Strickland Gillilan was an American poet, play writer, novelist, humorist, and journalist. He wrote many poems, humorous stories and plays. He was born in 1869 in America. Due to these valuable services he earned a lot of fame. He will always live in people’s hearts.
Table of Contents
The Greatest Gift
by Strickland Gillilan
It wasn’t the money you gave the chap
When you found him down and out
‘Twas the faith you restored when you bettered his hap
That had filled him with bitter doubt.
It wasn’t the food that your money bought,
Or the clothes he had needed so,
But the spirit change that your kindness wrought
When you set hope’s lamp aglow.
It isn’t the human of blood and bone
Served most when you heed love’s call
‘Tis a human heart just like your own;
It hungers most of all.
=========
As I Go On My Way
by Strickland Gillilan
My life shall touch a dozen lives before this day is done
Leave countless marks for good or ill ere sets this evening sun.
Shall fair or foul its imprint prove, on those my life shall hail?
Shall blessing my impress be, or shall a blight prevail?
When to the last great reckoning the lives I meet must go,
Shall this ever, fleeting touch of mine have added joy or woe?
Shall He who looks their records o’er – of name and time and place
Say ‘Here a blessed influence came’ or ‘Here is evil’s trace’?
From out each point of contact of my life with other lives
Flows ever that which helps the one who for the summit strives,
The troubled souls encountered – does it sweeten with its touch,
Or does it more embitter those embittered overmuch?
Does love in every handclasp flow in sympathy’s caress?
Do those that I have greeted know a newborn hopefulness?
Are tolerance and charity the keynote of my song
As I go plodding onward with earth’s eager, anxious throng?
My life shall touch a million lives in some way ere I go
From this dear world of struggle to the land I do not know.
So this the wish I always wish, the prayer I ever pray:
Let my life help the other lives it touches by the way.
=========
Face The Sunshine
by Strickland Gillilan
Face the sunshine — let the shadows lie behind you;
Face the sunshine from life’s dawning to its night;
Face the sunshine, though at first its brightness blind you —
Face the sunshine! Keep the shadows out of sight.
Face the sunshine — let its beams your smiling brighten;
Face the sunshine — let its rays suffuse your soul;
Face the sunshine — let its warmth your pleasure heighten;
Face the sunshine and be quit of grief and dole.
Face the sunshine — let its sweet caress remind you
Of the brightness we should scatter through the years;
Face the sunshine — let the shadows fall behind you,
And the sunshine will put rainbows in your tears!
=========
Forgive Me
by Strickland Gillilan
Wouldn’t it be good, my brother,
If the sun could always shine?
If we lived for one another,
Wouldn’t every day be fine?
Life were sweeter still, believe me,
Freer far from wails of woe
If those simple words “Forgive me”
Didn’t choke a fellow so.
Were our lips not schooled to smother
All that’s finest in the heart,
Wouldn’t it be easy, brother,
Aye to choose the better part?
Oh, this world were sweet, believe me,
Free from bitterness and woe
If those blessed words “Forgive me”
Didn’t choke a fellow so.
=========
Put To The Test
by Strickland Gillilan
The friends you’ve lost by frankness were a craven sort at best;
They never were the kind you’d want when trouble was your lot.
They were but latent enemies in garb of friendship dressed
The sooner you were shed of them the better, like as not.
So though it hold the bitterness of wormwood mixed with gall,
The friends you lose through frankness aren’t your real friends, at all!
The friend who knows you as you are, to whom you never need
To give an explanation for your most eccentric act,
He is the only kind to have a friend in very deed!
The qualities this good friend has, the “friend” you’re mourning lacked.
So doff the sable weeds you wear and whistle something gay
The friend you’ve lost through frankness would have failed you anyway.
=========
A Middle-Age Reflection
by Strickland Gillilan
I saw a chap the other day that once I’d used to know.
His cheeks were rosy, hair jet black, in days of long ago.
But now the roses are not there, the raven hair is streaked
With snowy white where ruthless Time his grim revenge has wreaked.
I marveled. For the heart of me is young as when I knew
The fellow years and years ago ‘neath skies of youth’s own blue.
