Speak but the little words of truth And they shall live when thou hast ceased to be; The lips by trial daily put to proof Breathe nothing sweeter than sincerity, Helping thy brother to be true like thee.
Speak but the little words of love And they shall linger when the tongue is still; For whether there be thrones they shall remove, But love abideth all our thoughts to fill And fashioneth remembrance as it will.
Speak but the little words of hope And they shall cheer the way when cometh night To thee or others who in dark would grope But for the courage of thy humble light Fed by the oil of promise--“All comes right.”
Speak but the little words of trust And they shall rob the struggle of its cross, The heart of sorrow’s bitterness, the dust Of victory o’er our dead--for out of loss Trust sees eternal gain transform the dross.
A little stream sprang from its distant source, And through the peopled valley with a song It held its smiling uneventful course, Grateful with cooling draught the whole year long, Till they who daily drank of it grew strong.
A little star shone softly in the night, And in the many-gloried heavenly host It shed a true and never-failing light; So that for constancy ’twas loved the most Because for lack of it no way was lost.
A little coin was passed from hand to hand, And humbly served its mission day by day In the life-needs its value could command; Pure gold it was though small in currency, And many a debt of want sufficed to pay.
A humble life was lived where others felt Its truth and worth to hand and lip and eye; And when ’twas spent its debtors mutely knelt To thank the Giver for its ministry-- The stream, the star, the coin they travelled by,
The vanished life whose benison of grace Was like the cup of water or the beam Of friendly light or as the gold whose base Of humanness, though it might dull the gleam, Yet perisheth and leaves its worth supreme.
O tear of grief from stricken spirit wrung By nature’s requisition of our shrined And best-beloved!--if sympathizing tongue Can speak one word of hope or comfort kind By Heaven approved,-- Drop thou upon it like a jewelled sphere Whose trembling iris makes it lovelier!
By such a Heaven-inspired word, O tear Of human sorrow, thou art made to be Divinely thrilled with comforting more dear Than helpless love or hopeless sympathy!-- For thou art filled With visions now of soul’s supremer sphere, Like thine but infinite in love, O tear!