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authorRoger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>2025-10-15 04:48:29 -0700
committerRoger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>2025-10-15 04:48:29 -0700
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Riley Songs of Home, by James Whitcomb Riley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Riley Songs of Home
+
+Author: James Whitcomb Riley
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16265]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RILEY SONGS OF HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Scott G. Sims and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+RILEY
+SONGS OF HOME
+
+JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
+
+
+WITH PICTURES BY
+WILL VAWTER
+
+
+NEW YORK
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+1910
+BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
+
+
+
+TO
+GEORGE A. CARR
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ AS CREATED 56
+ AS MY UNCLE USED TO SAY 126
+ AT SEA 160
+ BACKWARD LOOK, A 155
+ BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH, THE 123
+ BOYS, THE 104
+ "BRAVE REFRAIN, A" 113
+ DREAMER, SAY 61
+ FEEL IN THE CHRIS'MAS AIR, A 52
+ FOR YOU 50
+ GOOD MAN, A 132
+ HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS 189
+ HIS ROOM 38
+ HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB 125
+ "HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?" 94
+ IN THE EVENING 115
+ IT'S GOT TO BE 107
+ JACK-IN-THE-BOX 100
+ JIM 117
+ JOHN McKEEN 165
+ JUST TO BE GOOD 26
+ KNEELING WITH HERRICK 138
+ LAUGHTER HOLDING BOTH HIS SIDES 81
+ MULBERRY TREE, THE 46
+ MY DANCIN' DAYS IS OVER 184
+ MY FRIEND 29
+ NATURAL PERVERSITIES 70
+ NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE 36
+ OLD DAYS, THE 135
+ OLD GUITAR, THE 161
+ OLD TRUNDLE-BED, THE 64
+ OUR BOYHOOD HAUNTS 182
+ OUR KIND OF A MAN 92
+ OUR OWN 63
+ "OUT OF REACH?" 112
+ OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE 98
+ PLAINT HUMAN, THE 43
+ QUEST, THE 44
+ RAINY MORNING, THE 141
+ REACH YOUR HAND TO ME 143
+ SCRAWL, A 75
+ SONG OF PARTING 90
+ SONG OF YESTERDAY, THE 82
+ SPRING SONG AND A LATER, A 137
+ "THEM OLD CHEERY WORDS" 172
+ THINKIN' BACK 31
+ THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND 170
+ TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN 145
+ TO THE JUDGE 177
+ WE MUST BELIEVE 130
+ WE MUST GET HOME 19
+ WHERE-AWAY 57
+ WHO BIDES HIS TIME 68
+ WRITIN' BACK TO THE HOME-FOLKS 76
+
+
+
+
+RILEY SONGS OF HOME
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WE MUST GET HOME
+
+
+We must get home! How could we stray like this?--
+So far from home, we know not where it is,--
+Only in some fair, apple-blossomy place
+Of children's faces--and the mother's face--
+We dimly dream it, till the vision clears
+Even in the eyes of fancy, glad with tears.
+
+We must get home--for we have been away
+So long, it seems forever and a day!
+And O so very homesick we have grown,
+The laughter of the world is like a moan
+In our tired hearing, and its song as vain,--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+We must get home! With heart and soul we yearn
+To find the long-lost pathway, and return!...
+The child's shout lifted from the questing band
+Of old folk, faring weary, hand in hand,
+But faces brightening, as if clouds at last
+Were showering sunshine on us as we passed.
+
+We must get home: It hurts so staying here,
+Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear,
+And where to wear wet lashes means, at best,
+When most our lack, the least our hope of rest--
+When most our need of joy, the more our pain--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We must get home--home to the simple things--
+The morning-glories twirling up the strings
+And bugling color, as they blared in blue-
+And-white o'er garden-gates we scampered through;
+The long grape-arbor, with its under-shade
+Blue as the green and purple overlaid.
+
+We must get home: All is so quiet there:
+The touch of loving hands on brow and hair--
+Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild--
+The lost love of the mother and the child
+Restored in restful lullabies of rain,--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+The rows of sweetcorn and the China beans
+Beyond the lettuce-beds where, towering, leans
+The giant sunflower in barbaric pride
+Guarding the barn-door and the lane outside;
+The honeysuckles, midst the hollyhocks,
+That clamber almost to the martin-box.
+
+We must get home, where, as we nod and drowse,
+Time humors us and tiptoes through the house,
+And loves us best when sleeping baby-wise,
+With dreams--not tear-drops--brimming our clenched eyes,--
+Pure dreams that know nor taint nor earthly stain--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+We must get home! The willow-whistle's call
+Trills crisp and liquid as the waterfall--
+Mocking the trillers in the cherry-trees
+And making discord of such rhymes as these,
+That know nor lilt nor cadence but the birds
+First warbled--then all poets afterwards.
+
+We must get home; and, unremembering there
+All gain of all ambition otherwhere,
+Rest--from the feverish victory, and the crown
+Of conquest whose waste glory weighs us down.--
+Fame's fairest gifts we toss back with disdain--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+We must get home again--we must--we must!--
+(Our rainy faces pelted in the dust)
+Creep back from the vain quest through endless strife
+To find not anywhere in all of life
+A happier happiness than blest us then ...
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+JUST TO BE GOOD
+
+
+Just to be good--
+ This is enough--enough!
+O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,
+Do we not feel how more than any gold
+Would be the blameless life we led of old
+While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
+ Ah! though we miss
+ All else but this,
+ To be good is enough!
+
+It is enough--
+ Enough--just to be good!
+To lift our hearts where they are understood;
+To let the thirst for worldly power and place
+Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
+With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
+ Ah! though we miss
+ All else but this,
+ To be good is enough!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+MY FRIEND
+
+
+"He is my friend," I said,--
+"Be patient!" Overhead
+The skies were drear and dim;
+And lo! the thought of him
+Smiled on my heart--and then
+The sun shone out again!
+
+"He is my friend!" The words
+Brought summer and the birds;
+And all my winter-time
+Thawed into running rhyme
+And rippled into song,
+Warm, tender, brave and strong.
+
+And so it sings to-day.--
+So may it sing alway!
+Though waving grasses grow
+Between, and lilies blow
+Their trills of perfume clear
+As laughter to the ear,
+Let each mute measure end
+With "Still he is thy friend."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THINKIN' BACK
+
+
+I've ben thinkin' back, of late,
+S'prisin'!--And I'm here to state
+I'm suspicious it's a sign
+Of _age_, maybe, or decline
+Of my faculties,--and yit
+I'm not _feelin'_ old a bit--
+Any more than sixty-four
+Ain't no _young_ man any more!
+
+Thinkin' back's a thing 'at grows
+On a feller, I suppose--
+Older 'at he gits, i jack,
+More he keeps a-thinkin' back!
+Old as old men git to be,
+Er as middle-aged as me,
+Folks'll find us, eye and mind
+Fixed on what we've left behind--
+Rehabilitatin'-like
+Them old times we used to hike
+Out barefooted fer the crick,
+'Long 'bout _Aprile first_--to pick
+Out some "warmest" place to go
+In a-swimmin'--_Ooh! my-oh!_
+Wonder now we hadn't died!
+Grate horseradish on my hide
+Jes' _a-thinkin'_ how cold then
+That-'ere worter must 'a' ben!
+
+Thinkin' back--W'y, goodness me!
+I kin call their names and see
+Every little tad I played
+With, er fought, er was afraid
+Of, and so made _him_ the best
+Friend I had of all the rest!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thinkin' back, I even hear
+Them a-callin', high and clear,
+Up the crick-banks, where they seem
+Still hid in there--like a dream--
+And me still a-pantin' on
+The green pathway they have gone!
+Still they hide, by bend er ford--
+Still they hide--but, thank the Lord,
+(Thinkin' back, as I have said),
+I hear laughin' on ahead!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE
+
+
+We are not always glad when we smile:
+ Though we wear a fair face and are gay,
+ And the world we deceive
+ May not ever believe
+ We could laugh in a happier way.--
+Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,
+ Ofttimes, with our faces aglow,
+ There's an ache and a moan
+ That we know of alone,
+And as only the hopeless may know.
+
+We are not always glad when we smile,--
+ For the heart, in a tempest of pain,
+ May live in the guise
+ Of a smile in the eyes
+ As a rainbow may live in the rain;
+And the stormiest night of our woe
+ May hang out a radiant star
+ Whose light in the sky
+ Of despair is a lie
+As black as the thunder-clouds are.
+
+We are not always glad when we smile!--
+ But the conscience is quick to record,
+ All the sorrow and sin
+ We are hiding within
+ Is plain in the sight of the Lord:
+And ever, O ever, till pride
+ And evasion shall cease to defile
+ The sacred recess
+ Of the soul, we confess
+We are not always glad when we smile.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+HIS ROOM
+
+
+"I'm home again, my dear old Room,
+ I'm home again, and happy, too,
+As, peering through the brightening gloom,
+ I find myself alone with you:
+ Though brief my stay, nor far away,
+ I missed you--missed you night and day--
+ As wildly yearned for you as now.--
+ Old Room, how are you, anyhow?
+
+"My easy chair, with open arms,
+ Awaits me just within the door;
+The littered carpet's woven charms
+ Have never seemed so bright before,--
+ The old rosettes and mignonettes
+ And ivy-leaves and violets,
+ Look up as pure and fresh of hue
+ As though baptized in morning dew.
+
+"Old Room, to me your homely walls
+ Fold round me like the arms of love,
+And over all my being falls
+ A blessing pure as from above--
+ Even as a nestling child caressed
+ And lulled upon a loving breast,
+ With folded eyes, too glad to weep
+ And yet too sad for dreams or sleep.
+
+"You've been so kind to me, old Room--
+ So patient in your tender care,
+My drooping heart in fullest bloom
+ Has blossomed for you unaware;
+ And who but you had cared to woo
+ A heart so dark, and heavy, too,
+ As in the past you lifted mine
+ From out the shadow to the shine?
+
+"For I was but a wayward boy
+ When first you gladly welcomed me
+And taught me work was truer joy
+ Than rioting incessantly:
+ And thus the din that stormed within
+ The old guitar and violin
+ Has fallen in a fainter tone
+ And sweeter, for your sake alone.
+
+"Though in my absence I have stood
+ In festal halls a favored guest,
+I missed, in this old quietude,
+ My worthy work and worthy rest--
+ By _this_ I know that long ago
+ You loved me first, and told me so
+ In art's mute eloquence of speech
+ The voice of praise may never reach.
+
+"For lips and eyes in truth's disguise
+ Confuse the faces of my friends,
+Till old affection's fondest ties
+ I find unraveling at the ends;
+ But as I turn to you, and learn
+ To meet my griefs with less concern,
+ Your love seems all I have to keep
+ Me smiling lest I needs must weep.
+
+"Yet I am happy, and would fain
+ Forget the world and all its woes;
+So set me to my tasks again,
+ Old Room, and lull me to repose:
+ And as we glide adown the tide
+ Of dreams, forever side by side,
+ I'll hold your hands as lovers do
+ Their sweethearts' and talk love to you."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE PLAINT HUMAN
+
+
+Season of snows, and season of flowers,
+ Seasons of loss and gain!--
+Since grief and joy must alike be ours,
+ Why do we still complain?
+
+Ever our failing, from sun to sun,
+ O my intolerant brother--
+We want just a little too little of one,
+ And much too much of the other.
+
+
+
+
+THE QUEST
+
+
+I am looking for Love. Has he passed this way,
+With eyes as blue as the skies of May,
+And a face as fair as the summer dawn?--
+You answer back, but I wander on,--
+For you say: "Oh, yes; but his eyes were gray,
+And his face as dim as a rainy day."
+
+Good friends, I query, I search for Love;
+His eyes are as blue as the skies above,
+And his smile as bright as the midst of May
+When the truce-bird pipes: Has he passed this way?
+And one says: "Ay; but his face, alack!
+Frowned as he passed, and his eyes were black."
+
+O who will tell me of Love? I cry!
+His eyes are as blue as the mid-May sky,
+And his face as bright as the morning sun;
+And you answer and mock me, every one,
+That his eyes were dark, and his face was wan,
+And he passed you frowning and wandered on.
+
+But stout of heart will I onward fare,
+Knowing _my_ Love is beyond--somewhere,--
+The Love I seek, with the eyes of blue,
+And the bright, sweet smile unknown of you;
+And on from the hour his trail is found
+I shall sing sonnets the whole year round.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE MULBERRY TREE
+
+
+It's many's the scenes which is dear to my mind
+As I think of my childhood so long left behind;
+The home of my birth, with it's old puncheon-floor,
+And the bright morning-glories that growed round the door;
+The warped clab-board roof whare the rain it run off
+Into streams of sweet dreams as I laid in the loft,
+Countin' all of the joys that was dearest to me,
+And a-thinkin' the most of the mulberry tree.
+
+And to-day as I dream, with both eyes wide-awake,
+I can see the old tree, and its limbs as they shake,
+And the long purple berries that rained on the ground
+Whare the pastur' was bald whare we trommpt it around.
+And again, peekin' up through the thick leafy shade,
+I can see the glad smiles of the friends when I strayed
+With my little bare feet from my own mother's knee
+To foller them off to the mulberry tree.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Leanin' up in the forks, I can see the old rail,
+And the boy climbin' up it, claw, tooth, and toe-nail,
+And in fancy can hear, as he spits on his hands,
+The ring of his laugh and the rip of his pants.
+But that rail led to glory, as certin and shore
+As I'll never climb thare by that rout' any more--
+What was all the green lauruls of Fame unto me,
+With my brows in the boughs of the mulberry tree!
+
+Then it's who can fergit the old mulberry tree
+That he knowed in the days when his thoughts was as free
+As the flutterin' wings of the birds that flew out
+Of the tall wavin' tops as the boys come about?
+O, a crowd of my memories, laughin' and gay,
+Is a-climbin' the fence of that pastur' to-day,
+And, a-pantin' with joy, as us boys ust to be,
+They go racin' acrost fer the mulberry tree.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOR YOU
+
+
+For you, I could forget the gay
+ Delirium of merriment,
+And let my laughter die away
+ In endless silence of content.
+ I could forget, for your dear sake,
+ The utter emptiness and ache
+ Of every loss I ever knew.--
+ What could I not forget for you?
+
+I could forget the just deserts
+ Of mine own sins, and so erase
+The tear that burns, the smile that hurts,
+ And all that mars or masks my face.
+ For your fair sake I could forget
+ The bonds of life that chafe and fret,
+ Nor care if death were false or true.--
+ What could I not forget for you?
+
+What could I not forget? Ah me!
+ One thing, I know, would still abide
+Forever in my memory,
+ Though all of love were lost beside--
+ I yet would feel how first the wine
+ Of your sweet lips made fools of mine
+ Until they sung, all drunken through--
+ "What could I not forget for you?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A FEEL IN THE CHRIS'MAS-AIR
+
+
+They's a kind o' _feel_ in the air, to me.
+ When the Chris'mas-times sets in.
+That's about as much of a mystery
+ As ever I've run ag'in!--
+Fer instunce, now, whilse I gain in weight
+ And gineral health, I swear
+They's a _goneness_ somers I can't quite state--
+ A kind o' _feel_ in the air.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They's a feel in the Chris'mas-air goes right
+ To the spot where a man _lives_ at!--
+It gives a feller a' appetite--
+ They ain't no doubt about _that_!--
+And yit they's _somepin_'--I don't know what--
+ That follers me, here and there,
+And ha'nts and worries and spares me not--
+ A kind o' feel in the air!
+
+They's a _feel_, as I say, in the air that's jest
+ As blame-don sad as sweet!--
+In the same ra-sho as I feel the best
+ And am spryest on my feet,
+They's allus a kind o' sort of a' _ache_
+ That I can't lo-cate no-where;--
+But it comes with _Chris'mas_, and no mistake!--
+ A kind o' feel in the air.
+
+Is it the racket the childern raise?--
+ W'y, _no_!--God bless 'em!--_no_!--
+Is it the eyes and the cheeks ablaze--
+ Like my _own_ wuz, long ago?--
+Is it the bleat o' the whistle and beat
+ O' the little toy-drum and blare
+O' the horn?--_No! no!_--it is jest the sweet--
+ The sad-sweet feel in the air.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+AS CREATED
+
+
+There's a space for good to bloom in
+ Every heart of man or woman,--
+And however wild or human,
+ Or however brimmed with gall,
+Never heart may beat without it;
+And the darkest heart to doubt it
+Has something good about it
+ After all.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WHERE-AWAY
+
+
+O the Lands of Where-Away!
+Tell us--tell us--where are they?
+Through the darkness and the dawn
+We have journeyed on and on--
+From the cradle to the cross--
+From possession unto loss.--
+Seeking still, from day to day,
+For the Lands of Where-Away.
+
+When our baby-feet were first
+Planted where the daisies burst,
+And the greenest grasses grew
+In the fields we wandered through,--
+On, with childish discontent,
+Ever on and on we went,
+Hoping still to pass, some day,
+O'er the verge of Where-Away.
+
+Roses laid their velvet lips
+On our own, with fragrant sips;
+But their kisses held us not,
+All their sweetness we forgot;--
+Though the brambles in our track
+Plucked at us to hold us back--
+"Just ahead," we used to say,
+"Lie the Lands of Where-Away."
+
+Children at the pasture-bars,
+Through the dusk, like glimmering stars,
+Waved their hands that we should bide
+With them over eventide;
+Down the dark their voices failed
+Falteringly, as they hailed,
+And died into yesterday--
+Night ahead and--Where-Away?
+
+Twining arms about us thrown--
+Warm caresses, all our own,
+Can but stay us for a spell--
+Love hath little new to tell
+To the soul in need supreme,
+Aching ever with the dream
+Of the endless bliss it may
+Find in Lands of Where-Away!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+DREAMER, SAY
+
+
+Dreamer, say, will you dream for me
+ A wild sweet dream of a foreign land,
+Whose border sips of a foaming sea
+ With lips of coral and silver sand;
+Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps,
+ Or lave themselves in the tearful mist
+The great wild wave of the breaker weeps
+ O'er crags of opal and amethyst?
+
+Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream
+ Of tropic shades in the lands of shine,
+Where the lily leans o'er an amber stream
+ That flows like a rill of wasted wine,--
+Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green,
+ Parry the shafts of the Indian sun
+Whose splintering vengeance falls between
+ The reeds below where the waters run?
+
+Dreamer, say, will you dream of love
+ That lives in a land of sweet perfume,
+Where the stars drip down from the skies above
+ In molten spatters of bud and bloom?
+Where never the weary eyes are wet,
+ And never a sob in the balmy air,
+And only the laugh of the paroquette
+ Breaks the sleep of the silence there?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+OUR OWN
+
+
+They walk here with us, hand-in-hand;
+ We gossip, knee-by-knee;
+They tell us all that they have planned--
+ Of all their joys to be,--
+And, laughing, leave us: And, to-day,
+ All desolate we cry
+Across wide waves of voiceless graves--
+ Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD TRUNDLE-BED
+
+
+O the old trundle-bed where I slept when a boy!
+What canopied king might not covet the joy?
+The glory and peace of that slumber of mine,
+Like a long, gracious rest in the bosom divine:
+The quaint, homely couch, hidden close from the light,
+But daintily drawn from its hiding at night.
+O a nest of delight, from the foot to the head,
+Was the queer little, clear little, old trundle-bed!
+
+O the old trundle-bed, where I wondering saw
+The stars through the window, and listened with awe
+To the sigh of the winds as they tremblingly crept
+Through the trees where the robin so restlessly slept:
+Where I heard the low, murmurous chirp of the wren,
+And the katydid listlessly chirrup again,
+Till my fancies grew faint and were drowsily led
+Through the maze of the dreams of the old trundle bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+O the old trundle-bed! O the old trundle-bed!
+With its plump little pillow, and old-fashioned spread;
+Its snowy-white sheets, and the blankets above,
+Smoothed down and tucked round with the touches of love;
+The voice of my mother to lull me to sleep
+With the old fairy-stories my memories keep
+Still fresh as the lilies that bloom o'er the head
+Once bowed o'er my own in the old trundle-bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WHO BIDES HIS TIME
+
+
+Who bides his time, and day by day
+ Faces defeat full patiently,
+And lifts a mirthful roundelay,
+ However poor his fortunes be,--
+He will not fail in any qualm
+ Of poverty--the paltry clime
+It will grow golden in his palm,
+ Who bides his time.
+
+Who bides his time--he tastes the sweet
+ Of honey in the saltest tear;
+And though he fares with slowest feet,
+ Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;
+The birds are heralds of his cause;
+ And, like a never-ending rhyme,
+The roadsides bloom in his applause,
+ Who bides his time.
+
+Who bides his time, and fevers not
+ In the hot race that none achieves,
+Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought
+ With crimson berries in the leaves;
+And he shall reign a goodly king,
+ And sway his hand o'er every clime,
+With peace writ on his signet-ring,
+ Who bides his time.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NATURAL PERVERSITIES
+
+
+I am not prone to moralize
+ In scientific doubt
+On certain facts that Nature tries
+ To puzzle us about,--
+For I am no philosopher
+ Of wise elucidation,
+But speak of things as they occur,
+ From simple observation.
+
+I notice _little_ things--to wit:--
+ I never missed a train
+Because I didn't _run_ for it;
+ I never knew it rain
+That my umbrella wasn't lent,--
+ Or, when in my possession,
+The sun but wore, to all intent,
+ A jocular expression.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I never knew a creditor
+ To dun me for a debt
+But I was "cramped" or "busted;" or
+ I never knew one yet,
+When I had plenty in my purse,
+ To make the least invasion,--
+As I, accordingly perverse,
+ Have courted no occasion.
+
+Nor do I claim to comprehend
+ What Nature has in view
+In giving us the very friend
+ To trust we oughtn't to.--
+But so it is: The trusty gun
+ Disastrously exploded
+Is always sure to be the one
+ We didn't think was loaded.
+
+Our moaning is another's mirth,--
+ And what is worse by half,
+We say the funniest thing on earth
+ And never raise a laugh:
+Mid friends that love us overwell,
+ And sparkling jests and liquor,
+Our hearts somehow are liable
+ To melt in tears the quicker.
+
+We reach the wrong when most we seek
+ The right; in like effect,
+We stay the strong and not the weak--
+ Do most when we neglect.--
+Neglected genius--truth be said--
+ As wild and quick as tinder,
+The more we seek to help ahead
+ The more we seem to hinder.
+
+I've known the least the greatest, too--
+ And, on the selfsame plan,
+The biggest fool I ever knew
+ Was quite a little man:
+We find we ought, and then we won't--
+ We prove a thing, then doubt it,--
+Know _everything_ but when we don't
+ Know _anything_ about it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A SCRAWL
+
+
+I want to sing something--but this is all--
+ I try and I try, but the rhymes are dull
+As though they were damp, and the echoes fall
+ Limp and unlovable.
+
+Words will not say what I yearn to say--
+ They will not walk as I want them to,
+But they stumble and fall in the path of the way
+ Of my telling my love for you.
+
+Simply take what the scrawl is worth--
+ Knowing I love you as sun the sod
+On the ripening side of the great round earth
+ That swings in the smile of God.
+
+
+
+
+WRITIN' BACK TO THE HOME-FOLKS
+
+
+My dear old friends--It jes beats all,
+ The way you write a letter
+So's ever' _last_ line beats the _first_,
+ And ever' _next_-un's better!--
+W'y, ever' fool-thing you putt down
+ You make so inte_rest_in',
+A feller, readin' of 'em all,
+ Can't tell which is the _best_-un.
+
+It's all so comfortin' and good,
+ 'Pears-like I almost _hear_ ye
+And git more sociabler, you know,
+ And hitch my cheer up near ye
+And jes smile on ye like the sun
+ Acrosst the whole per-rairies
+In Aprile when the thaw's begun
+ And country couples marries.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It's all so good-old-fashioned like
+ To _talk_ jes like we're _thinkin'_,
+Without no hidin' back o' fans
+ And giggle-un and winkin',
+Ner sizin' how each-other's dressed--
+ Like some is allus doin',--
+"_Is_ Marthy Ellen's basque ben _turned_
+ Er shore-enough a new-un!"--
+
+Er "ef Steve's city-friend haint jes
+ 'A _lee_tle kindo'-sorto'"--
+Er "wears them-air blame eye-glasses
+ Jes 'cause he hadn't ort to?"
+And so straight on, _dad-libitum_,
+ Tel all of us feels, _some_way,
+Jes like our "comp'ny" wuz the best
+ When we git up to come 'way!
+
+That's why I like _old_ friends like you,--
+ Jes 'cause you're so _abidin'_.--
+Ef I was built to live "_fer keeps_,"
+ My principul residin'
+Would be amongst the folks 'at kep'
+ Me allus _thinkin'_ of 'em,
+And sorto' eechin' all the time
+ To tell 'em how I love 'em.--
+
+Sich folks, you know, I jes love so
+ I wouldn't live without 'em,
+Er couldn't even drap asleep
+ But what I _dreamp'_ about 'em,--
+And ef we minded God, I guess
+ We'd _all_ love one-another
+Jes like one fam'bly,--me and Pap
+ And Madaline and Mother.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+LAUGHTER HOLDING BOTH HIS SIDES
+
+
+Ay, thou varlet!--Laugh away!
+All the world's a holiday!
+Laugh away, and roar and shout
+Till thy hoarse tongue lolleth out!
+Bloat thy cheeks, and bulge thine eyes
+Unto bursting; pelt thy thighs
+With thy swollen palms, and roar
+As thou never hast before!
+Lustier! wilt thou! peal on peal!
+Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel--
+Wrestle with thy loins, and then
+Wheeze thee whiles, and whoop again!
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF YESTERDAY
+
+
+I
+
+But yesterday
+I looked away
+O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay
+In golden blots
+Inlaid with spots
+Of shade and wild forget-me-nots.
+
+My head was fair
+With flaxen hair,
+And fragrant breezes, faint and rare,
+And warm with drouth
+From out the south,
+Blew all my curls across my mouth.
+
+And, cool and sweet,
+My naked feet
+Found dewy pathways through the wheat;
+And out again
+Where, down the lane,
+The dust was dimpled with the rain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+II
+
+But yesterday:--
+Adream, astray,
+From morning's red to evening's gray,
+O'er dales and hills
+Of daffodils
+And lorn sweet-fluting whippoorwills.
+
+I knew nor cares
+Nor tears nor prayers--
+A mortal god, crowned unawares
+With sunset--and
+A scepter-wand
+Of apple-blossoms in my hand!
+
+The dewy blue
+Of twilight grew
+To purple, with a star or two
+Whose lisping rays
+Failed in the blaze
+Of sudden fireflies through the haze.
+
+
+III
+
+But yesterday
+I heard the lay
+Of summer birds, when I, as they
+With breast and wing,
+All quivering
+With life and love, could only sing.
+
+My head was lent
+Where, with it, blent
+A maiden's o'er her instrument;
+While all the night,
+From vale to height,
+Was filled with echoes of delight.
+
+And all our dreams
+Were lit with gleams
+Of that lost land of reedy streams.
+Along whose brim
+Forever swim
+Pan's lilies, laughing up at him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+IV
+
+But yesterday!...
+O blooms of May,
+And summer roses--where-away?
+O stars above;
+And lips of love,
+And all the honeyed sweets thereof!--
+
+O lad and lass,
+And orchard pass,
+And briered lane, and daisied grass!
+O gleam and gloom,
+And woodland bloom,
+And breezy breaths of all perfume!--
+
+No more for me
+Or mine shall be
+Thy raptures--save in memory,--
+No more--no more--
+Till through the Door
+Of Glory gleam the days of yore.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+SONG OF PARTING
+
+
+Say farewell, and let me go;
+ Shatter every vow!
+All the future can bestow
+ Will be welcome now!
+ And if this fair hand I touch
+ I have worshipped overmuch,
+ It was my mistake--and so,
+ Say farewell, and let me go.
+
+Say farewell, and let me go:
+ Murmur no regret,
+Stay your tear-drops ere they flow--
+ Do not waste them yet!
+ They might pour as pours the rain,
+ And not wash away the pain:
+ I have tried them and I know.--
+ Say farewell, and let me go.
+
+Say farewell, and let me go:
+ Think me not untrue--
+True as truth is, even so
+ I am true to you!
+ If the ghost of love may stay
+ Where my fond heart dies to-day,
+ I am with you alway--so,
+ Say farewell, and let me go.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+OUR KIND OF A MAN
+
+
+I
+
+The kind of a man for you and me!
+He faces the world unflinchingly,
+And smites, as long as the wrong resists,
+With a knuckled faith and force like fists:
+He lives the life he is preaching of,
+And loves where most is the need of love;
+His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears,
+And his face sublime through the blind man's tears;
+The light shines out where the clouds were dim,
+And the widow's prayer goes up for him;
+The latch is clicked at the hovel door
+And the sick man sees the sun once more,
+And out o'er the barren fields he sees
+Springing blossoms and waving trees,
+Feeling as only the dying may,
+That God's own servant has come that way,
+Smoothing the path as it still winds on
+Through the Golden Gate where his loved have gone.
+
+
+II
+
+The kind of a man for me and you!
+However little of worth we do
+He credits full, and abides in trust
+That time will teach us how more is just.
+He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds
+Of querulous and uneasy minds,
+And, sympathizing, he shares the pain
+Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain;
+And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand,
+We are surely coming to understand!
+He looks on sin with pitying eyes--
+E'en as the Lord, since Paradise,--
+Else, should we read, "Though our sins should glow
+As scarlet, they shall be white as snow"?--
+And, feeling still, with a grief half glad,
+That the bad are as good as the good are bad,
+He strikes straight out for the Right--and he
+Is the kind of a man for you and me!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?"
+
+
+"How did you rest, last night?"--
+ I've heard my gran'pap say
+Them words a thousand times--that's right--
+ Jes them words thataway!
