"Life" by Ronald Reagan

This poem, written by Reagan when he was seventeen years old, was published in his high-school yearbook, 1928.

LIFE

I wonder what it's all about, and why
We suffer so, when little things go wrong?
We make our life a struggle,
When life should be a song.

Our troubles break and drench us,
Like spray on the cleaving prow
Of some trim Gloucester schooner
As it dips in a graceful bow.

Our troubles break and drench us
But like that cleaving prow,
The wind will fan and dry us.
And we'll watch some other bow.

But why does sorrow drench us
When our fellow passes on?
He's just exchanged life's dreary dirge
For an eternal life of song.

What is the inborn human trait
That frowns on a life of song?
That makes us weep at the journey's end,
When the journey was oft-times wrong?

Weep when we reach the door
That opens to let us in,
And brings to us eternal peace
As it closes again on sin.

Millions have gone before us,
And millions will come behind.
So why do we curse and fight
At a fate both wise and kind.

We hang onto a jaded life
A life full of sorrow and pain.
A life that warps and breaks us,
And we try to run through it again.

R.R., '28.

Reagan: In His Own Hand (2001), ed. Skinner & Anderson & Anderson, pp. 426f.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States of America, died today at age 93.

Requiescat in pace.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 06/05/04 05:58:12 PM
Categorized as Farewell to the Great Liberator & Literary & Ronald Reagan.