Works

It is time for bed, so the nurse declares,
But I slip off to the nook,
The cozy nook at the head of the stairs,
Where daddy's reading his book.

"I want to sit here awhile on your knee,"...

I cannot echo the old wish to die at morn, as darkness strays!
We have been glad together greeting some new-born radiant days,
The earth would hold me, every day familiar things
Would weigh me fast,...

Gray old gardener, what do you bring?
"Laurel and ivy and bay,
With palms for the crowning of a King -
The morrow is Christmas Day.

"Holly with thorns, and berries like blood...

We catch a glimpse of it, gaunt and gray,
When the golden sunbeams are all abroad;
We sober a moment, then softly say:
The world still lies in the hand of God.

We watch it stealthily creeping o'er...

My soul spoke low to Discontent:
Long hast thou lodged with me,
Now, ere the strength of me is spent,
I would be quit of thee.

Thy presence means revolt, unrest,
Means labor, longing, pain;...

You cannot take from out my heart the growing,
The green, sweet growing, and the vivid thrill.
"O Earth," you cry, "you should be old, not glowing
With youth and all youth's strength and beauty still!"
...

When Satan sends - to vex the mind of man
And urge him on to meanness and to wrong -
His satellites, there is not one that can
Acquit itself like envy. Not so strong...

"It is good-bye," she said; "the world is wide,
There's space for you and me to walk apart.
Though we have walked together side by side,
My thoughts all yours, my resting-place your heart,...

The Allans o' Airlie they set muckle store
On ancestry, acres, and siller,
Nor cared to remember the good days of yore,
Nor grandfather Allan, the miller -
The honest old miller.
...

I'll tell you the sweetest thing, dear heart,
I'll tell you the sweetest thing -
'Tis saying to one that we love: "Forgive
The careless words and the sting;
Forgive and forget, and be friends once more,...

They were a couple well content
With what they earned and what they spent,
Cared not a whit for style's decree -
For he was Scotch, and so was she.

And oh, they loved to talk of Burns -...

There's a man I know -
A likeable man -
Whom you meanly wound
Whenever you can,
Remark with malice
His task is done ill,
He's poor of judgment
And weak of will.
I implore you, now,...

O glad sun, creeping through the casement wide,
A million blossoms have you kissed since morn,
But none so fair as this one at my side -
Touch soft the bit of love, the babe new born.
...

(JUNE 13, 1899.)


So still you sleep upon your bed,
So motionless and slender,
It cannot be that you are dead,
My maiden gay and tender!

You were no creature pale and meek...

'Tis woman rules the whole world still,
Though faults the critics say she has;
She smiles her smile and works her will -
'Tis just a little way she has.

She is so winsome and so wise
She sways me at her will,
And oft the question will arise,
What mission does she fill?
O then I say with pride untold,
And love beyond degree,...

Low in the ivy-covered church she kneeled,
The sunshine falling on her golden hair;
The moaning of a soul with hurt unhealed
Was her low-breathed and broken cry of prayer.
...

The fluttering leaves above his grave,
The grasses creeping toward the light,
The flowers fragile, sweet, and brave,
That hide the earth clods from our sight,

The swelling buds on shrub and tree,...

(A Tribute to Mrs. George A. Cox.)


The Golden Rule - the blessed creed
That shelters frail humanity,
The tender thought for those in need,
The charity of word and deed,...

In the farmhouse kitchen were Nan and John,
With only the sunflowers looking on.

A farmhouse kitchen is scarce the place
For knight or lady of courtly grace.

But this is just an everyday pair...