And then I chanced to recollect, and heard my own voice say:
“What has been happening to me, while he was turning gray?”
Day after day I’d seen myself reflected in the glass
The change had been so gradual my eyes had let it pass
Unnoticed. Had I failed to see myself for such a span
As had elapsed since I had met this other aging man,
No doubt the contrast would have been as great. I had been used
To thinking of myself as still with wine of youth infused.
Perhaps the same was in his mind when we two met that day:
“What has been happening to me while he was turning gray?”
But young at heart God keep us that ! Let care be laughed to scorn.
Let’s keep our backs to eventide and always face the morn.
Let’s keep the ripeness of our noon to guide the girls and boys
Whose youth is callower than ours and lacking deeper joys.
The snow of age may dust our hair, it can not reach within.
We’ll teach those careworn youths of ours to bear their griefs and grin
Go to the one whose empty life has palled on him, and say:
“A wiser youth has come to me while you were turning gray!”
=========
Keep Sweet
by Strickland Gillilan
Don’t be foolish and get sour when things don’t just come your way-
Don’t you be a pampered baby and declare, “Now I won’t play!”
Just go grinning on and bear it;
Have you heartache? Millions share it,
If you earn a crown, you’ll wear it-
Keep sweet.
Don’t go handing out your troubles to your busy fellow-men –
If you whine around they’ll try to keep from meeting you again;
Don’t declare the world’s “agin” you,
Don’t let pessimism win you,
Prove there’s lots of good stuff in you-
Keep sweet.
If your dearest hopes seem blighted and despair looms into view,
Set your jaw and whisper grimly, “Though they’re false, yet I’ll be true.”
Never let your heart grow bitter;
With your lips to Hope’s transmitter,
Hear Love’s songbirds bravely twitter,
Keep sweet.
Bless your heart, this world’s a good one, and will always help a man;
Hate, misanthropy, and malice have no place in Nature’s plan.
Help your brother there who’s sighing.
Keep his flag of courage flying;
Help him try- ’twill keep you trying-
Keep sweet.
=========
We Can Always Learn
by Strickland Gillilan
No man is wholly foolish, just as none is wholly wise;
The world has precious few extremes, you’ll find if you’ll examine.
The man who’s partly deaf, you’ll note, has extra useful eyes
This “wholly helpless” notion is the plainest sort of gammon.
You hear a fellow work his mouth from morning’s break till night,
You’re sure he’s saying nothing, you condemn him without ruth.
But listen patiently to him his chatter is a fright,
But ‘mid the rubbish he emits you’ll find some grains of truth.
There’s none so big a fool but that he knows some things that you
Or even I could scarce find out in all our life or longer.
There’s none so wise but if you probe his depths an hour or two,
You’ll see a lot of little points on which he might be stronger.
So you, though you be foolish yes, and I, though I be wise!
Had best leave off in later years the rashness of our youth
And learn to listen even when the pinhead’s spindrift flies
Amid the chaff his voice gives forth will be some grains of truth.
=========
When I Am Wrong
by Strickland Gillilan
When I am wrong, Lord, courage me to own it;
To say, “Forgive me for the wrong I did.”
Drive out the wild desire to condone it
And keep the grievous fault within me hid.
Yet while I honestly admit my sin,
Keep off the friend who likes to rub it in!
When I have erred, Lord, teach me to admit it;
To clear all others of suspicion’s taint;
To own and bear the punishment to fit it
The wrong in me, nor feel the least restraint.
Yet while I’d bear the pains my sinnings win,
Keep from my clutches him who’d rub it in!
Lord, all my rank transgressions I would own;
All my profuse shortcomings I’d admit;
I’d shout them out in any sort of tone
To keep some innocent from being “it.”
But here my rebel promptings would begin
I cannot love the folks who’d rub it in!
=========
The Book For All Time
by Strickland Gillilan
There never was a trouble yet,” I’ve heard my mother say,
That wasn’t mentioned in this Book I study every day.
There never was a crisis in a human life, I’m sure,
But had its prototype in this the Book that must endure.