+As punctchul-like as morning dast
+ To ever heave in sight
+Gran'pap 'ud allus haf to ast--
+ "How did you rest, last night?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Us young-uns used to grin,
+ At breakfast, on the sly,
+And mock the wobble of his chin
+ And eyebrows belt so high
+And kind: _"How did you rest, last night?"_
+ We'd mumble and let on
+Our voices trimbled, and our sight
+ Was dim, and hearin' gone.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Bad as I used to be,
+ All I'm a-wantin' is
+As puore and ca'm a sleep fer me
+ And sweet a sleep as his!
+And so I pray, on Jedgment Day
+ To wake, and with its light
+See _his_ face dawn, and hear him say--
+ "How did you rest, last night?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE
+
+
+Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon--
+The land that the Lord's love rests upon;
+Where one may rely on the friends he meets,
+And the smiles that greet him along the streets:
+Where the mother that left you years ago
+Will lift the hands that were folded so,
+And put them about you, with all the love
+And tenderness you are dreaming of.
+
+Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon--
+Where all of the friends of your youth have gone,--
+Where the old schoolmate that laughed with you,
+Will laugh again as he used to do,
+Running to meet you, with such a face
+As lights like a moon the wondrous place
+Where God is living, and glad to live,
+Since He is the Master and may forgive.
+
+Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon!--
+Stay the hopes we are leaning on--
+You, Divine, with Your merciful eyes
+Looking down from the far-away skies,--
+Smile upon us, and reach and take
+Our worn souls Home for the old home's sake.--
+And so Amen,--for our all seems gone
+Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JACK-IN-THE-BOX
+
+_(Grandfather, musing.)_
+
+
+In childish days! O memory,
+ You bring such curious things to me!--
+Laughs to the lip--tears to the eye,
+In looking on the gifts that lie
+Like broken playthings scattered o'er
+Imagination's nursery floor!
+Did these old hands once click the key
+That let "Jack's" box-lid upward fly,
+And that blear-eyed, fur-whiskered elf
+Leap, as though frightened at himself,
+And quiveringly lean and stare
+At me, his jailer, laughing there?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A child then! Now--I only know
+They call me very old; and so
+They will not let me have my way,--
+But uselessly I sit all day
+Here by the chimney-jamb, and poke
+The lazy fire, and smoke and smoke,
+And watch the wreaths swoop up the flue,
+And chuckle--ay, I often do--
+Seeing again, all vividly,
+Jack-in-the-box leap, as in glee
+To see how much he looks like me!
+
+... They talk. I can't hear what they say--
+But I am glad, clean through and through
+Sometimes, in fancying that they
+Are saying, "Sweet, that fancy strays
+In age back to our childish days!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+THE BOYS
+
+
+Where are they?--the friends of my childhood enchanted--
+The clear, laughing eyes looking back in my own,
+And the warm, chubby fingers my palms have so wanted,
+ As when we raced over
+ Pink pastures of clover,
+And mocked the quail's whir and the bumblebee's drone?
+
+Have the breezes of time blown their blossomy faces
+ Forever adrift down the years that are flown?
+Am I never to see them romp back to their places,
+ Where over the meadow,
+ In sunshine and shadow,
+The meadow-larks trill, and the bumblebees drone?
+
+Where are they? Ah! dim in the dust lies the clover;
+ The whippoorwill's call has a sorrowful tone,
+And the dove's--I have wept at it over and over;--
+ I want the glad luster
+ Of youth, and the cluster
+Of faces asleep where the bumblebees drone!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IT'S _GOT_ TO BE
+
+
+"When it's _got_ to be,"--like! always say,
+ As I notice the years whiz past,
+And know each day is a yesterday,
+ When we size it up, at last,--
+Same as I said when my _boyhood_ went
+ And I knowed _we_ had to quit,--
+"It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!"--
+ So I said "Good-by" to _it_.
+
+It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!
+ So at least I always try
+To kind o' say in a hearty way,--
+ "Well, it's _got_ to be. Good-by!"
+
+The time jes melts like a late, last snow,--
+ When it's _got_ to be, it melts!
+But I aim to keep a cheerful mind,
+ Ef I can't keep nothin' else!
+I knowed, when I come to twenty-one,
+ That I'd soon be twenty-two,--
+So I waved one hand at the soft young man,
+ And I said, "Good-by to _you_!"
+
+It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!
+ So at least I always try
+To kind o' say, in a cheerful way,--
+ "Well, it's _got_ to be.--Good-by!"
+
+They kep' a-goin', the years and years,
+ Yet still I smiled and smiled,--
+For I'd said "Good-by" to my single life,
+ And I now had a wife and child:
+Mother and son and the father--one,--
+ Till, last, on her bed of pain,
+She jes' smiled up, like she always done,--
+ And I said "Good-by" again.
+
+It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!
+ So at least I always try
+To kind o' say, in a humble way,--
+ "Well, it's _got_ to be. Good-by!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And then my boy--as he growed to be
+ Almost a man in size,--
+Was more than a pride and joy to me,
+ With his mother's smilin' eyes.--
+He gimme the slip, when the War broke out,
+ And followed me. And I
+Never knowed till the first right's end ...
+ I found him, and then, ... "Good-by."
+
+It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!
+ So at least I always try
+To kind o' say, in a patient way,
+ "Well, it's _got_ to be. Good-by!"
+
+I have said, "Good-by!--Good-by!--Good-by!"
+ With my very best good will,
+All through life from the first,--and I
+ Am a cheerful old man still:
+
+But it's _got_ to end, and it's _goin'_ to end!
+ And this is the thing I'll do,--
+With my last breath I will laugh, O Death,
+ And say "Good-by" to _you_!...
+
+It's _got_ to be! And again I say,--
+ When his old scythe circles high,
+I'll laugh--of course, in the kindest way,--
+ As I say "Good-by!--Good-by!"
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"OUT OF REACH?"
+
+
+You think them "out of reach," your dead?
+ Nay, by my own dead, I deny
+Your "out of reach."--Be comforted:
+ 'Tis not so far to die.
+
+O by their dear remembered smiles
+ And outheld hands and welcoming speech,
+They wait for us, thousands of miles
+ This side of "out-of-reach."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A BRAVE REFRAIN"
+
+
+When snow is here, and the trees look weird,
+ And the knuckled twigs are gloved with frost;
+When the breath congeals in the drover's beard,
+ And the old pathway to the barn is lost;
+When the rooster's crow is sad to hear,
+ And the stamp of the stabled horse is vain,
+And the tone of the cow-bell grieves the ear--
+ O then is the time for a brave refrain!
+
+When the gears hang stiff on the harness-peg,
+ And the tallow gleams in frozen streaks;
+And the old hen stands on a lonesome leg,
+ And the pump sounds hoarse and the handle squeaks;
+When the woodpile lies in a shrouded heap,
+ And the frost is scratched from the window-pane
+And anxious eyes from the inside peep--
+ O then is the time for a brave refrain!
+
+When the ax-helve warms at the chimney-jamb,
+ And hob-nailed shoes on the hearth below,
+And the house-cat curls in a slumber calm,
+ And the eight-day clock ticks loud and slow;
+When the harsh broom-handle jabs the ceil
+ 'Neath the kitchen-loft, and the drowsy brain
+Sniffs the breath of the morning meal--
+ O then is the time for a brave refrain!
+
+
+ENVOI
+
+When the skillet seethes, and a blubbering hot
+Tilts the lid of the coffee-pot,
+And the scent of the buckwheat cake grows plain--
+O then is the time for a brave refrain!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IN THE EVENING
+
+
+I
+
+In the evening of our days,
+ When the first far stars above
+Glimmer dimmer, through the haze,
+ Than the dewy eyes of love,
+Shall we mournfully revert
+ To the vanished morns and Mays
+Of our youth, with hearts that hurt,--
+ In the evening of our days?
+
+
+II
+
+Shall the hand that holds your own
+ Till the twain are thrilled as now,
+Be withheld, or colder grown?
+ Shall my kiss upon your brow
+Falter from its high estate?
+ And, in all forgetful ways,
+Shall we sit apart and wait--
+ In the evening of our days?
+
+
+III
+
+Nay, my wife--my life!--the gloom
+ Shall enfold us velvetwise,
+And my smile shall be the groom
+ Of the gladness of your eyes:
+Gently, gently as the dew
+ Mingles with the darkening maze,
+I shall fall asleep with you--
+ In the evening of our days.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JIM
+
+
+He was jes a plain, ever'-day, all-round kind of a jour.,
+ Consumpted-lookin'--but la!
+The jokiest, wittiest, story-tellin', song-singin', laughin'est, jolliest
+ Feller you ever saw!
+Worked at jes coarse work, but you kin bet he was fine enough in his talk,
+ And his feelin's, too!
+Lordy! ef he was on'y back on his bench ag'in to-day, a-carryin' on
+ Like he ust to do!
+
+Any shop-mate'll tell you there never was, on top o' dirt,
+ A better feller'n Jim!
+You want a favor, and couldn't git it anywheres else--
+ You could git it o' him!
+Most free-heartedest man thataway in the world, I guess!
+ Give up ever' nickel he's worth--
+And, ef you'd a-wanted it, and named it to him, and it was his,
+ He'd a-give you the earth!
+
+Allus a-reachin' out, Jim was, and a-he'ppin' some
+ Pore feller onto his feet--
+He'd a-never a-keered how hungry he was hisse'f,
+ So's _the feller_ got somepin' to eat!
+Didn't make no differ'nee at all to him how _he_ was dressed,
+ He ust to say to me,--
+"You togg out a tramp purty comfortable in winter-time, a-huntin' a job,
+ And he'll git along!" says he.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jim didn't have, ner never could git ahead, so overly much
+ O' this world's goods at a time.--
+'Fore now I've saw him, more'n one't, lend a dollar, and haf to, more'n like,
+ Turn round and borry a dime!
+Mebby laugh and joke about it hisse'f fer a while--then jerk his coat.
+ And kindo' square his chin,
+Tie on his apern, and squat hisse'f on his old shoe-bench,
+ And go to peggin' ag'in!
+
+Patientest feller, too, I reckon, 'at ever jes natchurly
+ Coughed hisse'f to death!
+Long enough after his voice was lost he'd laugh in a whisper and say
+ He could git ever'thing but his breath--
+"_You fellers_," he'd sorto' twinkle his eyes and say,
+ "Is a-pilin' onto me
+A mighty big debt fer that-air little weak-chested ghost o' mine to pack
+ Through all Eternity!"
+
+Now there was a man 'at jes 'peared-like, to me,
+ 'At ortn't _a-never_ a-died!
+"But death hain't a-showin' no favors," the old boss said--
+ "On'y to _Jim_!" and cried:
+And Wigger, who puts up the best sewed-work in the shop--
+ Er the whole blame neighborhood,--
+He says, "When God made Jim, I bet you He didn't do anything else that day
+ But jes set around and feel good!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH
+
+
+I quarrel not with Destiny,
+But make the best of everything--
+The best is good enough for me.
+
+Leave Discontent alone, and she
+Will shut her month and let _you_ sing.
+I quarrel not with Destiny.
+
+I take some things, or let 'em be--
+Good gold has always got the ring;
+The best is good enough for me.
+
+Since Fate insists on secrecy,
+I have no arguments to bring--
+quarrel not with Destiny.
+
+The fellow that goes "haw" for "gee"
+Will find he hasn't got full swing.
+The best is good enough for me.
+
+One only knows our needs, and He
+Does all of the distributing.
+I quarrel not with Destiny;
+The best is good enough for me.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB
+
+
+How slight a thing may set one's fancy drifting
+ Upon the dead sea of the Past!--A view--
+Sometimes an odor--or a rooster lifting
+ A far-off "_Ooh! ooh-ooh!_"
+
+And suddenly we find ourselves astray
+ In some wood's-pasture of the Long Ago--
+Or idly dream again upon a day
+ Of rest we used to know.
+
+I bit an apple but a moment since--
+ A wilted apple that the worm had spurned.--
+Yet hidden in the taste were happy hints
+ Of good old days returned.--
+
+And so my heart, like some enraptured lute,
+ Tinkles a tune so tender and complete,
+God's blessing must be resting on the fruit--
+ So bitter, yet so sweet!
+
+
+
+
+AS MY UNCLE USED TO SAY
+
+
+I've thought a power on men and things,
+ As my uncle ust to say,--
+And ef folks don't work as they pray, i jings!
+ W'y, they ain't no use to pray!
+Ef you want somepin', and jes dead-set
+A-pleadin' fer it with both eyes wet,
+And _tears_ won't bring it, w'y, you try _sweat_,
+ As my uncle ust to say.
+
+They's some don't know their A, B, C's,
+ As my uncle ust to say,
+And yit don't waste no candle-grease,
+ Ner whistle their lives away!
+But ef they can't write no book, ner rhyme
+No singin' song fer to last all time,
+They can blaze the way fer the march sublime,
+ As my uncle ust to say.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Whoever's Foreman of all things here,
+ As my uncle ust to say,
+He knows each job 'at we're best fit fer,
+ And our round-up, night and day:
+And a-sizin' _His_ work, east and west,
+And north and south, and worst and best.
+I ain't got nothin' to suggest,
+ As my uncle ust to say.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+WE MUST BELIEVE
+
+_"Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief."_
+
+
+We must believe--
+Being from birth endowed with love and trust--
+Born unto loving;--and how simply just
+That love--that faith!--even in the blossom-face
+The babe drops dreamward in its resting-place,
+Intuitively conscious of the sure
+Awakening to rapture ever pure
+And sweet and saintly as the mother's own,
+Or the awed father's, as his arms are thrown
+O'er wife and child, to round about them weave
+ And wind and bind them as one harvest-sheaf
+Of love--to cleave to, and _forever_ cleave....
+ Lord, I believe:
+ Help Thou mine unbelief.
+
+We must believe--
+Impelled since infancy to seek some clear
+Fulfillment, still withheld all seekers here;--
+For never have we seen perfection nor
+The glory we are ever seeking for:
+But we _have_ seen--all mortal souls as one--
+Have seen its _promise_, in the morning sun--
+Its blest assurance, in the stars of night;--
+The ever-dawning of the dark to light;--
+The tears down-falling from all eyes that grieve--
+ The eyes uplifting from all deeps of grief,
+Yearning for what at last we shall receive....
+ Lord, I believe:
+ Help Thou mine unbelief.
+
+We must believe--
+For still all unappeased our hunger goes,
+From life's first waking, to its last repose:
+The briefest life of any babe, or man
+Outwearing even the allotted span,
+Is each a life unfinished--incomplete:
+For these, then, of th' outworn, or unworn feet
+Denied one toddling step--O there must be
+Some fair, green, flowery pathway endlessly
+Winding through lands Elysian! Lord, receive
+ And lead each as Thine Own Child--even the Chief
+Of us who didst Immortal life achieve....
+ Lord, I believe:
+ Help Thou mine unbelief.
+
+
+
+
+A GOOD MAN
+
+
+I
+
+A good man never dies--
+ In worthy deed and prayer
+And helpful hands, and honest eyes,
+ If smiles or tears be there:
+Who lives for you and me--
+ Lives for the world he tries
+To help--he lives eternally.
+ A good man never dies.
+
+
+II
+
+Who lives to bravely take
+ His share of toil and stress,
+And, for his weaker fellows' sake,
+ Makes every burden less,--
+He may, at last, seem worn--
+ Lie fallen--hands and eyes
+Folded--yet, though we mourn and mourn,
+ A good man never dies.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE OLD DAYS
+
+
+The old days--the far days--
+ The overdear and fair!--
+The old days--the lost days--
+ How lovely they were!
+The old days of Morning,
+ With the dew-drench on the flowers
+And apple-buds and blossoms
+ Of those old days of ours.
+
+Then was the _real_ gold
+ Spendthrift Summer flung;
+Then was the _real_ song
+ Bird or Poet sung!
+There was never censure then,--
+ Only honest praise--
+And all things were worthy of it
+ In the old days.
+
+There bide the true friends--
+ The first and the best;
+There clings the green grass
+ Close where they rest:
+Would they were here? No;--
+ Would _we_ were _there_!...
+The old days--the lost days--
+ How lovely they were!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A SPRING SONG AND A LATER
+
+
+She sang a song of May for me,
+ Wherein once more I heard
+The mirth of my glad infancy--
+ The orchard's earliest bird--
+The joyous breeze among the trees
+ New-clad in leaf and bloom,
+And there the happy honey-bees
+ In dewy gleam and gloom.
+
+So purely, sweetly on the sense
+ Of heart and spirit fell
+Her song of Spring, its influence--
+ Still irresistible,--
+Commands me here--with eyes ablur--
+ To mate her bright refrain.
+Though I but shed a rhyme for her
+ As dim as Autumn rain.
+
+
+
+
+KNEELING WITH HERRICK
+
+
+Dear Lord, to Thee my knee is bent--
+ Give me content--
+Full-pleasured with what comes to me,
+ Whate'er it be:
+An humble roof--a frugal board,
+ And simple hoard;
+The wintry fagot piled beside
+ The chimney wide,
+While the enwreathing flames up-sprout
+ And twine about
+The brazen dogs that guard my hearth
+ And household worth:
+Tinge with the ember's ruddy glow
+ The rafters low;
+And let the sparks snap with delight,
+ As fingers might
+That mark deft measures of some tune
+ The children croon:
+Then, with good friends, the rarest few
+ Thou boldest true,
+Ranged round about the blaze, to share
+ My comfort there,--
+Give me to claim the service meet
+ That makes each seat
+A place of honor, and each guest
+ Loved as the rest.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE RAINY MORNING
+
+
+The dawn of the day was dreary,
+ And the lowering clouds o'erhead
+Wept in a silent sorrow
+ Where the sweet sunshine lay dead;
+And a wind came out of the eastward
+ Like an endless sigh of pain,
+And the leaves fell down in the pathway
+ And writhed in the falling rain.
+
+I had tried in a brave endeavor
+ To chord my harp with the sun,
+But the strings would slacken ever,
+ And the task was a weary one:
+And so, like a child impatient
+ And sick of a discontent,
+I bowed in a shower of teardrops
+ And mourned with the instrument.
+
+And lo! as I bowed, the splendor
+ Of the sun bent over me,
+With a touch as warm and tender
+ As a father's hand might be:
+And even as I felt its presence,
+ My clouded soul grew bright,
+And the tears, like the rain of morning,
+ Melted in mists of light.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+REACH YOUR HAND TO ME
+
+
+Reach your hand to me, my friend,
+ With its heartiest caress--
+Sometime there will come an end
+ To its present faithfulness--
+ Sometime I may ask in vain
+ For the touch of it again,
+ When between us land or sea
+ Holds it ever back from me.
+
+Sometime I may need it so,
+ Groping somewhere in the night,
+It will seem to me as though
+ Just a touch, however light,
+ Would make all the darkness day,
+ And along some sunny way
+ Lead me through an April-shower
+ Of my tears to this fair hour.
+
+O the present is too sweet
+ To go on forever thus!
+Round the corner of the street
+ Who can say what waits for us?--
+ Meeting--greeting, night and day,
+ Faring each the selfsame way--
+ Still somewhere the path must end.--
+ Reach your hand to me, my friend!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN
+
+
+Fer forty year and better you have been a friend to me,
+Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,
+You allus had a kind word of counsul to impart,
+Which was like a healin' 'intment to the sorrow of my hart.
+
+When I burried my first womern, William Leachman, it was you
+Had the only consolation that I could listen to--
+Fer I knowed you had gone through it and had rallied from the blow,
+And when you said I'd do the same, I knowed you'd ort to know.
+
+But that time I'll long remember; how I wundered here and thare--
+Through the settin'-room and kitchen, and out in the open air--
+And the snowflakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen glare,
+And the neghbors' sleds and wagons congergatin' ev'rywhare.
+
+I turned my eyes to'rds heaven, but the sun was hid away;
+I turned my eyes to'rds earth again, but all was cold and gray;
+And the clock, like ice a-crackin', clickt the icy hours in two--
+And my eyes'd never thawed out ef it hadn't been fer you!
+
+We set thare by the smoke-house--me and you out thare alone--
+Me a-thinkin'--you a-talkin' in a soothin' undertone--
+You a-talkin'--me a-thinkin' of the summers long ago,
+And a-writin' "Marthy--Marthy" with my finger in the snow!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+William Leachman, I can see you jest as plane as I could then;
+And your hand is on my shoulder, and you rouse me up again,
+And I see the tears a-drippin' from your own eyes, as you say:
+"Be rickonciled and bear it--we but linger fer a day!"
+
+At the last Old Settlers' Meetin' we went j'intly, you and me--
+Your hosses and my wagon, as you wanted it to be;
+And sence I can remember, from the time we've neghbored here,
+In all sich friendly actions you have double-done your sheer.
+
+It was better than the meetin', too, that nine-mile talk we had
+Of the times when we first settled here and travel was so bad;
+When we had to go on hoss-back, and sometimes on "Shanks's mare,"
+And "blaze" a road fer them behind that had to travel thare.
+
+And now we was a-trottin' 'long a level gravel pike,
+In a big two-hoss road-wagon, jest as easy as you like--
+Two of us on the front seat, and our wimmern-folks behind,
+A-settin' in theyr Winsor-cheers in perfect peace of mind!
+
+And we pinted out old landmarks, nearly faded out of sight:--
+Thare they ust to rob the stage-coach; thare Gash Morgan had the fight
+With the old stag-deer that pronged him--how he battled fer his life,
+And lived to prove the story by the handle of his knife.
+
+Thare the first griss-mill was put up in the Settlement, and we
+Had tuck our grindin' to it in the Fall of Forty-three--
+When we tuck our rifles with us, techin' elbows all the way,
+And a-stickin' right together ev'ry minute, night and day.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thare ust to stand the tavern that they called the "Travelers' Rest,"
+And thare, beyent the covered bridge, "The Counter-fitters' Nest"--
+Whare they claimed the house was ha'nted--that a man was murdered thare,
+And burried underneath the floor, er 'round the place somewhare.
+
+And the old Plank-road they laid along in Fifty-one er two--
+You know we talked about the times when that old road was new:
+How "Uncle Sam" put down that road and never taxed the State
+Was a problem, don't you rickollect, we couldn't _dim_-onstrate?
+
+Ways was devius, William Leachman, that me and you has past;
+But as I found you true at first, I find you true at last;
+And, now the time's a-comin' mighty nigh our jurney's end,
+I want to throw wide open all my soul to you, my friend.
+
+With the stren'th of all my bein', and the heat of hart and brane,
+And ev'ry livin' drop of blood in artery and vane,
+I love you and respect you, and I venerate your name,
+Fer the name of William Leachman and True Manhood's jest the same!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A BACKWARD LOOK
+
+
+As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday,
+ And lazily leaning back in my chair,
+Enjoying myself in a general way--
+Allowing my thoughts a holiday
+ From weariness, toil and care,--
+My fancies--doubtless, for ventilation--
+ Left ajar the gates of my mind,--
+And Memory, seeing the situation,
+ Slipped out in street of "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+Wandering ever with tireless feet
+ Through scenes of silence, and jubilee
+Of long-hushed voices; and faces sweet
+Were thronging the shadowy side of the street
+ As far as the eye could see;
+Dreaming again, in anticipation,
+ The same old dreams of our boyhood's days
+That never come true, from the vague sensation
+ Of walking asleep in the world's strange ways.
+
+Away to the house where I was born!
+ And there was the selfsame clock that ticked
+From the close of dusk to the burst of morn,
+When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn
+ And helped when the apples were picked.
+And the "chany-dog" on the mantel-shelf,
+ With the gilded collar and yellow eyes,
+Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself
+ Sound asleep with the dear surprise.
+
+And down to the swing in the locust tree,
+ Where the grass was worn from the trampled ground
+And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three
+Or four such other boys used to be
+ Doin' "sky-scrapers," or "whirlin' round:"
+And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest,
+ And again "had shows" in the buggy-shed
+Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed,
+ The old ghosts romp through the best days dead!
+
+And again I gazed from the old school-room
+ With a wistful look of a long June day,
+When on my cheek was the hectic bloom
+Caught of Mischief, as I presume--
+ He had such a "partial" way,
+It seemed, toward me.--And again I thought
+ Of a probable likelihood to be
+Kept in after school--for a girl was caught
+ Catching a note from me.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And down through the woods to the swimming-hole--
+ Where the big, white, hollow, old sycamore grows,--
+And we never cared when the water was cold.
+And always "clucked" the boy that told
+ On the fellow that tied the clothes.--
+When life went so like a dreamy rhyme
+ That it seems to me now that then
+The world was having a jollier time
+ Than it ever will have again.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+AT SEA
+
+
+O we go down to sea in ships--
+ But Hope remains behind,
+And Love, with laughter on his lips,
+ And Peace, of passive mind;
+While out across the deeps of night,
+ With lifted sails of prayer,
+We voyage off in quest of light,
+ Nor find it anywhere.
+
+O Thou who wroughtest earth and sea,
+ Yet keepest from our eyes
+The shores of an eternity
+ In calms of Paradise,
+Blow back upon our foolish quest
+ With all the driving rain
+Of blinding tears and wild unrest,
+ And waft us home again.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE OLD GUITAR
+
+
+Neglected now is the old guitar
+ And moldering into decay;
+Fretted with many a rift and scar
+ That the dull dust hides away,
+While the spider spins a silver star
+ In its silent lips to-day.
+
+The keys hold only nerveless strings--
+ The sinews of brave old airs
+Are pulseless now; and the scarf that clings
+ So closely here declares
+A sad regret in its ravelings
+ And the faded hue it wears.
+
+But the old guitar, with a lenient grace,
+ Has cherished a smile for me;
+And its features hint of a fairer face
+ That comes with a memory
+Of a flower-and-perfume-haunted place
+ And a moonlit balcony.
+
+Music sweeter than words confess
+ Or the minstrel's powers invent,
+Thrilled here once at the light caress
+ Of the fairy hands that lent
+This excuse for the kiss I press
+ On the dear old instrument.
+
+The rose of pearl with the jeweled stem
+ Still blooms; and the tiny sets
+In the circle all are here; the gem
+ In the keys, and the silver frets;
+But the dainty fingers that danced o'er them--
+ Alas for the heart's regrets!--
+
+Alas for the loosened strings to-day,
+ And the wounds of rift and scar
+On a worn old heart, with its roundelay
+ Enthralled with a stronger bar
+That Fate weaves on, through a dull decay
+ Like that of the old guitar!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JOHN McKEEN
+
+
+John McKeen, in his rusty dress,
+ His loosened collar, and swarthy throat;
+His face unshaven, and none the less,
+His hearty laugh and his wholesomeness,
+ And the wealth of a workman's vote!
+
+Bring him, O Memory, here once more,
+ And tilt him back in his Windsor chair
+By the kitchen-stove, when the day is o'er
+And the light of the hearth is across the floor,
+ And the crickets everywhere!
+
+And let their voices be gladly blent
+ With a watery jingle of pans and spoons,
+And a motherly chirrup of sweet content,
+And neighborly gossip and merriment,
+ And old-time fiddle-tunes!
+
+Tick the clock with a wooden sound,
+ And fill the hearing with childish glee
+Of rhyming riddle, or story found
+In the Robinson Crusoe, leather-bound
+ Old book of the Used-to-be!
+
+John McKeen of the Past! Ah, John,
+ To have grown ambitious in worldly ways!--
+To have rolled your shirt-sleeves down, to don
+A broadcloth suit, and, forgetful, gone
+ Out on election days!
+
+John, ah, John! did it prove your worth
+ To yield you the office you still maintain?
+To fill your pockets, but leave the dearth
+Of all the happier things on earth
+ To the hunger of heart and brain?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Under the dusk of your villa trees,
+ Edging the drives where your blooded span
+Paw the pebbles and wait your ease,--
+Where are the children about your knees,
+ And the mirth, and the happy man?
+
+The blinds of your mansion are battened to;
+ Your faded wife is a close recluse;
+And your "finished" daughters will doubtless do
+Dutifully all that is willed of you,
+ And marry as you shall choose!--
+
+But O for the old-home voices, blent
+ With the watery jingle of pans and spoons,
+And the motherly chirrup of glad content,
+And neighborly gossip and merriment,
+ And the old-time fiddle-tunes!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND
+
+
+Where do you go when you go to sleep,
+ Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
+'Way--'way in where's Little Bo-Peep,
+And Little Boy Blue, and the Cows and Sheep
+ A-wandering 'way in there;--in there--
+ A-wandering 'way in there!
+
+And what do you see when lost in dreams,
+ Little Boy, 'way in there?
+Firefly-glimmers and glowworm-gleams,
+And silvery, low, slow-sliding streams,
+ And mermaids, smiling out--'way in where
+ They're a-hiding--'way in there!
+
+Where do you go when the Fairies call,
+ Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
+Wade through the clews of the grasses tall,
+Hearing the weir and the waterfall
+ And the Wee Folk--'way in there--in there--
+ And the Kelpies--'way in there!
+
+And what do you do when you wake at dawn,
+ Little Boy! Little Boy! what?
+Hug my Mommy and kiss her on
+Her smiling eyelids, sweet and wan,
+ And tell her everything I've forgot
+ About, a-wandering 'way in there--
+ Through the blind-world 'way in there!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+"THEM OLD CHEERY WORDS"
+
+
+Pap he allus ust to say,
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+Liked to hear him that-a-way,
+ In his old split-bottomed cheer
+By the fireplace here at night--
+Wood all in,--and room all bright,
+Warm and snug, and folks all here:
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+Me and 'Lize, and Warr'n and Jess
+ And Eldory home fer two
+Weeks' vacation; and, I guess,
+ Old folks tickled through and through,
+Same as _we_ was,--"Home onc't more
+Fer another Chris'mus--shore!"
