COUNT THAT DAY LOST

 

COUNT THAT DAY LOST

Is a poem written by the famous British novelist and poet George Eliot (1819-1880) whose real name was Mary Ann Evans. She is more famous as a writer of novels like Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. These novels show the psychological depth of her characters and her profound  knowledge of British rural life.

            “Count That Day Lost” is an inspirational poem. It inspires the readers to do something good everyday for others, otherwise treat that day as worse than lost. Elsewhere she says it is never too late to be what you might have been and asks : What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?”

            Here is the full text of the poem:

If you sit down at set of sun

And count the acts that you have done,

And, counting find

One self-denying deed, one word

That eased the heart of him who heard;

That fell like sunshine where it went---

Then you may count that day well spent.

 

But if, through all the livelong day,

You’ve cheered no heart, by yea or nay---

If, through it all

You’ve nothing done that you can trace

That brought the sunshine to one face----

No act most small

That helped some soul and nothing cost----

Then count that day as worse than lost.

                                    ********

G.R.Kanwal

24^th November 2023