to the children. The patriarch laid his hands on this young
boy’s head and pronounced a powerful blessing, part of which included these
words:
“The Lord has a work for thee to do, in which thou
shalt see much of the world, assist in gathering scattered Israel, and also
labour in the ministry. It shall be thy lot to sit in council with thy brethren
and preside among the people and exhort the Saints to faithfulness.”
“After completing the blessing, the patriarch gave
David O. a serious look and said, “My boy, you have something to do besides
playing marbles.” Later the boy found his mother getting dinner ready and said,
“If he thinks I am going to stop laying marbles, he is mistaken.” The mother
then took her son aside and told him the meaning of the patriarch’s words. (Inspirational
Stories From the Life of President David O. McKay, p 769)
“Each of us must understand theologically that we have
more to do than “play marbles”, not only here in mortality but especially in
the worlds to come. Each of us must know that our theology is more
fundamentally encompassing than just a principle about tea and coffee. We are
the children of God. He has a plan of happiness filled with powers, principles,
and doctrines that are wonderfully promissory.”
-
Jerry
A. Wilson, The Great Plan of Happiness, Insights from the Lectures on Faith,p 4
When in the realms of heaven
You created all the worlds that be,
You created with godly care
A divine plan for me.
Did you gaze long and hard into eternity
To see the path I would willingly follow
To find Your love waiting for me
In my every tomorrow?
Each step I took brought me closer
To where I needed to be,
Each mountain You gave me to climb
Grew easier because You carried me.
Your mercy, Your love, Your infinite care,
It all spoke to me that You were always there.
It helped me follow to do my part
And seal You forever in the depths my heart.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Wednesday, 22 July 2026
HIS LOVE
Your love, O
Your love!
Like a
soothing balm
From gilded
courts on high;
It flows, and
it calms,
It seeks and
it finds the troubled mind.
It gathers and
it lifts the sorrowing,
the lame, the
weak;
Ever and ever
Your mercy divine
Looks for
those who achingly weep.
-
CATHRYNE ALLEN
HUMILITY
To be sick and incapacitated turns even the smallest
tasks into mountains. Seeing mountains before you all the time, makes you feel
very small. It’s a place of powerlessness, a place of vulnerability and a place
I didn’t expect, that of humility.
By being dependent on others shows you what you cannot
otherwise see – your sense of self-importance. It brings you closer to the understanding
that you are not as powerful as you thought you were and that you cannot
survive and rise to higher ground on your own merit. In a world of ego that we
live in, the lessons that lead to humility are imperative.
Herein is the necessity for humility….. Mortality is a
state of weakness which we cannot rise above on our own. The good news is that
a path has been provided to a power that can lift us. That path leads to
Calvary and is laced with humility.
You might say the Saviour experienced mortal life at ‘ground zero’. And
in doing so he ‘descended below all things that he might comprehend all things’:
our difficulties, our sorrows, our sins, our imperfections, our sufferings, our
inabilities, our mortal weakness (D&C 88:6; 62:1). He descended below all
things that He might know the state of weakness of mortal life.
Imagine a God leaving His exalted throne and all that comes with it, to
be rejected, spat upon, scourged, reviled and crucified. Imagine the humility
it would take to subject yourself to all that, despite the power within your
grasp....and all this for the sake of someone else and not yourself. Does it
not make you wonder about your self-worth? Embrace the beating of your
cherished heart, you were worth it.
I have been keeping a list of the Saviour’s characteristics for many years.
So far I have 18. One year I noticed a scripture that stunned me and opened my
eyes to the Saviour’s humility:
“Therefore, I command you to build a house unto me, for the gathering
together of my saints, that they may WORSHIP ME” (D&C 115:8). Can you
imagine the amount of humility it would take for a God totally devoid of pride
to say such a thing? It would have to be someone who knows perfectly well who
he is, is confident in that knowledge and most of all, has a purity of spirit
and heart. Compare this to Lucifer’s desire to be worshipped (Moses 4:1-4;
1:16-19).
It amazes me that someone so powerful who calls himself ‘the king of
heaven’ (2 N 10:14), who can create worlds and annihilate them by the power of
His word can also be so humble (Helaman 12:9-17; D&C 63:4; Isaiah 11:4).
This is the perfection of God, the balance is indisputable.
My mountains have shown me that I can do nothing of myself to rise to
the summit but herein lies my hope:
“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their
weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is
sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble
themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become
strong unto them.” (Ether 12:27)
Note that ‘weakness’ at the beginning of this
scripture refers to the state of mortality. The ‘weak things’ mentioned at the
end of the scripture refers to our individual ‘weaknesses’.
Whether the mountains will be removed or I will be carried to the
summit, I know not. I only know that the Saviour of my soul has the power to do
both.
O
the pain that seared Your heart
As
You encountered human misery
On
the dusty roads of Galilee!
You
embraced it all so lovingly
And
took it with You to the hill of Calvary.
You,
who ached for our misery,
Became
the beacon of hope
For
all who accept Your suffering.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Tuesday, 21 July 2026
THE HOUR OF AGONY
You opened my heart
And searched for what
You there did not see;
My feeble faith and lack of trust
Stood in contrast to your will for me.
You sorrowed at the tears I shed
With every step I was led to take
To find You in my hour of agony.
How patiently You stood waiting
With open arms hoping I would come to Thee;
How patiently You hoped
I would give You all that was lacking in me.
- Cathryne Allen
THE STRENGTH OF FAITH
True faith
can never show its strength in the absence of resistance. Resistance comes when
nothing is going right, when your pain is at its highest level, when fulfilment
of God’s promises is slow in coming, when your friends sew doubts in your mind,
when God seems far away and you feel abandoned…..
Resistance
comes when your trust in God needs to be tested. I discovered that you can have
faith in God and His existence and even in a multitude of proofs of His love
but you can still waver in your trust of Him. For fifty years since I joined
the Church, I thrived in my faith in God and then my health was taken away and the real
test came. The resistance manifested itself through trust. I had to ask myself
many times if I trusted in everything I believed about Him.
In Lecture
3 of Lectures On Faith, Joseph Smith said that “three things are necessary in
order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto
life and salvation”: 1. The idea that He actually exists; 2. A correct idea of
His character, perfections, and attributes; and 3. An actual knowledge that the
course of life which he is pursuing is according to His will.
Some years
ago I decided to follow up on this advice and studied the Book of Mormon that
year looking for the Saviour’s attributes and traits within its pages. I wanted
to know Him. I wrote what I came across in the margins of the book. When I had
finished I flicked through the book and I found two particular attributes on
just about every page. They told me that the Saviour was merciful and that He always
fulfils His promises.
Trusting
the mercy has been an easy one but fulfilment of promises is much harder, for two
reasons…..1. we do not know HOW He will
fulfil His promise as our ways are not God’s ways (Isaiah 55:8) and 2. We do
not know WHEN the fulfilment will come as the Lord works on a different time schedule
for ‘all is as one day with God and time only is measured unto men’ (Alma 40:8).
When the
promised something is not happening, especially when you are in dire need, the
resistance steps in whispering doubts. I have been there, I know. Instead of
stepping up my faith in the face of resistance, my faith has wavered through
questions such as: do I really know Him? Do I really trust Him? Does He really
love me? Does he want the best for me? Well, yes that last one could go either
way. He always wants the best for you and you might not know how that best is
going to play out in the fulfilment of his promise. Another consideration is
that His priority is our eternal ‘best’ opposed to the ‘best’ here and now.
I have a
testimony that the strength of our faith indeed brings about rewards from
heaven. When I was going through my divorce some years ago, I was in terrible
emotional pain. It felt like it was going to rip my chest open. That was the
time I delved into the scriptures and studied about the Atonement because I was
convinced that only God could take that pain away.
For weeks I
prayed ‘through my faith in Jesus Christ and the power of the Atonement’ for a
healing of my broken heart. Every time I experienced a wave of pain throughout
the day, I would utter the same prayer calling upon the power of the Atonement
to heal me. Never once did I think it could not happen or that it would not happen.
My faith was infallible despite the unrelenting pain. I persisted and persisted and after some weeks
the pain was gone. All my negative emotions towards my ex-husband disappeared
and I was able to embrace him and his new life and move on with mine.
Some years
ago I was going through a difficult time and as I was studying the scriptures one
day, looking for answers, into my mind came a voice which said: “You were
fearless in your pre-mortality.” I was
rather stunned and answered: “It was easy then. Here it is harder because I
have to walk by faith.” The voice came back: “Nevertheless, this is what is
needful. This is why you are here. You cannot become gods without faith which creates
reality.”
