Custer | Page 3

all the day,?Our time from pleasure stealing.?So unobtrusive many a joy?We pass by and forget it,?But worry strives to own our lives?And conquers if we let it.
There's not a day in all the year?But holds some hidden pleasure,?And looking back, joys oft appear?To brim the past's wide measure.?But blessings are like friends, I hold,?Who love and labor near us.?We ought to raise our notes of praise?While living hearts can hear us.
Full many a blessing wears the guise?Of worry or of trouble.?Farseeing is the soul and wise?Who knows the mask is double.?But he who has the faith and strength?To thank his God for sorrow?Has found a joy without alloy?To gladden every morrow.
We ought to make the moments notes?Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;?The hours and days a silent phrase?Of music we are living.?And so the theme should swell and grow?As weeks and months pass o'er us,?And rise sublime at this good time,?A grand Thanksgiving chorus.
=A Maiden To Her Mirror=
He said he loved me! Then he called my hair?Silk threads wherewith sly Cupid strings his bow,?My cheek a rose leaf fallen on new snow;?And swore my round, full throat would bring despair?To Venus or to Psyche.
Time and care?Will fade these locks; the merry god, I trow,?Uses no grizzled cords upon his bow.?How will it be when I, no longer fair,?Plead for his kiss with cheeks whence long ago?The early snowflakes melted quite away,?The rose leaf died--and in whose sallow clay?Lie the deep sunken tracks of life's gaunt crow?
When this full throat shall wattle fold on fold,?Like some ripe peach left drying on a wall,?Or like a spent accordion, when all?Its music has exhaled--will love grow cold?
=The Kettle=
There's many a house of grandeur,?With turret, tower and dome,?That knows not peace or comfort,?And does not prove a home.?_I_ do not ask for splendor?To crown my daily lot,?But this I ask--a kitchen?Where the kettle's always hot.
If things are not all ship-shape,?I do not fume or fret,?A little clean disorder?Does not my nerves upset.?But _one_ thing is essential,?Or seems so to my thought,?And that's a tidy kitchen?Where the kettle's always hot.
In my Aunt Hattie's household,?Though skies outside are drear,?Though times are dark and troubled,?You'll always find good cheer.?And in her quaint old kitchen--?The very homiest spot--?The kettle's always singing,?The water's always hot.
And if you have a headache,?Whate'er the hour may be,?There is no tedious waiting?To get your cup of tea.?I don't know how she does it--?Some magic she has caught--?For the kitchen's cool in summer,?Yet the kettle's always hot.
Oh, there's naught else so dreary?In household kingdom found?As a cold and sullen kettle?That does not make a sound.?And I think that love is lacking?In the hearts in such a spot,?Or the kettle would be singing?And the water would be hot.
=Contrasts=
I see the tall church steeples,?They reach so far, so far,?But the eyes of my heart see the world's great mart,?Where the starving people are.
I hear the church bells ringing?Their chimes on the morning air;?But my soul's sad ear is hurt to hear?The poor man's cry of despair.
Thicker and thicker the churches,?Nearer and nearer the sky?But alack for their creeds while the poor man's needs?Grow deeper as years roll by.
=Thy Ship=
Hadst thou a ship, in whose vast hold lay stored?The priceless riches of all climes and lands,?Say, wouldst thou let it float upon the seas?Unpiloted, of fickle winds the sport,?And of wild waves and hidden rocks the prey?
Thine is that ship; and in its depths concealed?Lies all the wealth of this vast universe--?Yea, lies some part of God's omnipotence?The legacy divine of every soul.?Thy will, O man, thy will is that great ship,?And yet behold it drifting here and there--?One moment lying motionless in port,?Then on high seas by sudden impulse flung,
Then drying on the sands, and yet again?Sent forth on idle quests to no-man's land?To carry nothing and to nothing bring;?Till worn and fretted by the aimless strife?And buffeted by vacillating winds?It founders on a rock, or springs aleak?With all its unused treasures in the hold.
Go save thy ship, thou sluggard; take the wheel?And steer to knowledge, glory and success.?Great mariners have made the pathway plain?For thee to follow; hold thou to the course?Of Concentration Channel, and all things?Shall come in answer to thy swerveless wish?As comes the needle to the magnet's call,?Or sunlight to the prisoned blade of grass?That yearns all winter for the kiss of spring.
=The Tryst=
Just when all hope had perished in my soul,?And balked desire made havoc with my mind,?My cruel Ladye suddenly grew kind,?And sent these gracious words upon a scroll:?"When knowing Night her dusky scarf has tied?Across the bold, intrusive eyes of day,?Come as a glad, triumphant lover may,?No longer fearing that he be denied."
I read her letter for the hundredth time,?And for the hundredth time my gladdened sight?Blurred with the rapture of my vast delight,?And swooned upon the page. I caught the