Explore "Monotony. From California" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When ragged lines of passing days go by, / Crowding and hurried, broken-linked and slow, / Some sobbing pitifully as they pass, / Some angry-hot and fierce, some angry cold, / Some raging and some wailing, and again / The fretful days one cannot read aright,- / Then truly, when the fair days smile on us, / We feel that loveliness with sharper touch / And grieve to lose it for the next day's chance. / And so men question-they who never know / If beauty comes or horror, pain or joy- / If we, whose sky is peace, whose hours are glad, / Find not our happiness monotonous! / But when the long procession of the days / Rolls musically down the waiting year, / Close-ranked, rich-robed, flower-garlanded and fair; / Broad brows of peace, deep eyes of soundless truth, / And lips of love,-warm, steady, changeless love; / Each one more beautiful, till we forget / Our niggard fear of losing half an hour, / And learn to count on more and ever more,- / In the remembered joy of yesterday, / In the full rapture of to-day's delight, / And knowledge of the happiness to come, / We learn to let life pass without regret, / We learn to hold life softly and in peace, / We learn to meet life gladly, full of faith, / We learn what God is, and to trust in Him!