LOOKING BEHIND THE SCENES

Why are you threatening unemployment?

 - I'm afraid of poverty too!

 Why must you scare my

 prodigal heart with misery?

 - I was afraid of opportunity!

 Why do you make the mice drink

 the music of the showers,

 you little brat?

 - I have borne the self-pity

 of great souls as long as

 I have been: 

I should be content,

 and not unhappy in error,

 as others think and suppose! 

It is easy to laugh at other

 men's blunders,

 when you laugh at your own!

 The millstones of trouble and earthly

 things that bind men together

 cannot be forgotten!

 Yet it is facing our daily 

trials with honesty that shows:

 As a man, blood thyself,

 and never let thy cheap

 temptations give thee up

 in thy frivolity!

- Look at thy own face:

 orphaned childish eyes gaze on thee,

 From the imprisonment

 of crystal vaults opposite.

 How is it possible that still

 the proud and unruly shadows

 of childhood traumas come

 back to haunt you?

 How is this possible,

 if we look at the earthly

 copies of our offspring with

 a caring fatherly heart under

 the telescope: 

we are looked upon with

 the joyous independent playfulness

 of little men,

 and wonder that we can

 again build palaces

 and beautiful castles

 by pushing cars on carpets,

 and curling up in Lego constructions!

 - Stumbling and stumbling,

 it would be a most religious idea:

 to forgive ourselves at last,

 and with a playfulness

 well thought out,

 to unwind the drab

 monotony of adulthood!