Edgar A. Guest

“ But what I wonder why to babes such suffering is sent.
Though mumps and measles, chicken pox and scarlet fever, too,
Beset the lives of those I love, I still can see them through;
But terror seems to chill my blood the minute that I hear
That awful sign that someone's child with whooping cough is near.
Old women say it has to be, but I grow pale as death
When I behold a boy or girl in anguish fight for breath.
They tell me not to be alarmed, but I'm not made of steel,
And every touch of agony the youngster has, I feel ”

“ Give me a book and my cozy chair and a pipe of old perique
And the wind may howl and I shall not care that the night is cold and bleak,
For I'll follow my friend of the printed page wherever he leads me on,
I'll follow him back to a vanished age and the joys of a life that's gone.
I'll stand with him on a brigantine with the salt wind in my face,
I'll hear him shout when the whale is seen and share in the stirring chase,
And I'll hear him say as the gulls fly by and round us overhead:
"Every bird up there with its ghastly cry is the soul of a sailor dead." ”

“ And there above the grate fire's glow, for every eye to see,
Were all the sacred treasures from her book of memory.
But Time has swept these things away, the mantel now is bare.
The attic dust lies thick upon the joys once valued there;
The photographs are stored away, the birds long since have flown,
Nor is it now good form to show the treasured things we own,
For when the newer customs come, the ones of old must cease,
And yet I'm sorry that we had to lose the chimney piece.
The Crocus
A yellow crocus bloomed today. ”

“ I envy him his care-free way, I envy him his smile,
The highway is his own domain, he rules it every mile;
The king who drives about by day, sends couriers on ahead
And buglers gay and soldiers brave, a path for him to spread;
But he may go his way alone nor fear that he'll be struck,
For monarch of the highway is the driver of the truck.
When I go driving down the road I must obey the rules,
I must watch out for all who come, the sane men and the fools,
And I must guard that car of mine with vigilance and care,
For even trifling accidents might strand me then and there ”

“ Great buildings burned and fortunes lost;
Nor can the world compute the cost
In life and money it has paid
Because at "good enough" men stayed.
Who stops at "good enough" shall find
Success has left him far behind.
There is no "good enough" that's short
Of what you can do and you ought.
The flaw which may escape the eye
And temporarily get by,
Shall weaken underneath the strain
And wreck the ship or car or train,
For this is true of men and stuff—
Only the best is "good enough." ”

“ And he sat by his side in the limousine and was proud of his company.
You may walk in pride in your garments fine, you may judge by the things of show,
But what's deep in the breast of the man you scorn is something you cannot know.
And you'd kiss the hand of the dirtiest man that ever the world has known
If to save the life of the child you love, he had bravely risked his own. ”

“ Who rise by day to toil and strife,
But have no little tots to wake them.
Grief's Only Master
Into the lives of all
The tears of sorrow fall.
Into the happiest hearts
Grief drives her darts;
No door however stout
Can shut Death's angel out.
Vain are the things we prize,
Treasure and pomp's disguise;
They cannot stay the tear
When the true griefs appear.
Where Death will strike to-day
Gold cannot bar the way.
There is no joy secure,
No peace that shall endure,
No smile that man shall keep.
God wills that he must weep,
And in his darkest hour
Vain is all earthly power. ”

“ I must pay with the bitter for all life's sweet,
But I live in dread of that coming day
When forever the high chair goes away.
Whooping Cough
There is a reason, I suppose, for everything which comes—
Why youngsters fall from apple trees and babies suck their thumbs;
And though I can't explain it all, when trouble comes I know
That since by Providence 'tis willed, it must be wiser so.
But knowing this, I still insist we'd all be better off
If little children could escape the dreaded whooping cough. ”

“ In the pink of the orchard blooms, than I.
"But eyes and ears and legs and hands
Don't always follow the same commands,
And some find beauty in dollar bills,
And some in the streams and the misty hills;
Some people hear nothing but mortal words,
And some are tuned to the songs of birds.
"Some grapple with facts that are stiff and cold,
And some see visions all tipped with gold;
Some hands are tender and others rough,
And some are gentle and some are gruff;
But each must follow life's pathway through,
Doing the things which he likes to do. ”

