Thoughts Are Things

I hold it true that thoughts are things;
They’re endowed with bodies
and breath and wings:

And that we send them forth to fill
The world with good results, or ill.

That which we call our secret thought
Speeds forth to earth’s remotest spot,
Leaving its blessings or its woes
Like tracks behind it as it goes.

We build our future, thought by thought,
For good or ill, yet know it not.

Yet so the universe was wrought.
Thought is another name for fate;

Choose then thy destiny and wait,
For love brings love and hate brings hate.

Henry Van Dyke