• Author: Johnson, Harry W.
• Editor: Corvi, Joseph J.
• Newspaper: The Eastern Echo volume 1
• Page Number:
• Date: 06 Summer 1956
• Tags:
• poetry

PARABLE

It may be true that a rolling stone gathers no moss, but on a mountain slope of cruel and malicious gossip, it can create a devastating avalanche and crush forever the edifice of a living soul....

REFLECTIONS

An egotist is a badly cracked mirror reflecting the image of a distorted personality ....

That person we adversely criticize could be a mirror reflecting our own characteristic defects ....

GIFT OF THE ROSE

I fervently take into my hands and hold with reverent, tender care the lovely rose, so red, so delicate, of a grace and beauty so profound that only one who loves—

may see it there.

Its delicate petals, each time I hold it to my cheek, resemble the soft touch of an angel caressing my heavily burdened heart with unrequited love ; and only the Masterful hand of the Sculptor who eternally dwells above could create such beauty and place upon its blood-red lips a nectar so sweet, and so divine, that each time I sip it is for my lonely, pain-wracked soul a most blessed anodyne.

THE PESSIMIST

No angel choir will ever sing for him in dark of night, To make serene his tortured soul and give his vision light. . .

The rising sun he never sees, nor stars in heaven's crown; — And on his face he always wears a dark, depressive frown.

No thought of love pulsates us heart that he may speak good cheer To struggling throngs of suffering souls in bonds of jagged fear.

Where beauty reigns he always sees grim silhouettes in grey; And crushing life with cruel contempt he goes his tragic way.

BRIDGE BUILDER

Man constructs a bridge of concrete and steel over deep rivers, turbulent streams and yawning chasms; but finds it most difficult to construct a bridge of love over the chasm of hate he has created between a neighbor and himself ....