<h2><SPAN name="PREPARATION" id="PREPARATION"></SPAN>PREPARATION</h2>
<div class="poetry">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">“I have no time for those things now,” we say;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">“But in the future just a little way,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No longer by this ceaseless toil oppressed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I shall have leisure then for thought and rest.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">When I the debts upon my land have paid,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or on foundations firm my business laid,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I shall take time for discourse long and sweet<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With those beloved who round my hearthstone meet;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I shall take time on mornings still and cool<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To seek the freshness dim of wood and pool,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where, calmed and hallowed by great Nature’s peace,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">My life from its hot cares shall find release;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I shall take time to think on destiny,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of what I was and am and yet shall be,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Till in the hush my soul may nearer prove<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To that great Soul in whom we live and move.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All this I shall do sometime but not now—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The press of business cares will not allow.”<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And thus our life glides on year after year;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The promised leisure never comes more near.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Perhaps the aim on which we placed our mind<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is high, and its attainment slow to find;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</SPAN></span><br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or if we reach the mark that we have set,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">We still would seek another, farther yet.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Thus all our youth, our strength, our time go past<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Till death upon the threshold stands at last,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And back unto our Maker we must give<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The life we spent preparing well to live.<br/></span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</SPAN></span></div>
</div></div>
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