+Pap 'u'd say, and tilt his cheer,--
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+Mostly Pap was ap' to be
+ Ser'ous in his "daily walk,"
+As he called it; giner'ly
+ Was no hand to joke er talk.
+Fac's is, Pap had never be'n
+Rugged-like at all--and then
+Three years in the army had
+Hepped to break him purty bad.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Never _flinched_! but frost and snow
+ Hurt his wownd in winter. But
+You bet _Mother_ knowed it, though!--
+ Watched his feet, and made him putt
+On his flannen; and his knee,
+Where it never healed up, he
+Claimed was "well now--mighty near--
+Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+ Pap 'u'd say, and snap his eyes ...
+Row o' apples sputter'n' here
+ Round the hearth, and me and 'Lize
+Crackin' hicker'-nuts; and Warr'n
+And Eldory parchin' corn;
+And whole raft o' young folks here.
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+Mother tuk most comfort in
+ Jest a-heppin' Pap: She'd fill
+His pipe fer him, er his tin
+ O' hard cider; er set still
+And read fer him out the pile
+O' newspapers putt on file
+Whilse he was with Sherman--(She
+Knowed the whole war-history!)
+
+Sometimes he'd git het up some.--
+ "Boys," he'd say, "and you girls, too,
+Chris'mus is about to come;
+ So, as you've a right to do,
+_Celebrate_ it! Lots has died,
+Same as Him they crucified,
+That you might be happy here.
+Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+Missed his voice last Chris'mus--missed
+ Them old cheery words, you know.
+Mother belt up tel she kissed
+ All of us--then had to go
+And break down! And I laughs: "Here!
+'Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+"Them's his very words," sobbed she,
+"When he asked to marry me."
+
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+Over, over, still I hear,
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+Yit, like him, I'm goin' to smile
+And keep cheerful all the while:
+_Allus_ Chris'mus _There_--And here
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO THE JUDGE
+
+_A Voice From the Interior of Old Hoop-Pole Township_
+
+
+Friend of my earliest youth,
+ Can't you arrange to come down
+And visit a fellow out here in the woods--
+ Out of the dust of the town?
+Can't you forget you're a Judge
+ And put by your dolorous frown
+And tan your wan face in the smile of a friend--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+Can't you forget for a while
+ The arguments prosy and drear,--
+To lean at full-length in indefinite rest
+ In the lap of the greenery here?
+Can't you kick over "the Bench,"
+ And "husk" yourself out of your gown
+To dangle your legs where the fishing is good--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+Bah! for your office of State!
+ And bah! for its technical lore!
+What does our President, high in his chair,
+ But wish himself low as before!
+Pick between peasant and king,--
+ Poke your bald head through a crown
+Or shadow it here with the laurels of Spring!--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+"Judge it" out _here_, if you will,--
+ The birds are in session by dawn;
+You can draw, not _complaints_, but a sketch of the hill
+ And a breath that your betters have drawn;
+You can open your heart, like a case,
+ To a jury of kine, white and brown,
+And their verdict of "Moo" will just satisfy you!--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Can't you arrange it, old Pard?--
+ Pigeonhole Blackstone and Kent!--
+Here we have "Breitmann," and Ward,
+ Twain, Burdette, Nye, and content!
+Can't you forget you're a Judge
+ And put by your dolorous frown
+And tan your wan face in the smile of a friend--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+OUR BOYHOOD HAUNTS
+
+
+Ho! I'm going back to where
+We were youngsters.--Meet me there,
+Dear old barefoot chum, and we
+Will be as we used to be,--
+Lawless rangers up and down
+The old creek beyond the town--
+Little sunburnt gods at play,
+Just as in that far-away:--
+Water nymphs, all unafraid,
+Shall smile at us from the brink
+Of the old millrace and wade
+Tow'rd us as we kneeling drink
+At the spring our boyhood knew,
+Pure and clear as morning-dew:
+
+And, as we are rising there,
+Doubly dow'rd to hear and see,
+We shall thus be made aware
+Of an eerie piping, heard
+High above the happy bird
+In the hazel: And then we,
+Just across the creek, shall see
+(Hah! the goaty rascal!) Pan
+Hoof it o'er the sloping green,
+Mad with his own melody,
+Aye, and (bless the beasty man!)
+Stamping from the grassy soil
+Bruiséd scents of _fleur-de-lis_,
+Boneset, mint and pennyroyal.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MY DANCIN'-DAYS IS OVER
+
+
+What is it in old fiddle-chunes 'at makes me ketch my breath
+And ripples up my backbone tel I'm tickled most to death?--
+ Kindo' like that sweet-sick feelin', in the long sweep of a swing,
+ The first you ever swung in, with yer first sweet-heart, i jing!--
+ Yer first picnic--yer first ice-cream--yer first o' _ever'thing_
+ 'At happened 'fore yer dancin'-days wuz over!
+
+I never understood it--and I s'pose I never can,--
+But right in town here, yisterd'y, I heerd a pore blindman
+ A-fiddlin' old "Gray Eagle"--_And_-sir! I jes stopped my load
+ O' hay and listened at him--yes, and watched the way he "bow'd,"--
+ And back I went, plum forty year', with boys and girls I knowed
+ And loved, long 'fore my dancin'-days wuz over!--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At high noon in yer city,--with yer blame Magnetic-Cars
+A-hummin' and a-screetchin' past--and bands and G.A.R.'s
+ A-marchin'--and fire-ingines.--_All_ the noise, the whole street through,
+ Wuz lost on me!--I only heerd a whipperwill er two,
+ It 'peared-like, kindo' callin' 'crost the darkness and the dew,
+ Them nights afore my dancin'-days wuz over.
+
+T'uz Chused'y-night at Wetherell's, er We'nsd'y-night at Strawn's,
+Er Fourth-o'-July-night at uther Tomps's house er John's!--
+ With old Lew Church from Sugar Crick, with that old fiddle he
+ Had sawed clean through the Army, from Atlanty to the sea--
+ And yit he'd fetched, her home ag'in, so's he could play fer me
+ One't more afore my dancin'-days wuz over!
+
+The woods 'at's all ben cut away wuz growin' same as then;
+The youngsters all wuz boys ag'in 'at's now all oldish men;
+ And all the girls 'at _then_ wuz girls--I saw 'em, one and all,
+ As _plain_ as then--the middle-sized, the short-and-fat, and tall--
+ And, 'peared-like, I danced "Tucker" fer 'em up and down the wall
+ Jes like afore my dancin' days wuz over!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Yer _po_-leece they can holler "Say! _you_, Uncle! drive ahead!--
+You can't use _all_ the right-o'-way!"--fer that wuz what they said!--
+ But, jes the same,--in spite of all 'at you call "interprise
+ And prog-gress of _you_-folks Today," we're all of _fambly-ties_--
+ We're all got feelin's fittin' fer the _tears_ 'at's in our eyes
+ Er the _smiles_ afore our dancin'-days is over.
+
+
+
+
+HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS
+
+
+O your hands--they are strangely fair!
+Fair--for the jewels that sparkle there,--
+Fair--for the witchery of the spell
+That ivory keys alone can tell;
+But when their delicate touches rest
+Here in my own do I love them best,
+As I clasp with eager acquisitive spans
+My glorious treasure of beautiful hands!
+
+Marvelous--wonderful--beautiful hands!
+They can coax roses to bloom in the strands
+Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine.
+Under mysterious touches of thine,
+Into such knots as entangle the soul,
+And fetter the heart under such a control
+As only the strength of my love understands--
+My passionate love for your beautiful hands.
+
+As I remember the first fair touch
+Of those beautiful hands that I love so much,
+I seem to thrill as I then was thrilled,
+Kissing the glove that I found unfilled--
+When I met your gaze, and the queenly bow,
+As you said to me, laughingly, "Keep it now!"
+And dazed and alone in a dream I stand
+Kissing this ghost of your beautiful hand.
+
+When first I loved, in the long ago,
+And held your hand as I told you so--
+Pressed and caressed it and gave it a kiss,
+And said "I could die for a hand like this!"
+Little I dreamed love's fulness yet
+Had to ripen when eyes were wet,
+And prayers were vain in their wild demands
+For one warm touch of your beautiful hands.
+
+Beautiful Hands! O Beautiful Hands!
+Could you reach out of the alien lands
+Where you are lingering, and give me, to-night,
+Only a touch--were it ever so light--
+My heart were soothed, and my weary brain
+Would lull itself into rest again;
+For there is no solace the world commands
+Like the caress of your beautiful hands.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Riley Songs of Home, by James Whitcomb Riley
+
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+ content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
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+ <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Riley Songs of Home by James Whitcomb
+ Riley.</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Riley Songs of Home, by James Whitcomb Riley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Riley Songs of Home
+
+Author: James Whitcomb Riley
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16265]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RILEY SONGS OF HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Scott G. Sims and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0002.jpg" width="338" height="479" alt="Cowboy standing in a field" title="" />
+</center><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+
+ <h1>RILEY</h1>
+
+ <h1>SONGS OF HOME</h1><br>
+
+ <h2>JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY</h2><br>
+ <br>
+
+
+ <h3>WITH PICTURES BY</h3>
+
+ <h2>WILL VAWTER</h2><br>
+ <br>
+
+
+ <h4>NEW YORK</h4>
+
+ <h4>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP</h4>
+
+ <h4>PUBLISHERS</h4><br>
+ <br>
+
+
+ <h5>1910</h5>
+
+ <h4>BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY</h4><br>
+
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+ <h3>TO</h3>
+
+ <h2>GEORGE A. CARR</h2><br>
+
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+ <h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <a href='#AS_CREATED'><b>AS CREATED</b></a><span class="linenum">56</span><br>
+ <a href='#AS_MY_UNCLE_USED_TO_SAY'><b>AS MY UNCLE USED TO SAY</b></a> <span class="linenum">126</span><br>
+ <a href='#AT_SEA'><b>AT SEA</b></a> <span class="linenum">160</span><br>
+ <a href='#BACKWARD_LOOK_A'><b>BACKWARD LOOK, A</b></a> <span class="linenum">155</span><br>
+ <a href='#BEST_IS_GOOD_ENOUGH_THE'><b>BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">123</span><br>
+ <a href='#BOYS_THE'><b>BOYS, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">104</span><br>
+ <a href='#BRAVE_REFRAIN'><b>"BRAVE REFRAIN, A"</b></a> <span class="linenum">113</span><br>
+ <a href='#DREAMER_SAY'><b>DREAMER, SAY</b></a> <span class="linenum">61</span><br>
+ <a href='#FEEL_IN_THE_CHRISMAS-AIR_A'><b>FEEL IN THE CHRIS'MAS AIR</b></a> <span class="linenum">52</span><br>
+ <a href='#FOR_YOU'><b>FOR YOU</b></a> <span class="linenum">50</span><br>
+ <a href='#GOOD_MAN_A'><b>GOOD MAN, A</b></a> <span class="linenum">132</span><br>
+ <a href='#HER_BEAUTIFUL_HANDS'><b>HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS</b></a> <span class="linenum">189</span><br>
+ <a href='#HIS_ROOM'><b>HIS ROOM</b></a> <span class="linenum">38</span><br>
+ <a href='#HONEY_DRIPPING_FROM_THE_COMB'><b>HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB</b></a> <span class="linenum">125</span><br>
+ <a href='#HOW_DID_YOU_REST_LAST_NIGHT'><b>"HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?"</b></a> <span class="linenum">94</span><br>
+ <a href='#IN_THE_EVENING'><b>IN THE EVENING</b></a> <span class="linenum">115</span><br>
+ <a href='#ITS_GOT_TO_BE'><b>IT'S GOT TO BE</b></a> <span class="linenum">107</span><br>
+ <a href='#JACK-IN-THE-BOX'><b>JACK-IN-THE-BOX</b></a> <span class="linenum">100</span><br>
+ <a href='#JIM'><b>JIM</b></a> <span class="linenum">117</span><br>
+ <a href='#JOHN_MCKEEN'><b>JOHN MCKEEN</b></a> <span class="linenum">165</span><br>
+ <a href='#JUST_TO_BE_GOOD'><b>JUST TO BE GOOD</b></a> <span class="linenum">26</span><br>
+ <a href='#KNEELING_WITH_HERRICK'><b>KNEELING WITH HERRICK</b></a> <span class="linenum">138</span><br>
+ <a href='#LAUGHTER_HOLDING_BOTH_HIS_SIDES'><b>LAUGHTER HOLDING BOTH HIS SIDES</b></a> <span class="linenum">81</span><br>
+ <a href='#MULBERRY_TREE_THE'><b>MULBERRY TREE, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">46</span><br>
+ <a href='#MY_DANCIN_DAYS_IS_OVER'><b>MY DANCIN' DAYS IS OVER</b></a> <span class="linenum">184</span><br>
+ <a href='#MY_FRIEND'><b>MY FRIEND</b></a> <span class="linenum">29</span><br>
+ <a href='#NATURAL_PERVERSITIES'><b>NATURAL PERVERSITIES</b></a> <span class="linenum">70</span><br>
+ <a href='#NOT_ALWAYS_GLAD_WHEN_WE_SMILE'><b>NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE</b></a> <span class="linenum">36</span><br>
+ <a href='#OLD_DAYS_THE'><b>OLD DAYS, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">135</span><br>
+ <a href='#OLD_GUITAR_THE'><b>OLD GUITAR, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">161</span><br>
+ <a href='#OLD_TRUNDLE-BED_THE'><b>OLD TRUNDLE-BED, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">64</span><br>
+ <a href='#OUR_BOYHOOD_HAUNTS'><b>OUR BOYHOOD HAUNTS</b></a> <span class="linenum">182</span><br>
+ <a href='#OUR_KIND_OF_A_MAN'><b>OUR KIND OF A MAN</b></a> <span class="linenum">92</span><br>
+ <a href='#OUR_OWN'><b>OUR OWN</b></a> <span class="linenum">63</span><br>
+ <a href='#OUT_OF_REACH'><b>"OUT OF REACH?"</b></a> <span class="linenum">112</span><br>
+ <a href='#OUT_OF_THE_HITHERWHERE'><b>OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE</b></a> <span class="linenum">98</span><br>
+ <a href='#PLAINT_HUMAN_THE'><b>PLAINT HUMAN, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">43</span><br>
+ <a href='#QUEST_THE'><b>QUEST, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">44</span><br>
+ <a href='#RAINY_MORNING_THE'><b>RAINY MORNING, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">141</span><br>
+ <a href='#REACH_YOUR_HAND_TO_ME'><b>REACH YOUR HAND TO ME</b></a> <span class="linenum">143</span><br>
+ <a href='#SCRAWL_A'><b>SCRAWL, A</b></a> <span class="linenum">75</span><br>
+ <a href='#SONG_OF_PARTING'><b>SONG OF PARTING</b></a> <span class="linenum">90</span><br>
+ <a href='#SONG_OF_YESTERDAY_THE'><b>SONG OF YESTERDAY, THE</b></a> <span class="linenum">82</span><br>
+ <a href='#SPRING_SONG_AND_A_LATER_A'><b>SPRING SONG AND A LATER, A</b></a> <span class="linenum">137</span><br>
+ <a href='#THEM_OLD_CHEERY_WORDS'><b>"THEM OLD CHEERY WORDS"</b></a> <span class="linenum">172</span><br>
+ <a href='#THINKIN_BACK'><b>THINKIN' BACK</b></a> <span class="linenum">31</span><br>
+ <a href='#THROUGH_SLEEPY-LAND'><b>THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND</b></a> <span class="linenum">170</span><br>
+ <a href='#TO_MY_OLD_FRIEND_WILLIAM_LEACHMAN'><b>TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN</b></a> <span class="linenum">145</span><br>
+ <a href='#TO_THE_JUDGE'><b>TO THE JUDGE</b></a> <span class="linenum">177</span><br>
+ <a href='#WE_MUST_BELIEVE'><b>WE MUST BELIEVE</b></a> <span class="linenum">130</span><br>
+ <a href='#WE_MUST_GET_HOME'><b>WE MUST GET HOME</b></a> <span class="linenum">19</span><br>
+ <a href='#WHERE-AWAY'><b>WHERE-AWAY</b></a> <span class="linenum">57</span><br>
+ <a href='#WHO_BIDES_HIS_TIME'><b>WHO BIDES HIS TIME</b></a> <span class="linenum">68</span><br>
+ <a href='#WRITIN_BACK_TO_THE_HOME-FOLKS'><b>WRITIN' BACK TO THE HOME-FOLKS</b></a> <span class="linenum">76</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <h2>RILEY SONGS OF HOME</h2>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+<center>
+<img src="images/illus0011.jpg" width="350" height="298" alt="Cottage and outbuildings" title="" />
+</center><br>
+ <a name='WE_MUST_GET_HOME'></a>
+
+ <h3>WE MUST GET HOME</h3><br>
+ We must get home! How could we stray like this?&mdash;<br>
+ So far from home, we know not where it is,&mdash;<br>
+ Only in some fair, apple-blossomy place<br>
+ Of children's faces&mdash;and the mother's face&mdash;<br>
+ We dimly dream it, till the vision clears<br>
+ Even in the eyes of fancy, glad with tears.<br>
+ <br>
+ We must get home&mdash;for we have been away<br>
+ So long, it seems forever and a day!<br>
+ And O so very homesick we have grown,<br>
+ The laughter of the world is like a moan<br>
+ In our tired hearing, and its song as vain,&mdash;<br>
+ We must get home&mdash;we must get home again!<br>
+ <br>
+ We must get home! With heart and soul we yearn<br>
+ To find the long-lost pathway, and return!...<br>
+ The child's shout lifted from the questing band<br>
+ Of old folk, faring weary, hand in hand,<br>
+ But faces brightening, as if clouds at last<br>
+ Were showering sunshine on us as we passed.<br>
+ <br>
+ We must get home: It hurts so staying here,<br>
+ Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear,<br>
+ And where to wear wet lashes means, at best,<br>
+ When most our lack, the least our hope of rest&mdash;<br>
+ When most our need of joy, the more our pain&mdash;<br>
+ We must get home&mdash;we must get home again!<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0013.jpg" width="365" height="475" alt="Seated woman with two children kneeling on the floor before her" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ We must get home&mdash;home to the simple things&mdash;<br>
+ The morning-glories twirling up the strings<br>
+ And bugling color, as they blared in blue-<br>
+ And-white o'er garden-gates we scampered through;<br>
+ The long grape-arbor, with its under-shade<br>
+ Blue as the green and purple overlaid.<br>
+ <br>
+ We must get home: All is so quiet there:<br>
+ The touch of loving hands on brow and hair&mdash;<br>
+ Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild&mdash;<br>
+ The lost love of the mother and the child<br>
+ Restored in restful lullabies of rain,&mdash;<br>
+ We must get home&mdash;we must get home again!<br>
+ <br>
+ The rows of sweetcorn and the China beans<br>
+ Beyond the lettuce-beds where, towering, leans<br>
+ The giant sunflower in barbaric pride<br>
+ Guarding the barn-door and the lane outside;<br>
+ The honeysuckles, midst the hollyhocks,<br>
+ That clamber almost to the martin-box.<br>
+ <br>
+ We must get home, where, as we nod and drowse,<br>
+ Time humors us and tiptoes through the house,<br>
+ And loves us best when sleeping baby-wise,<br>
+ With dreams&mdash;not tear-drops&mdash;brimming our clenched
+ eyes,&mdash;<br>
+ Pure dreams that know nor taint nor earthly stain&mdash;<br>
+ We must get home&mdash;we must get home again!<br>
+ <br>
+ We must get home! The willow-whistle's call<br>
+ Trills crisp and liquid as the waterfall&mdash;<br>
+ Mocking the trillers in the cherry-trees<br>
+ And making discord of such rhymes as these,<br>
+ That know nor lilt nor cadence but the birds<br>
+ First warbled&mdash;then all poets afterwards.<br>
+ <br>
+ We must get home; and, unremembering there<br>
+ All gain of all ambition otherwhere,<br>
+ Rest&mdash;from the feverish victory, and the crown<br>
+ Of conquest whose waste glory weighs us down.&mdash;<br>
+ Fame's fairest gifts we toss back with disdain&mdash;<br>
+ We must get home&mdash;we must get home again!<br>
+ <br>
+ We must get home again&mdash;we must&mdash;we must!&mdash;<br>
+ (Our rainy faces pelted in the dust)<br>
+ Creep back from the vain quest through endless strife<br>
+ To find not anywhere in all of life<br>
+ A happier happiness than blest us then ...<br>
+ We must get home&mdash;we must get home again!<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0017.jpg" width="350" height="288" alt="Two boys on a farm" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='JUST_TO_BE_GOOD'></a>
+
+ <h3>JUST TO BE GOOD</h3><br>
+ Just to be good&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 4em;'>This is
+ enough&mdash;enough!</span><br>
+ O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,<br>
+ Do we not feel how more than any gold<br>
+ Would be the blameless life we led of old<br>
+ While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Ah! though we miss</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>All else but this,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>To be good is
+ enough!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ It is enough&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 4em;'>Enough&mdash;just to be
+ good!</span><br>
+ To lift our hearts where they are understood;<br>
+ To let the thirst for worldly power and place<br>
+ Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face<br>
+ With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Ah! though we miss</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>All else but this,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>To be good is
+ enough!</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0019.jpg" width="342" height="475" alt="Woman reading to a boy" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<br>
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0021.jpg" width="350" height="219" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='MY_FRIEND'></a>
+
+ <h3>MY FRIEND</h3><br>
+ "He is my friend," I said,&mdash;<br>
+ "Be patient!" Overhead<br>
+ The skies were drear and dim;<br>
+ And lo! the thought of him<br>
+ Smiled on my heart&mdash;and then<br>
+ The sun shone out again!<br>
+ <br>
+ "He is my friend!" The words<br>
+ Brought summer and the birds;<br>
+ And all my winter-time<br>
+ Thawed into running rhyme<br>
+ And rippled into song,<br>
+ Warm, tender, brave and strong.<br>
+ <br>
+ And so it sings to-day.&mdash;<br>
+ So may it sing alway!<br>
+ Though waving grasses grow<br>
+ Between, and lilies blow<br>
+ Their trills of perfume clear<br>
+ As laughter to the ear,<br>
+ Let each mute measure end<br>
+ With "Still he is thy friend."<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0022.jpg" width="350" height="157" alt="Flowers" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0023.jpg" width="210" height="350" alt="Boy seated on the ground" title="" />
+</center><br>
+ <a name='THINKIN_BACK'></a>
+
+ <h3>THINKIN' BACK</h3><br>
+ I've ben thinkin' back, of late,<br>
+ S'prisin'!&mdash;And I'm here to state<br>
+ I'm suspicious it's a sign<br>
+ Of <i>age</i>, maybe, or decline<br>
+ Of my faculties,&mdash;and yit<br>
+ I'm not <i>feelin'</i> old a bit&mdash;<br>
+ Any more than sixty-four<br>
+ Ain't no <i>young</i> man any more!<br>
+ <br>
+ Thinkin' back's a thing 'at grows<br>
+ On a feller, I suppose&mdash;<br>
+ Older 'at he gits, i jack,<br>
+ More he keeps a-thinkin' back!<br>
+ Old as old men git to be,<br>
+ Er as middle-aged as me,<br>
+ Folks'll find us, eye and mind<br>
+ Fixed on what we've left behind&mdash;<br>
+ Rehabilitatin'-like<br>
+ Them old times we used to hike<br>
+ Out barefooted fer the crick,<br>
+ 'Long 'bout <i>Aprile first</i>&mdash;to pick<br>
+ Out some "warmest" place to go<br>
+ In a-swimmin'&mdash;<i>Ooh! my-oh!</i><br>
+ Wonder now we hadn't died!<br>
+ Grate horseradish on my hide<br>
+ Jes' <i>a-thinkin'</i> how cold then<br>
+ That-'ere worter must 'a' ben!<br>
+ <br>
+ Thinkin' back&mdash;W'y, goodness me!<br>
+ I kin call their names and see<br>
+ Every little tad I played<br>
+ With, er fought, er was afraid<br>
+ Of, and so made <i>him</i> the best<br>
+ Friend I had of all the rest!<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0025.jpg" width="371" height="475" alt="Man in a rocking chair" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Thinkin' back, I even hear<br>
+ Them a-callin', high and clear,<br>
+ Up the crick-banks, where they seem<br>
+ Still hid in there&mdash;like a dream&mdash;<br>
+ And me still a-pantin' on<br>
+ The green pathway they have gone!<br>
+ Still they hide, by bend er ford&mdash;<br>
+ Still they hide&mdash;but, thank the Lord,<br>
+ (Thinkin' back, as I have said),<br>
+ I hear laughin' on ahead!<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0027.jpg" width="350" height="346" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='NOT_ALWAYS_GLAD_WHEN_WE_SMILE'></a>
+
+ <h3>NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE</h3><br>
+ We are not always glad when we smile:<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Though we wear a fair face and
+ are gay,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And the world we
+ deceive</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>May not ever believe</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>We could laugh in a happier
+ way.&mdash;</span><br>
+ Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Ofttimes, with our faces
+ aglow,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>There's an ache and a
+ moan</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>That we know of
+ alone,</span><br>
+ And as only the hopeless may know.<br>
+ <br>
+ We are not always glad when we smile,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>For the heart, in a tempest of
+ pain,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>May live in the
+ guise</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of a smile in the
+ eyes</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As a rainbow may live in the
+ rain;</span><br>
+ And the stormiest night of our woe<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>May hang out a radiant
+ star</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Whose light in the
+ sky</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of despair is a lie</span><br>
+ As black as the thunder-clouds are.<br>
+ <br>
+ We are not always glad when we smile!&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>But the conscience is quick to
+ record,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>All the sorrow and
+ sin</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>We are hiding within</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Is plain in the sight of the
+ Lord:</span><br>
+ And ever, O ever, till pride<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And evasion shall cease to
+ defile</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The sacred recess</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of the soul, we
+ confess</span><br>
+ We are not always glad when we smile.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0029.jpg" width="350" height="257" alt="House with people on porch and ghostly woman in yard" title="" />
+</center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0030.jpg" width="280" height="350" alt="Violin and books" title="" />
+</center><br>
+ <a name='HIS_ROOM'></a>
+
+ <h3>HIS ROOM</h3><br>
+ "I'm home again, my dear old Room,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I'm home again, and happy,
+ too,</span><br>
+ As, peering through the brightening gloom,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I find myself alone with
+ you:</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Though brief my stay, nor far
+ away,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>I missed you&mdash;missed you
+ night and day&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>As wildly yearned for you as
+ now.&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Old Room, how are you,
+ anyhow?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ "My easy chair, with open arms,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Awaits me just within the
+ door;</span><br>
+ The littered carpet's woven charms<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Have never seemed so bright
+ before,&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The old rosettes and
+ mignonettes</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And ivy-leaves and
+ violets,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Look up as pure and fresh of
+ hue</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>As though baptized in morning
+ dew.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ "Old Room, to me your homely walls<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Fold round me like the arms of
+ love,</span><br>
+ And over all my being falls<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A blessing pure as from
+ above&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Even as a nestling child
+ caressed</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And lulled upon a loving
+ breast,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>With folded eyes, too glad to
+ weep</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And yet too sad for dreams or
+ sleep.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ "You've been so kind to me, old Room&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So patient in your tender
+ care,</span><br>
+ My drooping heart in fullest bloom<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Has blossomed for you
+ unaware;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And who but you had cared to
+ woo</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>A heart so dark, and heavy,
+ too,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>As in the past you lifted
+ mine</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>From out the shadow to the
+ shine?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ "For I was but a wayward boy<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>When first you gladly welcomed
+ me</span><br>
+ And taught me work was truer joy<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Than rioting
+ incessantly:</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And thus the din that stormed
+ within</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The old guitar and
+ violin</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Has fallen in a fainter
+ tone</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And sweeter, for your sake
+ alone.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ "Though in my absence I have stood<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In festal halls a favored
+ guest,</span><br>
+ I missed, in this old quietude,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>My worthy work and worthy
+ rest&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>By <i>this</i> I know that long
+ ago</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>You loved me first, and told me
+ so</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>In art's mute eloquence of
+ speech</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The voice of praise may never
+ reach.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ "For lips and eyes in truth's disguise<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Confuse the faces of my
+ friends,</span><br>
+ Till old affection's fondest ties<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I find unraveling at the
+ ends;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>But as I turn to you, and
+ learn</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>To meet my griefs with less
+ concern,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Your love seems all I have to
+ keep</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Me smiling lest I needs must
+ weep.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ "Yet I am happy, and would fain<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Forget the world and all its
+ woes;</span><br>
+ So set me to my tasks again,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Old Room, and lull me to
+ repose:</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And as we glide adown the
+ tide</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of dreams, forever side by
+ side,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>I'll hold your hands as lovers
+ do</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Their sweethearts' and talk
+ love to you."</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0033.jpg" width="362" height="479" alt="Man playing a guitar" title="" />
+</center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0035.jpg" width="350" height="364" alt="Beggar approaching man in top hat" title="" />
+</center><br>
+ <a name='PLAINT_HUMAN_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE PLAINT HUMAN</h3><br>
+ Season of snows, and season of flowers,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Seasons of loss and
+ gain!&mdash;</span><br>
+ Since grief and joy must alike be ours,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Why do we still
+ complain?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Ever our failing, from sun to sun,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O my intolerant
+ brother&mdash;</span><br>
+ We want just a little too little of one,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And much too much of the
+ other.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <a name='QUEST_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE QUEST</h3><br>
+ I am looking for Love. Has he passed this way,<br>
+ With eyes as blue as the skies of May,<br>
+ And a face as fair as the summer dawn?&mdash;<br>
+ You answer back, but I wander on,&mdash;<br>
+ For you say: "Oh, yes; but his eyes were gray,<br>
+ And his face as dim as a rainy day."<br>
+ <br>
+ Good friends, I query, I search for Love;<br>
+ His eyes are as blue as the skies above,<br>
+ And his smile as bright as the midst of May<br>
+ When the truce-bird pipes: Has he passed this way?<br>
+ And one says: "Ay; but his face, alack!<br>
+ Frowned as he passed, and his eyes were black."<br>
+ <br>
+ O who will tell me of Love? I cry!<br>
+ His eyes are as blue as the mid-May sky,<br>
+ And his face as bright as the morning sun;<br>
+ And you answer and mock me, every one,<br>
+ That his eyes were dark, and his face was wan,<br>
+ And he passed you frowning and wandered on.<br>
+ <br>
+ But stout of heart will I onward fare,<br>
+ Knowing <i>my</i> Love is beyond&mdash;somewhere,&mdash;<br>
+ The Love I seek, with the eyes of blue,<br>
+ And the bright, sweet smile unknown of you;<br>
+ And on from the hour his trail is found<br>
+ I shall sing sonnets the whole year round.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0037.jpg" width="350" height="327" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+</center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='MULBERRY_TREE_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE MULBERRY TREE</h3><br>
+ It's many's the scenes which is dear to my mind<br>
+ As I think of my childhood so long left behind;<br>
+ The home of my birth, with it's old puncheon-floor,<br>
+ And the bright morning-glories that growed round the door;<br>
+ The warped clab-board roof whare the rain it run off<br>
+ Into streams of sweet dreams as I laid in the loft,<br>
+ Countin' all of the joys that was dearest to me,<br>
+ And a-thinkin' the most of the mulberry tree.<br>
+ <br>
+ And to-day as I dream, with both eyes wide-awake,<br>
+ I can see the old tree, and its limbs as they shake,<br>
+ And the long purple berries that rained on the ground<br>
+ Whare the pastur' was bald whare we trommpt it around.<br>
+ And again, peekin' up through the thick leafy shade,<br>
+ I can see the glad smiles of the friends when I strayed<br>
+ With my little bare feet from my own mother's knee<br>
+ To foller them off to the mulberry tree.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0039.jpg" width="376" height="479" alt="Boy in front of house" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Leanin' up in the forks, I can see the old rail,<br>
+ And the boy climbin' up it, claw, tooth, and toe-nail,<br>
+ And in fancy can hear, as he spits on his hands,<br>
+ The ring of his laugh and the rip of his pants.<br>
+ But that rail led to glory, as certin and shore<br>
+ As I'll never climb thare by that rout' any more&mdash;<br>
+ What was all the green lauruls of Fame unto me,<br>
+ With my brows in the boughs of the mulberry tree!<br>
+ <br>
+ Then it's who can fergit the old mulberry tree<br>
+ That he knowed in the days when his thoughts was as free<br>
+ As the flutterin' wings of the birds that flew out<br>
+ Of the tall wavin' tops as the boys come about?<br>
+ O, a crowd of my memories, laughin' and gay,<br>
+ Is a-climbin' the fence of that pastur' to-day,<br>
+ And, a-pantin' with joy, as us boys ust to be,<br>
+ They go racin' acrost fer the mulberry tree.<br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0042.jpg" width="236" height="350" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='FOR_YOU'></a>
+
+ <h3>FOR YOU</h3><br>
+ For you, I could forget the gay<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Delirium of
+ merriment,</span><br>
+ And let my laughter die away<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In endless silence of
+ content.</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>I could forget, for your dear
+ sake,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The utter emptiness and
+ ache</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of every loss I ever
+ knew.&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>What could I not forget for
+ you?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ I could forget the just deserts<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of mine own sins, and so
+ erase</span><br>
