Introduction
Nixon Waterman’s best poems are often built around an object or phrase that already belongs to everyday life: a rose, a postage stamp, a help-wanted notice, a berry bush, a contract or the minute shown by a clock. He then turns that familiar thing until it reveals a moral question. Have we praised people while they can hear us? Have we performed the kindness planned for some distant future? Are we working toward a goal, or merely searching for better conditions?
This selection follows the search interests that continue to bring readers to Waterman. “A Rose to the Living” remains his clearest statement about timely appreciation. “What Have We Done To-day?” challenges good intentions that never become deeds. “To Know All Is to Forgive All,” also searched by its first line “If I knew you and you knew me,” treats empathy as a form of inner vision. The work-and-character poems use a different kind of wit: “Stick to It” finds perseverance in a postage stamp, while “The Secret of Success” turns berry picking into a lesson about concentrated effort.
Fourteen poems are included because these titles have distinct reader intent and could be verified in public-domain editions of Boy Wanted and The Girl Wanted. Less certain or repetitive titles were not added merely to increase the count. Each section explains the poem in clear language and then examines the themes, tone, stanza movement, imagery, symbols, rhyme, structure and literary devices most relevant to that particular work.
Waterman’s language reflects the motivational writing of his period, including some gendered expressions that modern readers may understand historically rather than adopt literally. The strongest ideas remain broader than their original audience: appreciate people now, examine what was actually done today, concentrate effort, and measure success by useful service rather than impressive intention.
Poetry & Analysis
Nixon Waterman Poems
Featured PoemsA Rose to the Living
A rose to the living is more
Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead;
In filling love’s infinite store,
A rose to the living is more,
If graciously given before
The hungering spirit is fled,—
A rose to the living is more
Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead.
Plain Explanation A Rose to the Living: Meaning and Summary
The poem argues that a small act of appreciation offered while someone is alive has greater human value than an expensive tribute offered after death. A living person can receive comfort, recognition and love; the dead cannot benefit from the grandeur of a wreath.
Waterman is not attacking remembrance. He is correcting its timing. The poem asks readers to express affection before the “hungering spirit” has disappeared and the opportunity for connection has ended.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Timely appreciation: Love matters most when the recipient can still experience it.
- Living relationships: Emotional hunger should be answered in the present.
- Simplicity over display: One rose can outweigh a costly public ceremony.
- Mortality: Death places a final limit on delayed kindness.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is gentle, persuasive and quietly urgent. The speaker uses repetition instead of accusation.
The mood is tender but slightly regretful because the comparison implies that people often wait too long to show love.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Single Stanza
The opening establishes the comparison between a living rose and funeral wreaths. The middle lines explain why the smaller gift is greater: it fills love’s store before the recipient’s emotional need and physical presence are gone. The last two lines repeat the opening, making the moral impossible to miss.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
The rose and wreath create contrasting visual images: a simple flower held by a living person versus an elaborate arrangement placed beside the dead.
Love is imagined as having an “infinite store,” while the spirit is described as hungering. Emotional need is therefore given the physical qualities of appetite.
Interpretation Symbols and Their Meaning
- Rose: Immediate affection, praise or kindness.
- Wreath: Delayed honor and ceremonial remembrance.
- Hungering spirit: The human need to feel valued.
- Love’s store: A seemingly unlimited capacity for generosity.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The eight-line poem is a triolet-like form built around recurring lines. Its rhyme pattern is broadly ABaAabAB, with “more/store/before” and “dead/fled” forming the two sound groups.
The first line returns in the fourth and seventh positions, while the second returns at the end. This circular structure reinforces the central statement.
Craft Literary Devices
- Refrain: The central comparison is repeated three times.
- Contrast: Living rose and funeral wreath represent different timings of love.
- Metaphor: Love has a store, and the spirit experiences hunger.
- Symbolism: Flowers carry emotional and moral meanings.
- Hyperbole: “Infinite store” emphasizes love’s abundance.
Critical Reading AP Lit-Style Central Argument
Through a tightly circular form, Waterman argues that affection derives its moral value from being received, not merely displayed. The repeated comparison exposes the emptiness of impressive remembrance when it replaces the smaller kindness that could have nourished a living person.
What Have We Done To-day?
We shall do so much in the years to come,
But what have we done to-day?
We shall give our gold in a princely sum,
But what did we give to-day?
We shall lift the heart and dry the tear,
We shall plant a hope in the place of fear,
We shall speak the words of love and cheer;
But what did we speak to-day?
We shall be so kind in the after while,
But what have we been to-day?
We shall bring each lonely life a smile,
But what have we brought to-day?
We shall give to truth a grander birth,
And to steadfast faith a deeper worth,
We shall feed the hungering souls of earth;
But whom have we fed to-day?
We shall reap such joys in the by and by,
But what have we sown to-day?
We shall build us mansions in the sky,
But what have we built to-day?
‘T is sweet in idle dreams to bask,
But here and now do we do our task?
Yes, this is the thing our souls must ask,
“What have we done to-day?”
Plain Explanation What Have We Done Today?: Meaning and Summary
The poem contrasts impressive future intentions with present action. People imagine that they will give money, comfort sorrow, defend truth, strengthen faith and help those in need—but the repeated question asks what they have actually done today.
Waterman does not dismiss long-term goals. He argues that future goodness is credible only when it begins in the current day. Dreams become morally empty when they postpone every useful deed.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Action versus intention: Promises have little value without present evidence.
- Daily service: Character is built through small, immediate acts.
- Accountability: The repeated question becomes a personal moral test.
- Sowing and reaping: Future joy depends on what is planted now.
- Compassion: Giving, comforting and feeding are practical forms of goodness.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is challenging, reflective and encouraging rather than condemning. The speaker includes everyone through “we.”
The mood becomes increasingly urgent as each future promise is interrupted by the same present-tense question.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
Grand plans for wealth, comfort and loving speech are measured against the current day.
Stanza 2
The poem turns to kindness, loneliness, truth, faith and hunger. Each ideal is tested by a specific present recipient.
Stanza 3
Agricultural and architectural images show that future results require present foundations. The closing question becomes the soul’s necessary self-examination.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
Waterman uses images of lifting a heart, drying tears, planting hope, feeding souls, sowing fields and building mansions. Abstract morality is translated into physical work.
Hope can be planted and truth can be given birth, personifying ideals as living things that require human action.
Interpretation Symbols and Their Meaning
- Gold: Resources promised but not yet shared.
- Seed and harvest: Present deeds and their future consequences.
- Mansion: A desired future unsupported without today’s building.
- Idle dream: Intention used as a substitute for responsibility.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem contains three eight-line stanzas. Each combines alternating rhymes with a repeated question ending in “to-day.” The recurring interrogative line functions as a refrain.
Seven lines in each stanza build expectations, while the question repeatedly breaks the forward-looking language and returns attention to the present.
Craft Literary Devices
- Anaphora: Repeated “We shall” creates a catalogue of future promises.
- Refrain: Variations of “What have we done to-day?” enforce accountability.
- Rhetorical questions: The reader must answer privately.
- Metaphor: Hope is planted, truth is born and a future is built.
- Contrast: “Years to come” is opposed to “to-day.”
Critical Reading AP Lit-Style Central Argument
Waterman structures the poem so that every idealized future is interrupted by present-tense evidence. This repeated disruption argues that morality exists not in the scale of one’s intentions but in the immediacy of performed service.
To Know All Is to Forgive All
If I knew you and you knew me—
If both of us could clearly see,
And with an inner sight divine
The meaning of your heart and mine,
I’m sure that we would differ less
And clasp our hands in friendliness;
Our thoughts would pleasantly agree
If I knew you and you knew me.
Plain Explanation To Know All Is to Forgive All: Meaning and Summary
The poem suggests that conflict often grows from incomplete knowledge. If two people could see the motives, pain and meaning inside one another’s hearts, their disagreements would soften and friendship would become possible.
The memorable first line—“If I knew you and you knew me”—also explains why the poem is frequently searched under that wording. Understanding does not erase every difference, but it changes the spirit in which difference is handled.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Empathy: Inner knowledge reduces harsh judgment.
- Forgiveness: Understanding makes reconciliation easier.
- Hidden interior life: Outward behavior does not reveal a whole person.
- Friendship: Mutual recognition is represented by clasped hands.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is conciliatory, hopeful and intimate. The balanced “you” and “me” prevents one-sided blame.
