One hope dies another rises up by JOSEPH ADDISON

One hope no sooner dies in us but another rises up in its stead. We are apt to fancy that we shall be happy and satisfied if we possess ourselves of such and such particular enjoyments; but either by reason of their emptiness, or the natural inquietude of the mind, we have no sooner gained one point, but we extend our hopes to another. We still find new inviting scenes and landscapes lying behind those which at a distance terminated our view.
JOSEPH ADDISON

Waiting in Hope by Gustave Flaubert

Deep down in her heart, she was waiting and waiting for something to happen. Like a shipwrecked mariner, she gazed out wistfully over the wide solitude of her life, if so be she might catch the white gleam of a sail away on the dim horizon. She knew not what it would be, this longed-for barque; what wind would waft it to her, or to what shores it would bear her away. She knew not if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, burdened with anguish or freighted with joy. But every morning when she awoke she hoped it would come that day. She listened to every sound, started swiftly from her bed, and could not understand why nothing happened. And then at sunset, more sad at heart than ever, she would long for the morrow to come.
Gustave Flaubert,Madame Bovary

ON Grief & Hope by Elizabeth Gilbert

Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Immortality and Hope by Robert Ingersoll.

Music:
Omar Akram-A Day With You

Immortality and Hope
Robert Ingersoll

The idea of immortality,that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed. The hope of another life was in the heart,long before the “sacred books” were written.

It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow – Hope shining upon the tears of grief.

The wanderers hope for home.Hope builds the house and plants the flowers and fills the air with song.

The sick and suffering hope for health.Hope gives them health and paints the roses in their cheeks.

The lonely, the forsaken, hope for love.Hope brings the lover to their arms. They feel the kisses on their eager lips.

The poor in tenements and huts,in spite of rags and hunger,
hope for wealth.Hope fills their thin and trembling
hands with gold.

The dying hopes that death is but another birth,and Love leans above the pallid face and whispers,“We shall meet again.”

Let us hope, if there be a god, that he is wise and good.

Let us hope that if there be another life it will bring
peace and joy to all the children of men.

And let us hope that this poor earth on which we live may be a perfect world – a world without a crime – without a tear.

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

Poetry Celebrating life,hope & Joy : Normal Day by Mary Jean Irion*Each day by Wilferd A. Peterson*Excerpts from"A Song of Joys" by Walt Whitman

Music:
Titanium/Pavane(Piano/Cello Cover)-David Guetta/Faure-ThePianoGuys

Normal Day
Mary Jean Irion

A normal day!Holding it in my hand this one last moment,
I have come to see it as more than an ordinary rock.
It is a gem, a jewel.

In time of war,in peril of death, people have dug their hands and faces into the earth and remembered this. In time of sickness and pain, people have buried their faces in pillows and wept for this.
In time of loneliness and separation,people have stretched
themselves taut and waited for this.In time of hunger,
homelessness, and want, people have raised bony hands
to the skies and stayed alive for this. . . .

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.
Let me learn from you,love you,bless you before you depart.
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.

Let me hold you while I may,for it may not always be so.
One day I shall dig my nails into the earth,or bury my face
in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands
to the sky and want more than all the world your return.
And then I will know what I am now guessing:that you are, indeed, a common rock and not a jewel, but that a common rock made of the very mass substance of the earth in all its strength and plenty puts a gem to shame.
The day is over, and now I will sleep.

Each day
Wilferd A. Peterson

Each day is a lifetime in miniature.
To awaken each morning is to be born again,
to fall asleep at night is to die to the day.
In between waking and sleeping are the golden hours
of the day.What we cannot do for a lifetime we can
do for a daytime.

“Anyone,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson,”can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly,purely,till the sun goes down.”
Anyone can hold their temper for a day
and guard the words they speak.
Anyone can carry their burden heroically for one day.
Anyone can strive to be happy for a day
and to spread happiness around.
Anyone can radiate love for a day.

Anyone can rise above fear for a day and meet each new situation with courage.
Anyone can be kind and thoughtful and considerate for a day.
Anyone can endeavor to learn something new each day
and mark some growth…

The supreme art of living is to strive to live each day well…
Live a day at a time and remember that tomorrow is another today.

