“Young Love” [Reflections on Book: Wm.C.King (ed) Portraits and Principles of The World's Great Men And Women Chicago: The King-Richardson Co. 1899 - #84/100]

Experience at first of life
Lays ground for later wins;
’Tis true for money, love, and war,
Where friendship’s role begins.

Take money – “Not enough” is good,
A surplus makes for “sin”
(“Rebellion from our God”, that is),
A bad place to begin.

Not screaming, retching, poverty
That kills and maims, destroys;
But lack of surfeit at the first,
Which prods, and pokes – annoys.

Where money’s role in life is taught
By sheer necessity
Those lessons, needed down the road
So hard to later see:

Like thought and planning’s tight demands
Which harbor capital;
And friendship valued for itself,
Which losses cannot kill.

Or need for steady diligence,
And incremental change
Of human capital of self,
Which chance can’t rearrange.

Relationships apart from cash,
No leaching from the rest;
But rather inter-active help
Which boosts each other’s zest.

Like pooling assets for the group
We call “Community”;
That all have chance to get ahead,
Released to Jubilee.

Thanks Lord for this.

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