She doesn’t say things to me now that mother wise of mine
At least not with the sort of voice she did. But clear and fine
I hear her admonitions just as plainly now as when
She read to me the same old things, again and yet again.
I didn’t know it sank so deep the wisdom she imparted.
It took the years relentless years that left me heavier-hearted
To show me how her words and voice I thought I slightly heeded
Were stored to give my later life the things it sorely needed.
And now when, in a hotel room, I take the little Book
The Gideons God bless them! gave, I reverently look
Through page on page and find therein, to my profound surprise,
Full proof, through this great wonder Book, that God’s all-seeing eyes
Foresaw that day that very day that was so new to me,
And had discoursed, through minds inspired, on all that I should be
And do, throughout the crisis that had seemed to me unique!
How marvelously down the years those wondrous pages speak!
And, strangely, things I read in there sound different, somehow,
From ordinary printed stuff. And hence my little vow
That I, both for my mother’s sake, and for my own sake too,
Will search the Scriptures every day they tell me what to do!
=========
The Keenest Pleasure
by Strickland Gillilan
We are so built, we human things,
That we may touch joy’s deepest springs
Now and again. We should be glad
That real pleasure may be had
From our accomplishment of what
Our brains conceived, our two hands wrought
But still the finest joy, indeed,
Is seeing some one else succeed.
‘Tis only now and then that we
Can bring the longed-for thing to be
That we ourselves had planned and dreamed,
That we had plotted for and schemed.
So if our only triumphs come
When we have crowned with doing, some
Of our own plans, we miss a lot
Of earthly joy we might have got!
For all the time some one’s succeeding
In some great thing that had been breeding
In mind and soul of him; and so
A sympathetic joy we know
When he brings triumph out of chaos
And with his vict’ry song would stay us.
This makes of earth a Neighborhood
Our joy when some one else makes good.
=========
Rich
by Strickland Gillilan
I knew he toiled for a modest wage,
As living costs in the present age.
And I asked myself, in accents grim:
“What can existence hold for him?”
One day when the afternoon grew late
I saw him enter a little gate,
Saw a baby, wild in its young delight,
Come running to him, with all its might,
Clasp him and kiss him and call him “Dad” –
Thus I caught a glimpse of the wealth he had.
And later I learned, convincingly,
That a true, contented wife had he;
That he owned the home where his loved ones dwelt;
That in quaint, old-fashioned way he knelt
Once every day, at the very least;
That he bowed his head o’er each humble feast
The good God gave; that they all had health –
So I knew he was blessed with boundless wealth.
Though still he works for a meager wage,
As living costs in this present age,
I ask no more, in accents grim,
What existence can hold for him.
He has done the things that men were made for;
Has what some men their souls would trade for –
What men of “wealth,” unheard, have prayed for.
=========
A Worry Antidote
Poet: Strickland Gillilan
Petty worry, here’s a chair – come in and sit.
Note my momentary absence; pardon it.
There’s a potent bit of knowledge hid somewhere
That can cope with you and rid me of your care.
Through the knothole known as ignorance you came –
It is I and I alone must bear the blame.
Yet there somewhere is a fact you can’t resist –
I shall find it, and its help I shall enlist.
Or if, seeking out the knowledge that you fear,
I should find it not, though seeking far and near,
There’s a sure and strong protector that I know
Who will come and give one look – and out you’ll go.
This protector who will change you to a wraith
Is my never-failing friend whose name is Faith.
Summoned always when Sir Knowledge can’t be found,
Faith will come, and then I dare you linger round!
=========
Smile at the Children
Poet: Strickland Gillilan
When a baby smiles at you, smile right back again;
If he look askance at you, smile your sweetest then.
He has come into a world big and strange and new.
He must learn what sort of world – learn from such as you.
You have been upon the road quite a little while!
He will judge if life is good, by your frown or smile.
When a child looks up at you, smile into his eyes.
He has all of life ahead – life that sternly tries
All the courage he can find, buy or beg or borrow!
