We flatter those we scarcely know, We please the fleeting guest; And deal full many a thoughtless blow, To those who love us best. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough
Without your woe. No path is wholly rough.

And yet I would not be a child again.
For surely as the night succeeds the day,
So surely will their mirth turn into tears.
And I would not return to happy hours,
If I must live again these weary years.

I would walk on, and leave it all behind:
will walk on; and when my feet grow sore,
The boatman waits — his sails are all unfurled — He waits to row me to a fairer shore.

I would kneel by the bank, in the grasses dank,
And drink you, drink you, drink you. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from “If,” Picked Poems. (Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1912)