Autumn's Rainbow

Like a rainbow circling overhead,
Are leaves of the maple, gold and red,
And yellow and violet, golden and brown
A shower of leaves is falling down.

Fluttering sadly in their last flight,
The autumn leaves make a pretty sight.
Covering the earth with a golden glow,
They make for the earth a bright rainbow.

MEV
1929

Autumn Days

O blissful autumn days,
Please linger here awhile
We love thy winsome ways
Our minds thou dost beguile.

Thy days are filled with peace;
Thy nights, with incense sweet,
Are far too short for us,
Thy moments all too fleet.

The splendor of thy hours
From fleeting night ‘till dawn
Proclaim thy sudden death;
Thou’rt swifter than a fawn.

I’d love to grasp thee tight
And never let thee go—
For winter with its cold
And ice and frost and snow.

M.E. Van Order
1926

A Cleansing

Like line, snow white,
Drying in the breeze;
Sun-bleached, immaculate,
Requiring nothing more
But folding and giving to each
Satin fold a crease,
Then laid away in lavender
Ready to adorn, to satisfy and please.

So must my mind and soul
Become snow-white,
Drained of darkness,
Filtered through with Love,
Each corner filled with charity and peace,
Ready and immaculate
To soar above and live with angels
In everlasting light.

Maud E. Van Order

Yesterday

The time is at hand
When I can’t see today
For the days that have gone;
For those sweet yesterdays
Of unrealized joy,
When I was a girl
And when you were my boy

Yes the time is at hand
When today seems a myth,
And the days that are gone
Are my memories gold.
What care I for today,
For I live for the joy
That I once was your girl,
When you were my boy.

Song Lyric
M.E.V.
1935

My Prayer

I hope to ever keep the white light burning in my soul,

And ever keep my ideals clean and whole.

I hope to shun the dark and dreary ways,

Keeping my eyes toward the light always,

I hope to leave a ray of light when the day is done,

To help my children dear to follow on.

Maud E. Van Order
(my Great-Grandmother)
July 10 1946

Earthly Treasures

A bough of apple blossoms
Rain washed ‘neath blue sky
A yellow tulip leaning
Against a wall nearby
A bluebird perched upon a bush
Trilling a gladsome lay,
A spray of goldenrod a-smiling
And nodding across the way
A sparkling April shower
A rainbow lighting the sky
A row of purple lilacs etched
Against the twilight
Of a sweet spring night,
And over all canopy
Of heaven’s starry light
A group of little children romping
Beneath a gnarled old apple tree,
These are few of earth’s bright treasures
To make life sweet for you and me

By Maud Elinor Van Order

Doubt

Doubt

Doubt

When black stark grief,
Sudden and without warning,
Strikes at our lives,
Lays waste to our finer emotions,
Seeks to dull or minds
And stop our hearts from beating,
That’s when we doubt.

But why doubt, when God is still above us,
Ready to shelter us, and with His love protect us,
From the viler things of life.
That would molest us,
Even from the grief that is,
Almost our undoing,
Why should we doubt!

MEV (my Great Grandmother)