The Land of Beginning Again

Louisa Fletcher

The Land of Beginning Again

I wish that there were some wonderful place

Called the land of Beginning Again,

Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches

And all of our poor selfish grief

Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door,

And never put on again.

I wish we could come on it all unaware,

Like the hunter who finds a lost trail;

And I wish that the one whom our blindness had done 

The greatest injustice of all

Could be at the gates like an old friend that waits

For the comrade he's gladdest to hail.

We would find all the things we intended to do

But forgot, and remembered too late,

Little praises unspoken, little promises broken,

And all of the thousand and one

Little duties neglected that might have perfected

The day for one less fortunate.

It wouldn't be possible not to be kind

In the land of Beginning Again;

And the ones we misjudged and the ones

Whom we grudged

The moments of victory here

Would find in the grasp of our loving handclasp

More than penitent lips could explain

For what had been hardest we'd know had been best

And what had seemed loss would be gain;

For there isn't a sting that will not take wing

When we've faced it and laughed it away;

And I think that the laughter is most what we're after

In the land of Beginning Again.

So I wish that there were some wonderful place

Called the land of Beginning Again,

Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches

And all of our poor selfish grief

Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door,

And never be put on again.

- Louisa Fletcher, in The Land of Beginning Again