Explore "Our Lives" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Our lives are songs. God writes the words, / And we set them to music at pleasure; / And the song grows glad, or sweet, or sad, / As we choose to fashion the measure.
We must write the music, whatever the song, / Whatever its rhyme, or metre; / And if it is sad, we can make it glad. / Or if sweet, we can make it sweeter.
One has a song that is free and strong; / But the music he writes is minor; / And the sad, sad strain is replete with pain, / And the singer becomes a repiner.
And he thinks God gave him a dirge-like lay. / Nor knows that the words are cheery; / And the song seems lonely and solemn -- only / Because the music is dreary.
And the song of another has through the words / An under current of sadness; / But he sets it to music of ringing chords, / And makes it a pean of gladness.
So, whether our songs are sad or not, / We can give the world more pleasure. / And better ourselves, by setting the words / To a glad, triumphant measure.