We meet many men of sorrow
oh much deeper than our own pain
Wisdom and strength they all borrow
washed by waters of life’s own rain

Each of us ponders life’s reason
looking deep within our own soul
We follow each path and season
that vainly we seek to control

The sands they burn up like cinders
that the winds have tossed ’round and strew
Each hope, our time does now hinder
what wasn’t, we find is now true

No man could be called a lost soul
whose help to another he lends
The shoulder he gives to console
will earn him a life, full of friends

Chase not the rung of the ladder
that will place you above the rest
When alone what will it matter
if a loveless life, you attest

So small the pain of his distress
whose earnings don’t tell of his worth
An honest man, this life will bless
no matter his fortunes at birth

“My mother, had 4 of us to care for go back to school and work. I sometimes wonder why she didn’t drop dead from the work. I meant this to be an endearing piece to honor the struggles of life. It has been an observation of my own life that the men I valued most seemed to own the least. This is so true that I cannot deny it. I imagine it was true life struggles that gave to them their great nature. I simply wish to shine the light upon our own misguided ways. The worship of the almighty dollar has never tucked a child into bed. Nor held the hand of a grieving woman. Money cannot buy love. Nor can it manufacture it. The reason the son of a rich man can wreck a 50,000 dollar car and think nothing of it is simple. To him that is what his father was willing to pay to placate the son. In the mind of the child the car is what the father is giving him to replace the time he doesn’t have for him. So since the child’s life is not important to the father neither is the car valued by the son.” – Tate