+ The tear that burns, the smile that hurts,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And all that mars or masks my
+ face.</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>For your fair sake I could
+ forget</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The bonds of life that chafe
+ and fret,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Nor care if death were false or
+ true.&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>What could I not forget for
+ you?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ What could I not forget? Ah me!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>One thing, I know, would still
+ abide</span><br>
+ Forever in my memory,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Though all of love were lost
+ beside&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>I yet would feel how first the
+ wine</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of your sweet lips made fools
+ of mine</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Until they sung, all drunken
+ through&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>"What could I not forget for
+ you?"</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0043.jpg" width="350" height="227" alt="Long-stem rose" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0044.jpg" width="269" height="350" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='FEEL_IN_THE_CHRISMAS-AIR_A'></a>
+
+ <h3>A FEEL IN THE CHRIS'MAS-AIR</h3><br>
+ They's a kind o' <i>feel</i> in the air, to me.<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>When the Chris'mas-times sets
+ in.</span><br>
+ That's about as much of a mystery<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As ever I've run
+ ag'in!&mdash;</span><br>
+ Fer instunce, now, whilse I gain in weight<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And gineral health, I
+ swear</span><br>
+ They's a <i>goneness</i> somers I can't quite state&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A kind o' <i>feel</i> in the
+ air.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0045.jpg" width="384" height="475" alt="Man in a chair" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ They's a feel in the Chris'mas-air goes right<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To the spot where a man
+ <i>lives</i> at!&mdash;</span><br>
+ It gives a feller a' appetite&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>They ain't no doubt about
+ <i>that</i>!&mdash;</span><br>
+ And yit they's <i>somepin</i>'&mdash;I don't know
+ what&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That follers me, here and
+ there,</span><br>
+ And ha'nts and worries and spares me not&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A kind o' feel in the
+ air!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ They's a <i>feel</i>, as I say, in the air that's jest<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As blame-don sad as
+ sweet!&mdash;</span><br>
+ In the same ra-sho as I feel the best<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And am spryest on my
+ feet,</span><br>
+ They's allus a kind o' sort of a' <i>ache</i><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That I can't lo-cate
+ no-where;&mdash;</span><br>
+ But it comes with <i>Chris'mas</i>, and no mistake!&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A kind o' feel in the
+ air.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Is it the racket the childern raise?&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>W'y, <i>no</i>!&mdash;God bless
+ 'em!&mdash;<i>no</i>!&mdash;</span><br>
+ Is it the eyes and the cheeks ablaze&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Like my <i>own</i> wuz, long
+ ago?&mdash;</span><br>
+ Is it the bleat o' the whistle and beat<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O' the little toy-drum and
+ blare</span><br>
+ O' the horn?&mdash;<i>No! no!</i>&mdash;it is jest the
+ sweet&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The sad-sweet feel in the
+ air.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0048.jpg" width="350" height="309" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='AS_CREATED'></a>
+
+ <h3>AS CREATED</h3><br>
+ There's a space for good to bloom in<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Every heart of man or
+ woman,&mdash;</span><br>
+ And however wild or human,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Or however brimmed with
+ gall,</span><br>
+ Never heart may beat without it;<br>
+ And the darkest heart to doubt it<br>
+ Has something good about it<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 8em;'>After all.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0049.jpg" width="350" height="172" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='WHERE-AWAY'></a>
+
+ <h3>WHERE-AWAY</h3><br>
+ O the Lands of Where-Away!<br>
+ Tell us&mdash;tell us&mdash;where are they?<br>
+ Through the darkness and the dawn<br>
+ We have journeyed on and on&mdash;<br>
+ From the cradle to the cross&mdash;<br>
+ From possession unto loss.&mdash;<br>
+ Seeking still, from day to day,<br>
+ For the Lands of Where-Away.<br>
+ <br>
+ When our baby-feet were first<br>
+ Planted where the daisies burst,<br>
+ And the greenest grasses grew<br>
+ In the fields we wandered through,&mdash;<br>
+ On, with childish discontent,<br>
+ Ever on and on we went,<br>
+ Hoping still to pass, some day,<br>
+ O'er the verge of Where-Away.<br>
+ <br>
+ Roses laid their velvet lips<br>
+ On our own, with fragrant sips;<br>
+ But their kisses held us not,<br>
+ All their sweetness we forgot;&mdash;<br>
+ Though the brambles in our track<br>
+ Plucked at us to hold us back&mdash;<br>
+ "Just ahead," we used to say,<br>
+ "Lie the Lands of Where-Away."<br>
+ <br>
+ Children at the pasture-bars,<br>
+ Through the dusk, like glimmering stars,<br>
+ Waved their hands that we should bide<br>
+ With them over eventide;<br>
+ Down the dark their voices failed<br>
+ Falteringly, as they hailed,<br>
+ And died into yesterday&mdash;<br>
+ Night ahead and&mdash;Where-Away?<br>
+ <br>
+ Twining arms about us thrown&mdash;<br>
+ Warm caresses, all our own,<br>
+ Can but stay us for a spell&mdash;<br>
+ Love hath little new to tell<br>
+ To the soul in need supreme,<br>
+ Aching ever with the dream<br>
+ Of the endless bliss it may<br>
+ Find in Lands of Where-Away!<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0052.jpg" width="344" height="483" alt="Boy and a girl fishing" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+<img src="images/illus0053.jpg" width="350" height="360" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='DREAMER_SAY'></a>
+
+ <h3>DREAMER, SAY</h3><br>
+ Dreamer, say, will you dream for me<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A wild sweet dream of a foreign
+ land,</span><br>
+ Whose border sips of a foaming sea<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With lips of coral and silver
+ sand;</span><br>
+ Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Or lave themselves in the
+ tearful mist</span><br>
+ The great wild wave of the breaker weeps<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O'er crags of opal and
+ amethyst?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of tropic shades in the lands
+ of shine,</span><br>
+ Where the lily leans o'er an amber stream<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That flows like a rill of
+ wasted wine,&mdash;</span><br>
+ Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Parry the shafts of the Indian
+ sun</span><br>
+ Whose splintering vengeance falls between<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The reeds below where the
+ waters run?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Dreamer, say, will you dream of love<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That lives in a land of sweet
+ perfume,</span><br>
+ Where the stars drip down from the skies above<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In molten spatters of bud and
+ bloom?</span><br>
+ Where never the weary eyes are wet,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And never a sob in the balmy
+ air,</span><br>
+ And only the laugh of the paroquette<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Breaks the sleep of the silence
+ there?</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0054.jpg" width="350" height="203" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0055.jpg" width="350" height="385" alt="Man in a graveyard" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='OUR_OWN'></a>
+
+ <h3>OUR OWN</h3>They walk here with us, hand-in-hand;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>We gossip,
+ knee-by-knee;</span><br>
+ They tell us all that they have planned&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of all their joys to
+ be,&mdash;</span><br>
+ And, laughing, leave us: And, to-day,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>All desolate we cry</span><br>
+ Across wide waves of voiceless graves&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Good-by! Good-by!
+ Good-by!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='OLD_TRUNDLE-BED_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE OLD TRUNDLE-BED</h3><br>
+ O the old trundle-bed where I slept when a boy!<br>
+ What canopied king might not covet the joy?<br>
+ The glory and peace of that slumber of mine,<br>
+ Like a long, gracious rest in the bosom divine:<br>
+ The quaint, homely couch, hidden close from the light,<br>
+ But daintily drawn from its hiding at night.<br>
+ O a nest of delight, from the foot to the head,<br>
+ Was the queer little, clear little, old trundle-bed!<br>
+ <br>
+ O the old trundle-bed, where I wondering saw<br>
+ The stars through the window, and listened with awe<br>
+ To the sigh of the winds as they tremblingly crept<br>
+ Through the trees where the robin so restlessly slept:<br>
+ Where I heard the low, murmurous chirp of the wren,<br>
+ And the katydid listlessly chirrup again,<br>
+ Till my fancies grew faint and were drowsily led<br>
+ Through the maze of the dreams of the old trundle bed.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0058.jpg" width="352" height="475" alt="Boy tieing his shoe" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ O the old trundle-bed! O the old trundle-bed!<br>
+ With its plump little pillow, and old-fashioned spread;<br>
+ Its snowy-white sheets, and the blankets above,<br>
+ Smoothed down and tucked round with the touches of love;<br>
+ The voice of my mother to lull me to sleep<br>
+ With the old fairy-stories my memories keep<br>
+ Still fresh as the lilies that bloom o'er the head<br>
+ Once bowed o'er my own in the old trundle-bed.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0059.jpg" width="350" height="301" alt="Bed" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0060.jpg" width="248" height="350" alt="Man plowing" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='WHO_BIDES_HIS_TIME'></a>
+
+ <h3>WHO BIDES HIS TIME</h3><br>
+ Who bides his time, and day by day<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Faces defeat full
+ patiently,</span><br>
+ And lifts a mirthful roundelay,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>However poor his fortunes
+ be,&mdash;</span><br>
+ He will not fail in any qualm<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of poverty&mdash;the paltry
+ clime</span><br>
+ It will grow golden in his palm,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Who bides his time.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Who bides his time&mdash;he tastes the sweet<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of honey in the saltest
+ tear;</span><br>
+ And though he fares with slowest feet,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Joy runs to meet him, drawing
+ near;</span><br>
+ The birds are heralds of his cause;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And, like a never-ending
+ rhyme,</span><br>
+ The roadsides bloom in his applause,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Who bides his time.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Who bides his time, and fevers not<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In the hot race that none
+ achieves,</span><br>
+ Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With crimson berries in the
+ leaves;</span><br>
+ And he shall reign a goodly king,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And sway his hand o'er every
+ clime,</span><br>
+ With peace writ on his signet-ring,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Who bides his time.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0061.jpg" width="350" height="121" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0062.jpg" width="350" height="178" alt="Man running after a train" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='NATURAL_PERVERSITIES'></a>
+
+ <h3>NATURAL PERVERSITIES</h3><br>
+ I am not prone to moralize<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In scientific doubt</span><br>
+ On certain facts that Nature tries<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To puzzle us
+ about,&mdash;</span><br>
+ For I am no philosopher<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of wise elucidation,</span><br>
+ But speak of things as they occur,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>From simple
+ observation.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ I notice <i>little</i> things&mdash;to wit:&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I never missed a
+ train</span><br>
+ Because I didn't <i>run</i> for it;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I never knew it rain</span><br>
+ That my umbrella wasn't lent,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Or, when in my
+ possession,</span><br>
+ The sun but wore, to all intent,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A jocular
+ expression.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0064.jpg" width="328" height="479" alt="Man on a rainy city street" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ I never knew a creditor<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To dun me for a debt</span><br>
+ But I was "cramped" or "busted;" or<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I never knew one
+ yet,</span><br>
+ When I had plenty in my purse,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To make the least
+ invasion,&mdash;</span><br>
+ As I, accordingly perverse,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Have courted no
+ occasion.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Nor do I claim to comprehend<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>What Nature has in
+ view</span><br>
+ In giving us the very friend<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To trust we oughtn't
+ to.&mdash;</span><br>
+ But so it is: The trusty gun<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Disastrously
+ exploded</span><br>
+ Is always sure to be the one<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>We didn't think was
+ loaded.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Our moaning is another's mirth,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And what is worse by
+ half,</span><br>
+ We say the funniest thing on earth<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And never raise a
+ laugh:</span><br>
+ Mid friends that love us overwell,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And sparkling jests and
+ liquor,</span><br>
+ Our hearts somehow are liable<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To melt in tears the
+ quicker.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ We reach the wrong when most we seek<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The right; in like
+ effect,</span><br>
+ We stay the strong and not the weak&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Do most when we
+ neglect.&mdash;</span><br>
+ Neglected genius&mdash;truth be said&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As wild and quick as
+ tinder,</span><br>
+ The more we seek to help ahead<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The more we seem to
+ hinder.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ I've known the least the greatest, too&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And, on the selfsame
+ plan,</span><br>
+ The biggest fool I ever knew<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Was quite a little
+ man:</span><br>
+ We find we ought, and then we won't&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>We prove a thing, then doubt
+ it,&mdash;</span><br>
+ Know <i>everything</i> but when we don't<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Know <i>anything</i> about
+ it.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0066.jpg" width="350" height="215" alt="An umbrella" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0067.jpg" width="350" height="254" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='SCRAWL_A'></a>
+
+ <h3>A SCRAWL</h3><br>
+ I want to sing something&mdash;but this is all&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I try and I try, but the rhymes
+ are dull</span><br>
+ As though they were damp, and the echoes fall<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Limp and unlovable.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Words will not say what I yearn to say&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>They will not walk as I want
+ them to,</span><br>
+ But they stumble and fall in the path of the way<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of my telling my love for
+ you.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Simply take what the scrawl is worth&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Knowing I love you as sun the
+ sod</span><br>
+ On the ripening side of the great round earth<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That swings in the smile of
+ God.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='WRITIN_BACK_TO_THE_HOME-FOLKS'></a>
+
+ <h3>WRITIN' BACK TO THE HOME-FOLKS</h3><br>
+ My dear old friends&mdash;It jes beats all,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The way you write a
+ letter</span><br>
+ So's ever' <i>last</i> line beats the <i>first</i>,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And ever' <i>next</i>-un's
+ better!&mdash;</span><br>
+ W'y, ever' fool-thing you putt down<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>You make so
+ inte<i>rest</i>in',</span><br>
+ A feller, readin' of 'em all,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Can't tell which is the
+ <i>best</i>-un.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ It's all so comfortin' and good,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>'Pears-like I almost
+ <i>hear</i> ye</span><br>
+ And git more sociabler, you know,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And hitch my cheer up near
+ ye</span><br>
+ And jes smile on ye like the sun<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Acrosst the whole
+ per-rairies</span><br>
+ In Aprile when the thaw's begun<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And country couples
+ marries.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0070.jpg" width="343" height="475" alt="Man sitting reading a letter" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ It's all so good-old-fashioned like<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To <i>talk</i> jes like we're
+ <i>thinkin'</i>,</span><br>
+ Without no hidin' back o' fans<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And giggle-un and
+ winkin',</span><br>
+ Ner sizin' how each-other's dressed&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Like some is allus
+ doin',&mdash;</span><br>
+ "<i>Is</i> Marthy Ellen's basque ben <i>turned</i><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Er shore-enough a
+ new-un!"&mdash;</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Er "ef Steve's city-friend haint jes<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>'A <i>lee</i>tle
+ kindo'-sorto'"&mdash;</span><br>
+ Er "wears them-air blame eye-glasses<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Jes 'cause he hadn't ort
+ to?"</span><br>
+ And so straight on, <i>dad-libitum</i>,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Tel all of us feels,
+ <i>some</i>way,</span><br>
+ Jes like our "comp'ny" wuz the best<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>When we git up to come
+ 'way!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ That's why I like <i>old</i> friends like you,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Jes 'cause you're so
+ <i>abidin'</i>.&mdash;</span><br>
+ Ef I was built to live "<i>fer keeps</i>,"<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>My principul
+ residin'</span><br>
+ Would be amongst the folks 'at kep'<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Me allus <i>thinkin'</i> of
+ 'em,</span><br>
+ And sorto' eechin' all the time<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To tell 'em how I love
+ 'em.&mdash;</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Sich folks, you know, I jes love so<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I wouldn't live without
+ 'em,</span><br>
+ Er couldn't even drap asleep<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>But what I <i>dreamp'</i> about
+ 'em,&mdash;</span><br>
+ And ef we minded God, I guess<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>We'd <i>all</i> love
+ one-another</span><br>
+ Jes like one fam'bly,&mdash;me and Pap<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And Madaline and
+ Mother.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0072.jpg" width="307" height="375" alt="Woman sitting with plate in her lap" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0073.jpg" width="279" height="350" alt="Man laughing" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='LAUGHTER_HOLDING_BOTH_HIS_SIDES'></a>
+
+ <h3>LAUGHTER HOLDING BOTH HIS SIDES</h3><br>
+ Ay, thou varlet!&mdash;Laugh away!<br>
+ All the world's a holiday!<br>
+ Laugh away, and roar and shout<br>
+ Till thy hoarse tongue lolleth out!<br>
+ Bloat thy cheeks, and bulge thine eyes<br>
+ Unto bursting; pelt thy thighs<br>
+ With thy swollen palms, and roar<br>
+ As thou never hast before!<br>
+ Lustier! wilt thou! peal on peal!<br>
+ Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel&mdash;<br>
+ Wrestle with thy loins, and then<br>
+ Wheeze thee whiles, and whoop again!<br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='SONG_OF_YESTERDAY_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE SONG OF YESTERDAY</h3><br>
+
+ <center>
+ I
+ </center><br>
+ But yesterday<br>
+ I looked away<br>
+ O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay<br>
+ In golden blots<br>
+ Inlaid with spots<br>
+ Of shade and wild forget-me-nots.<br>
+ <br>
+ My head was fair<br>
+ With flaxen hair,<br>
+ And fragrant breezes, faint and rare,<br>
+ And warm with drouth<br>
+ From out the south,<br>
+ Blew all my curls across my mouth.<br>
+ <br>
+ And, cool and sweet,<br>
+ My naked feet<br>
+ Found dewy pathways through the wheat;<br>
+ And out again<br>
+ Where, down the lane,<br>
+ The dust was dimpled with the rain.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0076.jpg" width="344" height="481" alt="Boy, girl, and dog" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+
+ <center>
+ II
+ </center><br>
+ But yesterday:&mdash;<br>
+ Adream, astray,<br>
+ From morning's red to evening's gray,<br>
+ O'er dales and hills<br>
+ Of daffodils<br>
+ And lorn sweet-fluting whippoorwills.<br>
+ <br>
+ I knew nor cares<br>
+ Nor tears nor prayers&mdash;<br>
+ A mortal god, crowned unawares<br>
+ With sunset&mdash;and<br>
+ A scepter-wand<br>
+ Of apple-blossoms in my hand!<br>
+ <br>
+ The dewy blue<br>
+ Of twilight grew<br>
+ To purple, with a star or two<br>
+ Whose lisping rays<br>
+ Failed in the blaze<br>
+ Of sudden fireflies through the haze.<br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ III
+ </center><br>
+ But yesterday<br>
+ I heard the lay<br>
+ Of summer birds, when I, as they<br>
+ With breast and wing,<br>
+ All quivering<br>
+ With life and love, could only sing.<br>
+ <br>
+ My head was lent<br>
+ Where, with it, blent<br>
+ A maiden's o'er her instrument;<br>
+ While all the night,<br>
+ From vale to height,<br>
+ Was filled with echoes of delight.<br>
+ <br>
+ And all our dreams<br>
+ Were lit with gleams<br>
+ Of that lost land of reedy streams.<br>
+ Along whose brim<br>
+ Forever swim<br>
+ Pan's lilies, laughing up at him.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0080.jpg" width="367" height="483" alt="Woman playing guitar while man listens" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+
+ <center>
+ IV
+ </center><br>
+ But yesterday!...<br>
+ O blooms of May,<br>
+ And summer roses&mdash;where-away?<br>
+ O stars above;<br>
+ And lips of love,<br>
+ And all the honeyed sweets thereof!&mdash;<br>
+ <br>
+ O lad and lass,<br>
+ And orchard pass,<br>
+ And briered lane, and daisied grass!<br>
+ O gleam and gloom,<br>
+ And woodland bloom,<br>
+ And breezy breaths of all perfume!&mdash;<br>
+ <br>
+ No more for me<br>
+ Or mine shall be<br>
+ Thy raptures&mdash;save in memory,&mdash;<br>
+ No more&mdash;no more&mdash;<br>
+ Till through the Door<br>
+ Of Glory gleam the days of yore.<br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0082.jpg" width="350" height="345" alt="Woman and man clasping hands" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='SONG_OF_PARTING'></a>
+
+ <h3>SONG OF PARTING</h3><br>
+ Say farewell, and let me go;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Shatter every vow!</span><br>
+ All the future can bestow<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Will be welcome now!</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And if this fair hand I
+ touch</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>I have worshipped
+ overmuch,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>It was my mistake&mdash;and
+ so,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Say farewell, and let me
+ go.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Say farewell, and let me go:<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Murmur no regret,</span><br>
+ Stay your tear-drops ere they flow&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Do not waste them
+ yet!</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>They might pour as pours the
+ rain,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And not wash away the
+ pain:</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>I have tried them and I
+ know.&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Say farewell, and let me
+ go.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Say farewell, and let me go:<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Think me not
+ untrue&mdash;</span><br>
+ True as truth is, even so<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I am true to you!</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>If the ghost of love may
+ stay</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Where my fond heart dies
+ to-day,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>I am with you
+ alway&mdash;so,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Say farewell, and let me
+ go.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0083.jpg" width="350" height="124" alt="Ship at sea" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='OUR_KIND_OF_A_MAN'></a>
+
+ <h3>OUR KIND OF A MAN</h3><br>
+
+ <center>
+ I
+ </center><br>
+ The kind of a man for you and me!<br>
+ He faces the world unflinchingly,<br>
+ And smites, as long as the wrong resists,<br>
+ With a knuckled faith and force like fists:<br>
+ He lives the life he is preaching of,<br>
+ And loves where most is the need of love;<br>
+ His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears,<br>
+ And his face sublime through the blind man's tears;<br>
+ The light shines out where the clouds were dim,<br>
+ And the widow's prayer goes up for him;<br>
+ The latch is clicked at the hovel door<br>
+ And the sick man sees the sun once more,<br>
+ And out o'er the barren fields he sees<br>
+ Springing blossoms and waving trees,<br>
+ Feeling as only the dying may,<br>
+ That God's own servant has come that way,<br>
+ Smoothing the path as it still winds on<br>
+ Through the Golden Gate where his loved have gone.<br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ II
+ </center><br>
+ The kind of a man for me and you!<br>
+ However little of worth we do<br>
+ He credits full, and abides in trust<br>
+ That time will teach us how more is just.<br>
+ He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds<br>
+ Of querulous and uneasy minds,<br>
+ And, sympathizing, he shares the pain<br>
+ Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain;<br>
+ And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand,<br>
+ We are surely coming to understand!<br>
+ He looks on sin with pitying eyes&mdash;<br>
+ E'en as the Lord, since Paradise,&mdash;<br>
+ Else, should we read, "Though our sins should glow<br>
+ As scarlet, they shall be white as snow"?&mdash;<br>
+ And, feeling still, with a grief half glad,<br>
+ That the bad are as good as the good are bad,<br>
+ He strikes straight out for the Right&mdash;and he<br>
+ Is the kind of a man for you and me!<br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0086.jpg" width="329" height="350" alt="Man reading" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='HOW_DID_YOU_REST_LAST_NIGHT'></a>
+
+ <h3>"HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?"</h3><br>
+ "How did you rest, last night?"&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I've heard my gran'pap
+ say</span><br>
+ Them words a thousand times&mdash;that's right&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Jes them words
+ thataway!</span><br>
+ As punctchul-like as morning dast<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To ever heave in
+ sight</span><br>
+ Gran'pap 'ud allus haf to ast&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"How did you rest, last
+ night?"</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0088.jpg" width="408" height="475" alt="Elderly man and boy" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Us young-uns used to grin,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>At breakfast, on the
+ sly,</span><br>
+ And mock the wobble of his chin<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And eyebrows belt so
+ high</span><br>
+ And kind: "<i>How did you rest, last night?</i>"<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>We'd mumble and let
+ on</span><br>
+ Our voices trimbled, and our sight<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Was dim, and hearin'
+ gone.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style='width: 45%;'>
+ <br>
+ Bad as I used to be,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>All I'm a-wantin' is</span><br>
+ As puore and ca'm a sleep fer me<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And sweet a sleep as
+ his!</span><br>
+ And so I pray, on Jedgment Day<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To wake, and with its
+ light</span><br>
+ See <i>his</i> face dawn, and hear him say&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"How did you rest, last
+ night?"</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0089.jpg" width="350" height="206" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0090.jpg" width="269" height="350" alt="Tree with blossoms" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='OUT_OF_THE_HITHERWHERE'></a>
+
+ <h3>OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE</h3><br>
+ Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon&mdash;<br>
+ The land that the Lord's love rests upon;<br>
+ Where one may rely on the friends he meets,<br>
+ And the smiles that greet him along the streets:<br>
+ Where the mother that left you years ago<br>
+ Will lift the hands that were folded so,<br>
+ And put them about you, with all the love<br>
+ And tenderness you are dreaming of.<br>
+ <br>
+ Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon&mdash;<br>
+ Where all of the friends of your youth have gone,&mdash;<br>
+ Where the old schoolmate that laughed with you,<br>
+ Will laugh again as he used to do,<br>
+ Running to meet you, with such a face<br>
+ As lights like a moon the wondrous place<br>
+ Where God is living, and glad to live,<br>
+ Since He is the Master and may forgive.<br>
+ <br>
+ Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon!&mdash;<br>
+ Stay the hopes we are leaning on&mdash;<br>
+ You, Divine, with Your merciful eyes<br>
+ Looking down from the far-away skies,&mdash;<br>
+ Smile upon us, and reach and take<br>
+ Our worn souls Home for the old home's sake.&mdash;<br>
+ And so Amen,&mdash;for our all seems gone<br>
+ Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0091.jpg" width="350" height="293" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0092.jpg" width="273" height="350" alt="Jack-in-the-box" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='JACK-IN-THE-BOX'></a>
+
+ <h3>JACK-IN-THE-BOX</h3><br>
+ <i>(Grandfather, musing.)</i><br>
+ <br>
+ In childish days! O memory,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>You bring such curious things
+ to me!&mdash;</span><br>
+ Laughs to the lip&mdash;tears to the eye,<br>
+ In looking on the gifts that lie<br>
+ Like broken playthings scattered o'er<br>
+ Imagination's nursery floor!<br>
+ Did these old hands once click the key<br>
+ That let "Jack's" box-lid upward fly,<br>
+ And that blear-eyed, fur-whiskered elf<br>
+ Leap, as though frightened at himself,<br>
+ And quiveringly lean and stare<br>
+ At me, his jailer, laughing there?<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0094.jpg" width="364" height="483" alt="Elderly man and girl" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ A child then! Now&mdash;I only know<br>
+ They call me very old; and so<br>
+ They will not let me have my way,&mdash;<br>
+ But uselessly I sit all day<br>
+ Here by the chimney-jamb, and poke<br>
+ The lazy fire, and smoke and smoke,<br>
+ And watch the wreaths swoop up the flue,<br>
+ And chuckle&mdash;ay, I often do&mdash;<br>
+ Seeing again, all vividly,<br>
+ Jack-in-the-box leap, as in glee<br>
+ To see how much he looks like me!<br>
+ <br>
+ ... They talk. I can't hear what they say&mdash;<br>
+ But I am glad, clean through and through<br>
+ Sometimes, in fancying that they<br>
+ Are saying, "Sweet, that fancy strays<br>
+ In age back to our childish days!"<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0095.jpg" width="350" height="297" alt="Pipe and eyeglasses" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='BOYS_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE BOYS</h3><br>
+ Where are they?&mdash;the friends of my childhood
+ enchanted&mdash;<br>
+ The clear, laughing eyes looking back in my own,<br>
+ And the warm, chubby fingers my palms have so wanted,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As when we raced
+ over</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 3em;'>Pink pastures of
+ clover,</span><br>
+ And mocked the quail's whir and the bumblebee's drone?<br>
+ <br>
+ Have the breezes of time blown their blossomy faces<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Forever adrift down the years
+ that are flown?</span><br>
+ Am I never to see them romp back to their places,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Where over the
+ meadow,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 3em;'>In sunshine and
+ shadow,</span><br>
+ The meadow-larks trill, and the bumblebees drone?<br>
+ <br>
+ Where are they? Ah! dim in the dust lies the clover;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The whippoorwill's call has a
+ sorrowful tone,</span><br>
+ And the dove's&mdash;I have wept at it over and
+ over;&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I want the glad
+ luster</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 3em;'>Of youth, and the
+ cluster</span><br>
+ Of faces asleep where the bumblebees drone!<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0098.jpg" width="378" height="475" alt="Two boys" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0099.jpg" width="350" height="395" alt="Man on a pier" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='ITS_GOT_TO_BE'></a>
+
+ <h3>IT'S <i>GOT</i> TO BE</h3><br>
+ "When it's <i>got</i> to be,"&mdash;like! always say,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As I notice the years whiz
+ past,</span><br>
+ And know each day is a yesterday,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>When we size it up, at
+ last,&mdash;</span><br>
+ Same as I said when my <i>boyhood</i> went<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And I knowed <i>we</i> had to
+ quit,&mdash;</span><br>
+ "It's <i>got</i> to be, and it's <i>goin'</i> to
+ be!"&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So I said "Good-by" to
+ <i>it</i>.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ It's <i>got</i> to be, and it's <i>goin'</i> to be!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So at least I always
+ try</span><br>
+ To kind o' say in a hearty way,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>"Well, it's <i>got</i> to be.
