Explore "Mistakes" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
God sent us here to make mistakes, / To strive, to fail, to re-begin, / To taste the tempting fruit of sin, / And find what bitter food it makes,
To miss the path, to go astray, / To wander blindly in the night; / But, searching, praying for the light, / Until at last we find the way.
And looking back along the past, / We know we needed all the strain / Of fear and doubt and strife and pain / To make us value peace, at last.
Who fails, finds later triumph sweet; / Who stumbles once, walks then with care, / And knows the place to cry "Beware" / To other unaccustomed feet.
Through strife the slumbering soul awakes, / We learn on error's troubled route / The truths we could not prize without / The sorrow of our sad mistakes.