“ Made the beverage sweet for me.
This to her I tried to say
In that golden yesterday—
Life is like a cup of tea
Which Time poureth endlessly,
Brewed by trial's constant heat,
Needing love to make it sweet. ”

“ Boy, put down that little pill, take your powders and be glad
You're not getting what they gave when your father was a lad.
Mother's hand was gentle, but rough and hard it seemed to be
When she sat beside my bed rubbing goose-grease into me.
Getting well is easy now. Take your medicine and smile,
You are lucky that it's not senna tea or camomile.
The Tumbler at the Sink
The houses of the rich folks are very fine to see,
But after all I fancy they'd never do for me—
For a butler guards the doorway, and a staff of servants wait
To gratify your slightest wish, like messengers of state. ”

“ No pleasure car can ever stop the driver of the truck.
He sits his seat in confidence, serene and quite content,
His heavy wheels are never dished, his axles never bent;
A locomotive engineer might jolt him from his place,
But nothing short of that would bring a tremor to his face.
He laughs his cheerful way along, too big for men to buck,
And even millionaires must dodge the driver of the truck. ”

“ Lord, it's good to meet Your children as they trudge life's thoroughfare,
And learn the hopes they cherish and the dreams they see out there.
Living with the people here upon the kindly earth,
And finding in the strangest garb the messengers of mirth,
For many a stirring tale of life the passer-by can tell,
And every man is worth your while if but you know him well. ”

“ No youngster ever bats a ball
Among the roses, straight and tall.
I turn the pages o'er and o'er
And see the pansies dark as wine,
And think, as I have thought before,
These are superior to mine;
In my poor garden, never yet
Has bloomed such lovely mignonette.
Since pansies have the storms to face
And men must battle day by day,
They cannot wear the charm and grace
Their printed catalogues display;
Life is much sterner than it looks
And scars are seldom shown in books. ”

“ The mangled car beneath the tree,
The dead man, and the tortured wife
Doomed to a cripple's chair for life—
His chief concern was getting by
The stern inspector's eager eye.
Perhaps he whistles on his way
Into the factory to-day
And doesn't know the ruin wrought
By just one minute's careless thought.
Yet human life is held at stake
By nearly all that toilers make. ”

“ I guessed somehow that mother love had battled with a youngster's will.
"You'll have to settle it," said she; "there's nothing more that I can say,
The game of football's calling him and he insists he wants to play."
We've talked it over many a time; we've hoped he wouldn't choose the game,
And I suppose there's not a boy whose parents do not feel the same.
They dread, as we, the rugged sport; they wonder, too, just what they'll say
When son of theirs comes home, as ours, and begs to be allowed to play. ”

“ And this you learn from high and low, throughout life's stretch of years,
We're brothers in the joys we take and brothers in our tears.
I'm sorry for the haughty man who holds his head in air,
And passes by in cold disdain the garbs of toil and care,
For though he may be rich and great, 'tis lonely he must live,
He misses all the glorious joys his fellows have to give.
Oh, walk with them and talk with them and hear the tales they tell,
The passers-by would be your friends if but you knew them well. ”

“ Some folks pray for a boy, and some
For a golden-haired little girl to come.
Some claim to think there is more of joy
Wrapped up in the smile of a little boy,
While others pretend that the silky curls
And plump, pink cheeks of the little girls
Bring more of bliss to the old home place
Than a small boy's queer little freckled face. ”

“ Rowing the women and their babes upon the bosom of the lake;
And by that law which rules a host I'm at the mercy of the crew,
I must, until they say good-bye, do everything they wish to do.
The chef in yonder large hotel is not a busier man than I,
The fish for fifteen hungry mouths it is my duty now to fry,
And thus my glad vacation time from dawn to dusk is filled with chores,
For friends have made our resting spot the busiest place in all outdoors. ”

