Fifty years Other Poems | Page 9

Brown,
And he was a miser old;

He would trust no bank,
So he dug, and sank
In the ground a box
of gold,
Down deep in the ground a box of gold.
He hid his gold,
As has been told,
He remembered that he did it;

But sad to say,
On the very next day,
He forgot just where he hid it:

To find his gold he tried and tried
Till he grew faint and sick, and
died.
Then on each dark and gloomy night
A form in phosphorescent white,

A genuine hair-raising sight,
Would wander through the town.

And as it slowly roamed around,
With a spade it dug each foot of
ground;
So the folks about
Said there was no doubt
'Twas the
ghost of Deacon Brown.
Around the church
This Ghost would search,
And whenever it
would see
The passers-by
Take wings and fly
It would laugh in
ghostly glee,
Hee, hee!--it would laugh in ghostly glee.
And so the town

Went quickly down,
For they said that it was
haunted;
And doors and gates,
So the story states,
Bore a notice,
"Tenants wanted."

And the town is now for let,
But the ghost is digging yet.
"LAZY"
Some men enjoy the constant strife
Of days with work and worry rife,

But that is not my dream of life:
I think such men are crazy.
For
me, a life with worries few,
A job of nothing much to do,
Just pelf
enough to see me through:
I fear that I am lazy.
On winter mornings cold and drear,
When six o'clock alarms I hear,

'Tis then I love to shift my ear,
And hug my downy pillows.

When in the shade it's ninety-three,
No job in town looks good to me,

I'd rather loaf down by the sea,
And watch the foaming billows.
Some people think the world's a school,
Where labor is the only rule;

But I'll not make myself a mule,
And don't you ever doubt it.
I
know that work may have its use,
But still I feel that's no excuse

For turning it into abuse;
What do you think about it?
Let others fume and sweat and boil,
And scratch and dig for golden
spoil,
And live the life of work and toil,
Their lives to labor giving.

But what is gold when life is sped,
And life is short, as has been
said,
And we are such a long time dead,
I'll spend my life in living.
OMAR
Old Omar, jolly sceptic, it may be
That, after all, you found the magic
key
To life and all its mystery, and I
Must own you have almost
persuaded me.
DEEP IN THE QUIET WOOD
Are you bowed down in heart?
Do you but hear the clashing discords
and the din of life? Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,

Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,
From out the

palpitating solitude
Do you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?

They are above, around, within you, everywhere.
Silently listen!
Clear, and still more clear, they come. They bubble up in rippling notes,
and swell in singing tones. Now let your soul run the whole gamut of
the wondrous scale Until, responsive to the tonic chord,
It touches the
diapason of God's grand cathedral organ, Filling earth for you with
heavenly peace
And holy harmonies.
VOLUPTAS
To chase a never-reached mirage
Across the hot, white sand,
And
choke and die, while gazing on
Its green and watered strand.
THE WORD OF AN ENGINEER
"She's built of steel
From deck to keel,
And bolted strong and tight;

In scorn she'll sail
The fiercest gale,
And pierce the darkest night.
"The builder's art
Has proved each part
Throughout her breadth and
length;
Deep in the hulk,
Of her mighty bulk,
Ten thousand
Titans' strength."
The tempest howls,
The Ice Wolf prowls,
The winds they shift and
veer,
But calm I sleep,
And faith I keep
In the word of an
engineer.
Along the trail
Of the slender rail
The train, like a nightmare, flies

And dashes on
Through the black-mouthed yawn
Where the
cavernous tunnel lies.
Over the ridge,
Across the bridge,
Swung twixt the sky and hell,

On an iron thread
Spun from the head
Of the man in a
draughtsman's cell.
And so we ride
Over land and tide,
Without a thought of fear--

_Man never had
The faith in God
That he has in an engineer!_

LIFE
Out of the infinite sea of eternity
To climb, and for an instant stand

Upon an island speck of time.
From the impassible peace of the darkness
To wake, and blink at the
garish light
Through one short hour of fretfulness.
SLEEP
O Sleep, thou kindest minister to man,
Silent distiller of the balm of
rest,
How wonderful thy power, when naught else can,
To soothe
the torn and sorrow-laden breast!
When bleeding hearts no comforter
can find,
When burdened souls droop under weight of woe,
When
thought is torture to the troubled mind,
When grief-relieving tears
refuse to flow;
'Tis then thou comest on soft-beating wings,
And
sweet oblivion's peace from them is shed;
But ah, the old pain that the
waking brings!
That lives again so soon as thou art fled!
Man, why should thought of death cause thee to weep;
Since death be
but an endless, dreamless sleep?
PRAYER AT SUNRISE
O mighty, powerful, dark-dispelling sun,
Now thou art risen, and thy
day begun.
How shrink the shrouding mists before thy face,
As up
thou spring'st to