CJ's World

My Symphony

Author: William Henry Channing
Illustrator: Mary Engelbreit

(This little book sits on my piano)

To live content with small means.
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
    and refinement rather than fashion.
To be worthy not respectable,
    and wealthy not rich.
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently,
    act frankly, to listen to stars, birds, babes,
    and sages with open heart, to bear all cheerfully,
    do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual,
    unbidden and unconscious,
    grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony. 

William Henry Channing (1810 – 1884), a clergyman, philosopher, and writer, became chaplain of the US Congress. A strong supporter of women’s rights, he was a close friend of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Mary Engelbreit, well-known illustrator, fell in love with this poem, “believing that its message was as significant in our time as it was in Channing’s… beauty to be found all around us if we’ll just stop long enough to see, hear, and appreciate the world — and follow our heart.”