The Weight Of The World Poem by Stephen Wylie

The harshness of the world is there;
It bends our minds towards despair.
Yet since we cannot make things well,
Should we on all this cruelty dwell?

To ponder distant hardship's yoke,
Was not the way of ancient folk.
They knew naught of what lay beyond
Hearth and home and village pond.

To think too much on evil's banes,
Our brain's resources slowly drains.
To contemplate the tyrants' ways,
The groundwork for deep sadness lays.

In simple ways to take our shelter,
Protects us from the Devil's smelter;
Or else we might succumb to rage,
In fury we might quickly age.

So grant us peaceful meditation,
In Christian style or else in Asian;
Let joy infuse our total being,
A quiet refuge from sorrow seeing.