Smile to show this new earth-guest not all life is sorrow
. You have seen, as well he knows, more of life than he-
Smile and let him understand life holds jollity.
When a child’s eyes search your face, as all child-eyes do,
Looking for the net effect life has had on you,
Let him see a smile of hope – smile of cheerfulness;
Smile that shows him you have found more than bleak distress.
You, who know the road, assure every girl and boy
That the grown-ups’ world contains heaps and heaps of joy.
=========
No Place For Fear
Poet: Strickland Gillilan
Most every day brings some grave situation,
Not to be feared, but faced.
Alternatives offer, in state and in nation,
Not to be feared, but faced.
Dilemmas confront us each hour of the day,
Presenting both right and erroneous way.
These quandaries shouldn’t depress us; for they
Aren’t to be feared, but faced.
Each day of our life brings a problem or two,
Not to be feared, but solved.
We’ve off with the old one, let’s on with the new –
Not to be feared, but solved.
The puzzle involving the right and the wrong;
The question how not to be weak, but be strong;
These “sums” in life’s school-day come bobbing along,
Not to be feared, but solved.
Each day in the field there arises a foe,
Not to be feared, but fought.
He’s not to be dodged or avoided, you know –
Not to be feared, but fought.
There’s nothing on earth unmistakably right
That we may maintain without strenuous fight.
Intrenched we find always iniquitous might –
Not to be feared, but fought.
=========
As I Go On My Way
Poet: Strickland Gillilan
My life shall touch a dozen lives before this day is done –
Leave countless marks for good or ill ere sets this evening’s sun.
Shall fair or foul its imprint prove, on those my life shall hail?
Shall benison my impress be, or shall a blight prevail?
When to the last great reckoning the lives I meet must go,
Shall this wee, fleeting touch of mine have added joy or woe?
Shall He who looks their records o’er — of name and time and place –
Say: “Here a blessed influence came,” or “Here is evil’s trace”?
From out each point of contact of my life with other lives
Flows ever that which helps the one who for the summit strives.
The troubled souls encountered – does it sweeten with its touch,
Or does it more embitter those embittered overmuch?
Does love through every handclasp flow in sympathy’s caress?
Do those that I have greeted know a newborn hopefulness?
Are tolerance and charity the keynote of my song
As I go plodding onward with earth’s eager, anxious throng?
My life must touch a million lives in some way ere I go
From this dear world of struggle to the land I do not know.
So this the wish I always wish, the prayer I ever pray:
Let my life help the other lives it touches by the way!
=========
Remember and Believe
Poet: Strickland Gillilan
Remember now that other darkest hour
When you were ready to cry quits with life?
Your last defeat had shorn you of your power;
No more you’d be a “hero in the strife.”
Now that the dark has come to you again,
Remember: All life’s best has come since then!
Remember when no single ray of hope
Came to you through the gloom of baffledness?
Remember how you could not even grope
Through that thick murk of piteous distress?
How can remembering but help you, when
Your finest triumphs all have come since then?
Remember well, and you can mock Despair;
Remember well, and you can only smile;
Remember well, and you can flout at Care;
Remember; shorten Sorrow’s little while.
Remember well and you can never grieve;
Remember, and you only can believe!
=========
After School
Poet: Strickland Gillilan
When home from school’s long day he drifts
And to my gaze his fresh face lifts.
I read the tale of all the joys
And sorrows that are every boy’s –
I knew them once. I feel them yet,
Through later living’s deeper fret.
But still I hold him close, and say
“Son, tell me all about your day.”
He tells me – whimpering o’er each grief,
And laughing next in swift relief:
The big, bad boy who hid his hat;
The girl who slipped from where she sat,
To meet with Teacher’s well-earned frown;
And how the littlest boy fell down!
I list – not that I do not know,
But only that I love him so.
When, at life’s troublous school day’s close,
Each world-worn pupil homeward goes,
Straight to the Father’s eyes we’ll raise
Our own, prepared for blame or praise.
He’ll slip an arm around, and say:
“Child, tell me all about your day.”
Not that Our Father does not know,
But only that He loves us so.
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Read More: Robert Frost Famous Poems
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