The mood is calm and restorative, imagining disagreement transformed into friendliness.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Single Stanza
The first two lines establish mutual rather than one-directional knowledge. The “inner sight divine” then moves beyond surface observation toward compassionate perception. The final four lines imagine fewer differences, clasped hands and agreeable thought before returning to the opening condition.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
The poem’s strongest image is the clasped hand, a visible sign of reconciliation. “Inner sight” converts empathy into a form of vision.
Hearts are treated as texts containing meanings that can be interpreted, while thoughts appear capable of meeting pleasantly.
Interpretation Symbols and Their Meaning
- Inner sight: Compassionate understanding beyond appearances.
- Heart: Motive, feeling and hidden experience.
- Clasped hands: Forgiveness, agreement and restored connection.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The eight-line poem uses an AABBCBBA pattern built around “me/see/agree/me,” “divine/mine” and “less/friendliness.” The opening line returns at the end with reversed emphasis.
The circular structure suggests that mutual knowledge is both the starting condition and the final lesson.
Craft Literary Devices
- Conditional statement: Repeated “If” frames empathy as an imagined possibility.
- Metaphor: Understanding becomes inner sight.
- Symbolism: Clasped hands represent reconciliation.
- Parallelism: “You and me” and “your heart and mine” create equality.
- Repetition: The first line returns as a refrain-like conclusion.
Critical Reading AP Lit-Style Central Argument
By balancing every reference to the self with a reference to the other, Waterman argues that forgiveness begins when certainty about another person is replaced by reciprocal interpretation. The poem makes empathy a way of seeing rather than merely a feeling.
Boy Wanted
“Wanted—A Boy.” How often we
This quite familiar notice see.
Wanted—a boy for every kind
Of task that a busy world can find.
He is wanted—wanted now and here;
There are towns to build; there are paths to clear;
There are seas to sail; there are gulfs to span,
In the ever onward march of man.
Wanted—the world wants boys to-day
And it offers them all it has for pay.
‘Twill grant them wealth, position, fame,
A useful life, and an honored name.
Boys who will guide the plow and pen;
Boys who will shape the ways for men;
Boys who will forward the tasks begun,
For the world’s great work is never done.
The world is eager to employ
Not just one, but every boy
Who, with a purpose stanch and true,
Will greet the work he finds to do.
Honest, faithful, earnest, kind,—
To good, awake; to evil, blind,—
A heart of gold without alloy,—
Wanted—the world wants such a boy.
Plain Explanation Boy Wanted: Meaning and Summary
The poem expands an ordinary employment notice into a call for young people to prepare for the world’s unfinished work. Towns, paths, seas, farms, writing and public leadership all require future workers.
The desired boy is not defined only by talent. Purpose, honesty, faithfulness, earnestness and kindness are the real qualifications. The reward is not merely money but a useful and honorable life.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Useful work: Society depends on people willing to continue unfinished tasks.
- Character: Moral qualities matter more than status at the beginning.
- Opportunity: The world’s needs become openings for service and achievement.
- Preparation: Youth is a period for developing purpose and reliability.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is energetic, recruiting and optimistic. Repetition gives the poem the sound of a public announcement.
The mood is purposeful and expansive as ordinary employment grows into exploration and social progress.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
A familiar notice becomes a universal demand for useful ability.
Stanza 2
The scale widens to construction, navigation and human progress.
Stanza 3
The world offers external reward, but also usefulness and honor.
Stanza 4
Manual and intellectual labor—plow and pen—are equally necessary.
Stanzas 5–6
The final qualification list shifts attention from occupation to character.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
Images of towns, paths, seas, gulfs, plows and pens present work as both practical and adventurous.
The world is personified as an employer posting a notice, offering payment and searching for workers.
Interpretation Symbols and Their Meaning
- Wanted notice: Society’s call for prepared young people.
- Plow and pen: Physical and intellectual work.
- Paths and gulfs: Problems that require effort and courage.
- Heart of gold: Integrity without corrupt mixture or “alloy.”
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem uses six quatrains of rhyming couplets, generally AABB. Its short declarative lines resemble an advertisement or marching song.