“ The road lay straight before him, but the by-paths smiled at him
And the scarlet poppies called him to the forests cool and dim,
And the song birds' happy chorus seemed to lure him further on;
'Twas a day of wondrous pleasure—but the day was quickly gone.
He could not resist the laughter and the purling of a brook
Any more than gray old sages can resist some dusty book,
And though stern-faced duty bade him march the highway straight ahead,
"The trees are better company than busy men," he said. ”

“ That where the feet of children run the grass can never grow.
Now I might own a lovely lawn, but I should have to say
To all the little ones about, "Go somewhere else to play!"
And I should have to stretch a wire about my garden space
And make the home where gladness reigns, a most forbidding place.
By stopping all the merriment which now is ours to know,
In time, beyond the slightest doubt, the tender grass would grow. ”

“ And yet the way he wagged his tail completely captured Bud.
He had been kicked from door to door and stoned upon his way,
"Begone!" was all he'd ever heard, 'twas all that folks would say;
And yet this miserable cur, forever doomed to roam,
Struck up a comradeship with Bud, who proudly brought him home.
I've never seen so poor a dog in all my stretch of years,
The burrs were thick upon his tail and thick upon his ears;
He'd had to fight his way through life and carried many a scar,
But still Bud brought him home and cried: "Say, can I keep him, Ma?" ”

“ A yellow crocus flashed today
Its torch of faith for all to see—
The troops of spring are on the way,
The captive earth will soon be free.
My Goals
A little braver when the skies are gray,
A little stronger when the road seems long,
A little more of patience through the day,
And not so quick to magnify a wrong. ”

“ But that fairy has promised, when poppies are fair,
To come back again and to wait for you there.
Yes, you can go out when the skies are all blue
And see what I've seen,
And go where I've been.
You can have fairies to lead you away,
To show you strange sights and to share in your play;
And the grown-ups may say that your fancies are wild,
But fairies are real to an innocent child.
Shoes
I'll tell you it's a problem, when a youngster's nine years old,
To keep his feet in leather and to keep him heeled
and soled ”

“ Red the cheeks of apples and pink the peaches' bloom,
Redolent the breezes with the sweetness of perfume;
Everything is beauty, crowned by skies of clearest blue;
Mother Earth is at her best once more for me and you. ”

“ But the chap who draws attention and the larger weekly pay,
Has a vision for the future and is working hard for it.
He tackles every problem with the will to see it through,
He does a little thinking of the work that comes to hand;
His eyes are always open for the more that he can do,
You never find him idle, merely waiting a command.
The ordinary fellow does precisely as he's told,
But someone has to tell him what to do, and how, and when;
But the chap who gets promoted fills the job he has to hold
With just a little something more than ordinary men. ”

“ And back to mind there comes today the hardest of our cares,
That springtime job of putting down the carpet on the stairs.
Housecleaning time meant weary legs and hands and aching backs,
For no more tedious job there is than driving carpet tacks. ”

“ There's a comfortable feeling which the great folks miss, I think,
In drinking, when you're thirsty, from the tumbler at the sink.
There's a charm about the kitchen which no other room can boast,
And when you think about it, it's the one we need the most.
It is there we find her smiling when we come back home at night,
There the children dance about her as they're pleading for a bite,
And it's there that eyes are brightest, cheeks the pinkest of the pink,
And it's there, for all the thirsty, there's the tumbler at the sink. ”

“ And the boy looked out on a world wherein there was nothing for him to do.
His hands grew soft and his eyes went dull and his cheeks turned ashy pale,
For strength which isn't employed by day, with idleness grows stale. ”

“ At the slightest smile from you—
To the ending of their days
Mothers never change their ways.
High Chair Days
High chair days are the best of all,
Or so they seem to me,
Days when tumbler and platter fall
And the King smiles merrily;
When the regal arms and the regal feet
A constant patter of music beat,
And the grown-ups bow in a gracious way
To the high chair monarch who rules the day. ”

“ No longer shrieks its warning grim that mortal life must cease—
And yet I'm sorry we have lost the old-time chimney piece.
The modern mantel, I admit, is striking to the eye,
And yet it lacks the wealth of charm we knew in days gone by ”