Be our fortunes as they may, Touched with loss or sorrow, Saddest eyes that weep to-day May be glad to-morrow. Yesterday the rain was here, And the winds were blowing– Sky and earth and atmosphere Brimmed and overflowing. But to-day the sun is out, And the drear November We were then so vexed about Now […]

Kindly and warm and tender, He nestled each childish palm So close in his own that his touch was a prayer And his speech a blessed psalm. He has turned from the marvelous pages Of many an alien tome– Haply come down from Olivet, Or out from the gates of Rome– Set sail o’er the […]

Marcellus, won’t you tell us– Truly tell us, if you can,– What will you be, Marcellus, When you get to be a man? You turn, with never answer But to the band that plays.– O rapt and eerie dancer, What of your future days? Far in the years before us We dreamers see your fame, […]

O were I not a clod, intent On being just an earthly thing, I’d be that rare embodiment Of Heart and Spirit, Voice and Wing, With pure, ecstatic, rapture-sent, Divinely-tender twittering That Echo swoons to re-present,– A bluebird in the Spring.

Friend of a wayward hour, you came Like some good ghost, and went the same; And I within the haunted place Sit smiling on your vanished face, And talking with–your name. But thrice the pressure of your hand– First hail–congratulations–and Your last “God bless you!” as the train That brought you snatched you back again […]

He’s jes’ a great, big, awk’ard, hulkin’ Feller,–humped, and sort o’ sulkin’– Like, and ruther still-appearin’– Kind-as-ef he wuzn’t keerin’ Whether school helt out er not– That’s my Henry, to a dot! Allus kind o’ liked him–whether Childern, er growed-up together! Fifteen year’ ago and better, ‘Fore he ever knowed a letter, Run acrosst the […]

The past is like a story I have listened to in dreams That vanished in the glory Of the Morning’s early gleams; And–at my shadow glancing– I feel a loss of strength, As the Day of Life advancing Leaves it shorn of half its length. But it’s all in vain to worry At the rapid […]

Say good-by er howdy-do– What’s the odds betwixt the two? Comin’–goin’, ev’ry day– Best friends first to go away– Grasp of hands you’d ruther hold Than their weight in solid gold Slips their grip while greetin’ you.– Say good-by er howdy-do! Howdy-do, and then, good-by– Mixes jes’ like laugh and cry; Deaths and births, and […]

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood That now but in mem’ry I sadly review; The old meeting-house at the edge of the wildwood, The rail fence, and horses all tethered thereto; The low, sloping roof, and the bell in the steeple, The doves that came fluttering out overhead As it […]

Dimple-cheeked and rosy-lipped, With his cap-rim backward tipped, Still in fancy I can see Little Tommy smile on me– Little Tommy Smith. Little unsung Tommy Smith– Scarce a name to rhyme it with; Yet most tenderly to me Something sings unceasingly– Little Tommy Smith. On the verge of some far land Still forever does he […]

When we three meet? Ah! friend of mine Whose verses well and flow as wine,– My thirsting fancy thou dost fill With draughts delicious, sweeter still Since tasted by those lips of thine. I pledge thee, through the chill sunshine Of autumn, with a warmth divine, Thrilled through as only I shall thrill When we […]

Tom Van Arden, my old friend, Our warm fellowship is one Far too old to comprehend Where its bond was first begun: Mirage-like before my gaze Gleams a land of other days, Where two truant boys, astray, Dream their lazy lives away. There’s a vision, in the guise Of Midsummer, where the Past Like a […]

O it’s good to ketch a relative ‘at’s richer and don’t run When you holler out to hold up, and’ll joke and have his fun; It’s good to hear a man called bad and then find out he’s not, Er strike some chap they call lukewarm ‘at’s really red-hot; It’s good to know the Devil’s […]

A corpulent man is my bachelor chum, With a neck apoplectic and thick– An abdomen on him as big as a drum, And a fist big enough for the stick; With a walk that for grace is clear out of the case, And a wobble uncertain–as though His little bow-legs had forgotten the pace That […]

TO HOMER DAVENPORT Wess he says, and sort o’ grins, “Art and Poetry is twins! “Yit, if I’d my pick, I’d shake Poetry, and no mistake! “Pictures, allus, ‘peared to me, Clean laid over Poetry! “Let me draw, and then, i jings, I’ll not keer a straw who sings. “‘F I could draw as you […]

I’ be’n down to the Capital at Washington, D. C., Where Congerss meets and passes on the pensions ort to be Allowed to old one-legged chaps, like me, ‘at sence the war Don’t wear their pants in pairs at all–and yit how proud we are! Old Flukens, from our deestrick, jes’ turned in and tuck […]

“If I die first,” my old chum paused to say, “Mind! not a whimper of regret:–instead, Laugh and be glad, as I shall.–Being dead, I shall not lodge so very far away But that our mirth shall mingle.–So, the day The word comes, joy with me.” “I’ll try,” I said, Though, even speaking, sighed and […]

Scotty’s dead–Of course he is! Jes’ that same old luck of his!– Ever sence we went cahoots He’s be’n first, you bet yer boots! When our schoolin’ first begun, Got two whippin’s to my one: Stold and smoked the first cigar: Stood up first before the bar, Takin’ whisky-straight–and me Wastin’ time on “blackberry”! Beat […]

His daily, nightly task is o’er– He leans above his desk no more. His pencil and his pen say not One further word of gracious thought. All silent is his voice, yet clear For all a grateful world to hear; He poured abroad his human love In opulence unmeasured of– While, in return, his meek […]

Lo! steadfast and serene, In patient pause between The seen and the unseen, What gentle zephyrs fan Your silken silver hair,– And what diviner air Breathes round you like a prayer, Old Man? Can you, in nearer view Of Glory, pierce the blue Of happy Heaven through; And, listening mutely, can Your senses, dull to […]