Found on a slip of paper in
Rock Edwards'
Bible in his handwriting:
Kind hearts are the garden,
Kind thoughts are the roots,
Kind words are the blossoms,
Kind deeds are the fruit.
I am like a tree once cut down,
The new shoots are stronger and livelier than ever.
I am rising I know towards the sky;
The sun shines in my face;
The earth gives me generous sap;
The heaven lights me with reflections of unknown worlds.
Winter is at my back, but eternal spring is in my head.
There I breathe the fragrance of the lilacs as of 20 years ago.
When I go down to the grave, I can say like so many others,
I have finished my days work.
Here - I cannot say I have finished my life;
My days work will begin in the morning.
The tomb is not a blind alley, it is a through lane.
It shines in the twilight, it opens with the dawn.
Found in an autograph book
Miss Ettie Brehaut,
May your life be an arithmetic.
Your joys added,
Your sorrows subtracted,
Your pleasures multiplied,
And troubles divided.
R. S. Edwards
Sodus, June 14th, 1885
