You Are Not Alone

Edgar A. Guest. A poet of the common, everyday people and for the common, everyday people.
Among my many poetry books, I cherish a 1934 volume of Mr. Guest’s poetry. Don’t worry Barbara Kaufman Boyer, the book is yours, but not just yet. I’ve a few things I plan on doing before you lay claim to it.
I know, today’s poem is, say, old-fashioned, and terribly out of date, but you’ve got to admit: the reader does not have to work up a sweat ‘getting the lid off’ before consuming the contents. So, without apology, and in memory of Edgar A. Guest, I give you. . .

When your world turns topsy-turvy, nothing seems to come out right:
when you think hope is behind you and you’ve lost your will to fight:
when the struggle is all uphill and you’re tempted near to tears,
it takes a heap of courage to face your doubts and fears.
There are always those about you whom you’d think Dame Fortune’s child,
who have never walked in sorrow and on whom the gods have smiled,
but if you knew them better there’s no doubt that you would find,
they turn their clouds all inside out to find them golden-lined.

So when the clouds are hanging all about you grim and gray;
when you think that loss and heartbreak is your fate day after day,
just remember there’s a sun behind those clouds that trouble you
and happiness may yet be yours when it comes breaking through.