+ Good-by!"</span><br>
+ <br>
+ The time jes melts like a late, last snow,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>When it's <i>got</i> to be, it
+ melts!</span><br>
+ But I aim to keep a cheerful mind,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Ef I can't keep nothin'
+ else!</span><br>
+ I knowed, when I come to twenty-one,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That I'd soon be
+ twenty-two,&mdash;</span><br>
+ So I waved one hand at the soft young man,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And I said, "Good-by to
+ <i>you</i>!"</span><br>
+ <br>
+ It's <i>got</i> to be, and it's <i>goin'</i> to be!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So at least I always
+ try</span><br>
+ To kind o' say, in a cheerful way,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>"Well, it's <i>got</i> to
+ be.&mdash;Good-by!"</span><br>
+ <br>
+ They kep' a-goin', the years and years,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Yet still I smiled and
+ smiled,&mdash;</span><br>
+ For I'd said "Good-by" to my single life,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And I now had a wife and
+ child:</span><br>
+ Mother and son and the father&mdash;one,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Till, last, on her bed of
+ pain,</span><br>
+ She jes' smiled up, like she always done,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And I said "Good-by"
+ again.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ It's <i>got</i> to be, and it's <i>goin'</i> to be!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So at least I always
+ try</span><br>
+ To kind o' say, in a humble way,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"Well, it's <i>got</i> to be.
+ Good-by!"</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0102.jpg" width="400" height="495" alt="Man weeping over body of another man" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ And then my boy&mdash;as he growed to be<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Almost a man in
+ size,&mdash;</span><br>
+ Was more than a pride and joy to me,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With his mother's smilin'
+ eyes.&mdash;</span><br>
+ He gimme the slip, when the War broke out,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And followed me. And
+ I</span><br>
+ Never knowed till the first right's end ...<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>I found him, and then, ...
+ "Good-by."</span><br>
+ <br>
+ It's <i>got</i> to be, and it's <i>goin'</i> to be!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So at least I always
+ try</span><br>
+ To kind o' say, in a patient way,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"Well, it's <i>got</i> to be.
+ Good-by!"</span><br>
+ <br>
+ I have said, "Good-by!&mdash;Good-by!&mdash;Good-by!"<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With my very best good
+ will,</span><br>
+ All through life from the first,&mdash;and I<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Am a cheerful old man
+ still:</span><br>
+ But it's <i>got</i> to end, and it's <i>goin'</i> to end!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And this is the thing I'll
+ do,&mdash;</span><br>
+ With my last breath I will laugh, O Death,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And say "Good-by" to
+ <i>you</i>!...</span><br>
+ <br>
+ It's <i>got</i> to be! And again I say,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>When his old scythe circles high,</span><br>
+ I'll laugh&mdash;of course, in the kindest way,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As I say "Good-by!&mdash;Good-by!"</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0104.jpg" width="301" height="350" alt="Baby" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='OUT_OF_REACH'></a>
+
+ <h3>"OUT OF REACH?"</h3><br>
+ You think them "out of reach," your dead?<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Nay, by my own dead, I
+ deny</span><br>
+ Your "out of reach."&mdash;Be comforted:<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 0.5em;'>'Tis not so far to
+ die.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ O by their dear remembered smiles<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And outheld hands and welcoming
+ speech,</span><br>
+ They wait for us, thousands of miles<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>This side of
+ "out-of-reach."</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0105.jpg" width="350" height="346" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='BRAVE_REFRAIN'></a>
+
+ <h3>"A BRAVE REFRAIN"</h3><br>
+ When snow is here, and the trees look weird,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the knuckled twigs are
+ gloved with frost;</span><br>
+ When the breath congeals in the drover's beard,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the old pathway to the barn
+ is lost;</span><br>
+ When the rooster's crow is sad to hear,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the stamp of the stabled
+ horse is vain,</span><br>
+ And the tone of the cow-bell grieves the ear&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O then is the time for a brave
+ refrain!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ When the gears hang stiff on the harness-peg,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the tallow gleams in frozen
+ streaks;</span><br>
+ And the old hen stands on a lonesome leg,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the pump sounds hoarse and
+ the handle squeaks;</span><br>
+ When the woodpile lies in a shrouded heap,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the frost is scratched from
+ the window-pane</span><br>
+ And anxious eyes from the inside peep&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O then is the time for a brave
+ refrain!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ When the ax-helve warms at the chimney-jamb,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And hob-nailed shoes on the
+ hearth below,</span><br>
+ And the house-cat curls in a slumber calm,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the eight-day clock ticks
+ loud and slow;</span><br>
+ When the harsh broom-handle jabs the ceil<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>'Neath the kitchen-loft, and
+ the drowsy brain</span><br>
+ Sniffs the breath of the morning meal&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O then is the time for a brave
+ refrain!</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <h4>ENVOI</h4>When the skillet seethes, and a blubbering
+ hot<br>
+ Tilts the lid of the coffee-pot,<br>
+ And the scent of the buckwheat cake grows plain&mdash;<br>
+ O then is the time for a brave refrain!<br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0107.jpg" width="250" height="350" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='IN_THE_EVENING'></a>
+
+ <h3>IN THE EVENING</h3><br>
+
+ <center>
+ I
+ </center><br>
+ In the evening of our days,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>When the first far stars
+ above</span><br>
+ Glimmer dimmer, through the haze,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Than the dewy eyes of
+ love,</span><br>
+ Shall we mournfully revert<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To the vanished morns and
+ Mays</span><br>
+ Of our youth, with hearts that hurt,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In the evening of our
+ days?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ II
+ </center><br>
+ Shall the hand that holds your own<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Till the twain are thrilled as
+ now,</span><br>
+ Be withheld, or colder grown?<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Shall my kiss upon your
+ brow</span><br>
+ Falter from its high estate?<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And, in all forgetful
+ ways,</span><br>
+ Shall we sit apart and wait&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In the evening of our
+ days?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ III
+ </center><br>
+ Nay, my wife&mdash;my life!&mdash;the gloom<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Shall enfold us
+ velvetwise,</span><br>
+ And my smile shall be the groom<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of the gladness of your
+ eyes:</span><br>
+ Gently, gently as the dew<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Mingles with the darkening
+ maze,</span><br>
+ I shall fall asleep with you&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1.5em;'>In the evening of our
+ days.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0109.jpg" width="275" height="350" alt="Man with hammer" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='JIM'></a>
+
+ <h3>JIM</h3><br>
+ He was jes a plain, ever'-day, all-round kind of a<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>jour.,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Consumpted-lookin'&mdash;but
+ la!</span><br>
+ The jokiest, wittiest, story-tellin', song-singin',<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>laughin'est,
+ jolliest</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Feller you ever saw!</span><br>
+ Worked at jes coarse work, but you kin bet he was fine<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>enough in his talk,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And his feelin's,
+ too!</span><br>
+ Lordy! ef he was on'y back on his bench ag'in to-day,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>a-carryin' on</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Like he ust to do!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Any shop-mate'll tell you there never was, on top o'<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>dirt,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A better feller'n
+ Jim!</span><br>
+ You want a favor, and couldn't git it anywheres else&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>You could git it o'
+ him!</span><br>
+ Most free-heartedest man thataway in the world, I<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>guess!</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Give up ever' nickel he's
+ worth&mdash;</span><br>
+ And, ef you'd a-wanted it, and named it to him, and it<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>was his,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>He'd a-give you the
+ earth!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Allus a-reachin' out, Jim was, and a-he'ppin' some<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Pore feller onto his
+ feet&mdash;</span><br>
+ He'd a-never a-keered how hungry he was hisse'f,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So's <i>the feller</i> got
+ somepin' to eat!</span><br>
+ Didn't make no differ'nee at all to him how <i>he</i> was<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>dressed,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>He ust to say to
+ me,&mdash;</span><br>
+ "You togg out a tramp purty comfortable in<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>winter-time, a-huntin' a
+ job,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And he'll git along!" says
+ he.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0112.jpg" width="354" height="485" alt="Man reaching into pocket for beggar" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Jim didn't have, ner never could git ahead, so overly<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>much</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O' this world's goods at a
+ time.&mdash;</span><br>
+ 'Fore now I've saw him, more'n one't, lend a dollar,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>and haf to, more'n
+ like,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Turn round and borry a
+ dime!</span><br>
+ Mebby laugh and joke about it hisse'f fer a while&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>then jerk his coat.</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And kindo' square his
+ chin,</span><br>
+ Tie on his apern, and squat hisse'f on his old<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>shoe-bench,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And go to peggin'
+ ag'in!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Patientest feller, too, I reckon, 'at ever jes<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>natchurly</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Coughed hisse'f to
+ death!</span><br>
+ Long enough after his voice was lost he'd laugh in a<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>whisper and say</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>He could git ever'thing but his
+ breath&mdash;</span><br>
+ "<i>You fellers</i>," he'd sorto' twinkle his eyes and say,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"Is a-pilin' onto me</span><br>
+ A mighty big debt fer that-air little weak-chested<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>ghost o' mine to
+ pack</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Through all
+ Eternity!"</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Now there was a man 'at jes 'peared-like, to me,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>'At ortn't <i>a-never</i>
+ a-died!</span><br>
+ "But death hain't a-showin' no favors," the old boss<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>said&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"On'y to <i>Jim</i>!" and
+ cried:</span><br>
+ And Wigger, who puts up the best sewed-work in the<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>shop&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Er the whole blame
+ neighborhood,&mdash;</span><br>
+ He says, "When God made Jim, I bet you He didn't do<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>anything else that
+ day</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>But jes set around and feel
+ good!"</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0114.jpg" width="264" height="350" alt="Old shoe" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0115.jpg" width="350" height="241" alt="Cottage" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='BEST_IS_GOOD_ENOUGH_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH</h3><br>
+ I quarrel not with Destiny,<br>
+ But make the best of everything&mdash;<br>
+ The best is good enough for me.<br>
+ <br>
+ Leave Discontent alone, and she<br>
+ Will shut her month and let <i>you</i> sing.<br>
+ I quarrel not with Destiny.<br>
+ <br>
+ I take some things, or let 'em be&mdash;<br>
+ Good gold has always got the ring;<br>
+ The best is good enough for me.<br>
+ <br>
+ Since Fate insists on secrecy,<br>
+ I have no arguments to bring&mdash;<br>
+ quarrel not with Destiny.<br>
+ <br>
+ The fellow that goes "haw" for "gee"<br>
+ Will find he hasn't got full swing.<br>
+ The best is good enough for me.<br>
+ <br>
+ One only knows our needs, and He<br>
+ Does all of the distributing.<br>
+ I quarrel not with Destiny;<br>
+ The best is good enough for me.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0116.jpg" width="350" height="288" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='HONEY_DRIPPING_FROM_THE_COMB'></a>
+
+ <h3>HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB</h3><br>
+ How slight a thing may set one's fancy drifting<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Upon the dead sea of the
+ Past!&mdash;A view&mdash;</span><br>
+ Sometimes an odor&mdash;or a rooster lifting<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A far-off "<i>Ooh!
+ ooh-ooh!</i>"</span><br>
+ <br>
+ And suddenly we find ourselves astray<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In some wood's-pasture of the
+ Long Ago&mdash;</span><br>
+ Or idly dream again upon a day<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of rest we used to
+ know.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ I bit an apple but a moment since&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A wilted apple that the worm
+ had spurned.&mdash;</span><br>
+ Yet hidden in the taste were happy hints<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of good old days
+ returned.&mdash;</span><br>
+ <br>
+ And so my heart, like some enraptured lute,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Tinkles a tune so tender and
+ complete,</span><br>
+ God's blessing must be resting on the fruit&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So bitter, yet so
+ sweet!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='AS_MY_UNCLE_USED_TO_SAY'></a>
+
+ <h3>AS MY UNCLE USED TO SAY</h3><br>
+ I've thought a power on men and things,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As my uncle ust to
+ say,&mdash;</span><br>
+ And ef folks don't work as they pray, i jings!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>W'y, they ain't no use to
+ pray!</span><br>
+ Ef you want somepin', and jes dead-set<br>
+ A-pleadin' fer it with both eyes wet,<br>
+ And <i>tears</i> won't bring it, w'y, you try <i>sweat</i>,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As my uncle ust to
+ say.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ They's some don't know their A, B, C's,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As my uncle ust to
+ say,</span><br>
+ And yit don't waste no candle-grease,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Ner whistle their lives
+ away!</span><br>
+ But ef they can't write no book, ner rhyme<br>
+ No singin' song fer to last all time,<br>
+ They can blaze the way fer the march sublime,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As my uncle ust to
+ say.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0120.jpg" width="347" height="475" alt="Man standing outdoors" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Whoever's Foreman of all things here,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As my uncle ust to
+ say,</span><br>
+ He knows each job 'at we're best fit fer,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And our round-up, night and
+ day:</span><br>
+ And a-sizin' <i>His</i> work, east and west,<br>
+ And north and south, and worst and best.<br>
+ I ain't got nothin' to suggest,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As my uncle ust to
+ say.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0121.jpg" width="350" height="404" alt="Man chopping down a tree" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='WE_MUST_BELIEVE'></a>
+
+ <h3>WE MUST BELIEVE</h3><br>
+ "<i>Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief.</i>"<br>
+ <br>
+ We must believe&mdash;<br>
+ Being from birth endowed with love and trust&mdash;<br>
+ Born unto loving;&mdash;and how simply just<br>
+ That love&mdash;that faith!&mdash;even in the blossom-face<br>
+ The babe drops dreamward in its resting-place,<br>
+ Intuitively conscious of the sure<br>
+ Awakening to rapture ever pure<br>
+ And sweet and saintly as the mother's own,<br>
+ Or the awed father's, as his arms are thrown<br>
+ O'er wife and child, to round about them weave<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And wind and bind them as one
+ harvest-sheaf</span><br>
+ Of love&mdash;to cleave to, and <i>forever</i> cleave....<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 9em;'>Lord, I believe:</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 11em;'>Help Thou mine
+ unbelief.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ We must believe&mdash;<br>
+ Impelled since infancy to seek some clear<br>
+ Fulfillment, still withheld all seekers here;&mdash;<br>
+ For never have we seen perfection nor<br>
+ The glory we are ever seeking for:<br>
+ But we <i>have</i> seen&mdash;all mortal souls as
+ one&mdash;<br>
+ Have seen its <i>promise</i>, in the morning sun&mdash;<br>
+ Its blest assurance, in the stars of night;&mdash;<br>
+ The ever-dawning of the dark to light;&mdash;<br>
+ The tears down-falling from all eyes that grieve&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The eyes uplifting from all
+ deeps of grief,</span><br>
+ Yearning for what at last we shall receive....<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 8.5em;'>Lord, I believe:</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 10.5em;'>Help Thou mine
+ unbelief.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ We must believe&mdash;<br>
+ For still all unappeased our hunger goes,<br>
+ From life's first waking, to its last repose:<br>
+ The briefest life of any babe, or man<br>
+ Outwearing even the allotted span,<br>
+ Is each a life unfinished&mdash;incomplete:<br>
+ For these, then, of th' outworn, or unworn feet<br>
+ Denied one toddling step&mdash;O there must be<br>
+ Some fair, green, flowery pathway endlessly<br>
+ Winding through lands Elysian! Lord, receive<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And lead each as Thine Own
+ Child&mdash;even the Chief</span><br>
+ Of us who didst Immortal life achieve....<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 8.5em;'>Lord, I believe:</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 9.5em;'>Help Thou mine
+ unbelief.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='GOOD_MAN_A'></a>
+
+ <h3>A GOOD MAN</h3><br>
+
+ <center>
+ I
+ </center><br>
+ A good man never dies&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In worthy deed and
+ prayer</span><br>
+ And helpful hands, and honest eyes,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>If smiles or tears be
+ there:</span><br>
+ Who lives for you and me&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Lives for the world he
+ tries</span><br>
+ To help&mdash;he lives eternally.<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A good man never
+ dies.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ II
+ </center><br>
+ Who lives to bravely take<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>His share of toil and
+ stress,</span><br>
+ And, for his weaker fellows' sake,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Makes every burden
+ less,&mdash;</span><br>
+ He may, at last, seem worn&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Lie fallen&mdash;hands and
+ eyes</span><br>
+ Folded&mdash;yet, though we mourn and mourn,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A good man never
+ dies.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0126.jpg" width="390" height="497" alt="Man plowing" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0127.jpg" width="350" height="337" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='OLD_DAYS_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE OLD DAYS</h3><br>
+ The old days&mdash;the far days&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The overdear and
+ fair!&mdash;</span><br>
+ The old days&mdash;the lost days&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>How lovely they
+ were!</span><br>
+ The old days of Morning,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With the dew-drench on the
+ flowers</span><br>
+ And apple-buds and blossoms<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of those old days of
+ ours.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Then was the <i>real</i> gold<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Spendthrift Summer
+ flung;</span><br>
+ Then was the <i>real</i> song<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Bird or Poet sung!</span><br>
+ There was never censure then,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Only honest
+ praise&mdash;</span><br>
+ And all things were worthy of it<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In the old days.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ There bide the true friends&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The first and the
+ best;</span><br>
+ There clings the green grass<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Close where they
+ rest:</span><br>
+ Would they were here? No;&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Would <i>we</i> were
+ <i>there</i>!...</span><br>
+ The old days&mdash;the lost days&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>How lovely they
+ were!</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0128.jpg" width="350" height="193" alt="Flowers" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0129.jpg" width="350" height="146" alt="Trees" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='SPRING_SONG_AND_A_LATER_A'></a>
+
+ <h3>A SPRING SONG AND A LATER</h3><br>
+ She sang a song of May for me,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Wherein once more I
+ heard</span><br>
+ The mirth of my glad infancy&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The orchard's earliest
+ bird&mdash;</span><br>
+ The joyous breeze among the trees<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>New-clad in leaf and
+ bloom,</span><br>
+ And there the happy honey-bees<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In dewy gleam and
+ gloom.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ So purely, sweetly on the sense<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of heart and spirit
+ fell</span><br>
+ Her song of Spring, its influence&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Still
+ irresistible,&mdash;</span><br>
+ Commands me here&mdash;with eyes ablur&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To mate her bright
+ refrain.</span><br>
+ Though I but shed a rhyme for her<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As dim as Autumn
+ rain.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='KNEELING_WITH_HERRICK'></a>
+
+ <h3>KNEELING WITH HERRICK</h3><br>
+ Dear Lord, to Thee my knee is bent--<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Give me
+ content&mdash;</span><br>
+ Full-pleasured with what comes to me,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Whate'er it be:</span><br>
+ An humble roof&mdash;a frugal board,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And simple hoard;</span><br>
+ The wintry fagot piled beside<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The chimney wide,</span><br>
+ While the enwreathing flames up-sprout<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And twine about</span><br>
+ The brazen dogs that guard my hearth<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And household worth:</span><br>
+ Tinge with the ember's ruddy glow<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The rafters low;</span><br>
+ And let the sparks snap with delight,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>As fingers might</span><br>
+ That mark deft measures of some tune<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>The children croon:</span><br>
+ Then, with good friends, the rarest few<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Thou boldest true,</span><br>
+ Ranged round about the blaze, to share<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>My comfort
+ there,&mdash;</span><br>
+ Give me to claim the service meet<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>That makes each seat</span><br>
+ A place of honor, and each guest<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Loved as the rest.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0132.jpg" width="352" height="475" alt="Three men by a fireplace" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0133.jpg" width="350" height="388" alt="Man walking away" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='RAINY_MORNING_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE RAINY MORNING</h3><br>
+ The dawn of the day was dreary,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the lowering clouds
+ o'erhead</span><br>
+ Wept in a silent sorrow<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Where the sweet sunshine lay
+ dead;</span><br>
+ And a wind came out of the eastward<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Like an endless sigh of
+ pain,</span><br>
+ And the leaves fell down in the pathway<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And writhed in the falling
+ rain.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ I had tried in a brave endeavor<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To chord my harp with the
+ sun,</span><br>
+ But the strings would slacken ever,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the task was a weary
+ one:</span><br>
+ And so, like a child impatient<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And sick of a
+ discontent,</span><br>
+ I bowed in a shower of teardrops<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And mourned with the
+ instrument.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ And lo! as I bowed, the splendor<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of the sun bent over
+ me,</span><br>
+ With a touch as warm and tender<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As a father's hand might
+ be:</span><br>
+ And even as I felt its presence,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>My clouded soul grew
+ bright,</span><br>
+ And the tears, like the rain of morning,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Melted in mists of
+ light.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0134.jpg" width="350" height="238" alt="Rooster" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0135.jpg" width="350" height="304" alt="Seascape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='REACH_YOUR_HAND_TO_ME'></a>
+
+ <h3>REACH YOUR HAND TO ME</h3><br>
+ Reach your hand to me, my friend,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With its heartiest
+ caress&mdash;</span><br>
+ Sometime there will come an end<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To its present
+ faithfulness&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Sometime I may ask in
+ vain</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>For the touch of it
+ again,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>When between us land or
+ sea</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Holds it ever back from
+ me.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Sometime I may need it so,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Groping somewhere in the
+ night,</span><br>
+ It will seem to me as though<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Just a touch, however
+ light,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Would make all the darkness
+ day,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And along some sunny
+ way</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Lead me through an
+ April-shower</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Of my tears to this fair
+ hour.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ O the present is too sweet<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To go on forever
+ thus!</span><br>
+ Round the corner of the street<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Who can say what waits for
+ us?&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Meeting&mdash;greeting, night
+ and day,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Faring each the selfsame
+ way&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Still somewhere the path must
+ end.&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Reach your hand to me, my
+ friend!</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0136.jpg" width="325" height="350" alt="Lake" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0137.jpg" width="277" height="350" alt="Man wearing hat" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='TO_MY_OLD_FRIEND_WILLIAM_LEACHMAN'></a>
+
+ <h3>TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAM</h3><br>
+ Fer forty year and better you have been a friend to me,<br>
+ Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,<br>
+ You allus had a kind word of counsul to impart,<br>
+ Which was like a healin' 'intment to the sorrow of my hart.<br>
+ <br>
+ When I burried my first womern, William Leachman, it was you<br>
+ Had the only consolation that I could listen to&mdash;<br>
+ Fer I knowed you had gone through it and had rallied from the blow,<br>
+ And when you said I'd do the same, I knowed you'd ort to know.<br>
+ <br>
+ But that time I'll long remember; how I wundered here and thare&mdash;<br>
+ Through the settin'-room and kitchen, and out in the open air&mdash;<br>
+ And the snowflakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen glare,<br>
+ And the neghbors' sleds and wagons congergatin' ev'rywhare.<br>
+ <br>
+ I turned my eyes to'rds heaven, but the sun was hid away;<br>
+ I turned my eyes to'rds earth again, but all was cold and gray;<br>
+ And the clock, like ice a-crackin', clickt the icy hours in two&mdash;<br>
+ And my eyes'd never thawed out ef it hadn't been fer you!<br>
+ <br>
+ We set thare by the smoke-house&mdash;me and you out thare alone&mdash;<br>
+ Me a-thinkin'&mdash;you a-talkin' in a soothin' undertone&mdash;<br>
+ You a-talkin'&mdash;me a-thinkin' of the summers long ago,<br>
+ And a-writin' "Marthy&mdash;Marthy" with my finger in the snow!<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0140.jpg" width="360" height="475" alt="Horses pulling a wagon" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ William Leachman, I can see you jest as plane as I could then;<br>
+ And your hand is on my shoulder, and you rouse me up again,<br>
+ And I see the tears a-drippin' from your own eyes, as you say:<br>
+ "Be rickonciled and bear it&mdash;we but linger fer a day!"<br>
+ <br>
+ At the last Old Settlers' Meetin' we went j'intly, you and me&mdash;<br>
+ Your hosses and my wagon, as you wanted it to be;<br>
+ And sence I can remember, from the time we've neghbored here,<br>
+ In all sich friendly actions you have double-done your sheer.<br>
+ <br>
+ It was better than the meetin', too, that nine-mile talk we had<br>
+ Of the times when we first settled here and travel was so bad;<br>
+ When we had to go on hoss-back, and sometimes on "Shanks's mare,"<br>
+ And "blaze" a road fer them behind that had to travel thare.<br>
+ <br>
+ And now we was a-trottin' 'long a level gravel pike,<br>
+ In a big two-hoss road-wagon, jest as easy as you
+ like&mdash;<br>
+ Two of us on the front seat, and our wimmern-folks behind,<br>
+ A-settin' in theyr Winsor-cheers in perfect peace of mind!<br>
+ <br>
+ And we pinted out old landmarks, nearly faded out of sight:&mdash;<br>
+ Thare they ust to rob the stage-coach; thare Gash Morgan had the fight<br>
+ With the old stag-deer that pronged him&mdash;how he battled fer his
+ life,<br>
+ And lived to prove the story by the handle of his knife.<br>
+ <br>
+ Thare the first griss-mill was put up in the Settlement, and we<br>
+ Had tuck our grindin' to it in the Fall of
+ Forty-three&mdash;<br>
+ When we tuck our rifles with us, techin' elbows all the way,<br>
+ And a-stickin' right together ev'ry minute, night and day.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0144.jpg" width="363" height="475" alt="Two men talking" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Thare ust to stand the tavern that they called the "Travelers' Rest,"<br>
+ And thare, beyent the covered bridge, "The Counter-fitters' Nest"&mdash;<br>
+ Whare they claimed the house was ha'nted&mdash;that a man was murdered thare,<br>
+ And burried underneath the floor, er 'round the place somewhare.<br>
+ <br>
+ And the old Plank-road they laid along in Fifty-one er two&mdash;<br>
+ You know we talked about the times when that old road was new:<br>
+ How "Uncle Sam" put down that road and never taxed the State<br>
+ Was a problem, don't you rickollect, we couldn't <i>dim</i>-onstrate?<br>
+ <br>
+ Ways was devius, William Leachman, that me and you has past;<br>
+ But as I found you true at first, I find you true at last;<br>
+ And, now the time's a-comin' mighty nigh our jurney's end,<br>
+ I want to throw wide open all my soul to you, my friend.<br>
+ <br>
+ With the stren'th of all my bein', and the heat of hart and brane,<br>
+ And ev'ry livin' drop of blood in artery and vane,<br>
+ I love you and respect you, and I venerate your name,<br>
+ Fer the name of William Leachman and True Manhood's jest the
+ same!<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0146.jpg" width="350" height="441" alt="House" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='BACKWARD_LOOK_A'></a>
+
+ <h3>A BACKWARD LOOK</h3><br>
+ As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And lazily leaning back in my
+ chair,</span><br>
+ Enjoying myself in a general way&mdash;<br>
+ Allowing my thoughts a holiday<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>From weariness, toil and
+ care,&mdash;</span><br>
+ My fancies&mdash;doubtless, for ventilation&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Left ajar the gates of my
+ mind,&mdash;</span><br>
+ And Memory, seeing the situation,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Slipped out in street of "Auld
+ Lang Syne."</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Wandering ever with tireless feet<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Through scenes of silence, and
+ jubilee</span><br>
+ Of long-hushed voices; and faces sweet<br>
+ Were thronging the shadowy side of the street<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As far as the eye could
+ see;</span><br>
+ Dreaming again, in anticipation,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The same old dreams of our
+ boyhood's days</span><br>
+ That never come true, from the vague sensation<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of walking asleep in the
+ world's strange ways.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Away to the house where I was born!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And there was the selfsame
+ clock that ticked</span><br>
+ From the close of dusk to the burst of morn,<br>
+ When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And helped when the apples were
+ picked.</span><br>
+ And the "chany-dog" on the mantel-shelf,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With the gilded collar and
+ yellow eyes,</span><br>
+ Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Sound asleep with the dear
+ surprise.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ And down to the swing in the locust tree,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Where the grass was worn from
+ the trampled ground</span><br>
+ And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three<br>
+ Or four such other boys used to be<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Doin' "sky-scrapers," or
+ "whirlin' round:"</span><br>
+ And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And again "had shows" in the
+ buggy-shed</span><br>
+ Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The old ghosts romp through the
+ best days dead!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ And again I gazed from the old school-room<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With a wistful look of a long
+ June day,</span><br>
+ When on my cheek was the hectic bloom<br>
+ Caught of Mischief, as I presume&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>He had such a "partial"
+ way,</span><br>
+ It seemed, toward me.&mdash;And again I thought<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of a probable likelihood to
+ be</span><br>
+ Kept in after school&mdash;for a girl was caught<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Catching a note from
+ me.</span><br><br>
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0150.jpg" width="345" height="475" alt="Man in rocking chair" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ And down through the woods to the swimming-hole&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Where the big, white, hollow,
+ old sycamore grows,&mdash;</span><br>
+ And we never cared when the water was cold.<br>
+ And always "clucked" the boy that told<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>On the fellow that tied the
+ clothes.&mdash;</span><br>
+ When life went so like a dreamy rhyme<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That it seems to me now that
+ then</span><br>
+ The world was having a jollier time<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Than it ever will have
+ again.</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0151.jpg" width="350" height="238" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0152.jpg" width="350" height="281" alt="Seascape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='AT_SEA'></a>
+
+ <h3>AT SEA</h3><br>
+ O we go down to sea in ships&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>But Hope remains
+ behind,</span><br>
+ And Love, with laughter on his lips,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And Peace, of passive
+ mind;</span><br>
+ While out across the deeps of night,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With lifted sails of
+ prayer,</span><br>
+ We voyage off in quest of light,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Nor find it
+ anywhere.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ O Thou who wroughtest earth and sea,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Yet keepest from our
+ eyes</span><br>
+ The shores of an eternity<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In calms of
+ Paradise,</span><br>
+ Blow back upon our foolish quest<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With all the driving
+ rain</span><br>
+ Of blinding tears and wild unrest,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And waft us home
+ again.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0153.jpg" width="350" height="219" alt="Guitar" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='OLD_GUITAR_THE'></a>
+
+ <h3>THE OLD GUITAR</h3><br>
+ Neglected now is the old guitar<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And moldering into
+ decay;</span><br>
+ Fretted with many a rift and scar<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That the dull dust hides
+ away,</span><br>
+ While the spider spins a silver star<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In its silent lips
+ to-day.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ The keys hold only nerveless strings&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The sinews of brave old
+ airs</span><br>
+ Are pulseless now; and the scarf that clings<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So closely here
+ declares</span><br>
+ A sad regret in its ravelings<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the faded hue it
+ wears.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ But the old guitar, with a lenient grace,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Has cherished a smile for
+ me;</span><br>
+ And its features hint of a fairer face<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>That comes with a
+ memory</span><br>
+ Of a flower-and-perfume-haunted place<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And a moonlit
+ balcony.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Music sweeter than words confess<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Or the minstrel's powers
+ invent,</span><br>
+ Thrilled here once at the light caress<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Of the fairy hands that
+ lent</span><br>
+ This excuse for the kiss I press<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>On the dear old
+ instrument.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ The rose of pearl with the jeweled stem<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Still blooms; and the tiny
+ sets</span><br>
+ In the circle all are here; the gem<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In the keys, and the silver
+ frets;</span><br>
+ But the dainty fingers that danced o'er them&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Alas for the heart's
+ regrets!&mdash;</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Alas for the loosened strings to-day,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the wounds of rift and
+ scar</span><br>
+ On a worn old heart, with its roundelay<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Enthralled with a stronger
+ bar</span><br>
+ That Fate weaves on, through a dull decay<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Like that of the old
+ guitar!</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0156.jpg" width="375" height="485" alt="Boy playing a guitar" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0157.jpg" width="321" height="350" alt="Man smoking a pipe" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='JOHN_MCKEEN'></a>
+
+ <h3>JOHN McKEEN</h3><br>
+ John McKeen, in his rusty dress,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>His loosened collar, and
+ swarthy throat;</span><br>
+ His face unshaven, and none the less,<br>
+ His hearty laugh and his wholesomeness,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the wealth of a workman's
+ vote!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Bring him, O Memory, here once more,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And tilt him back in his
+ Windsor chair</span><br>
+ By the kitchen-stove, when the day is o'er<br>
+ And the light of the hearth is across the floor,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the crickets
+ everywhere!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ And let their voices be gladly blent<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With a watery jingle of pans
+ and spoons,</span><br>
+ And a motherly chirrup of sweet content,<br>
+ And neighborly gossip and merriment,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And old-time
+ fiddle-tunes!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Tick the clock with a wooden sound,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And fill the hearing with
+ childish glee</span><br>
+ Of rhyming riddle, or story found<br>
+ In the Robinson Crusoe, leather-bound<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Old book of the
+ Used-to-be!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ John McKeen of the Past! Ah, John,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To have grown ambitious in
+ worldly ways!&mdash;</span><br>
+ To have rolled your shirt-sleeves down, to don<br>
+ A broadcloth suit, and, forgetful, gone<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Out on election
+ days!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ John, ah, John! did it prove your worth<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To yield you the office you
+ still maintain?</span><br>
+ To fill your pockets, but leave the dearth<br>
+ Of all the happier things on earth<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To the hunger of heart and
+ brain?</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0160.jpg" width="360" height="483" alt="Man gardening" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Under the dusk of your villa trees,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Edging the drives where your
+ blooded span</span><br>
+ Paw the pebbles and wait your ease,&mdash;<br>
+ Where are the children about your knees,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the mirth, and the happy
+ man?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ The blinds of your mansion are battened to;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Your faded wife is a close
+ recluse;</span><br>
+ And your "finished" daughters will doubtless do<br>
+ Dutifully all that is willed of you,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And marry as you shall
+ choose!&mdash;</span><br>
+ <br>
+ But O for the old-home voices, blent<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With the watery jingle of pans
+ and spoons,</span><br>
+ And the motherly chirrup of glad content,<br>
+ And neighborly gossip and merriment,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the old-time
+ fiddle-tunes!</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0161.jpg" width="350" height="147" alt="Plates and spoon" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0162.jpg" width="350" height="255" alt="Child shepherd and animals" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='THROUGH_SLEEPY-LAND'></a>
+
+ <h3>THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND</h3><br>
+ Where do you go when you go to sleep,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Little Boy! Little Boy!
+ where?</span><br>
+ 'Way&mdash;'way in where's Little Bo-Peep,<br>
+ And Little Boy Blue, and the Cows and Sheep<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A-wandering 'way in
+ there;&mdash;in there&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>A-wandering 'way in
+ there!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ And what do you see when lost in dreams,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Little Boy, 'way in
+ there?</span><br>
+ Firefly-glimmers and glowworm-gleams,<br>
+ And silvery, low, slow-sliding streams,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And mermaids, smiling
+ out&mdash;'way in where</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>They're a-hiding&mdash;'way in
+ there!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Where do you go when the Fairies call,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Little Boy! Little Boy!
+ where?</span><br>
+ Wade through the clews of the grasses tall,<br>
+ Hearing the weir and the waterfall<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And the Wee Folk&mdash;'way in
+ there&mdash;in there&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And the Kelpies&mdash;'way in
+ there!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ And what do you do when you wake at dawn,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Little Boy! Little Boy!
+ what?</span><br>
+ Hug my Mommy and kiss her on<br>
+ Her smiling eyelids, sweet and wan,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And tell her everything I've
+ forgot</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>About, a-wandering 'way in
+ there&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Through the blind-world 'way in
+ there!</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0163.jpg" width="350" height="261" alt="Sleepy girl" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='THEM_OLD_CHEERY_WORDS'></a>
+
+ <h3>"THEM OLD CHEERY WORDS"</h3><br>
+ Pap he allus ust to say,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"Chris'mus comes but onc't a
+ year!"</span><br>
+ Liked to hear him that-a-way,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In his old split-bottomed
+ cheer</span><br>
+ By the fireplace here at night&mdash;<br>
+ Wood all in,&mdash;and room all bright,<br>
+ Warm and snug, and folks all here:<br>
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ <br>
+ Me and 'Lize, and Warr'n and Jess<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And Eldory home fer
+ two</span><br>
+ Weeks' vacation; and, I guess,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Old folks tickled through and
+ through,</span><br>
+ Same as <i>we</i> was,&mdash;"Home onc't more<br>
+ Fer another Chris'mus&mdash;shore!"<br>
+ Pap 'u'd say, and tilt his cheer,&mdash;<br>
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ <br>
+ Mostly Pap was ap' to be<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Ser'ous in his "daily
+ walk,"</span><br>
+ As he called it; giner'ly<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Was no hand to joke er
+ talk.</span><br>
+ Fac's is, Pap had never be'n<br>
+ Rugged-like at all&mdash;and then<br>
+ Three years in the army had<br>
+ Hepped to break him purty bad.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0166.jpg" width="338" height="479" alt="Man and children in woods" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Never <i>flinched</i>! but frost and snow<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Hurt his wownd in winter.
+ But</span><br>
+ You bet <i>Mother</i> knowed it, though!&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Watched his feet, and made him putt</span><br>
+ On his flannen; and his knee,<br>
+ Where it never healed up, he<br>
+ Claimed was "well now&mdash;mighty near&mdash;<br>
+ Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ <br>
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Pap 'u'd say, and snap his eyes
+ ...</span><br>
+ Row o' apples sputter'n' here<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Round the hearth, and me and
+ 'Lize</span><br>
+ Crackin' hicker'-nuts; and Warr'n<br>
+ And Eldory parchin' corn;<br>
+ And whole raft o' young folks here.<br>
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ <br>
+ Mother tuk most comfort in<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Jest a-heppin' Pap: She'd
+ fill</span><br>
+ His pipe fer him, er his tin<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O' hard cider; er set
+ still</span><br>
+ And read fer him out the pile<br>
+ O' newspapers putt on file<br>
+ Whilse he was with Sherman&mdash;(She<br>
+ Knowed the whole war-history!)<br>
+ <br>
+ Sometimes he'd git het up some.&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"Boys," he'd say, "and you
+ girls, too,</span><br>
+ Chris'mus is about to come;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>So, as you've a right to
+ do,</span><br>
+ <i>Celebrate</i> it! Lots has died,<br>
+ Same as Him they crucified,<br>
+ That you might be happy here.<br>
+ Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ <br>
+ Missed his voice last Chris'mus&mdash;missed<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Them old cheery words, you
+ know.</span><br>
+ Mother belt up tel she kissed<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>All of us&mdash;then had to
+ go</span><br>
+ And break down! And I laughs: "Here!<br>
+ 'Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ "Them's his very words," sobbed she,<br>
+ "When he asked to marry me."<br>
+ <br>
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"Chris'mus comes but onc't a
+ year!"</span><br>
+ Over, over, still I hear,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>"Chris'mus comes but onc't a
+ year!"</span><br>
+ Yit, like him, I'm goin' to smile<br>
+ And keep cheerful all the while:<br>
+ <i>Allus</i> Chris'mus <i>There</i>&mdash;And here<br>
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"<br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0169.jpg" width="111" height="350" alt="Hat and coat hanging on wall" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='TO_THE_JUDGE'></a>
+
+ <h3>TO THE JUDGE</h3><br>
+ <i>A Voice From the Interior of Old Hoop-Pole Township</i><br>
+ <br>
+ Friend of my earliest youth,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Can't you arrange to come
+ down</span><br>
+ And visit a fellow out here in the woods&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Out of the dust of the
+ town?</span><br>
+ Can't you forget you're a Judge<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And put by your dolorous
+ frown</span><br>
+ And tan your wan face in the smile of a friend&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Can't you arrange to come
+ down?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Can't you forget for a while<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The arguments prosy and
+ drear,&mdash;</span><br>
+ To lean at full-length in indefinite rest<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>In the lap of the greenery
+ here?</span><br>
+ Can't you kick over "the Bench,"<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And "husk" yourself out of your
+ gown</span><br>
+ To dangle your legs where the fishing is good&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Can't you arrange to come
+ down?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ Bah! for your office of State!<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And bah! for its technical
+ lore!</span><br>
+ What does our President, high in his chair,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>But wish himself low as
+ before!</span><br>
+ Pick between peasant and king,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Poke your bald head through a
+ crown</span><br>
+ Or shadow it here with the laurels of Spring!&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Can't you arrange to come
+ down?</span><br>
+ <br>
+ "Judge it" out <i>here</i>, if you will,&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The birds are in session by
+ dawn;</span><br>
+ You can draw, not <i>complaints</i>, but a sketch of the
+ hill<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And a breath that your betters
+ have drawn;</span><br>
+ You can open your heart, like a case,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>To a jury of kine, white and
+ brown,</span><br>
+ And their verdict of "Moo" will just satisfy you!&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Can't you arrange to come
+ down?</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0172.jpg" width="345" height="481" alt="Man greeting another man" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ Can't you arrange it, old Pard?&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Pigeonhole Blackstone and
+ Kent!&mdash;</span><br>
+ Here we have "Breitmann," and Ward,<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Twain, Burdette, Nye, and
+ content!</span><br>
+ Can't you forget you're a Judge<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And put by your dolorous
+ frown</span><br>
+ And tan your wan face in the smile of a friend&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Can't you arrange to come
+ down?</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0173.jpg" width="350" height="388" alt="Man fishing" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0174.jpg" width="325" height="350" alt="Two boys" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <a name='OUR_BOYHOOD_HAUNTS'></a>
+
+ <h3>OUR BOYHOOD HAUNTS</h3><br>
+ Ho! I'm going back to where<br>
+ We were youngsters.&mdash;Meet me there,<br>
+ Dear old barefoot chum, and we<br>
+ Will be as we used to be,&mdash;<br>
+ Lawless rangers up and down<br>
+ The old creek beyond the town&mdash;<br>
+ Little sunburnt gods at play,<br>
+ Just as in that far-away:&mdash;<br>
+ Water nymphs, all unafraid,<br>
+ Shall smile at us from the brink<br>
+ Of the old millrace and wade<br>
+ Tow'rd us as we kneeling drink<br>
+ At the spring our boyhood knew,<br>
+ Pure and clear as morning-dew:<br>
+ <br>
+ And, as we are rising there,<br>
+ Doubly dow'rd to hear and see,<br>
+ We shall thus be made aware<br>
+ Of an eerie piping, heard<br>
+ High above the happy bird<br>
+ In the hazel: And then we,<br>
+ Just across the creek, shall see<br>
+ (Hah! the goaty rascal!) Pan<br>
+ Hoof it o'er the sloping green,<br>
+ Mad with his own melody,<br>
+ Aye, and (bless the beasty man!)<br>
+ Stamping from the grassy soil<br>
+ Bruis&eacute;d scents of <i>fleur-de-lis</i>,<br>
+ Boneset, mint and pennyroyal.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0175.jpg" width="416" height="350" alt="Landscape" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='MY_DANCIN_DAYS_IS_OVER'></a>
+
+ <h3>MY DANCIN'-DAYS IS OVER</h3><br>
+ What is it in old fiddle-chunes 'at makes me ketch my breath<br>
+ And ripples up my backbone tel I'm tickled most to death?&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Kindo' like that sweet-sick
+ feelin', in the long sweep of a swing,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>The first you ever swung in,
+ with yer first sweet-heart, i jing!&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Yer first picnic&mdash;yer
+ first ice-cream&mdash;yer first o' <i>ever'thing</i></span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>'At happened 'fore yer
+ dancin'-days wuz over!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ I never understood it&mdash;and I s'pose I never
+ can,&mdash;<br>
+ But right in town here, yisterd'y, I heerd a pore blindman<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A-fiddlin' old "Gray
+ Eagle"&mdash;<i>And</i>-sir! I jes stopped my load</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>O' hay and listened at
+ him&mdash;yes, and watched the way he
+ "bow'd,"&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And back I went, plum forty
+ year', with boys and girls I knowed</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>And loved, long 'fore my
+ dancin'-days wuz over!&mdash;</span><br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0178.jpg" width="367" height="485" alt="Man playing a fiddle near a horse-drawn wagon" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ At high noon in yer city,&mdash;with yer blame
+ Magnetic-Cars<br>
+ A-hummin' and a-screetchin' past&mdash;and bands and
+ G.A.R.'s<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>A-marchin'&mdash;and
+ fire-ingines.&mdash;<i>All</i> the noise, the whole street
+ through,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Wuz lost on me!&mdash;I only
+ heerd a whipperwill er two,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>It 'peared-like, kindo' callin'
+ 'crost the darkness and the dew,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Them nights afore my
+ dancin'-days wuz over.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ T'uz Chused'y-night at Wetherell's, er We'nsd'y-night at Strawn's,<br>
+ Er Fourth-o'-July-night at uther Tomps's house er John's!&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>With old Lew Church from Sugar
+ Crick, with that old fiddle he</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>Had sawed clean through the
+ Army, from Atlanty to the sea&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And yit he'd fetched, her home
+ ag'in, so's he could play fer me</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>One't more afore my
+ dancin'-days wuz over!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ The woods 'at's all ben cut away wuz growin' same as then;<br>
+ The youngsters all wuz boys ag'in 'at's now all oldish men;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And all the girls 'at
+ <i>then</i> wuz girls&mdash;I saw 'em, one and all,</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>As <i>plain</i> as
+ then&mdash;the middle-sized, the short-and-fat, and
+ tall&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And, 'peared-like, I danced
+ "Tucker" fer 'em up and down the wall</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Jes like afore my dancin' days
+ wuz over!</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style='width: 45%;'>
+ <br>
+ Yer <i>po</i>-leece they can holler "Say! <i>you</i>, Uncle!
+ drive ahead!&mdash;<br>
+ You can't use <i>all</i> the right-o'-way!"&mdash;fer that
+ wuz what they
+ said!&mdash;<br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>But, jes the same,&mdash;in
+ spite of all 'at you call "interprise</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>And prog-gress of
+ <i>you</i>-folks Today," we're all of <i>fambly-ties</i>&mdash;</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 1em;'>We're all got feelin's fittin'
+ fer the <i>tears</i> 'at's in our eyes</span><br>
+ <span style='margin-left: 2em;'>Er the <i>smiles</i> afore our
+ dancin'-days is over.</span><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+ <br>
+ <a name='HER_BEAUTIFUL_HANDS'></a>
+
+ <h3>HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS</h3><br>
+ O your hands&mdash;they are strangely fair!<br>
+ Fair&mdash;for the jewels that sparkle there,&mdash;<br>
+ Fair&mdash;for the witchery of the spell<br>
+ That ivory keys alone can tell;<br>
+ But when their delicate touches rest<br>
+ Here in my own do I love them best,<br>
+ As I clasp with eager acquisitive spans<br>
+ My glorious treasure of beautiful hands!<br>
+ <br>
+ Marvelous&mdash;wonderful&mdash;beautiful hands!<br>
+ They can coax roses to bloom in the strands<br>
+ Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine.<br>
+ Under mysterious touches of thine,<br>
+ Into such knots as entangle the soul,<br>
+ And fetter the heart under such a control<br>
+ As only the strength of my love understands&mdash;<br>
+ My passionate love for your beautiful hands.<br>
+ <br>
+ As I remember the first fair touch<br>
+ Of those beautiful hands that I love so much,<br>
+ I seem to thrill as I then was thrilled,<br>
+ Kissing the glove that I found unfilled&mdash;<br>
+ When I met your gaze, and the queenly bow,<br>
+ As you said to me, laughingly, "Keep it now!"<br>
+ And dazed and alone in a dream I stand<br>
+ Kissing this ghost of your beautiful hand.<br>
+ <br>
+ When first I loved, in the long ago,<br>
+ And held your hand as I told you so&mdash;<br>
+ Pressed and caressed it and gave it a kiss,<br>
+ And said "I could die for a hand like this!"<br>
+ Little I dreamed love's fulness yet<br>
+ Had to ripen when eyes were wet,<br>
+ And prayers were vain in their wild demands<br>
+ For one warm touch of your beautiful hands.<br>
+ <br>
+ Beautiful Hands! O Beautiful Hands!<br>
+ Could you reach out of the alien lands<br>
+ Where you are lingering, and give me, to-night,<br>
+ Only a touch&mdash;were it ever so light&mdash;<br>
+ My heart were soothed, and my weary brain<br>
+ Would lull itself into rest again;<br>
+ For there is no solace the world commands<br>
+ Like the caress of your beautiful hands.<br>
+ <br>
+
+ <center>
+ <img src="images/illus0182.jpg" width="235" height="350" alt="Man walking in moonlight" title="" />
+ </center><br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+ <br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Riley Songs of Home, by James Whitcomb Riley
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Riley Songs of Home, by James Whitcomb Riley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Riley Songs of Home
+
+Author: James Whitcomb Riley
+
+Release Date: July 12, 2005 [EBook #16265]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RILEY SONGS OF HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Scott G. Sims and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+RILEY
+SONGS OF HOME
+
+JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
+
+
+WITH PICTURES BY
+WILL VAWTER
+
+
+NEW YORK
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+1910
+BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
+
+
+
+TO
+GEORGE A. CARR
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ AS CREATED 56
+ AS MY UNCLE USED TO SAY 126
+ AT SEA 160
+ BACKWARD LOOK, A 155
+ BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH, THE 123
+ BOYS, THE 104
+ "BRAVE REFRAIN, A" 113
+ DREAMER, SAY 61
+ FEEL IN THE CHRIS'MAS AIR, A 52
+ FOR YOU 50
+ GOOD MAN, A 132
+ HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS 189
+ HIS ROOM 38
+ HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB 125
+ "HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?" 94
+ IN THE EVENING 115
+ IT'S GOT TO BE 107
+ JACK-IN-THE-BOX 100
+ JIM 117
+ JOHN McKEEN 165
+ JUST TO BE GOOD 26
+ KNEELING WITH HERRICK 138
+ LAUGHTER HOLDING BOTH HIS SIDES 81
+ MULBERRY TREE, THE 46
+ MY DANCIN' DAYS IS OVER 184
+ MY FRIEND 29
+ NATURAL PERVERSITIES 70
+ NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE 36
+ OLD DAYS, THE 135
+ OLD GUITAR, THE 161
+ OLD TRUNDLE-BED, THE 64
+ OUR BOYHOOD HAUNTS 182
+ OUR KIND OF A MAN 92
+ OUR OWN 63
+ "OUT OF REACH?" 112
+ OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE 98
+ PLAINT HUMAN, THE 43
+ QUEST, THE 44
+ RAINY MORNING, THE 141
+ REACH YOUR HAND TO ME 143
+ SCRAWL, A 75
+ SONG OF PARTING 90
+ SONG OF YESTERDAY, THE 82
+ SPRING SONG AND A LATER, A 137
+ "THEM OLD CHEERY WORDS" 172
+ THINKIN' BACK 31
+ THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND 170
+ TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN 145
+ TO THE JUDGE 177
+ WE MUST BELIEVE 130
+ WE MUST GET HOME 19
+ WHERE-AWAY 57
+ WHO BIDES HIS TIME 68
+ WRITIN' BACK TO THE HOME-FOLKS 76
+
+
+
+
+RILEY SONGS OF HOME
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WE MUST GET HOME
+
+
+We must get home! How could we stray like this?--
+So far from home, we know not where it is,--
+Only in some fair, apple-blossomy place
+Of children's faces--and the mother's face--
+We dimly dream it, till the vision clears
+Even in the eyes of fancy, glad with tears.
+
+We must get home--for we have been away
+So long, it seems forever and a day!
+And O so very homesick we have grown,
+The laughter of the world is like a moan
+In our tired hearing, and its song as vain,--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+We must get home! With heart and soul we yearn
+To find the long-lost pathway, and return!...
+The child's shout lifted from the questing band
+Of old folk, faring weary, hand in hand,
+But faces brightening, as if clouds at last
+Were showering sunshine on us as we passed.
+
+We must get home: It hurts so staying here,
+Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear,
+And where to wear wet lashes means, at best,
+When most our lack, the least our hope of rest--
+When most our need of joy, the more our pain--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+We must get home--home to the simple things--
+The morning-glories twirling up the strings
+And bugling color, as they blared in blue-
+And-white o'er garden-gates we scampered through;
+The long grape-arbor, with its under-shade
+Blue as the green and purple overlaid.
+
+We must get home: All is so quiet there:
+The touch of loving hands on brow and hair--
+Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild--
+The lost love of the mother and the child
+Restored in restful lullabies of rain,--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+The rows of sweetcorn and the China beans
+Beyond the lettuce-beds where, towering, leans
+The giant sunflower in barbaric pride
+Guarding the barn-door and the lane outside;
+The honeysuckles, midst the hollyhocks,
+That clamber almost to the martin-box.
+
+We must get home, where, as we nod and drowse,
+Time humors us and tiptoes through the house,
+And loves us best when sleeping baby-wise,
+With dreams--not tear-drops--brimming our clenched eyes,--
+Pure dreams that know nor taint nor earthly stain--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+We must get home! The willow-whistle's call
+Trills crisp and liquid as the waterfall--
+Mocking the trillers in the cherry-trees
+And making discord of such rhymes as these,
+That know nor lilt nor cadence but the birds
+First warbled--then all poets afterwards.
+
+We must get home; and, unremembering there
+All gain of all ambition otherwhere,
+Rest--from the feverish victory, and the crown
+Of conquest whose waste glory weighs us down.--
+Fame's fairest gifts we toss back with disdain--
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+We must get home again--we must--we must!--
+(Our rainy faces pelted in the dust)
+Creep back from the vain quest through endless strife
+To find not anywhere in all of life
+A happier happiness than blest us then ...
+We must get home--we must get home again!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+JUST TO BE GOOD
+
+
+Just to be good--
+ This is enough--enough!
+O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,
+Do we not feel how more than any gold
+Would be the blameless life we led of old
+While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
+ Ah! though we miss
+ All else but this,
+ To be good is enough!
+
+It is enough--
+ Enough--just to be good!
+To lift our hearts where they are understood;
+To let the thirst for worldly power and place
+Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
+With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
+ Ah! though we miss
+ All else but this,
+ To be good is enough!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+MY FRIEND
+
+
+"He is my friend," I said,--
+"Be patient!" Overhead
+The skies were drear and dim;
+And lo! the thought of him
+Smiled on my heart--and then
+The sun shone out again!
+
+"He is my friend!" The words
+Brought summer and the birds;
+And all my winter-time
+Thawed into running rhyme
+And rippled into song,
+Warm, tender, brave and strong.
+
+And so it sings to-day.--
+So may it sing alway!
+Though waving grasses grow
+Between, and lilies blow
+Their trills of perfume clear
+As laughter to the ear,
+Let each mute measure end
+With "Still he is thy friend."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THINKIN' BACK
+
+
+I've ben thinkin' back, of late,
+S'prisin'!--And I'm here to state
+I'm suspicious it's a sign
+Of _age_, maybe, or decline
+Of my faculties,--and yit
+I'm not _feelin'_ old a bit--
+Any more than sixty-four
+Ain't no _young_ man any more!
+
+Thinkin' back's a thing 'at grows
+On a feller, I suppose--
+Older 'at he gits, i jack,
+More he keeps a-thinkin' back!
+Old as old men git to be,
+Er as middle-aged as me,
+Folks'll find us, eye and mind
+Fixed on what we've left behind--
+Rehabilitatin'-like
+Them old times we used to hike
+Out barefooted fer the crick,
+'Long 'bout _Aprile first_--to pick
+Out some "warmest" place to go
+In a-swimmin'--_Ooh! my-oh!_
+Wonder now we hadn't died!
+Grate horseradish on my hide
+Jes' _a-thinkin'_ how cold then
+That-'ere worter must 'a' ben!
+
+Thinkin' back--W'y, goodness me!
+I kin call their names and see
+Every little tad I played
+With, er fought, er was afraid
+Of, and so made _him_ the best
+Friend I had of all the rest!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thinkin' back, I even hear
+Them a-callin', high and clear,
+Up the crick-banks, where they seem
+Still hid in there--like a dream--
+And me still a-pantin' on
+The green pathway they have gone!
+Still they hide, by bend er ford--
+Still they hide--but, thank the Lord,
+(Thinkin' back, as I have said),
+I hear laughin' on ahead!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE
+
+
+We are not always glad when we smile:
+ Though we wear a fair face and are gay,
+ And the world we deceive
+ May not ever believe
+ We could laugh in a happier way.--
+Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,
+ Ofttimes, with our faces aglow,
+ There's an ache and a moan
+ That we know of alone,
+And as only the hopeless may know.
+
+We are not always glad when we smile,--
+ For the heart, in a tempest of pain,
+ May live in the guise
+ Of a smile in the eyes
+ As a rainbow may live in the rain;
+And the stormiest night of our woe
+ May hang out a radiant star
+ Whose light in the sky
+ Of despair is a lie
+As black as the thunder-clouds are.
