Works

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,...

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....

When I'm at gran'dad's on the farm,
I hear along 'bout six o'clock,
Just when I'm feelin' snug an' warm,
"Ho, Bobby, come and feed your stock."

I jump an' get into my clothes;...

'Twas a score of years since I'd heard the pipes,
But the other night I heard them;
There are sweet old memories in my heart,
And the music woke and stirred them.

In the armories, at the big parade...

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...

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!"
...

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...

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.
...

What we most need is men of worth,
Men o' the forest mark,
Of lofty height and mighty girth
And green, unbroken bark.

Not men whom circumstances
Have stunted, wasted, sapped,...

Sing, ye ripening fields of wheat,
Sing to the breezes passing by,
Sing your jubilant song and sweet,
Sing to the earth, the air, the sky!

Earth that held thee and skies that kissed...

Wha cares if skies be dull and gray?
Wha heeds November weather?
Let ilka Scot be glad to-day
The whole wide warl' thegither.

We're a' a prood and stubborn lot,
And clannish - sae fowk name us -...

The river is a ribbon wide,
The falls a snowy feather,
And stretching far on ilka side
Are hills abloom wi' heather.
The wind comes loitering frae the west
By weight o' sweets retarded;...

I thank Thee, Lord,
For every joyous hour
That has been mine!
For every strengthening and helpful word,
For every tender sound that I have heard,
I thank Thee, Lord!

I thank Thee, Lord,...

"As friend," she said, "I will be kind,
My sympathy will rarely fail,
My eyes to many faults be blind -
As wife, I'll lecture, scold, and rail,

"Be full of moods, a shrew one day,...

The sunset has faded, there's but a tinge,
Saffron pale, where a star of white
Has tangled itself in the trailing fringe
Of the pearl-gray robe of the summer night.
...

The day she came we were planting corn,
The west eighty-acre field, -
These prairie farms are great for size,
And they're sometimes great for yield.

"The new school-ma'am is up to the house,"...

O the gayest of musicians! O the gladdest thing on earth,
With its piping and its chirping, is the cricket on the hearth!
There is magic in the music that he flings us with such zest:...

The great man came to the country place,
To preach to farmers sturdy;
He said: "I'm in my happiest vein,
I'll be eloquent and wordy."

"Not often a great man like myself...

Though long, long leagues of land and sea
Stretch out between Braemar and me,
I'll win home late or soon,
Will take the old familiar way
Past Isla Glen, up bold Glenshee,...

The harvest sun lay hot and strong
On waving grain and grain in sheaf,
On dusty highway stretched along,
On hill and vale, on stalk and leaf.

The wind which stirred the tasseled corn...