the optimistic philosopher
In a 1917 article for the Missouri Ruralist, Laura Ingalls Wilder commented that she could only remember the refrain of a poem entitled If We Only Understood. Below is the entire poem, often attributed to Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), but appearing in a number of publications from 1910 to 1915 as anonymously written.

Could we but draw back the curtain
That surrounds each other's lives,
See the naked heart and spirit,
Know what spur the action drives,
Often we would find it clearer,
Purer than we judge we would--
We would love each other better
If we only understood.

Could we judge all deeds by motives,
See the good and bad within,
Often we would love the sinner
All the while we loathed the sin.
Could we know the powers working
To o'erthrow integrity,
We would judge each other's errors
With more patient charity.

If we knew the care and trials,
Knew the efforts all in vain,
All the bitter disappointment,
Understood the loss and gain.
Would the grim external roughness
Seem, I wonder, just the same?
Would we help where now we hinder?
Would we pity where now we blame?

Ah! we judge each other harshly,
Knowing not life's hidden force;
Knowing not the fount of action
Is less turbid at its source;
Seeing not amid the evil
All the golden strains of good--
Oh, we'd love each other better,
If we only understood.

- posted by pioneergirl at 11:05 AM