+
+We are not always glad when we smile!--
+ But the conscience is quick to record,
+ All the sorrow and sin
+ We are hiding within
+ Is plain in the sight of the Lord:
+And ever, O ever, till pride
+ And evasion shall cease to defile
+ The sacred recess
+ Of the soul, we confess
+We are not always glad when we smile.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+HIS ROOM
+
+
+"I'm home again, my dear old Room,
+ I'm home again, and happy, too,
+As, peering through the brightening gloom,
+ I find myself alone with you:
+ Though brief my stay, nor far away,
+ I missed you--missed you night and day--
+ As wildly yearned for you as now.--
+ Old Room, how are you, anyhow?
+
+"My easy chair, with open arms,
+ Awaits me just within the door;
+The littered carpet's woven charms
+ Have never seemed so bright before,--
+ The old rosettes and mignonettes
+ And ivy-leaves and violets,
+ Look up as pure and fresh of hue
+ As though baptized in morning dew.
+
+"Old Room, to me your homely walls
+ Fold round me like the arms of love,
+And over all my being falls
+ A blessing pure as from above--
+ Even as a nestling child caressed
+ And lulled upon a loving breast,
+ With folded eyes, too glad to weep
+ And yet too sad for dreams or sleep.
+
+"You've been so kind to me, old Room--
+ So patient in your tender care,
+My drooping heart in fullest bloom
+ Has blossomed for you unaware;
+ And who but you had cared to woo
+ A heart so dark, and heavy, too,
+ As in the past you lifted mine
+ From out the shadow to the shine?
+
+"For I was but a wayward boy
+ When first you gladly welcomed me
+And taught me work was truer joy
+ Than rioting incessantly:
+ And thus the din that stormed within
+ The old guitar and violin
+ Has fallen in a fainter tone
+ And sweeter, for your sake alone.
+
+"Though in my absence I have stood
+ In festal halls a favored guest,
+I missed, in this old quietude,
+ My worthy work and worthy rest--
+ By _this_ I know that long ago
+ You loved me first, and told me so
+ In art's mute eloquence of speech
+ The voice of praise may never reach.
+
+"For lips and eyes in truth's disguise
+ Confuse the faces of my friends,
+Till old affection's fondest ties
+ I find unraveling at the ends;
+ But as I turn to you, and learn
+ To meet my griefs with less concern,
+ Your love seems all I have to keep
+ Me smiling lest I needs must weep.
+
+"Yet I am happy, and would fain
+ Forget the world and all its woes;
+So set me to my tasks again,
+ Old Room, and lull me to repose:
+ And as we glide adown the tide
+ Of dreams, forever side by side,
+ I'll hold your hands as lovers do
+ Their sweethearts' and talk love to you."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE PLAINT HUMAN
+
+
+Season of snows, and season of flowers,
+ Seasons of loss and gain!--
+Since grief and joy must alike be ours,
+ Why do we still complain?
+
+Ever our failing, from sun to sun,
+ O my intolerant brother--
+We want just a little too little of one,
+ And much too much of the other.
+
+
+
+
+THE QUEST
+
+
+I am looking for Love. Has he passed this way,
+With eyes as blue as the skies of May,
+And a face as fair as the summer dawn?--
+You answer back, but I wander on,--
+For you say: "Oh, yes; but his eyes were gray,
+And his face as dim as a rainy day."
+
+Good friends, I query, I search for Love;
+His eyes are as blue as the skies above,
+And his smile as bright as the midst of May
+When the truce-bird pipes: Has he passed this way?
+And one says: "Ay; but his face, alack!
+Frowned as he passed, and his eyes were black."
+
+O who will tell me of Love? I cry!
+His eyes are as blue as the mid-May sky,
+And his face as bright as the morning sun;
+And you answer and mock me, every one,
+That his eyes were dark, and his face was wan,
+And he passed you frowning and wandered on.
+
+But stout of heart will I onward fare,
+Knowing _my_ Love is beyond--somewhere,--
+The Love I seek, with the eyes of blue,
+And the bright, sweet smile unknown of you;
+And on from the hour his trail is found
+I shall sing sonnets the whole year round.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE MULBERRY TREE
+
+
+It's many's the scenes which is dear to my mind
+As I think of my childhood so long left behind;
+The home of my birth, with it's old puncheon-floor,
+And the bright morning-glories that growed round the door;
+The warped clab-board roof whare the rain it run off
+Into streams of sweet dreams as I laid in the loft,
+Countin' all of the joys that was dearest to me,
+And a-thinkin' the most of the mulberry tree.
+
+And to-day as I dream, with both eyes wide-awake,
+I can see the old tree, and its limbs as they shake,
+And the long purple berries that rained on the ground
+Whare the pastur' was bald whare we trommpt it around.
+And again, peekin' up through the thick leafy shade,
+I can see the glad smiles of the friends when I strayed
+With my little bare feet from my own mother's knee
+To foller them off to the mulberry tree.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Leanin' up in the forks, I can see the old rail,
+And the boy climbin' up it, claw, tooth, and toe-nail,
+And in fancy can hear, as he spits on his hands,
+The ring of his laugh and the rip of his pants.
+But that rail led to glory, as certin and shore
+As I'll never climb thare by that rout' any more--
+What was all the green lauruls of Fame unto me,
+With my brows in the boughs of the mulberry tree!
+
+Then it's who can fergit the old mulberry tree
+That he knowed in the days when his thoughts was as free
+As the flutterin' wings of the birds that flew out
+Of the tall wavin' tops as the boys come about?
+O, a crowd of my memories, laughin' and gay,
+Is a-climbin' the fence of that pastur' to-day,
+And, a-pantin' with joy, as us boys ust to be,
+They go racin' acrost fer the mulberry tree.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+FOR YOU
+
+
+For you, I could forget the gay
+ Delirium of merriment,
+And let my laughter die away
+ In endless silence of content.
+ I could forget, for your dear sake,
+ The utter emptiness and ache
+ Of every loss I ever knew.--
+ What could I not forget for you?
+
+I could forget the just deserts
+ Of mine own sins, and so erase
+The tear that burns, the smile that hurts,
+ And all that mars or masks my face.
+ For your fair sake I could forget
+ The bonds of life that chafe and fret,
+ Nor care if death were false or true.--
+ What could I not forget for you?
+
+What could I not forget? Ah me!
+ One thing, I know, would still abide
+Forever in my memory,
+ Though all of love were lost beside--
+ I yet would feel how first the wine
+ Of your sweet lips made fools of mine
+ Until they sung, all drunken through--
+ "What could I not forget for you?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A FEEL IN THE CHRIS'MAS-AIR
+
+
+They's a kind o' _feel_ in the air, to me.
+ When the Chris'mas-times sets in.
+That's about as much of a mystery
+ As ever I've run ag'in!--
+Fer instunce, now, whilse I gain in weight
+ And gineral health, I swear
+They's a _goneness_ somers I can't quite state--
+ A kind o' _feel_ in the air.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They's a feel in the Chris'mas-air goes right
+ To the spot where a man _lives_ at!--
+It gives a feller a' appetite--
+ They ain't no doubt about _that_!--
+And yit they's _somepin_'--I don't know what--
+ That follers me, here and there,
+And ha'nts and worries and spares me not--
+ A kind o' feel in the air!
+
+They's a _feel_, as I say, in the air that's jest
+ As blame-don sad as sweet!--
+In the same ra-sho as I feel the best
+ And am spryest on my feet,
+They's allus a kind o' sort of a' _ache_
+ That I can't lo-cate no-where;--
+But it comes with _Chris'mas_, and no mistake!--
+ A kind o' feel in the air.
+
+Is it the racket the childern raise?--
+ W'y, _no_!--God bless 'em!--_no_!--
+Is it the eyes and the cheeks ablaze--
+ Like my _own_ wuz, long ago?--
+Is it the bleat o' the whistle and beat
+ O' the little toy-drum and blare
+O' the horn?--_No! no!_--it is jest the sweet--
+ The sad-sweet feel in the air.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+AS CREATED
+
+
+There's a space for good to bloom in
+ Every heart of man or woman,--
+And however wild or human,
+ Or however brimmed with gall,
+Never heart may beat without it;
+And the darkest heart to doubt it
+Has something good about it
+ After all.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WHERE-AWAY
+
+
+O the Lands of Where-Away!
+Tell us--tell us--where are they?
+Through the darkness and the dawn
+We have journeyed on and on--
+From the cradle to the cross--
+From possession unto loss.--
+Seeking still, from day to day,
+For the Lands of Where-Away.
+
+When our baby-feet were first
+Planted where the daisies burst,
+And the greenest grasses grew
+In the fields we wandered through,--
+On, with childish discontent,
+Ever on and on we went,
+Hoping still to pass, some day,
+O'er the verge of Where-Away.
+
+Roses laid their velvet lips
+On our own, with fragrant sips;
+But their kisses held us not,
+All their sweetness we forgot;--
+Though the brambles in our track
+Plucked at us to hold us back--
+"Just ahead," we used to say,
+"Lie the Lands of Where-Away."
+
+Children at the pasture-bars,
+Through the dusk, like glimmering stars,
+Waved their hands that we should bide
+With them over eventide;
+Down the dark their voices failed
+Falteringly, as they hailed,
+And died into yesterday--
+Night ahead and--Where-Away?
+
+Twining arms about us thrown--
+Warm caresses, all our own,
+Can but stay us for a spell--
+Love hath little new to tell
+To the soul in need supreme,
+Aching ever with the dream
+Of the endless bliss it may
+Find in Lands of Where-Away!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+DREAMER, SAY
+
+
+Dreamer, say, will you dream for me
+ A wild sweet dream of a foreign land,
+Whose border sips of a foaming sea
+ With lips of coral and silver sand;
+Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps,
+ Or lave themselves in the tearful mist
+The great wild wave of the breaker weeps
+ O'er crags of opal and amethyst?
+
+Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream
+ Of tropic shades in the lands of shine,
+Where the lily leans o'er an amber stream
+ That flows like a rill of wasted wine,--
+Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green,
+ Parry the shafts of the Indian sun
+Whose splintering vengeance falls between
+ The reeds below where the waters run?
+
+Dreamer, say, will you dream of love
+ That lives in a land of sweet perfume,
+Where the stars drip down from the skies above
+ In molten spatters of bud and bloom?
+Where never the weary eyes are wet,
+ And never a sob in the balmy air,
+And only the laugh of the paroquette
+ Breaks the sleep of the silence there?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+OUR OWN
+
+
+They walk here with us, hand-in-hand;
+ We gossip, knee-by-knee;
+They tell us all that they have planned--
+ Of all their joys to be,--
+And, laughing, leave us: And, to-day,
+ All desolate we cry
+Across wide waves of voiceless graves--
+ Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD TRUNDLE-BED
+
+
+O the old trundle-bed where I slept when a boy!
+What canopied king might not covet the joy?
+The glory and peace of that slumber of mine,
+Like a long, gracious rest in the bosom divine:
+The quaint, homely couch, hidden close from the light,
+But daintily drawn from its hiding at night.
+O a nest of delight, from the foot to the head,
+Was the queer little, clear little, old trundle-bed!
+
+O the old trundle-bed, where I wondering saw
+The stars through the window, and listened with awe
+To the sigh of the winds as they tremblingly crept
+Through the trees where the robin so restlessly slept:
+Where I heard the low, murmurous chirp of the wren,
+And the katydid listlessly chirrup again,
+Till my fancies grew faint and were drowsily led
+Through the maze of the dreams of the old trundle bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+O the old trundle-bed! O the old trundle-bed!
+With its plump little pillow, and old-fashioned spread;
+Its snowy-white sheets, and the blankets above,
+Smoothed down and tucked round with the touches of love;
+The voice of my mother to lull me to sleep
+With the old fairy-stories my memories keep
+Still fresh as the lilies that bloom o'er the head
+Once bowed o'er my own in the old trundle-bed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+WHO BIDES HIS TIME
+
+
+Who bides his time, and day by day
+ Faces defeat full patiently,
+And lifts a mirthful roundelay,
+ However poor his fortunes be,--
+He will not fail in any qualm
+ Of poverty--the paltry clime
+It will grow golden in his palm,
+ Who bides his time.
+
+Who bides his time--he tastes the sweet
+ Of honey in the saltest tear;
+And though he fares with slowest feet,
+ Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;
+The birds are heralds of his cause;
+ And, like a never-ending rhyme,
+The roadsides bloom in his applause,
+ Who bides his time.
+
+Who bides his time, and fevers not
+ In the hot race that none achieves,
+Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought
+ With crimson berries in the leaves;
+And he shall reign a goodly king,
+ And sway his hand o'er every clime,
+With peace writ on his signet-ring,
+ Who bides his time.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+NATURAL PERVERSITIES
+
+
+I am not prone to moralize
+ In scientific doubt
+On certain facts that Nature tries
+ To puzzle us about,--
+For I am no philosopher
+ Of wise elucidation,
+But speak of things as they occur,
+ From simple observation.
+
+I notice _little_ things--to wit:--
+ I never missed a train
+Because I didn't _run_ for it;
+ I never knew it rain
+That my umbrella wasn't lent,--
+ Or, when in my possession,
+The sun but wore, to all intent,
+ A jocular expression.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+I never knew a creditor
+ To dun me for a debt
+But I was "cramped" or "busted;" or
+ I never knew one yet,
+When I had plenty in my purse,
+ To make the least invasion,--
+As I, accordingly perverse,
+ Have courted no occasion.
+
+Nor do I claim to comprehend
+ What Nature has in view
+In giving us the very friend
+ To trust we oughtn't to.--
+But so it is: The trusty gun
+ Disastrously exploded
+Is always sure to be the one
+ We didn't think was loaded.
+
+Our moaning is another's mirth,--
+ And what is worse by half,
+We say the funniest thing on earth
+ And never raise a laugh:
+Mid friends that love us overwell,
+ And sparkling jests and liquor,
+Our hearts somehow are liable
+ To melt in tears the quicker.
+
+We reach the wrong when most we seek
+ The right; in like effect,
+We stay the strong and not the weak--
+ Do most when we neglect.--
+Neglected genius--truth be said--
+ As wild and quick as tinder,
+The more we seek to help ahead
+ The more we seem to hinder.
+
+I've known the least the greatest, too--
+ And, on the selfsame plan,
+The biggest fool I ever knew
+ Was quite a little man:
+We find we ought, and then we won't--
+ We prove a thing, then doubt it,--
+Know _everything_ but when we don't
+ Know _anything_ about it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A SCRAWL
+
+
+I want to sing something--but this is all--
+ I try and I try, but the rhymes are dull
+As though they were damp, and the echoes fall
+ Limp and unlovable.
+
+Words will not say what I yearn to say--
+ They will not walk as I want them to,
+But they stumble and fall in the path of the way
+ Of my telling my love for you.
+
+Simply take what the scrawl is worth--
+ Knowing I love you as sun the sod
+On the ripening side of the great round earth
+ That swings in the smile of God.
+
+
+
+
+WRITIN' BACK TO THE HOME-FOLKS
+
+
+My dear old friends--It jes beats all,
+ The way you write a letter
+So's ever' _last_ line beats the _first_,
+ And ever' _next_-un's better!--
+W'y, ever' fool-thing you putt down
+ You make so inte_rest_in',
+A feller, readin' of 'em all,
+ Can't tell which is the _best_-un.
+
+It's all so comfortin' and good,
+ 'Pears-like I almost _hear_ ye
+And git more sociabler, you know,
+ And hitch my cheer up near ye
+And jes smile on ye like the sun
+ Acrosst the whole per-rairies
+In Aprile when the thaw's begun
+ And country couples marries.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It's all so good-old-fashioned like
+ To _talk_ jes like we're _thinkin'_,
+Without no hidin' back o' fans
+ And giggle-un and winkin',
+Ner sizin' how each-other's dressed--
+ Like some is allus doin',--
+"_Is_ Marthy Ellen's basque ben _turned_
+ Er shore-enough a new-un!"--
+
+Er "ef Steve's city-friend haint jes
+ 'A _lee_tle kindo'-sorto'"--
+Er "wears them-air blame eye-glasses
+ Jes 'cause he hadn't ort to?"
+And so straight on, _dad-libitum_,
+ Tel all of us feels, _some_way,
+Jes like our "comp'ny" wuz the best
+ When we git up to come 'way!
+
+That's why I like _old_ friends like you,--
+ Jes 'cause you're so _abidin'_.--
+Ef I was built to live "_fer keeps_,"
+ My principul residin'
+Would be amongst the folks 'at kep'
+ Me allus _thinkin'_ of 'em,
+And sorto' eechin' all the time
+ To tell 'em how I love 'em.--
+
+Sich folks, you know, I jes love so
+ I wouldn't live without 'em,
+Er couldn't even drap asleep
+ But what I _dreamp'_ about 'em,--
+And ef we minded God, I guess
+ We'd _all_ love one-another
+Jes like one fam'bly,--me and Pap
+ And Madaline and Mother.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+LAUGHTER HOLDING BOTH HIS SIDES
+
+
+Ay, thou varlet!--Laugh away!
+All the world's a holiday!
+Laugh away, and roar and shout
+Till thy hoarse tongue lolleth out!
+Bloat thy cheeks, and bulge thine eyes
+Unto bursting; pelt thy thighs
+With thy swollen palms, and roar
+As thou never hast before!
+Lustier! wilt thou! peal on peal!
+Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel--
+Wrestle with thy loins, and then
+Wheeze thee whiles, and whoop again!
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF YESTERDAY
+
+
+I
+
+But yesterday
+I looked away
+O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay
+In golden blots
+Inlaid with spots
+Of shade and wild forget-me-nots.
+
+My head was fair
+With flaxen hair,
+And fragrant breezes, faint and rare,
+And warm with drouth
+From out the south,
+Blew all my curls across my mouth.
+
+And, cool and sweet,
+My naked feet
+Found dewy pathways through the wheat;
+And out again
+Where, down the lane,
+The dust was dimpled with the rain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+II
+
+But yesterday:--
+Adream, astray,
+From morning's red to evening's gray,
+O'er dales and hills
+Of daffodils
+And lorn sweet-fluting whippoorwills.
+
+I knew nor cares
+Nor tears nor prayers--
+A mortal god, crowned unawares
+With sunset--and
+A scepter-wand
+Of apple-blossoms in my hand!
+
+The dewy blue
+Of twilight grew
+To purple, with a star or two
+Whose lisping rays
+Failed in the blaze
+Of sudden fireflies through the haze.
+
+
+III
+
+But yesterday
+I heard the lay
+Of summer birds, when I, as they
+With breast and wing,
+All quivering
+With life and love, could only sing.
+
+My head was lent
+Where, with it, blent
+A maiden's o'er her instrument;
+While all the night,
+From vale to height,
+Was filled with echoes of delight.
+
+And all our dreams
+Were lit with gleams
+Of that lost land of reedy streams.
+Along whose brim
+Forever swim
+Pan's lilies, laughing up at him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+IV
+
+But yesterday!...
+O blooms of May,
+And summer roses--where-away?
+O stars above;
+And lips of love,
+And all the honeyed sweets thereof!--
+
+O lad and lass,
+And orchard pass,
+And briered lane, and daisied grass!
+O gleam and gloom,
+And woodland bloom,
+And breezy breaths of all perfume!--
+
+No more for me
+Or mine shall be
+Thy raptures--save in memory,--
+No more--no more--
+Till through the Door
+Of Glory gleam the days of yore.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+SONG OF PARTING
+
+
+Say farewell, and let me go;
+ Shatter every vow!
+All the future can bestow
+ Will be welcome now!
+ And if this fair hand I touch
+ I have worshipped overmuch,
+ It was my mistake--and so,
+ Say farewell, and let me go.
+
+Say farewell, and let me go:
+ Murmur no regret,
+Stay your tear-drops ere they flow--
+ Do not waste them yet!
+ They might pour as pours the rain,
+ And not wash away the pain:
+ I have tried them and I know.--
+ Say farewell, and let me go.
+
+Say farewell, and let me go:
+ Think me not untrue--
+True as truth is, even so
+ I am true to you!
+ If the ghost of love may stay
+ Where my fond heart dies to-day,
+ I am with you alway--so,
+ Say farewell, and let me go.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+OUR KIND OF A MAN
+
+
+I
+
+The kind of a man for you and me!
+He faces the world unflinchingly,
+And smites, as long as the wrong resists,
+With a knuckled faith and force like fists:
+He lives the life he is preaching of,
+And loves where most is the need of love;
+His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears,
+And his face sublime through the blind man's tears;
+The light shines out where the clouds were dim,
+And the widow's prayer goes up for him;
+The latch is clicked at the hovel door
+And the sick man sees the sun once more,
+And out o'er the barren fields he sees
+Springing blossoms and waving trees,
+Feeling as only the dying may,
+That God's own servant has come that way,
+Smoothing the path as it still winds on
+Through the Golden Gate where his loved have gone.
+
+
+II
+
+The kind of a man for me and you!
+However little of worth we do
+He credits full, and abides in trust
+That time will teach us how more is just.
+He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds
+Of querulous and uneasy minds,
+And, sympathizing, he shares the pain
+Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain;
+And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand,
+We are surely coming to understand!
+He looks on sin with pitying eyes--
+E'en as the Lord, since Paradise,--
+Else, should we read, "Though our sins should glow
+As scarlet, they shall be white as snow"?--
+And, feeling still, with a grief half glad,
+That the bad are as good as the good are bad,
+He strikes straight out for the Right--and he
+Is the kind of a man for you and me!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?"
+
+
+"How did you rest, last night?"--
+ I've heard my gran'pap say
+Them words a thousand times--that's right--
+ Jes them words thataway!
+As punctchul-like as morning dast
+ To ever heave in sight
+Gran'pap 'ud allus haf to ast--
+ "How did you rest, last night?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Us young-uns used to grin,
+ At breakfast, on the sly,
+And mock the wobble of his chin
+ And eyebrows belt so high
+And kind: _"How did you rest, last night?"_
+ We'd mumble and let on
+Our voices trimbled, and our sight
+ Was dim, and hearin' gone.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Bad as I used to be,
+ All I'm a-wantin' is
+As puore and ca'm a sleep fer me
+ And sweet a sleep as his!
+And so I pray, on Jedgment Day
+ To wake, and with its light
+See _his_ face dawn, and hear him say--
+ "How did you rest, last night?"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE
+
+
+Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon--
+The land that the Lord's love rests upon;
+Where one may rely on the friends he meets,
+And the smiles that greet him along the streets:
+Where the mother that left you years ago
+Will lift the hands that were folded so,
+And put them about you, with all the love
+And tenderness you are dreaming of.
+
+Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon--
+Where all of the friends of your youth have gone,--
+Where the old schoolmate that laughed with you,
+Will laugh again as he used to do,
+Running to meet you, with such a face
+As lights like a moon the wondrous place
+Where God is living, and glad to live,
+Since He is the Master and may forgive.
+
+Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon!--
+Stay the hopes we are leaning on--
+You, Divine, with Your merciful eyes
+Looking down from the far-away skies,--
+Smile upon us, and reach and take
+Our worn souls Home for the old home's sake.--
+And so Amen,--for our all seems gone
+Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JACK-IN-THE-BOX
+
+_(Grandfather, musing.)_
+
+
+In childish days! O memory,
+ You bring such curious things to me!--
+Laughs to the lip--tears to the eye,
+In looking on the gifts that lie
+Like broken playthings scattered o'er
+Imagination's nursery floor!
+Did these old hands once click the key
+That let "Jack's" box-lid upward fly,
+And that blear-eyed, fur-whiskered elf
+Leap, as though frightened at himself,
+And quiveringly lean and stare
+At me, his jailer, laughing there?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A child then! Now--I only know
+They call me very old; and so
+They will not let me have my way,--
+But uselessly I sit all day
+Here by the chimney-jamb, and poke
+The lazy fire, and smoke and smoke,
+And watch the wreaths swoop up the flue,
+And chuckle--ay, I often do--
+Seeing again, all vividly,
+Jack-in-the-box leap, as in glee
+To see how much he looks like me!
+
+... They talk. I can't hear what they say--
+But I am glad, clean through and through
+Sometimes, in fancying that they
+Are saying, "Sweet, that fancy strays
+In age back to our childish days!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+THE BOYS
+
+
+Where are they?--the friends of my childhood enchanted--
+The clear, laughing eyes looking back in my own,
+And the warm, chubby fingers my palms have so wanted,
+ As when we raced over
+ Pink pastures of clover,
+And mocked the quail's whir and the bumblebee's drone?
+
+Have the breezes of time blown their blossomy faces
+ Forever adrift down the years that are flown?
+Am I never to see them romp back to their places,
+ Where over the meadow,
+ In sunshine and shadow,
+The meadow-larks trill, and the bumblebees drone?
+
+Where are they? Ah! dim in the dust lies the clover;
+ The whippoorwill's call has a sorrowful tone,
+And the dove's--I have wept at it over and over;--
+ I want the glad luster
+ Of youth, and the cluster
+Of faces asleep where the bumblebees drone!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IT'S _GOT_ TO BE
+
+
+"When it's _got_ to be,"--like! always say,
+ As I notice the years whiz past,
+And know each day is a yesterday,
+ When we size it up, at last,--
+Same as I said when my _boyhood_ went
+ And I knowed _we_ had to quit,--
+"It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!"--
+ So I said "Good-by" to _it_.
+
+It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!
+ So at least I always try
+To kind o' say in a hearty way,--
+ "Well, it's _got_ to be. Good-by!"
+
+The time jes melts like a late, last snow,--
+ When it's _got_ to be, it melts!
+But I aim to keep a cheerful mind,
+ Ef I can't keep nothin' else!
+I knowed, when I come to twenty-one,
+ That I'd soon be twenty-two,--
+So I waved one hand at the soft young man,
+ And I said, "Good-by to _you_!"
+
+It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!
+ So at least I always try
+To kind o' say, in a cheerful way,--
+ "Well, it's _got_ to be.--Good-by!"
+
+They kep' a-goin', the years and years,
+ Yet still I smiled and smiled,--
+For I'd said "Good-by" to my single life,
+ And I now had a wife and child:
+Mother and son and the father--one,--
+ Till, last, on her bed of pain,
+She jes' smiled up, like she always done,--
+ And I said "Good-by" again.
+
+It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!
+ So at least I always try
+To kind o' say, in a humble way,--
+ "Well, it's _got_ to be. Good-by!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And then my boy--as he growed to be
+ Almost a man in size,--
+Was more than a pride and joy to me,
+ With his mother's smilin' eyes.--
+He gimme the slip, when the War broke out,
+ And followed me. And I
+Never knowed till the first right's end ...
+ I found him, and then, ... "Good-by."
+
+It's _got_ to be, and it's _goin'_ to be!
+ So at least I always try
+To kind o' say, in a patient way,
+ "Well, it's _got_ to be. Good-by!"
+
+I have said, "Good-by!--Good-by!--Good-by!"
+ With my very best good will,
+All through life from the first,--and I
+ Am a cheerful old man still:
+
+But it's _got_ to end, and it's _goin'_ to end!
+ And this is the thing I'll do,--
+With my last breath I will laugh, O Death,
+ And say "Good-by" to _you_!...
+
+It's _got_ to be! And again I say,--
+ When his old scythe circles high,
+I'll laugh--of course, in the kindest way,--
+ As I say "Good-by!--Good-by!"
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"OUT OF REACH?"
+
+
+You think them "out of reach," your dead?
+ Nay, by my own dead, I deny
+Your "out of reach."--Be comforted:
+ 'Tis not so far to die.
+
+O by their dear remembered smiles
+ And outheld hands and welcoming speech,
+They wait for us, thousands of miles
+ This side of "out-of-reach."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A BRAVE REFRAIN"
+
+
+When snow is here, and the trees look weird,
+ And the knuckled twigs are gloved with frost;
+When the breath congeals in the drover's beard,
+ And the old pathway to the barn is lost;
+When the rooster's crow is sad to hear,
+ And the stamp of the stabled horse is vain,
+And the tone of the cow-bell grieves the ear--
+ O then is the time for a brave refrain!
+
+When the gears hang stiff on the harness-peg,
+ And the tallow gleams in frozen streaks;
+And the old hen stands on a lonesome leg,
+ And the pump sounds hoarse and the handle squeaks;
+When the woodpile lies in a shrouded heap,
+ And the frost is scratched from the window-pane
+And anxious eyes from the inside peep--
+ O then is the time for a brave refrain!
+
+When the ax-helve warms at the chimney-jamb,
+ And hob-nailed shoes on the hearth below,
+And the house-cat curls in a slumber calm,
+ And the eight-day clock ticks loud and slow;
+When the harsh broom-handle jabs the ceil
+ 'Neath the kitchen-loft, and the drowsy brain
+Sniffs the breath of the morning meal--
+ O then is the time for a brave refrain!
+
+
+ENVOI
+
+When the skillet seethes, and a blubbering hot
+Tilts the lid of the coffee-pot,
+And the scent of the buckwheat cake grows plain--
+O then is the time for a brave refrain!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IN THE EVENING
+
+
+I
+
+In the evening of our days,
+ When the first far stars above
+Glimmer dimmer, through the haze,
+ Than the dewy eyes of love,
+Shall we mournfully revert
+ To the vanished morns and Mays
+Of our youth, with hearts that hurt,--
+ In the evening of our days?
+
+
+II
+
+Shall the hand that holds your own
+ Till the twain are thrilled as now,
+Be withheld, or colder grown?
+ Shall my kiss upon your brow
+Falter from its high estate?
+ And, in all forgetful ways,
+Shall we sit apart and wait--
+ In the evening of our days?
+
+
+III
+
+Nay, my wife--my life!--the gloom
+ Shall enfold us velvetwise,
+And my smile shall be the groom
+ Of the gladness of your eyes:
+Gently, gently as the dew
+ Mingles with the darkening maze,
+I shall fall asleep with you--
+ In the evening of our days.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JIM
+
+
+He was jes a plain, ever'-day, all-round kind of a jour.,
+ Consumpted-lookin'--but la!
