Category: Philosophy

I do not hold with those whose fame
Rests on some great ancestor’s name.
Forget, I say, the things of yore
That aren’t important anymore.
(Forget too, please, society,
MY forbears’ notoriety) .

by Ray Romine Tuesday, June 13, 1950

My life can be a monument
If, dying, I attest:
“My life is lived, but not in vain,
For I have done my best.”

by Ray Romine Wednesday, August 25, 1943

“You hold it high,
Protected there;
But does it get you
Anywhere?”

(The difference
He cannot see
Would make a savage
Out of me.)

by Ray Romine Thursday, January 2, 1947

My stride will take life’s black side;
I’ll stand beneath its woes;
I’ll tantrum not, nor back slide,
Can I but have one rose.

Let rigors of stern duty
Maul me as they may,
So one small touch of beauty
Rubs off on me each day.

by Ray Romine Friday, December 8, 1950

Great thoughts, no doubt, are his who sits
And probes his mind and flogs his wits
To swell the sum of knowledge;
But greater things the man submits
Who thinks his thoughts, but never quits
His term at Hard-knocks College

by Ray Romine Tuesday, August 17, 1943

The people near him influenced him too muoh;
Their good opinions meant a lot, he said,
And so he spent a lifetime pleasing folks
Just doing things that neighbors thought he should,
And cousins, sisters, aunts and uncles too.
And everybody found him likeable,
Extremely so. He was in demand
For parties, or wherever people went.
And not a home in town but welcomed him.
Well, then, at what was rather late in life,
He thought he’d like to do to suit himself
A little while. I ‘m glad to say he did,
“Don’t live to please the world” he said, and died;
And knew himself a tool for having tried.

by Ray Romine Saturday, July 7, 1945

The dying hermit grasped my hand,
And turned his eyes to mine.
“Don’t feel sorrow, lad, for me–
Who’ll miss me; who will pine?

“My life’s been lonely? Aye, that’s true,
If we speak just of men;
But God has much to offer those
Who turn to him. Amen.

“I’ve talked with Him–I’ll live with Him
Now it’s my turn to go–“
He winced in pain. “Lean closer, boy,
I’ll tell you why I -know!”

You’ve heard how a weary wanderer
Is guided by a light
Placed in a window by his folks
To lead him home aright?

“Our Father, Lord of Heaven and earth,
Sure I no longer roam,
Will see that his Celestial Lamp
Guides this traveler home.

• • • • • • • • • •

I tiptoed to the window
In wonder, and I spied
The cause for his transfigured face
The seoond that he died.

One lonely star shone through the haze
Of cloudy troubled sky;
One flickering beacon, there for him
Who did not fear to die!

I thought I heard the hermit’s voice,
But strong with new-found vim:
“God’s Light will someday Justify
The Faith we have in Him.”

by Ray Romine Thursday, April 6, 1950

The man had cheated me, and lied, to boot,
I quite forgot that he was only one,
And, castigating all the race with him,
I felt a bitterness toward every man
That sent me out beneath the trees.
There on the ground, a buckeye caught my eye–
I pondered on the uselessness of it,
So far as food for man goes. “But,” I said,
“Not everything in Nature is for me.
Now there’s a walnut just beyond–.” I turned,
And as I wandered back to town, I smiled,
My feud with God and mankind reconciled.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, October 15, 1946

If there’s bad in all the best of us,
And good in all the worst,
This explains the mediocrity
With which we are accursed.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, September 20, 1949

O leaves that whisper from a wind tossed vine
Holding firm against autumn’s frowning gale,
Thy fate is sealed. Is awareness thine?
Canst thou know that thy strength shall shortly fail,
And thou shalt be rudely tossed to earth,
To be trampled and crushed into the dust?
“0 poet, O creature of higher berth–
Where’s thy faith? To a leaf our fate is just:
We dance, we sing–and our colors! …Red
And there’s yellow and orange, brighter darts
Than Summer brought; for it’s now to bed
To awaken next spring with stouter hearts!”

by Ray Romine Wednesday, October 1, 1941