Left Undone

Left Undone
Margaret E Sangster
2024

It isn’t the thing you do, dear,
It’s the thing you’ve left undone
Which gives you a bit of a heartache
At the setting of the sun
The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flower you might have sent, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts tonight;
The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother’s way
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say,
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for,
With troubles enough of your own,
The little acts of kindness
So easily out of mind
Those chances to be angels
Which all of us mortals find;
They come in night and allence
Each chill, reproachful wraith
When hope is faint and nagging
And a blight has dropped on falth
For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late:
And it’s not the thing you do, dear,
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you the bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun