The stick-together families

Cockeyed Optimist
I have been accused on more than one occasion in adult life of wearing rose-tinted glasses. Of being too optimistic, too annoyingly positive; of being too prepared to see another person’s point of view. Of being a glass-half-full kind of sap. A dupe. Too gullible. (I could argue it’s the Libran in me.) Like Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, I try to imagine that I will never understand a person “until you consider things from his point of view…. until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” It’s very hard to do with some people in some situations but it usually allows me to store negative feelings in a box called There’s nowt so queer as folk and sleep at night, counting my own blessings.

Edgar Guest
The “People’s Poet,” Edgar Guest, was introduced to me by pupils I taught when they selected some of his poems to recite at Music and Poetry performance evenings. He was born in England but lived most of his life in Detroit, USA, and his grand-niece, Judith Guest wrote the novel Ordinary People, that was made into one of my favourite films in 1980. Edgar Guest’s poems are undoubtedly sentimental and unlikely to be studied for examinations, but they capture clichéd truths for cockeyed optimists like me and two poems, in particular, have resurfaced from my subconscious as my loved ones begin emerging from Covid-19 Lockdown.

See it Through by Edgar Guest

When you’re up against a trouble,
    Meet it squarely, face to face;
Lift your chin and set your shoulders,
    Plant your feet and take a brace.
When it’s vain to try to dodge it,
    Do the best that you can do;
You may fail, but you may conquer,
    See it through!

Black may be the clouds about you
    And your future may seem grim,
But don’t let your nerve desert you;
    Keep yourself in fighting trim.
If the worst is bound to happen,
    Spite of all that you can do,
Running from it will not save you,
    See it through!

Even hope may seem but futile,
    When with troubles you’re beset,
But remember you are facing
    Just what other men have met.
You may fail, but fall still fighting;
    Don’t give up, whate’er you do;
Eyes front, head high to the finish.
    See it through!

The Stick-Together Families by Edgar Guest
The stick-together families are happier by far
Than the brothers and the sisters who take separate highways are.
The gladdest people living are the wholesome folks who make
A circle at the fireside that no power but death can break.
And the finest of conventions ever held beneath the sun
Are the little family gatherings when the busy day is done.

There are rich folk, there are poor folk, who imagine they are wise,
And they're very quick to shatter all the little family ties.
Each goes searching after pleasure in his own selected way,
Each with strangers likes to wander, and with strangers likes to play.
But it's bitterness they harvest, and it's empty joy they find,
For the children that are wisest are the stick-together kind.

There are some who seem to fancy that for gladness they must roam,
That for smiles that are the brightest they must wander far from home.
That the strange friend is the true friend, and they travel far astray.
They waste their lives in striving for a joy that's far away,
But the gladdest sort of people, when the busy day is done,
Are the brothers and the sisters who together share their fun.

It's the stick-together family that wins the joys of earth,
That hears the sweetest music and that finds the finest mirth;
It's the old home roof that shelters all the charm that life can give;
There you find the gladdest play-ground, there the happiest spot to live.
And, O weary, wandering brother, if contentment you would win,
Come you back unto the fireside and be comrade with your kin.