Read "Once in a While" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Once in a while, in this world so strange, / To lighten our sad regrets, / We find a heart that is true through change -- / A heart that never forgets. / Oh, rare as a blossoming rose in December -- / As a bird in an Arctic clime, / Is a heart, a _heart_ that can remember / Through sorrow and change and time.
Once in a while we find a love / That will live through life and death, / Ay! that will follow the soul above. / Not passing away with the breath. / But rarer, Oh, rarer by far and stranger / Than a spring in the desert sand, / Is a love that will last, with toil, and danger, / And strife on every hand.
Once in a while we find a friend / That will cling through good or ill, / Whose friendship follows us e'en to the end, / Be it up or adown the hill, / But the heart so true, and the love so tender, / And friendship's faithful smile, / Whether we dwell in squalor or splendor, / We find but "once in a while. "