Riley Songs of Home | Page 9

was my mistake--and so,?Say farewell, and let me go.
Say farewell, and let me go:?Murmur no regret,?Stay your tear-drops ere they flow--?Do not waste them yet!?They might pour as pours the rain,?And not wash away the pain:?I have tried them and I know.--?Say farewell, and let me go.
Say farewell, and let me go:?Think me not untrue--?True as truth is, even so?I am true to you!?If the ghost of love may stay?Where my fond heart dies to-day,?I am with you alway--so,?Say farewell, and let me go.
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OUR KIND OF A MAN
I
The kind of a man for you and me!?He faces the world unflinchingly,?And smites, as long as the wrong resists,?With a knuckled faith and force like fists:?He lives the life he is preaching of,?And loves where most is the need of love;?His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears,?And his face sublime through the blind man's tears;?The light shines out where the clouds were dim,?And the widow's prayer goes up for him;?The latch is clicked at the hovel door?And the sick man sees the sun once more,?And out o'er the barren fields he sees?Springing blossoms and waving trees,?Feeling as only the dying may,?That God's own servant has come that way,?Smoothing the path as it still winds on?Through the Golden Gate where his loved have gone.
II
The kind of a man for me and you!?However little of worth we do?He credits full, and abides in trust?That time will teach us how more is just.?He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds?Of querulous and uneasy minds,?And, sympathizing, he shares the pain?Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain;?And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand,?We are surely coming to understand!?He looks on sin with pitying eyes--?E'en as the Lord, since Paradise,--?Else, should we read, "Though our sins should glow?As scarlet, they shall be white as snow"?--?And, feeling still, with a grief half glad,?That the bad are as good as the good are bad,?He strikes straight out for the Right--and he?Is the kind of a man for you and me!
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"HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?"
"How did you rest, last night?"--?I've heard my gran'pap say?Them words a thousand times--that's right--?Jes them words thataway!?As punctchul-like as morning dast?To ever heave in sight?Gran'pap 'ud allus haf to ast--?"How did you rest, last night?"
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Us young-uns used to grin,?At breakfast, on the sly,?And mock the wobble of his chin?And eyebrows belt so high?And kind: "How did you rest, last night?"?We'd mumble and let on?Our voices trimbled, and our sight?Was dim, and hearin' gone.

Bad as I used to be,?All I'm a-wantin' is?As puore and ca'm a sleep fer me?And sweet a sleep as his!?And so I pray, on Jedgment Day?To wake, and with its light?See his face dawn, and hear him say--?"How did you rest, last night?"
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OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE
Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon--?The land that the Lord's love rests upon;?Where one may rely on the friends he meets,?And the smiles that greet him along the streets:?Where the mother that left you years ago?Will lift the hands that were folded so,?And put them about you, with all the love?And tenderness you are dreaming of.
Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon--?Where all of the friends of your youth have gone,--?Where the old schoolmate that laughed with you,?Will laugh again as he used to do,?Running to meet you, with such a face?As lights like a moon the wondrous place?Where God is living, and glad to live,?Since He is the Master and may forgive.
Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon!--?Stay the hopes we are leaning on--?You, Divine, with Your merciful eyes?Looking down from the far-away skies,--?Smile upon us, and reach and take?Our worn souls Home for the old home's sake.--?And so Amen,--for our all seems gone?Out of the hitherwhere into the Yon.
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JACK-IN-THE-BOX
_(Grandfather, musing.)_
In childish days! O memory,?You bring such curious things to me!--?Laughs to the lip--tears to the eye,?In looking on the gifts that lie?Like broken playthings scattered o'er?Imagination's nursery floor!?Did these old hands once click the key?That let "Jack's" box-lid upward fly,?And that blear-eyed, fur-whiskered elf?Leap, as though frightened at himself,?And quiveringly lean and stare?At me, his jailer, laughing there?
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A child then! Now--I only know?They call me very old; and so?They will not let me have my way,--?But uselessly I sit all day?Here by the chimney-jamb, and poke?The lazy fire, and smoke and smoke,?And watch the wreaths swoop up the flue,?And chuckle--ay, I often do--?Seeing again, all vividly,?Jack-in-the-box leap, as in glee?To see how much he looks like me!
... They talk. I can't hear what they say--?But I am glad, clean through and through?Sometimes, in fancying that they?Are saying, "Sweet, that fancy strays?In age back to our childish days!"
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THE BOYS
Where are they?--the friends of my childhood enchanted--?The clear, laughing eyes looking back in my own,?And the warm, chubby fingers my palms have so wanted,?As when we raced over
Pink pastures of clover,?And