Repeated uses of “wanted” and “world” unify the sections and keep the demand in the present.
Craft Literary Devices
- Personification: The world hires, wants and rewards.
- Anaphora: Repeated “Wanted” and “Boys who” create urgency.
- Symbolism: Plow, pen and gold summarize work and character.
- Parallelism: Lists of tasks and qualities build momentum.
- Metaphor: Life becomes employment in the world’s unfinished enterprise.
Critical Reading AP Lit-Style Central Argument
Waterman turns the language of employment into a civic argument: the world’s true vacancy is not for a particular trade but for dependable character. By ending with moral qualities rather than professional skills, the poem defines usefulness as ethical preparation for shared work.
“Couldn’t” and “Could”
“Couldn’t” and “Could” were two promising boys
Who lived not a great while ago.
They had just the same playmates and just the same toys,
And just the same chances for winning life’s joys
And all that the years may bestow.
And “Could” soon found out he could fashion his life
On lines very much as he planned;
He could cultivate goodness and guard against strife;
He could have all his deeds with good cheer to be rife,
And build him a name that would stand.
But poor little “Couldn’t” just couldn’t pull through
All the trials he met with a sigh;
When a task needed doing, he couldn’t, he knew;
And hence, when he couldn’t, how could he? Could you,
If you couldn’t determine you’d try?
So “Could” just kept building his way to success,
Nor clouding his sky with a doubt,
But “Couldn’t” strayed into the slough of Distress,
Alas! and his end it is easy to guess—
Strayed in, but he couldn’t get out.
And that was the difference ‘twixt “Couldn’t” and “Could”;
Each followed his own chosen plan;
And where “Couldn’t” just wouldn’t, “Could” earnestly would,
And where one of them weakened the other “made good,”
And won with his watchword, “I can!”
Plain Explanation Couldn’t and Could: Meaning and Summary
The poem personifies two attitudes as boys raised with the same opportunities. “Could” believes action is possible and gradually builds a stable life. “Couldn’t” turns difficulty into proof of inability and becomes trapped in distress.
The contrast is deliberately simple and exaggerated. Its lesson is that self-talk influences persistence: “I can” does not guarantee an easy path, but “I cannot” can prevent the attempt that progress requires.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Mindset: Belief influences whether opportunity becomes action.
- Personal responsibility: Similar circumstances can lead to different choices.
- Persistence: Success is described as something built over time.
- Doubt: Repeated negative expectation becomes a trap.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is humorous, didactic and energetic. Wordplay keeps the moral from sounding solemn.
The mood begins playful but darkens around the “slough of Distress,” then ends triumphantly with “I can!”
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
The boys begin with equal surroundings, limiting excuses based on opportunity.
Stanza 2
Could treats life as material that can be shaped through goodness and cheerful effort.
Stanza 3
Couldn’t converts every task into confirmation that trying is impossible.
Stanza 4
Building and swamp imagery show one life rising while the other becomes stuck.
Stanza 5
The final contrast identifies willingness, not raw ability, as the decisive difference.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
Life is pictured as a structure built on planned lines, while distress becomes a swamp or slough.
The words “Could” and “Couldn’t” are personified as boys with habits, choices and destinies.
Interpretation Symbols and Their Meaning
- Building: Character and achievement created gradually.
- Clouded sky: Doubt obscuring possibility.
- Slough of Distress: Negative thinking that becomes difficult to escape.
- Watchword “I can”: A guiding commitment to attempt.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
Five quintains use an ABCCB pattern or close variation. The names “Could” and “Couldn’t” recur so frequently that grammar itself becomes the poem’s subject.
The parallel biographies move in opposite directions, producing a fable-like structure.
Craft Literary Devices
- Personification: Modal verbs become characters.
- Pun and wordplay: “Could,” “couldn’t,” “would” and “wouldn’t” carry both names and actions.
- Contrast: Equal chances highlight different responses.
- Extended metaphor: Life is built; despair is a swamp.
- Rhetorical question: The reader is directly asked whether effort is possible without choosing to try.
Critical Reading AP Lit-Style Central Argument
By turning grammatical possibility into character, Waterman dramatizes the self-fulfilling force of language. The poem argues that repeated declarations of inability do not merely describe a life; they help construct the conditions in which action ceases.
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