"The years seem to rush by now ...."

The years seem to rush by now, and I think of death as a fast approaching end of a journey – double and treble reason for loving as well as working while it is day.

George Eliot

"Flower in the crannied wall ...."

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower – but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"We are very good at preparing to live ...."

We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. 

Thich Nhat Hanh

"While I know myself as a creation of God ...."

“While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.” 

Maya Angelou

"A Day of Sunshine"

O gift of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where though a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach!

O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?

 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow