Freeman Edwin Miller

“ For the years are turning yellow
When the crow's feet come!
But it's all the way of Nature!
There's no use to sob or sigh,
'Cause the chin takes on a wobble
And the wrinkles wrap the eye;
If we heap our hearts with gladness
Life with music still shall hum,
Though we reach the Land of Forty
And the crow's feet come!
[97]
A Welcome for Winter. I.
A welcome for Winter! Though summer shall fade,
There is joy on the prairies her bounties have made,
And the Land of the Sunshine all happiness knows
Through the days of the shadows and nights of the snows!
II.
A welcome for Winter! ”

“ We'll walk in the sunshine
And laugh in the light;
And the roses and lilies of God's holy love
With their garlands shall crown us for mansions above!
The hewers of wood and the drawers of water do but little of the real work of the world. The horse, the ox, the insensate thing of steam and steel, does quite as much and more. But the men who dream,—who put something of brain and heart and soul into the clods and fashion them into things of beauty for mankind,—these lift the burdens off the shoulders of the race and plant a song upon the lips of toil! ”

“ There is no bosom dark with lonely caring,
That sadly sorrows in the nights of woe,
But love can soothe his torture and despairing,
And scatter gladness where his feet may go.
Live life with love!
[pg 85]
There is no scene of misery or sorrow
That droops and withers in the dark of night,
But love can bring fond yearnings for the morrow
And heap the heart with hope's unfading light.
Live life with love!
There is in all the world no sinful creature
That gropes and falters on his troubled way,
But love can overcome his erring nature,
And change his darkness to eternal day.
Live life with love! ”

“ The paths that you walk are golden, for there is the sunshine way;
And roses are there with their beauties that over the path-ways twine,
And all of the world is a blossom that smiles in the tender shine!
II.
There's never a murmur of evil, there's never a cry of wrong;
The daisies are sweet with laughter the birds are alilt with song;
The days dance by in their gladness as sweet as the sweetest wine,
Where the swift feet linger in rapture through ways of the golden shine.
III.
What matters if shadows may hover o'er blue hills far and dim? ”

“ While in the gladness of your songs
The fainting bosoms hope again,
And toil among their fellow men,
Forgetful of their ancient wrongs.
You sport with singing meadows bright,
With fragrant winds and scented gales,
Where shine and shadow kiss the vales
In fairy fondness of delight;
For where the meads and forests blend,
The sweetest songs of life are found,
And where the lonely hills abound
The soul of music meets a friend.
Glad hearts that warble songs divine,
Sweet singers of a mourning race,
The ages long your brows shall grace
With crowns where bays and laurels twine! ”

“ It smiles with the lips of pleasure,
And laughs with the lips of hope.
Keep in the sunshine, brother!
It gladdens the world with light;
The shadows are over yonder,
And there is the night, the Night!
Little Sermons.
However we may measure it, the heart of the world is always greatly bigger than its head.
Love will stir the heart into laughter when all the gold of Ophir only brings a snow-storm to life's roses.
That work is only worthy which adds something to the store of things that contribute multiplied joys to the lives of men. ”

“ Though the bosom be dark with the dirges of sadness
And solitudes gather so heavy and lone,
There shall float from the musical meadows of gladness
The ravishing measures that banish each groan.
Make the most of this life; 'tis a garden of beauty,
Where, blushing, the blossoms grow tenderly-sweet,
While they brighten the years of man's labor and duty
And scatter the kisses of love at his feet;
'Tis a world that is wild with the laughter of living
When hands do the brotherly kindness they can,
And its hearts are the treasures of tenderness giving
To soften and sweeten the nature of man. ”

“ Sweet isles of pleasure in the past,
May long your hallowed moments cast
A sacred sunshine o'er my ways!
And where life leads me, gladly arm
My soul with angel songs of bliss,
With true embrace and holy kiss,
O, winters on the olden farm!
[pg 41]
"O, WEAK AND WEARY WORLD!"
O weak and weary world
Forever struggling on,
When will thy toils in comfort be impearled,
When will thy sorrows and thy cares be gone?
When shall the races, all ambition dead,
Forsake the stony slope and rocky steep,
And in contentment sweetly wed
The joys that never sleep? ”

“ While the roses rim the meadows of the morning!
The glad hearts send the gladness
Over all the fields we go,
And the glory of the sunshine
Brightens all the world we know;
O, brothers, come along!
Let us sing the rain-bow song
While the roses rim the meadows of the morning!
The good Lord gives his bounties
To his children through the years,
And his gifts of love and labor
Conquer all the griefs and tears;
O, brother, bye and bye
We shall reach the home on high
While the roses rim the meadows of the morning! ”

“ There's a call of rolling music for the lonely hearts that lack,
And across the hills and valleys that have silent been so long
There's a lilt of love and laughter and a rhapsody of song;
And the cares that brought the sorrows and the shadows bleak and black
Hide away their gloomy faces, when the birds come back!
When the birds come back! There's a sky of sweeter blue,
With the breezes blowing softer and the blossoms peeping through;
There's a daisy in the meadows and a green upon the trees
With a welcome for the songsters and their swelling melodies ”

“ Where sylvan shadows hide the gloom;
Sweet Nature fills his heart with health,
While rustic warbles lead his soul
Where rill and fountain sing by stealth
And breezes soft with music roll.
He lives where simple wishes throng,
And give contentment to his breast,
While tender lullabies of song
Bring angel gladness to his rest;
[pg 54]
No praises linger o'er his name
Where he in silence works apart,
And honor never links with fame
The modest glories of his heart.
He needs no kiss of royal crown
To wield the axe or guide the plow,
Or woo the smiles of heaven down
To cling in clusters on his brow ”

“ The boys and girls are weary with toilsomeness that grows
Where labor drowns the music of melodies she knows;
Then fix your fiddles, fellers! Each happy heart shall beat
To glories of the raptures and trippings of the feet!
IV.
Tune up the Christmas fiddles!
Where royal music rings,
Where lips are red with laughter and romping rapture sings,
We'll find surcease of sorrow and
Care shall die away
While the feet shall dance the music of happiness for aye!
Then fix your fiddles, fellers! Our sweet-hearts laugh applause,
And Love repeats the echoes in a kiss for Santa Claus! ”

“ Twin parents of the race's gladness,
God speed the time when your sweet arts
Shall banish every sign of sadness!
When mournful cries, when pain's wild darts,
Shall cease to curse the days of living,
And Heaven's love to man imparts
The joys of giving and forgiving.
[pg 57]
"O, SACRED SOULS THAT GRANDLY SING."
O sacred souls that grandly sing
The secret songs of human hearts,
Where your wild music madly starts,
The sorrows into raptures spring!
Within the warbles of your chimes
Man reads the longings of his days,
And finds, amid your lofty lays,
Glad music for his gloomy times. ”

“ And sorrows dark the sky,
We'll seek the cave of faithful love
And watch the clouds go by;
A refuge safe, my honey,
From all the storm and strife,
Where joy shall keep the strong heart young
Through all the cares of life.
Then come with me, my honey;
What though the wild winds blow?
With hand and heart true love shall keep
Us safe through weal and woe!
The storm-clouds dark, my honey,
May fret the deep blue sky,
But love shall keep us smiling still
Of bright days by and by!
Be Patient.
Don't you lose your stock of patience
When the world seems going wrong ”

“ Send thy gladness, laughing rover,
All my sorrows o'er and over,
Till the strains of happy pleasure
Mingle in melodious measure;
It may give a transient glee
To condemn thy ways and sever,
But the sweets of melody
Thou wilt murmur on forever.
Bind my heart in silken chaining,
Till from thee is none remaining;
Clothe my soul in glad completeness
Of thy happiness and sweetness;
When the times are true, the soul
May not hunger for thy gladness,
But when surging sorrows roll
Thou alone shall banish sadness. ”

“ Charity is something of which the mills of human life never turn out an over-production. Even some of the blessed saints could use a little more in their daily walk and conversation.
Hope.
All the path is dark with shadows
And the road is hard to see,
But there's sunshine on the hill-tops
And that's the way for me!
There are many blessings in this world, but a shade-tree at the end of the cotton row, and a water-melon cooling in a seventy-foot well are two of its greatest joys. ”

“ Souls are always blessed with brightness
Bosoms filled with goodly pearls,
Hearts forever harvest gladness,
In the glances of thy girls.
They are robed in golden garments,
Nature's vestments, rich and rare;
Oklahoma! Oklahoma!
Fairest are thy daughters fair!
Oklahoma! Oklahoma!
Sweetest are thy happy homes,
Smiling in the holy gladness
Which above thee always roams;
They are never linked with sadness,
They are never bound with pains,
For the sunshine of enjoyment
Rules the people of thy plains. ”

“ Joy for aye and aye!
Something Left.
There's joy in Oklahoma!
Let's go it good and strong;
There's sunshine on the prairies,
The land is glad with song;
What though the cotton tumbled,—
What if the wheat was short?
We've corn for hog and hominy
Of every blessed sort!
Charity not only covers a multitude of sins, but she also tucks the quilts in around the feet and gets up in the middle of the night to see if the blanket is on straight. ”

“ They will find in this life who are grieved with its gladness
No songs for the heart and no hopes for the soul,
But will faint in the glooms where the dirges of sadness
In tremulous murmurs of wretchedness roll;
For the sweets of this earth never lavish their kisses
Where lives in the valleys of rapture repine;
In the tortures they mourn who denounce all the blisses,—
They weep in the shadow that rail at the shine. ”

“ All the time is love time
Where the roses throng!
Don't you sigh or sorrow!
Raptures full and free
Crown each glad tomorrow,
Sweet, for you and me!
June-time and tune-time,
Where the roses throng,
Life-time and love-time
And the world of song!
The Candidate.
He's getting so busy, he makes the world dizzy,
His smoke can be seen from afar;
He kisses the babies and flatters the ladies
And gives the old man a cigar!
[22]
Good-bye, Dear Heart. I.
Good-bye, Dear Heart! ”

“ Of bosom weak and sad,
Till holy pleasures flit around
And all the heart is glad;
[pg 78]
Till all is sweet that here before
Was wrapped in bitter woe,
And only gladness hurries o'er
The millions here below.
Great man he is, and him I give
That gratitude of mine,
Which must in brilliance while I live
With brightest glory shine,
To wreathe a radiance always gay
Around the worthy breast
Of him who first discovered play
And gave the nations rest.
MAKE THE MOST OF THIS LIFE.
Make the most of this life ”

“ What shall matter the struggle with error and wrong?
For the lilies and roses of gladness shall bloom
Till we sleep the long slumber as dust in the tomb!
Caught on the Fly.
It's no use to try to trot in a race where you are out-classed. Better be a good weed-puller at so much per pull, than a member of the legislature without any pull at all.
If a woman's hair is smoothed up, her hat on straight and her belt all right behind, the other cares and responsibilities of this life sink at once and forever into insignificant nothingness. ”

“ Love and sweet trust that never dies,
Wild yearnings that with constant flow
From kindred heart to bosom go,—
Would never in our souls had rise,
Had we not met!
[pg 110]
A SONNET.
We gentler grow by sorrow; not the breast
That never crouches in the nights of tears,
That never bends beneath the loads of years,
Has sympathies that are the kindliest.
There is a strength in agony that best
Can link the careless heart with human fears,
And teach it that fond kindness which endears
The millions that with sadness are oppressed. ”

“ And there beyond the shadows where gladness reigns alway
We'll meet the hosts of morning, and dwell with them for aye.
V.
O, Morning on the Hill-tops! The dim eyes look to you,
Beyond the darkened valleys and all the griefs they knew,
And to the sunshine waiting in realms of rhapsody,
The paths lead on and upward to where you wait for me!
The Defeated.
Not he who loses but who fails to fight,
In God's long years reaps harvestings of blame;
Not he the blind but who destroys the sight
Receives the curses of the ages' blame! ”

“ Your loving lips with clinging kiss
Thrill all my heart and soul and brain;
And turning from my weary rhyme
To count my sorrows o'er and o'er,
I'd give my life to know once more
Those wondrous days of Christmas time.
Ring, laughing bells, ring out to-night!
From happy years that now are fled,
You bring the faces of the dead,
And bless me with a deep delight!
Away, away, these thoughts of men,
These toils of mine, that sadness give;
My heart grows young and I would live
My Christmas pleasures o'er again!
[pg 61]
TRUEST HEROES ARE UNKNOWN.
All worthies are not sung in song. ”

“ The love way, the song way,
The way we gladly go,—
The way of blossoms sweet and fair
And all the dreams we know!
What the world may think of a man is of small consequence either to him or the world; but what he thinks of himself is of infinite and imperishable importance to all the realms of creation.
[239]
Mister Blue-bird.
"Mister Blue-bird! Mister Blue-bird!
Don't you think it's rather soon
For the making of your music,
And the striking of a tune?"
"I have heard the lone trees calling
And the meadows barren long,
For the laughter of the lovers
And the raptures of the song! ”

“ In the glories of the sunshine when we reach the bye and bye!
Don't you worry at the winter! When the snow is all about;
It may seem a time of trouble for the blossoms peeping out,
[224] And the sere leases of the forest and the dead grass of the hills
Bring a set-back to the roses and the lilies have the chills;
But the world is rolling onward! and the spring is drawing nigh,
When the birds will spill their music through the blossoms bye and bye!
There's no need to get impatient! All the tangled ways will cease,
All the outer darkness vanish, all the battles end in peace ”