The After A While

There's a beautiful river, the After A While,
With travelers drifting away;
It flows through the country of Putting Things Off,
Till it broadens out into the bay.

Far down at the mouth of this slow-winding stream
Is the city of Never, I hear,
And those who would drift on the eddying tide
Must tie at its tumbledown pier.

So if you wouldn't go to the city I've named,
Don't ask me the "why" or the "how";
Just portage today, to the stream o'er the hill,
That turbulent river, the "Now"!

— Stillman J. Elwell
From his book "Windows of Thought"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Brunswick Town, North Carolina

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Enraptured

There's a glory in the heavens
That no artist's brush reveals,
And no poet's pen expresses
All the wonderment he feels;
The majestic snow-clad mountain
And the prairie's rolling span
Put to shame the noblest effort
Of the puny mind of man!

In the bridge that spans the chasm
And the spire against the sky,
With the utmost skill and patience,
Man has sought to please the eye,
But when nature clothes the woodland
In the scarlet robes of fall,
Yonder maple on the hillside
Is more beautiful than all!
If I fail to see the beauty
In a lovely work of art,
Or the work of some Old Master
Somehow fails to touch my heart,
Should I miss the golden glory
Of the path some hero trod,
Please forgive me, I'm enraptured
By the Wondrous Works of God!

— Stillman J. Elwell
From his book "Windows of Thought"

Photo by Dan Hardison
Asheville, North Carolina

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Just Once

Just once in the year do the geese fly south,
And once does the first snow fall,
Just once do the buds burst forth in spring,
And once does the corn grow tall!

Just once in the day does the purple East
Light up with the glow of dawn,
And once do the deepening shadows fall,
At dusk, when the sun is gone.

Then how can a person be tired of Life
Or bored in a world like ours?
Where once is the season of crimson leaves
And once is the time of flowers.

For so it is planned in the life of man,
His story is quickly told,
Just once he's a child at his mother's knee,
And once he is gray and old.

Then give me the wisdom, good Lord, to know
The miracles shown to me,
That I may watch any passing day –
Yet never again may see!

— Stillman J. Elwell
(From his book "Windows of Thought")

Photo by Dan Hardison
Off the Coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts

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