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities
and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendor of achievement.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation to the dawn.
Kalidasa,Ancient Sanskrit Poem

Excerpts from”A Song of Joys”
Walt Whitman

O to make the most jubilant song!
Full of music–full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments–full of grain and trees.
O for the voices of animals-O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!
O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!
O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

O the joy of my spirit–it is uncaged–it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,
I will have thousands of globes and all time.

O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human soul is capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless floods.

O the mother’s joys!
The watching,the endurance,the precious love,the anguish,
the patiently yielded life.

O the of increase, growth, recuperation,
The joy of soothing and pacifying,the joy of concord and harmony.

O to go back to the place where I was born,
To hear the birds sing once more,
To ramble about the house and barn
and over the fields once more,
And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.

O the joy of my soul leaning pois’d on itself,receiving identity through materials and loving them,observing characters and absorbing them,
My soul vibrated back to me from them, from sight, hearing, touch, reason, articulation, comparison, memory,and the like,
The real life of my senses and flesh transcending my senses and flesh, my body done with materials,my sight done with my material eyes,
Proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally see,
Nor my material body which finally loves,walks,laughs,shouts, embraces,procreates.

Yet O my soul supreme!
Knowist thou the joys of pensive thought?
Joys of the free and lonesome heart,the tender,gloomy heart?
Joys of the solitary walk,the spirit bow’d yet proud,the suffering and the struggle?
The agonistic throes,the ecstasies,joys of the solemn musings day or night?
Joys of the thought of Death,the great spheres Time and Space? Prophetic joys of better,loftier love’s ideals,the divine wife,
the sweet,eternal,perfect comrade?
Joys all thine own undying one, joys worthy thee O soul.

On Fate by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom,but we hope it,we know it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Motivational & Encouragement Poems:Smiles by Ella Wheeler Wilcox*The Disappointed by Ella Wheeler Wilcox*Die Slowly by Martha Medeiros.

Music:
BRIAN CRAIN-Autumn

Edmund Hodgson Smart Art

Smiles
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Smile a little, smile a little,
As you go along,
Not alone when life is pleasant,
But when things go wrong.
Care delights to see you frowning,
Loves to hear you sigh;
Turn a smiling face upon her,
Quick the dame will fly.

Smile a little, smile a little,
All along the road;
Every life must have its burden,
Every heart its load.
Why sit down in gloom and darkness,
With your grief to sup?
As you drink Fate’s bitter tonic
Smile across the cup.

Smile upon the troubled pilgrims
Whom you pass and meet;
Frowns are thorns, and smiles are blossoms
Oft for weary feet.
Do not make the way seem harder
By a sullen face,
Smile a little, smile a little,
Brighten up the place.

Smile upon your undone labor;
Not for one who grieves
O’er his task, waits wealth or glory;
He who smiles achieves.
Though you meet with loss and sorrow
In the passing years,
Smile a little, smile a little,
Even through your tears.


Sanya Khomenko Photography

The Disappointed
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There are songs enough for the hero
Who dwells on the heights of fame;
I sing of the disappointed–
For those who have missed their aim.
I sing with a tearful cadence
For one who stands in the dark,
And knows that his last, best arrow
Has bounded back from the mark.

I sing for the breathless runner,
The eager, anxious soul,
Who falls with his strength exhausted.
Almost in sight of the goal;
For the hearts that break in silence,
With a sorrow all unknown,
For those who need companions,
Yet walk their ways alone.

There are songs enough for the lovers
Who share love’s tender pain,
I sing for the one whose passion
Is given all in vain.
For those whose spirit comrades
Have missed them on their way,
I sing, with a heart o’erflowing,
This minor strain to-day.

And I know the Solar system
Must somewhere keep in space
A prize for that spent runner
Who barely lost the race.
For the plan would be imperfect
Unless it held some sphere
That paid for the toil and talent
And love that are wasted here.

Die Slowly
Martha Medeiros

He who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience,
dies slowly.

He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones i’s rather than a bundle of emotions,
the kind that make your eyes glimmer,
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound in the face
of mistakes and feelings,
dies slowly.

He or she who does not turn things topsy-turvy,
who is unhappy at work,
who does not risk certainty for uncertainty,
to thus follow a dream,
those who do not forego sound advice
at least once in their lives,
die slowly.

