This is My Life By William Stanley Braithwaite

This is My Life

by William Stanley Braithwaite

To feed my soul with beauty till I die; 

To give my hands a pleasant task to do; 

To keep my heart forever filled anew 

With dreams and wonders which the days supply; 

To love all conscious living, and thereby 

Respect the brute who renders up its due, 

And know the world as planned is good and true- 

And thus -because there chanced to be an I! 

This is my life since things are as they are: 

One half akin to flowers and the grass: 

The rest a law unto the changeless star. 

And I believe when I shall come to pass 

Within the Door His hand shall hold ajar 

I'll leave no echoing whisper of Alas!

William Stanley Braithwaite was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Braithwaite was 12 when his father died, forcing the poet to quit school to support his family. At 15, he was hired as an apprentice at a publishing company, where he learned typesetting, discovered his love of poetry, and began to write his own poems. In his lifetime, Braithwaite published three books of poems and edited many poetry anthologies. He died in Harlem in 1962.