Page 48-49 Transcribed: Poem (The door of the lips)

Page 48-49 Transcribed: Poem (The door of the lips)

The door of the lips

Say not the words ye mean not, words are knives
That cut deep gashes in our little lives
Gashes that reach deep down within the heart
And all our lives have some smart.

Say not the word ye mean not, words will live
To mock your grief when you perchance would give
Your very life to take away the pain
That they have made; alas twill be in vain.

Ah! Many a word that was in passion said,
Has left the wound that secretly has bled,
Till love has come to be a trickling stream,
And earthly joys like some past happy dream.

Yea! All that brightens life has fled away
Leaving but work, the dreary liveloud day
Say not the thing ye mean not, there be few
Whose life without and life within are true.

Yet be ye true, yea, though ye suffer wrongs,
True, then ______ and being ____ strong;
And being strong, some little word ye speak
May help some struggling brother who is weak.

Say not the thing ye mean not. Sure your life
Is not for meanness, pettishness or strife;
Souls who have destinies, so great, so high,
May not defame their immortality.

Say not the thing ye mean not. Every word
That wrought a pang of anguish or that stirred
With secret sorrow ___ human soul,
Will bound back on thyself, like waves that throw
Themselves upon the shore, then leap again
To the deep bosom of the watery main.

Say not the thing we mean not. Harsh and chill
Is this cold world; why let thy words work ill?
Rather than wipe eyes that weep, cheer those who mourn
And whisper comfort into hearts forlorn.
Impute not wrong, less thou should add to strife
Or mar with bitterness some noble life.

Say not the thing ye mean not. Death is nigh
Thou knowst not but soon that one may lie
In cold grave, whose ears so sadly heard,
The harsh unfeeling bitter unkind word.