Riley Songs of Home | Page 5

back with disdain--
We must get home--we must get
home again!
We must get home again--we must--we must!--
(Our rainy faces
pelted in the dust)
Creep back from the vain quest through endless
strife
To find not anywhere in all of life
A happier happiness than
blest us then ...
We must get home--we must get home again!
[Illustration]
JUST TO BE GOOD
Just to be good--
This is enough--enough!
O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,

Do we not feel how more than any gold
Would be the blameless
life we led of old
While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
Ah!
though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!
It is enough--
Enough--just to be good!
To lift our hearts where they are understood;

To let the thirst for worldly power and place
Go unappeased; to
smile back in God's face
With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.

Ah! though we miss
All else but this,
To be good is enough!
[Illustration]

[Illustration]
MY FRIEND
"He is my friend," I said,--
"Be patient!" Overhead
The skies were
drear and dim;
And lo! the thought of him
Smiled on my heart--and
then
The sun shone out again!
"He is my friend!" The words
Brought summer and the birds;
And
all my winter-time
Thawed into running rhyme
And rippled into
song,
Warm, tender, brave and strong.
And so it sings to-day.--
So may it sing alway!
Though waving
grasses grow
Between, and lilies blow
Their trills of perfume clear

As laughter to the ear,
Let each mute measure end
With "Still he
is thy friend."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THINKIN' BACK
I've ben thinkin' back, of late,
S'prisin'!--And I'm here to state
I'm
suspicious it's a sign
Of age, maybe, or decline
Of my
faculties,--and yit
I'm not feelin' old a bit--
Any more than
sixty-four
Ain't no young man any more!
Thinkin' back's a thing 'at grows
On a feller, I suppose--
Older 'at he
gits, i jack,
More he keeps a-thinkin' back!
Old as old men git to be,

Er as middle-aged as me,
Folks'll find us, eye and mind
Fixed on
what we've left behind--
Rehabilitatin'-like
Them old times we used
to hike
Out barefooted fer the crick,
'Long 'bout Aprile first--to pick

Out some "warmest" place to go
In a-swimmin'--Ooh! my-oh!

Wonder now we hadn't died!
Grate horseradish on my hide
Jes'
a-thinkin' how cold then
That-'ere worter must 'a' ben!

Thinkin' back--W'y, goodness me!
I kin call their names and see

Every little tad I played
With, er fought, er was afraid
Of, and so
made him the best
Friend I had of all the rest!
[Illustration]
Thinkin' back, I even hear
Them a-callin', high and clear,
Up the
crick-banks, where they seem
Still hid in there--like a dream--
And
me still a-pantin' on
The green pathway they have gone!
Still they
hide, by bend er ford--
Still they hide--but, thank the Lord,

(Thinkin' back, as I have said),
I hear laughin' on ahead!
[Illustration]
NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE
We are not always glad when we smile:
Though we wear a fair face
and are gay,
And the world we deceive
May not ever believe
We
could laugh in a happier way.--
Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,

Ofttimes, with our faces aglow,
There's an ache and a moan
That
we know of alone,
And as only the hopeless may know.
We are not always glad when we smile,--
For the heart, in a tempest
of pain,
May live in the guise
Of a smile in the eyes
As a rainbow
may live in the rain;
And the stormiest night of our woe
May hang
out a radiant star
Whose light in the sky
Of despair is a lie
As
black as the thunder-clouds are.
We are not always glad when we smile!--
But the conscience is quick
to record,
All the sorrow and sin
We are hiding within
Is plain in
the sight of the Lord:
And ever, O ever, till pride
And evasion shall
cease to defile

The sacred recess
Of the soul, we confess
We are
not always glad when we smile.
[Illustration]

[Illustration]
HIS ROOM
"I'm home again, my dear old Room,
I'm home again, and happy, too,

As, peering through the brightening gloom,
I find myself alone
with you:
Though brief my stay, nor far away,
I missed
you--missed you night and day--
As wildly yearned for you as now.--

Old Room, how are you, anyhow?
"My easy chair, with open arms,
Awaits me just within the door;

The littered carpet's woven charms
Have never seemed so bright
before,--
The old rosettes and mignonettes
And ivy-leaves and
violets,
Look up as pure and fresh of hue
As though baptized in
morning dew.
"Old Room, to me your homely walls
Fold round me like the arms of
love,
And over all my being falls
A blessing pure as from above--

Even as a nestling child caressed
And lulled upon a loving breast,

With folded eyes, too glad to weep
And yet too sad for dreams or
sleep.
"You've been so kind to me, old Room--
So patient in your tender
care,
My drooping heart in fullest bloom
Has blossomed for you
unaware;
And who but you had cared to woo
A heart so dark, and
heavy, too,
As in the past you lifted mine
From out the shadow to
the shine?
"For I was but a wayward boy
When first you gladly welcomed me

And taught me work was truer joy
Than rioting incessantly:
And
thus