He who does not travel, who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself,
she who does not find grace in herself,
dies slowly.

He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped,
who spends days on end complaining
about his own bad luck,
about the rain that never stops,
dies slowly.

He or she who abandons a project before starting it,
who fails to ask questions on subjects he doesn’t know, he or she who doesn’t reply when they are asked something they do know,
dies slowly.

Let’s try and avoid death in small doses,
reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort
far greater than the simple fact of breathing.
Only a burning patience will lead
to the attainment of a splendid happiness.

The First Day Of My Life by Paulo Coelho

Music:
FRANCIS GOYA-La Playa

The First Day Of My Life
Paulo Coelho
From”MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN ACCRA”

No one can go back, but everyone can go forward.
And tomorrow, when the sun rises, all you have
to say to yourselves is:
I am going to think of this day as the first day of my life.

I will look on the members of my family with surprise and amazement,glad to discover that they are by my side, silently sharing that little understood thing called love.

I will pass a beggar, who will ask me for money.
I might give it to him or I might walk past thinking
that he will only spend it on drink, and as I do,
I will hear his insults and know that it is simply
his way of communicating with me.

I will pass someone trying to destroy a bridge.
I might try to stop him or I might realise that he
is doing it because he has no one waiting for him
on the other side and this is his way of trying to
fend off his own loneliness.

Instead of noting down things I’m unlikely to forget,
I will write a poem.
Even if I have never written one before and even if I never do so again, I will at least know that I once had the courage to put my feelings into words.

I will keep smiling, because it pleases me to know that people think I am mad.
My smile is my way of saying: ‘You can destroy my body, but not my soul.’

If it’s sunny tomorrow, I want to look at the sun properly for the first time.
If it’s cloudy, I want to watch to see in which direction the clouds are going.
I always think that I don’t have time or don’t pay enough attention. Tomorrow, though, I will concentrate on the direction taken by the clouds or on the sun’s rays and the shadows they create.

Above my head exists a sky about which all humanity, over thousands of years, has woven a series of reasonable explanations.

Well, I will forget everything I learned about the stars and they will be transformed once more into angels or children or whatever I feel like believing at that moment.

For the first time, I will smile without feeling guilty,
because joy is not a sin.
For the first time, I will avoid anything that makes me suffer, because suffering is not a virtue.
I am living this day as if it were my first and, while it lasts, I will discover things that I did not even know were there.

Even though I have walked past the same places countless times before and said ‘Good morning’ to the same people, tomorrow’s ‘Good morning’ will be different.
It will not be a mere polite formula, but a form of blessing.

And if I’m alone when the night falls, I will go over to window, look up at the sky and feel certain that loneliness is a lie, because the Universe is there to keep me company.

And then I will have lived each hour of my day as if it were a constant surprise to me, to this ‘I’, who was not created by my father or my mother or by school, but by everything I have experienced up until now, and which I suddenly forgot in order to discover it all anew.

And even if this is to be my last day on Earth, I will enjoy it to the full, because I will live it with the innocence of a child, as if I were doing everything for the first time.

It’s Not Too Late by Ron Atchison

It’s Not Too Late
Ron Atchison

It’s not too late… the angel said.
Even though the world’s a mess…
Even though you’re not that young…
Even though you’ve made mistakes and have been afraid
It’s not too late…
And then I saw the world through the angel’s eyes…
I saw the colors I could paint
The bridges I could build
The lives that I could touch
The dreams that could still come true
And it became very clear to me…
That it’s not too late.

Inspirational Hope Quotes

You can cut all the flowers but you
cannot keep Spring from coming.
Pablo Neruda

Blessed is he who expects nothing,
for he shall never be disappointed.
Alexander Pope

I don’t think of all the misery,
but of the beauty that still remains.
Anne Frank

Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.
Robert H. Schuller

Hope is the last thing that dies in man;
and though it be exceedingly deceitful,
yet it is of this good use to us, that
while we are traveling through life it
conducts us in an easier and more pleasant
way to our journey’s end.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that
if you just show up and try to do the right thing,
the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work:
You don’t give up.
Anne Lamott

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you
have not; but remember that what you now have
was once among the things you only hoped for.
Epicurus