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Monday, 20 July 2026
THE GATE KEEPER
“If there is
an imagery upon which I would focus, it is two scriptures from the Book of
Mormon. The one in which we are reminded that Jesus himself is the gate keeper
and that ‘he employeth no servant there’ (2 Nephi 9:41).
“I will tell
you….out of the conviction of my soul….what I think the major reason is (why he
‘employeth no servant there’), as contained in another Book of Mormon scripture
which says He waits for you ‘with open arms’ (Mormon 6:17). That’s why He’s there!
“He waits for
you with open arms. That imagery is too powerful to brush aside….It is imagery
that should work itself into the very center core of one’s mind – a rendezvous
impending, a moment in time and space, the likes of which there is none other.
And that rendezvous is a reality. I certify that to you. He does wait for us
with open arms, because His love for us is perfect.”
-
Neal A. Maxwell, But A Few Days, p
7
I have no life but this,
To know the scope of You.
I have no wish but this,
To feel that You want this too.
I have no life but this,
To know Thy approving glance;
To kneel at Thy feet,
To know there is a chance.
I have no life but this
To follow the path to Thy throne
To be greeted with a holy kiss,
And know the reality of such bliss.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
HOLY GHOST
“I fear that some members of the Lord’s Church
live far beneath their privileges with regard to the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Some are distracted by the things of the world that block out the influence of
the Holy Ghost, preventing them from recognizing spiritual promptings. This is
a noisy and busy world that we live in.
Remember that being busy is not necessarily being spiritual. If we are not
careful, the things of this world can crowd out the things of the Spirit.
“Some are spiritually deadened and past feeling
because of their choices to commit sin. Others simply hover in spiritual
complacency with no desire to rise above themselves and commune with the
Infinite. If they would open their hearts to the refining influence of this
unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost, a glorious new spiritual dimension would
come to light.
“Their eyes would gaze upon a vista scarcely
imaginable. They could know for themselves things of the Spirit that are
choice, precious, and capable of enlarging the soul, expanding the mind, and
filling the heart with inexpressible joy.”
-
Elder
Joseph B. Wirthlin (1917-2008), The
Unspeakable Gift, GC April 2003
How silently, how diligently
You work for the salvation of men.
Your witness of my life
Written in your heart as with a holy pen.
When face to face one day we meet
I will kneel at your holy feet.
-
CATHRYNE
ALLEN
Sunday, 19 July 2026
PRINCE OF PEACE
He
arose and rebuked the roaring winds
and
the raging sea,
He,
who with His word
caused
the earth to be,
Spoke
to the Galilean tempest:
“Peace, be still”.
He
who has all things
under
His command,
Calmed
the troubled sea of dismay
in
the souls of men.
He,
who holds all humanity
in
the palm of His hand,
Caused
the waves of the sea
to
whisper His name.
-
CATHRYNE ALLEN
ON CHILDREN
ON CHILDREN:
And a woman
who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said:
Your
children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s
longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are
with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may
give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.
You may
house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of
tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may
strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not
backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the
bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees
the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that
His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your
bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow
that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
-
Kahlil
Gibran, The Prophet – A Timeless Masterpiece
Come
to me, O ye children!
For
I hear you at your play,
And
the questions that perplexed me
Have
vanished quite away.
Ye
open the eastern windows,
That
look towards the sun,
Where
thoughts are singing swallows
And
the brooks of morning run.
In your
hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In
your thoughts the brooklet’s flow,
But
in mine is the wind of Autumn
And
the first fall of the snow.
Ah!
What would the world be to us
If
the children were no more?
We
should dread the desert behind us
Worse
than the dark before.
What
the leaves are to the forest,
With
light and air for food,
Ere
their sweet and tender juices
Have
been hardened into wood –
That
to the world are children;
Through
them it feels the glow
Of
a brighter and sunnier climate
That
reaches the trunks below.
Come
to me, O ye children!
And
whisper in my ear
What
the birds and the winds are singing
In
your sunny atmosphere.
For
what are all our contrivings,
And
the wisdom of our books,
When
compared with your caresses,
And
the gladness of your looks?
Ye
are better than all the ballads
That
ever were sung or said;
For
ye are living poems,
And
all the rest are dead.
-
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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