+The jokiest, wittiest, story-tellin', song-singin', laughin'est, jolliest
+ Feller you ever saw!
+Worked at jes coarse work, but you kin bet he was fine enough in his talk,
+ And his feelin's, too!
+Lordy! ef he was on'y back on his bench ag'in to-day, a-carryin' on
+ Like he ust to do!
+
+Any shop-mate'll tell you there never was, on top o' dirt,
+ A better feller'n Jim!
+You want a favor, and couldn't git it anywheres else--
+ You could git it o' him!
+Most free-heartedest man thataway in the world, I guess!
+ Give up ever' nickel he's worth--
+And, ef you'd a-wanted it, and named it to him, and it was his,
+ He'd a-give you the earth!
+
+Allus a-reachin' out, Jim was, and a-he'ppin' some
+ Pore feller onto his feet--
+He'd a-never a-keered how hungry he was hisse'f,
+ So's _the feller_ got somepin' to eat!
+Didn't make no differ'nee at all to him how _he_ was dressed,
+ He ust to say to me,--
+"You togg out a tramp purty comfortable in winter-time, a-huntin' a job,
+ And he'll git along!" says he.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Jim didn't have, ner never could git ahead, so overly much
+ O' this world's goods at a time.--
+'Fore now I've saw him, more'n one't, lend a dollar, and haf to, more'n like,
+ Turn round and borry a dime!
+Mebby laugh and joke about it hisse'f fer a while--then jerk his coat.
+ And kindo' square his chin,
+Tie on his apern, and squat hisse'f on his old shoe-bench,
+ And go to peggin' ag'in!
+
+Patientest feller, too, I reckon, 'at ever jes natchurly
+ Coughed hisse'f to death!
+Long enough after his voice was lost he'd laugh in a whisper and say
+ He could git ever'thing but his breath--
+"_You fellers_," he'd sorto' twinkle his eyes and say,
+ "Is a-pilin' onto me
+A mighty big debt fer that-air little weak-chested ghost o' mine to pack
+ Through all Eternity!"
+
+Now there was a man 'at jes 'peared-like, to me,
+ 'At ortn't _a-never_ a-died!
+"But death hain't a-showin' no favors," the old boss said--
+ "On'y to _Jim_!" and cried:
+And Wigger, who puts up the best sewed-work in the shop--
+ Er the whole blame neighborhood,--
+He says, "When God made Jim, I bet you He didn't do anything else that day
+ But jes set around and feel good!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH
+
+
+I quarrel not with Destiny,
+But make the best of everything--
+The best is good enough for me.
+
+Leave Discontent alone, and she
+Will shut her month and let _you_ sing.
+I quarrel not with Destiny.
+
+I take some things, or let 'em be--
+Good gold has always got the ring;
+The best is good enough for me.
+
+Since Fate insists on secrecy,
+I have no arguments to bring--
+quarrel not with Destiny.
+
+The fellow that goes "haw" for "gee"
+Will find he hasn't got full swing.
+The best is good enough for me.
+
+One only knows our needs, and He
+Does all of the distributing.
+I quarrel not with Destiny;
+The best is good enough for me.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB
+
+
+How slight a thing may set one's fancy drifting
+ Upon the dead sea of the Past!--A view--
+Sometimes an odor--or a rooster lifting
+ A far-off "_Ooh! ooh-ooh!_"
+
+And suddenly we find ourselves astray
+ In some wood's-pasture of the Long Ago--
+Or idly dream again upon a day
+ Of rest we used to know.
+
+I bit an apple but a moment since--
+ A wilted apple that the worm had spurned.--
+Yet hidden in the taste were happy hints
+ Of good old days returned.--
+
+And so my heart, like some enraptured lute,
+ Tinkles a tune so tender and complete,
+God's blessing must be resting on the fruit--
+ So bitter, yet so sweet!
+
+
+
+
+AS MY UNCLE USED TO SAY
+
+
+I've thought a power on men and things,
+ As my uncle ust to say,--
+And ef folks don't work as they pray, i jings!
+ W'y, they ain't no use to pray!
+Ef you want somepin', and jes dead-set
+A-pleadin' fer it with both eyes wet,
+And _tears_ won't bring it, w'y, you try _sweat_,
+ As my uncle ust to say.
+
+They's some don't know their A, B, C's,
+ As my uncle ust to say,
+And yit don't waste no candle-grease,
+ Ner whistle their lives away!
+But ef they can't write no book, ner rhyme
+No singin' song fer to last all time,
+They can blaze the way fer the march sublime,
+ As my uncle ust to say.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Whoever's Foreman of all things here,
+ As my uncle ust to say,
+He knows each job 'at we're best fit fer,
+ And our round-up, night and day:
+And a-sizin' _His_ work, east and west,
+And north and south, and worst and best.
+I ain't got nothin' to suggest,
+ As my uncle ust to say.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+WE MUST BELIEVE
+
+_"Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief."_
+
+
+We must believe--
+Being from birth endowed with love and trust--
+Born unto loving;--and how simply just
+That love--that faith!--even in the blossom-face
+The babe drops dreamward in its resting-place,
+Intuitively conscious of the sure
+Awakening to rapture ever pure
+And sweet and saintly as the mother's own,
+Or the awed father's, as his arms are thrown
+O'er wife and child, to round about them weave
+ And wind and bind them as one harvest-sheaf
+Of love--to cleave to, and _forever_ cleave....
+ Lord, I believe:
+ Help Thou mine unbelief.
+
+We must believe--
+Impelled since infancy to seek some clear
+Fulfillment, still withheld all seekers here;--
+For never have we seen perfection nor
+The glory we are ever seeking for:
+But we _have_ seen--all mortal souls as one--
+Have seen its _promise_, in the morning sun--
+Its blest assurance, in the stars of night;--
+The ever-dawning of the dark to light;--
+The tears down-falling from all eyes that grieve--
+ The eyes uplifting from all deeps of grief,
+Yearning for what at last we shall receive....
+ Lord, I believe:
+ Help Thou mine unbelief.
+
+We must believe--
+For still all unappeased our hunger goes,
+From life's first waking, to its last repose:
+The briefest life of any babe, or man
+Outwearing even the allotted span,
+Is each a life unfinished--incomplete:
+For these, then, of th' outworn, or unworn feet
+Denied one toddling step--O there must be
+Some fair, green, flowery pathway endlessly
+Winding through lands Elysian! Lord, receive
+ And lead each as Thine Own Child--even the Chief
+Of us who didst Immortal life achieve....
+ Lord, I believe:
+ Help Thou mine unbelief.
+
+
+
+
+A GOOD MAN
+
+
+I
+
+A good man never dies--
+ In worthy deed and prayer
+And helpful hands, and honest eyes,
+ If smiles or tears be there:
+Who lives for you and me--
+ Lives for the world he tries
+To help--he lives eternally.
+ A good man never dies.
+
+
+II
+
+Who lives to bravely take
+ His share of toil and stress,
+And, for his weaker fellows' sake,
+ Makes every burden less,--
+He may, at last, seem worn--
+ Lie fallen--hands and eyes
+Folded--yet, though we mourn and mourn,
+ A good man never dies.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE OLD DAYS
+
+
+The old days--the far days--
+ The overdear and fair!--
+The old days--the lost days--
+ How lovely they were!
+The old days of Morning,
+ With the dew-drench on the flowers
+And apple-buds and blossoms
+ Of those old days of ours.
+
+Then was the _real_ gold
+ Spendthrift Summer flung;
+Then was the _real_ song
+ Bird or Poet sung!
+There was never censure then,--
+ Only honest praise--
+And all things were worthy of it
+ In the old days.
+
+There bide the true friends--
+ The first and the best;
+There clings the green grass
+ Close where they rest:
+Would they were here? No;--
+ Would _we_ were _there_!...
+The old days--the lost days--
+ How lovely they were!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A SPRING SONG AND A LATER
+
+
+She sang a song of May for me,
+ Wherein once more I heard
+The mirth of my glad infancy--
+ The orchard's earliest bird--
+The joyous breeze among the trees
+ New-clad in leaf and bloom,
+And there the happy honey-bees
+ In dewy gleam and gloom.
+
+So purely, sweetly on the sense
+ Of heart and spirit fell
+Her song of Spring, its influence--
+ Still irresistible,--
+Commands me here--with eyes ablur--
+ To mate her bright refrain.
+Though I but shed a rhyme for her
+ As dim as Autumn rain.
+
+
+
+
+KNEELING WITH HERRICK
+
+
+Dear Lord, to Thee my knee is bent--
+ Give me content--
+Full-pleasured with what comes to me,
+ Whate'er it be:
+An humble roof--a frugal board,
+ And simple hoard;
+The wintry fagot piled beside
+ The chimney wide,
+While the enwreathing flames up-sprout
+ And twine about
+The brazen dogs that guard my hearth
+ And household worth:
+Tinge with the ember's ruddy glow
+ The rafters low;
+And let the sparks snap with delight,
+ As fingers might
+That mark deft measures of some tune
+ The children croon:
+Then, with good friends, the rarest few
+ Thou boldest true,
+Ranged round about the blaze, to share
+ My comfort there,--
+Give me to claim the service meet
+ That makes each seat
+A place of honor, and each guest
+ Loved as the rest.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE RAINY MORNING
+
+
+The dawn of the day was dreary,
+ And the lowering clouds o'erhead
+Wept in a silent sorrow
+ Where the sweet sunshine lay dead;
+And a wind came out of the eastward
+ Like an endless sigh of pain,
+And the leaves fell down in the pathway
+ And writhed in the falling rain.
+
+I had tried in a brave endeavor
+ To chord my harp with the sun,
+But the strings would slacken ever,
+ And the task was a weary one:
+And so, like a child impatient
+ And sick of a discontent,
+I bowed in a shower of teardrops
+ And mourned with the instrument.
+
+And lo! as I bowed, the splendor
+ Of the sun bent over me,
+With a touch as warm and tender
+ As a father's hand might be:
+And even as I felt its presence,
+ My clouded soul grew bright,
+And the tears, like the rain of morning,
+ Melted in mists of light.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+REACH YOUR HAND TO ME
+
+
+Reach your hand to me, my friend,
+ With its heartiest caress--
+Sometime there will come an end
+ To its present faithfulness--
+ Sometime I may ask in vain
+ For the touch of it again,
+ When between us land or sea
+ Holds it ever back from me.
+
+Sometime I may need it so,
+ Groping somewhere in the night,
+It will seem to me as though
+ Just a touch, however light,
+ Would make all the darkness day,
+ And along some sunny way
+ Lead me through an April-shower
+ Of my tears to this fair hour.
+
+O the present is too sweet
+ To go on forever thus!
+Round the corner of the street
+ Who can say what waits for us?--
+ Meeting--greeting, night and day,
+ Faring each the selfsame way--
+ Still somewhere the path must end.--
+ Reach your hand to me, my friend!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN
+
+
+Fer forty year and better you have been a friend to me,
+Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,
+You allus had a kind word of counsul to impart,
+Which was like a healin' 'intment to the sorrow of my hart.
+
+When I burried my first womern, William Leachman, it was you
+Had the only consolation that I could listen to--
+Fer I knowed you had gone through it and had rallied from the blow,
+And when you said I'd do the same, I knowed you'd ort to know.
+
+But that time I'll long remember; how I wundered here and thare--
+Through the settin'-room and kitchen, and out in the open air--
+And the snowflakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen glare,
+And the neghbors' sleds and wagons congergatin' ev'rywhare.
+
+I turned my eyes to'rds heaven, but the sun was hid away;
+I turned my eyes to'rds earth again, but all was cold and gray;
+And the clock, like ice a-crackin', clickt the icy hours in two--
+And my eyes'd never thawed out ef it hadn't been fer you!
+
+We set thare by the smoke-house--me and you out thare alone--
+Me a-thinkin'--you a-talkin' in a soothin' undertone--
+You a-talkin'--me a-thinkin' of the summers long ago,
+And a-writin' "Marthy--Marthy" with my finger in the snow!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+William Leachman, I can see you jest as plane as I could then;
+And your hand is on my shoulder, and you rouse me up again,
+And I see the tears a-drippin' from your own eyes, as you say:
+"Be rickonciled and bear it--we but linger fer a day!"
+
+At the last Old Settlers' Meetin' we went j'intly, you and me--
+Your hosses and my wagon, as you wanted it to be;
+And sence I can remember, from the time we've neghbored here,
+In all sich friendly actions you have double-done your sheer.
+
+It was better than the meetin', too, that nine-mile talk we had
+Of the times when we first settled here and travel was so bad;
+When we had to go on hoss-back, and sometimes on "Shanks's mare,"
+And "blaze" a road fer them behind that had to travel thare.
+
+And now we was a-trottin' 'long a level gravel pike,
+In a big two-hoss road-wagon, jest as easy as you like--
+Two of us on the front seat, and our wimmern-folks behind,
+A-settin' in theyr Winsor-cheers in perfect peace of mind!
+
+And we pinted out old landmarks, nearly faded out of sight:--
+Thare they ust to rob the stage-coach; thare Gash Morgan had the fight
+With the old stag-deer that pronged him--how he battled fer his life,
+And lived to prove the story by the handle of his knife.
+
+Thare the first griss-mill was put up in the Settlement, and we
+Had tuck our grindin' to it in the Fall of Forty-three--
+When we tuck our rifles with us, techin' elbows all the way,
+And a-stickin' right together ev'ry minute, night and day.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Thare ust to stand the tavern that they called the "Travelers' Rest,"
+And thare, beyent the covered bridge, "The Counter-fitters' Nest"--
+Whare they claimed the house was ha'nted--that a man was murdered thare,
+And burried underneath the floor, er 'round the place somewhare.
+
+And the old Plank-road they laid along in Fifty-one er two--
+You know we talked about the times when that old road was new:
+How "Uncle Sam" put down that road and never taxed the State
+Was a problem, don't you rickollect, we couldn't _dim_-onstrate?
+
+Ways was devius, William Leachman, that me and you has past;
+But as I found you true at first, I find you true at last;
+And, now the time's a-comin' mighty nigh our jurney's end,
+I want to throw wide open all my soul to you, my friend.
+
+With the stren'th of all my bein', and the heat of hart and brane,
+And ev'ry livin' drop of blood in artery and vane,
+I love you and respect you, and I venerate your name,
+Fer the name of William Leachman and True Manhood's jest the same!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+A BACKWARD LOOK
+
+
+As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday,
+ And lazily leaning back in my chair,
+Enjoying myself in a general way--
+Allowing my thoughts a holiday
+ From weariness, toil and care,--
+My fancies--doubtless, for ventilation--
+ Left ajar the gates of my mind,--
+And Memory, seeing the situation,
+ Slipped out in street of "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+Wandering ever with tireless feet
+ Through scenes of silence, and jubilee
+Of long-hushed voices; and faces sweet
+Were thronging the shadowy side of the street
+ As far as the eye could see;
+Dreaming again, in anticipation,
+ The same old dreams of our boyhood's days
+That never come true, from the vague sensation
+ Of walking asleep in the world's strange ways.
+
+Away to the house where I was born!
+ And there was the selfsame clock that ticked
+From the close of dusk to the burst of morn,
+When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn
+ And helped when the apples were picked.
+And the "chany-dog" on the mantel-shelf,
+ With the gilded collar and yellow eyes,
+Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself
+ Sound asleep with the dear surprise.
+
+And down to the swing in the locust tree,
+ Where the grass was worn from the trampled ground
+And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three
+Or four such other boys used to be
+ Doin' "sky-scrapers," or "whirlin' round:"
+And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest,
+ And again "had shows" in the buggy-shed
+Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed,
+ The old ghosts romp through the best days dead!
+
+And again I gazed from the old school-room
+ With a wistful look of a long June day,
+When on my cheek was the hectic bloom
+Caught of Mischief, as I presume--
+ He had such a "partial" way,
+It seemed, toward me.--And again I thought
+ Of a probable likelihood to be
+Kept in after school--for a girl was caught
+ Catching a note from me.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And down through the woods to the swimming-hole--
+ Where the big, white, hollow, old sycamore grows,--
+And we never cared when the water was cold.
+And always "clucked" the boy that told
+ On the fellow that tied the clothes.--
+When life went so like a dreamy rhyme
+ That it seems to me now that then
+The world was having a jollier time
+ Than it ever will have again.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+AT SEA
+
+
+O we go down to sea in ships--
+ But Hope remains behind,
+And Love, with laughter on his lips,
+ And Peace, of passive mind;
+While out across the deeps of night,
+ With lifted sails of prayer,
+We voyage off in quest of light,
+ Nor find it anywhere.
+
+O Thou who wroughtest earth and sea,
+ Yet keepest from our eyes
+The shores of an eternity
+ In calms of Paradise,
+Blow back upon our foolish quest
+ With all the driving rain
+Of blinding tears and wild unrest,
+ And waft us home again.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE OLD GUITAR
+
+
+Neglected now is the old guitar
+ And moldering into decay;
+Fretted with many a rift and scar
+ That the dull dust hides away,
+While the spider spins a silver star
+ In its silent lips to-day.
+
+The keys hold only nerveless strings--
+ The sinews of brave old airs
+Are pulseless now; and the scarf that clings
+ So closely here declares
+A sad regret in its ravelings
+ And the faded hue it wears.
+
+But the old guitar, with a lenient grace,
+ Has cherished a smile for me;
+And its features hint of a fairer face
+ That comes with a memory
+Of a flower-and-perfume-haunted place
+ And a moonlit balcony.
+
+Music sweeter than words confess
+ Or the minstrel's powers invent,
+Thrilled here once at the light caress
+ Of the fairy hands that lent
+This excuse for the kiss I press
+ On the dear old instrument.
+
+The rose of pearl with the jeweled stem
+ Still blooms; and the tiny sets
+In the circle all are here; the gem
+ In the keys, and the silver frets;
+But the dainty fingers that danced o'er them--
+ Alas for the heart's regrets!--
+
+Alas for the loosened strings to-day,
+ And the wounds of rift and scar
+On a worn old heart, with its roundelay
+ Enthralled with a stronger bar
+That Fate weaves on, through a dull decay
+ Like that of the old guitar!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JOHN McKEEN
+
+
+John McKeen, in his rusty dress,
+ His loosened collar, and swarthy throat;
+His face unshaven, and none the less,
+His hearty laugh and his wholesomeness,
+ And the wealth of a workman's vote!
+
+Bring him, O Memory, here once more,
+ And tilt him back in his Windsor chair
+By the kitchen-stove, when the day is o'er
+And the light of the hearth is across the floor,
+ And the crickets everywhere!
+
+And let their voices be gladly blent
+ With a watery jingle of pans and spoons,
+And a motherly chirrup of sweet content,
+And neighborly gossip and merriment,
+ And old-time fiddle-tunes!
+
+Tick the clock with a wooden sound,
+ And fill the hearing with childish glee
+Of rhyming riddle, or story found
+In the Robinson Crusoe, leather-bound
+ Old book of the Used-to-be!
+
+John McKeen of the Past! Ah, John,
+ To have grown ambitious in worldly ways!--
+To have rolled your shirt-sleeves down, to don
+A broadcloth suit, and, forgetful, gone
+ Out on election days!
+
+John, ah, John! did it prove your worth
+ To yield you the office you still maintain?
+To fill your pockets, but leave the dearth
+Of all the happier things on earth
+ To the hunger of heart and brain?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Under the dusk of your villa trees,
+ Edging the drives where your blooded span
+Paw the pebbles and wait your ease,--
+Where are the children about your knees,
+ And the mirth, and the happy man?
+
+The blinds of your mansion are battened to;
+ Your faded wife is a close recluse;
+And your "finished" daughters will doubtless do
+Dutifully all that is willed of you,
+ And marry as you shall choose!--
+
+But O for the old-home voices, blent
+ With the watery jingle of pans and spoons,
+And the motherly chirrup of glad content,
+And neighborly gossip and merriment,
+ And the old-time fiddle-tunes!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND
+
+
+Where do you go when you go to sleep,
+ Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
+'Way--'way in where's Little Bo-Peep,
+And Little Boy Blue, and the Cows and Sheep
+ A-wandering 'way in there;--in there--
+ A-wandering 'way in there!
+
+And what do you see when lost in dreams,
+ Little Boy, 'way in there?
+Firefly-glimmers and glowworm-gleams,
+And silvery, low, slow-sliding streams,
+ And mermaids, smiling out--'way in where
+ They're a-hiding--'way in there!
+
+Where do you go when the Fairies call,
+ Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
+Wade through the clews of the grasses tall,
+Hearing the weir and the waterfall
+ And the Wee Folk--'way in there--in there--
+ And the Kelpies--'way in there!
+
+And what do you do when you wake at dawn,
+ Little Boy! Little Boy! what?
+Hug my Mommy and kiss her on
+Her smiling eyelids, sweet and wan,
+ And tell her everything I've forgot
+ About, a-wandering 'way in there--
+ Through the blind-world 'way in there!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+"THEM OLD CHEERY WORDS"
+
+
+Pap he allus ust to say,
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+Liked to hear him that-a-way,
+ In his old split-bottomed cheer
+By the fireplace here at night--
+Wood all in,--and room all bright,
+Warm and snug, and folks all here:
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+Me and 'Lize, and Warr'n and Jess
+ And Eldory home fer two
+Weeks' vacation; and, I guess,
+ Old folks tickled through and through,
+Same as _we_ was,--"Home onc't more
+Fer another Chris'mus--shore!"
+Pap 'u'd say, and tilt his cheer,--
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+Mostly Pap was ap' to be
+ Ser'ous in his "daily walk,"
+As he called it; giner'ly
+ Was no hand to joke er talk.
+Fac's is, Pap had never be'n
+Rugged-like at all--and then
+Three years in the army had
+Hepped to break him purty bad.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Never _flinched_! but frost and snow
+ Hurt his wownd in winter. But
+You bet _Mother_ knowed it, though!--
+ Watched his feet, and made him putt
+On his flannen; and his knee,
+Where it never healed up, he
+Claimed was "well now--mighty near--
+Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+ Pap 'u'd say, and snap his eyes ...
+Row o' apples sputter'n' here
+ Round the hearth, and me and 'Lize
+Crackin' hicker'-nuts; and Warr'n
+And Eldory parchin' corn;
+And whole raft o' young folks here.
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+Mother tuk most comfort in
+ Jest a-heppin' Pap: She'd fill
+His pipe fer him, er his tin
+ O' hard cider; er set still
+And read fer him out the pile
+O' newspapers putt on file
+Whilse he was with Sherman--(She
+Knowed the whole war-history!)
+
+Sometimes he'd git het up some.--
+ "Boys," he'd say, "and you girls, too,
+Chris'mus is about to come;
+ So, as you've a right to do,
+_Celebrate_ it! Lots has died,
+Same as Him they crucified,
+That you might be happy here.
+Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+Missed his voice last Chris'mus--missed
+ Them old cheery words, you know.
+Mother belt up tel she kissed
+ All of us--then had to go
+And break down! And I laughs: "Here!
+'Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+"Them's his very words," sobbed she,
+"When he asked to marry me."
+
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+Over, over, still I hear,
+ "Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+Yit, like him, I'm goin' to smile
+And keep cheerful all the while:
+_Allus_ Chris'mus _There_--And here
+"Chris'mus comes but onc't a year!"
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+TO THE JUDGE
+
+_A Voice From the Interior of Old Hoop-Pole Township_
+
+
+Friend of my earliest youth,
+ Can't you arrange to come down
+And visit a fellow out here in the woods--
+ Out of the dust of the town?
+Can't you forget you're a Judge
+ And put by your dolorous frown
+And tan your wan face in the smile of a friend--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+Can't you forget for a while
+ The arguments prosy and drear,--
+To lean at full-length in indefinite rest
+ In the lap of the greenery here?
+Can't you kick over "the Bench,"
+ And "husk" yourself out of your gown
+To dangle your legs where the fishing is good--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+Bah! for your office of State!
+ And bah! for its technical lore!
+What does our President, high in his chair,
+ But wish himself low as before!
+Pick between peasant and king,--
+ Poke your bald head through a crown
+Or shadow it here with the laurels of Spring!--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+"Judge it" out _here_, if you will,--
+ The birds are in session by dawn;
+You can draw, not _complaints_, but a sketch of the hill
+ And a breath that your betters have drawn;
+You can open your heart, like a case,
+ To a jury of kine, white and brown,
+And their verdict of "Moo" will just satisfy you!--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Can't you arrange it, old Pard?--
+ Pigeonhole Blackstone and Kent!--
+Here we have "Breitmann," and Ward,
+ Twain, Burdette, Nye, and content!
+Can't you forget you're a Judge
+ And put by your dolorous frown
+And tan your wan face in the smile of a friend--
+ Can't you arrange to come down?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+OUR BOYHOOD HAUNTS
+
+
+Ho! I'm going back to where
+We were youngsters.--Meet me there,
+Dear old barefoot chum, and we
+Will be as we used to be,--
+Lawless rangers up and down
+The old creek beyond the town--
+Little sunburnt gods at play,
+Just as in that far-away:--
+Water nymphs, all unafraid,
+Shall smile at us from the brink
+Of the old millrace and wade
+Tow'rd us as we kneeling drink
+At the spring our boyhood knew,
+Pure and clear as morning-dew:
+
+And, as we are rising there,
+Doubly dow'rd to hear and see,
+We shall thus be made aware
+Of an eerie piping, heard
+High above the happy bird
+In the hazel: And then we,
+Just across the creek, shall see
+(Hah! the goaty rascal!) Pan
+Hoof it o'er the sloping green,
+Mad with his own melody,
+Aye, and (bless the beasty man!)
+Stamping from the grassy soil
+Bruised scents of _fleur-de-lis_,
+Boneset, mint and pennyroyal.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+MY DANCIN'-DAYS IS OVER
+
+
+What is it in old fiddle-chunes 'at makes me ketch my breath
+And ripples up my backbone tel I'm tickled most to death?--
+ Kindo' like that sweet-sick feelin', in the long sweep of a swing,
+ The first you ever swung in, with yer first sweet-heart, i jing!--
+ Yer first picnic--yer first ice-cream--yer first o' _ever'thing_
+ 'At happened 'fore yer dancin'-days wuz over!
+
+I never understood it--and I s'pose I never can,--
+But right in town here, yisterd'y, I heerd a pore blindman
+ A-fiddlin' old "Gray Eagle"--_And_-sir! I jes stopped my load
+ O' hay and listened at him--yes, and watched the way he "bow'd,"--
+ And back I went, plum forty year', with boys and girls I knowed
+ And loved, long 'fore my dancin'-days wuz over!--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At high noon in yer city,--with yer blame Magnetic-Cars
+A-hummin' and a-screetchin' past--and bands and G.A.R.'s
+ A-marchin'--and fire-ingines.--_All_ the noise, the whole street through,
+ Wuz lost on me!--I only heerd a whipperwill er two,
+ It 'peared-like, kindo' callin' 'crost the darkness and the dew,
+ Them nights afore my dancin'-days wuz over.
+
+T'uz Chused'y-night at Wetherell's, er We'nsd'y-night at Strawn's,
+Er Fourth-o'-July-night at uther Tomps's house er John's!--
+ With old Lew Church from Sugar Crick, with that old fiddle he
+ Had sawed clean through the Army, from Atlanty to the sea--
+ And yit he'd fetched, her home ag'in, so's he could play fer me
+ One't more afore my dancin'-days wuz over!
+
+The woods 'at's all ben cut away wuz growin' same as then;
+The youngsters all wuz boys ag'in 'at's now all oldish men;
+ And all the girls 'at _then_ wuz girls--I saw 'em, one and all,
+ As _plain_ as then--the middle-sized, the short-and-fat, and tall--
+ And, 'peared-like, I danced "Tucker" fer 'em up and down the wall
+ Jes like afore my dancin' days wuz over!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Yer _po_-leece they can holler "Say! _you_, Uncle! drive ahead!--
+You can't use _all_ the right-o'-way!"--fer that wuz what they said!--
+ But, jes the same,--in spite of all 'at you call "interprise
+ And prog-gress of _you_-folks Today," we're all of _fambly-ties_--
+ We're all got feelin's fittin' fer the _tears_ 'at's in our eyes
+ Er the _smiles_ afore our dancin'-days is over.
+
+
+
+
+HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS
+
+
+O your hands--they are strangely fair!
+Fair--for the jewels that sparkle there,--
+Fair--for the witchery of the spell
+That ivory keys alone can tell;
+But when their delicate touches rest
+Here in my own do I love them best,
+As I clasp with eager acquisitive spans
+My glorious treasure of beautiful hands!
+
+Marvelous--wonderful--beautiful hands!
+They can coax roses to bloom in the strands
+Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine.
+Under mysterious touches of thine,
+Into such knots as entangle the soul,
+And fetter the heart under such a control
+As only the strength of my love understands--
+My passionate love for your beautiful hands.
+
+As I remember the first fair touch
+Of those beautiful hands that I love so much,
+I seem to thrill as I then was thrilled,
+Kissing the glove that I found unfilled--
+When I met your gaze, and the queenly bow,
+As you said to me, laughingly, "Keep it now!"
+And dazed and alone in a dream I stand
+Kissing this ghost of your beautiful hand.
+
+When first I loved, in the long ago,
+And held your hand as I told you so--
+Pressed and caressed it and gave it a kiss,
+And said "I could die for a hand like this!"
+Little I dreamed love's fulness yet
+Had to ripen when eyes were wet,
+And prayers were vain in their wild demands
+For one warm touch of your beautiful hands.
+
+Beautiful Hands! O Beautiful Hands!
+Could you reach out of the alien lands
+Where you are lingering, and give me, to-night,
+Only a touch--were it ever so light--
+My heart were soothed, and my weary brain
+Would lull itself into rest again;
+For there is no solace the world commands
+Like the caress of your beautiful hands.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Riley Songs of Home, by James Whitcomb Riley
+
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