STH
short for "Small Town History" is a
new series I 'm starting.
The idea of the
series is to have caches that take you to a place
of
historical
interest or have some historical trivia associated with
it.
If you know of
any such places please place a cache there and add to the
series.
Or let me know
and I will add a cache for you.
This cache will take you to a historical
marker.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1850-1919)
A wisconsin poetess most famous for the
first line of the poem "Solitude" which
begins,
"Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone."
Ella Was born in 1855 a few miles from
Madison, Wis. Her father traced his ancestry to Ethan Allen,
and she herself claimed descent on her
mother's side from Pocahontas.
SOLITUDE
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of it's own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are
crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
The Man Worth
While
It is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is one who will smile,
When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.
It is easy enough to be prudent,
When nothing tempts you to stray,
When without or within no voice of sin
Is luring your soul away;
But it's only a negative virtue
Until it is tried by fire,
And the life that is worth the honor on earth
Is the one that resists desire.
By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,
Who had no strength for the strife,
The world's highway is cumbered today;
They make up the sum of life.
But the virtue that conquers passion,
And the sorrow that hides in a smile,
It is these that are worth the homage on earth
For we find them but once in a while.
The Winds of
Fate
One ship drives east and another drives
west
With the selfsame winds that
blow.
'Tis the set of the
sails,
And Not the gales,
That tell us the way to
go.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways
of fate;
As we voyage along through
life,
'Tis the set of a
soul
That decides its
goal,
And not the calm or the
strife.