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.”

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

“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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

(THE OLD LADY SPEAKS.) Last Christmas was a year ago Says I to David, I-says-I, “We’re goin’ to mornin’ service, so You hitch up right away: I’ll try To tell the girls jes what to do Fer dinner. We’ll be back by two.” I didn’t wait to hear what he Would more’n like say back […]

[From “Sketches in Prose.”] “God bless us every one!” prayed Tiny Tim, Crippled, and dwarfed of body, yet so tall Of soul, we tiptoe earth to look on him, High towering over all. He loved the loveless world, nor dreamed, indeed, That it, at best, could give to him, the while, But pitying glances, when […]