Works

We met her on the hillside green
Below old Castle Blarney;
Her name, she whispered, was Eileen,
Her home it was Killarney.

I see her yet, her Irish eyes
Blue gray as seas in summer,...

When I was but a little lad
One thing I could not bear,
It was to stand at mother's knee
And have her comb my hair.

They didn't keep boys' hair as short
As it's kept now-a-days,...

Here's a song of cheer
For the whole long year:

We've only to do our best,
Take up our part
With a strong, true heart -
The Lord will do all the rest.

Praise God for blessings great and small,
For garden bloom and orchard store,
The crimson vine upon the wall,
The green and gold of maples tall,
For harvest-field and threshing-floor!
...

A little crippled figure, two big pathetic eyes,
A face that looked unchildish, so wan it was and wise;
I watched her as the homesick tears came chasing down each cheek....

They lift their faces to the light,
And aye they are a gallant band;
The queen of all is snowy white -
A stately thing, and tall and grand.

See, close beside, in yellow drest,...

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,"...

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.
...

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 -...

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.
...

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...

"Life's day is too brief," he said at dawn,
"I would it were ten times longer,
For great tasks wait for me further on."
At noonday the wish was stronger.

His place was in the thick of the strife,...

What is the greatest work of all?
The work that comes every day;
The work that waits us on ev'ry hand
Is work that, for us, is truly grand,
And the love of work is our pay.
...

One lesson let us bear in mind -
Be very gentle with our own,
Be to their faults a little blind,
Nor wound them by a look or tone.

Put self behind! turn tender eyes;...

"And behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with ...

Your presence is a psalm of praise,
And as its measure grandly rings
God's finger finds my heart and plays
A te deum upon its strings.
I never see you but I feel
That I in gratitude must kneel.
...

O Radiance of life's morning! O gold without alloy!
O love that lives through all the years! O full, O perfect joy!

The hills of earth touch heaven, the heaven of blue and gold,...

Day of battle and day of blood
Found you steady and strong, I ween;
Sons of the land of the Maple Leaf,
Face to the foe, you died for the Queen.

Brave boys, our boys, filling to-day...

He does the devil's basest work, no less,
Who deals in calumnies - who throws the mire
On snowy robes whose hem he dare not press
His foul lips to. The pity of it! Liar,...

I was the slyest boy at home,
The slyest boy at school,
I wanted all the world to know
That I was no one's fool.

I kept my childish hopes and schemes
Locked closely in my breast,...