Often we can find ourselves being too critical, too cynical. Wanting to make comparisons of something we once knew to what we know today. Maybe the best thing one can be is a friend to man.
There are Hermit Souls that live withdrawn in the peace of their self-content:
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart, in a fellow-less firmament; where
Highways never ran; but let me live by the side of the road and be a friend to man.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road, where the race of men go by
The men who are good and the men who are bad, as good and as bad as I
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat, or hurl the cynic’s ban;
Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man
I see from my house by the side of the road, by the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with ardor of hope, the men who are faint with strife
But I turn neither away from their smiles nor their tears, both part of an infinite plan;
Let me live in my house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.
I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead, and mountains of wearisome height
That the road passes on through the long afternoon and stretches away to the night
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice, and weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road like a man who dwells alone.
Let me live in my house by the side of the road where the race of men go by
They are good they bad, they are weak; they are strong, wise, foolish, so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat or hurl the cynic’s ban,
Let me live in my house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.
Why should I sit in the scorner’s seat or hurl the cynic’s ban? Let me be a friend to man.
Sam Walter Foss 1858-1911
October 29, 2011 /Keep on/ Larry Adamson