"What Is Owed To Guests Unwanted" by James Frederick William Rowe

What Is Owed To Guests Unwanted

James Frederick William Rowe

The unwelcome guest

Has come unbidden to my door

Disrupting the tranquility of my repose

The felicity of my days

But though a stranger

Though an intruder

It is mine to offer hospitality

To welcome to my table

To warm by my hearth

To make a place for the traveler

Who has journeyed so far

My complaints shall not avail me

Neither my tears, nor my sighs

Not the gnashing of teeth

Nor a moan of displeasure

Shall change what has been allotted to me

All of these are but noises

And as thunder makes no more fearful

The forks of lightning across the boiled skies

The fury of my protests

The intensity of my indignation

Are but loud, empty sounds

I shall rob from the trial its power

I shall steal from it its pain

What it brings I shall endure

Over what I cannot change I shall accept

Concede to all it can correctly cause

But to what it cannot claim

I shall not give as charity

So set you down, o! catastrophe

I've made a place, and here I've waited

You will not find me surprised

I have long been prepared

Poet’s Notes:  This poem is basically Stoic philosophy put to verse. Though I can't say I have managed to live as philosophically as the Stoics are known to have, the ideal of Apatheia, or freedom from the distress of the passions, is a noble goal to guide one's conduct. To deal with one's trouble without complaint magnifying the loss would make us all happier, for we certainly heap more hardship upon ourselves by our conduct. 

The unwelcome guest is some personal calamity that has upset the order of the narrator's life--something bad enough that others might lament, but which he will accept because he can do nothing about it other than accept it.  Whatever happened has been done; it is now part of his life. What matters now is how one reacts to the hardship. Do you cry and whine? Or do you accept what you cannot change and give nothing more to empower it to wreck your life further? The narrator chooses to embrace the pain but to offer it nothing more and so starve the trouble of the suffering that only our consent gives to our woes.

The structure of this poem is three stanzas of eleven verses apiece. There was nothing especially noteworthy in choosing this—it was simply what looked good when I was writing it. I had no problem writing this poem.  I wrote it almost entirely down on one trip on the subway. The theme came to me readily, and the words poured out without effort. 

Editor’s Note:  There is wisdom here--not really new wisdom--but wisdom that bears repeating and that is worth publishing.  I took the "unwanted guest" as a metaphor for just about any unpleasantness, from a woman getting her monthly period (often referred to as an "unwanted guest") to being assigned an unpleasant task at work or an unpleasant customer to serve.  Stephen Covey called choosing one's response to such circumstances "pro-activity," and being pro-active is his first and most important "habit" of highly successful people.  Animals react.  Enlightened humans choose their responses.