By Lim Soo Ping
I am not into poetry beyond childhood nursery rhymes. So it was with some trepidation that I had to study Romantic and Victorian poetry in my first year in engineering school. English literature was a compulsory course for all students at the University of Alberta in the Seventies.
In English 210, we also studied modern poetry (e.g. “The Hollow Men” by T. S. Elliot) and works of William Shakespeare (“King Lear”), Charles Dickens (“The Mystery of Edwin Drood”), Nathaniel Hawthorne (“The Scarlet Letter”) and modern playwrights such as LeRoi Jones (“The Dutchman & The Slave”).
In my later years, I would begin to enjoy the beauty of the occasional poems that I came across. I appreciate too the poetic nature of some popular songs such as “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”, which was composed and sung by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.
Recently, I came across a poem that really touched me. It is “Have You Earned Your Tomorrow?” by Edgar Albert Guest, an American who lived from 1881 to 1959.
Guest started his career in 1895 at the Detroit Free Press where he was a “copyboy”. Nine years later, he started writing poems for the newspaper company. His daily column called “Breakfast Table Chat” became very popular. For thirty years, Guest published a new poem every day!
In 1952, Edgar Albert Guest was appointed Poet Laureate for the US State of Michigan. The citation has this line:
“Thousands of people in the State of Michigan throughout the years have looked to the poems of Edgar A. Guest for moral support in times of stress and have enjoyed his subtle humor and homespun philosophy.”
“Have You Earned Your Tomorrow?” commends the virtue of kindness in our everyday life. It encourages us to live each day with humanity and consideration for others.
Do read this inspiring poem by Edgar Albert Guest. Then watch the video that follows, which brings the poem to life.
“HAVE YOU EARNED YOUR TOMORROW?”
by Edgar Albert Guest
Is anybody happier because you passed his way?
Does anyone remember that you spoke to him today?
This day is almost over, and its toiling time is through;
Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you?
Did you give a cheerful greeting to the friend who came along?
Or a churlish sort of “Howdy” and then vanish in the throng?
Were you selfish, pure and simple, as you rushed along the way,
Or is someone mighty grateful for a deed you did today?
Can you say tonight, in parting with the day that’s slipping fast,
That you helped a single brother of the many that you passed?
Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did or said;
Does a man whose hopes were fading now with courage look ahead?
Did you waste the day, or lose it? Was it well or sorely spent?
Did you leave a trail of kindness or a scar of discontent?
As you close your eyes in slumber, do you think that God would say,
You have earned one more tomorrow by the work you did today?
Lim Soo Ping
Video: Have You Earned Your Tomorrow – As recited by Simerjeet Singh
(Featured image by Jon Asato on Unsplash)