Songs of Friendship | Page 6

hobo's life is a roving life,?It robs pretty maids of their heart's delight--?It causes them to weep and it causes them to mourn?For the life of a hobo, never to return.
[Illustration: A hobo voluntary--tailpiece]
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[Illustration: Be our fortunes as they may--headpiece]
BE OUR FORTUNES AS THEY MAY
Be our fortunes as they may,?Touched with loss or sorrow,?Saddest eyes that weep to-day?May be glad to-morrow.
Yesterday the rain was here,?And the winds were blowing--?Sky and earth and atmosphere?Brimmed and overflowing.
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But to-day the sun is out,?And the drear November?We were then so vexed about?Now we scarce remember.
Yesterday you lost a friend--?Bless your heart and love it!--?For you scarce could comprehend?All the aching of it;--
But I sing to you and say:?Let the lost friend sorrow--?Here's another come to-day,?Others may to-morrow.
[Illustration: Be our fortunes as they may--tailpiece]
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I SMOKE MY PIPE
I can't extend to every friend?In need a helping hand--?No matter though I wish it so,?'Tis not as Fortune planned;?But haply may I fancy they?Are men of different stripe?Than others think who hint and wink,--?And so--I smoke my pipe!
A golden coal to crown the bowl--?My pipe and I alone,--?I sit and muse with idler views?Perchance than I should own:--?It might be worse to own the purse?Whose glutted bowels gripe?In little qualms of stinted alms;?And so I smoke my pipe.
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[Illustration: And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds]
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And if inclined to moor my mind?And cast the anchor Hope,?A puff of breath will put to death?The morbid misanthrope?That lurks inside--as errors hide?In standing forms of type?To mar at birth some line of worth;?And so I smoke my pipe.
The subtle stings misfortune flings?Can give me little pain?When my narcotic spell has wrought?This quiet in my brain:?When I can waste the past in taste?So luscious and so ripe?That like an elf I hug myself;?And so I smoke my pipe.
And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds?I watch the phantom's flight,?Till alien eyes from Paradise?Smile on me as I write:?And I forgive the wrongs that live,?As lightly as I wipe?Away the tear that rises here;?And so I smoke my pipe.
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[Illustration: Uncle Sidney to Marcellus--headpiece]
UNCLE SIDNEY TO MARCELLUS
Marcellus, won't you tell us--?Truly tell us, if you can,--?What will you be, Marcellus,?When you get to be a man?
You turn, with never answer?But to the band that plays.--?O rapt and eerie dancer,?What of your future days?
Far in the years before us?We dreamers see your fame,?While song and praise in chorus?Make music of your name.
And though our dreams foretell us?As only visions can,?You must prove it, O Marcellus,?When you get to be a man!
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A SONG BY UNCLE SIDNEY
O were I not a clod, intent?On being just an earthly thing,?I'd be that rare embodiment?Of Heart and Spirit, Voice and Wing,?With pure, ecstatic, rapture-sent,?Divinely-tender twittering?That Echo swoons to re-present,--?A bluebird in the Spring.
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[Illustration: The poet's love for the children--headpiece]
THE POET'S LOVE FOR THE CHILDREN
Kindly and warm and tender,?He nestled each childish palm?So close in his own that his touch was a prayer?And his speech a blessed psalm.
He has turned from the marvelous pages?Of many an alien tome--?Haply come down from Olivet,?Or out from the gates of Rome--
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[Illustration: Of the orchard-lands of childhood]
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Set sail o'er the seas between him?And each little beckoning hand?That fluttered about in the meadows?And groves of his native land,--
Fluttered and flashed on his vision?As, in the glimmering light?Of the orchard-lands of childhood,?The blossoms of pink and white.
And there have been sobs in his bosom,?As out on the shores he stept,?And many a little welcomer?Has wondered why he wept.--
That was because, O children,?Ye might not always be?The same that the Savior's arms were wound?About, in Galilee.
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[Illustration: Friend of a wayward hour--headpiece]
FRIEND OF A WAYWARD HOUR
Friend of a wayward hour, you came?Like some good ghost, and went the same;?And I within the haunted place?Sit smiling on your vanished face,?And talking with--your name.
But thrice the pressure of your hand--?First hail--congratulations--and?Your last "God bless you!" as the train?That brought you snatched you back again?Into the unknown land.
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"God bless me?" Why, your very prayer?Was answered ere you asked it there,?I know--for when you came to lend?Me your kind hand, and call me friend,?God blessed me unaware.
[Illustration: Friend of a wayward hour--tailpiece]
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[Illustration: My Henry--headpiece]
MY HENRY
He's jes' a great, big, awk'ard, hulkin'?Feller,--humped, and sort o' sulkin'--?Like, and ruther still-appearin'--?Kind-as-ef he wuzn't keerin'?Whether school helt out er not--?That's my Henry, to a dot!
Allus kind o' liked him--whether?Childern, er growed-up together!?Fifteen year' ago and better,?'Fore he ever knowed a letter,?Run acrosst the little fool?In my Primer-class at school.
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[Illustration: Nothin' that boy wouldn't resk!]
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When the Teacher wuzn't lookin',?He'd be th'owin' wads; er crookin'?Pins; er sprinklin' pepper, more'n?Likely, on the stove; er borin'?Gimlet-holes up thue his desk--?Nothin' _that_ boy wouldn't resk!
But, somehow, as I was goin'?On to say, he seemed so knowin',?_Other_ ways, and cute and cunnin'--?Allus wuz a notion runnin'?Thue my giddy, fool-head he?Jes' had be'n cut out fer me!
Don't go much on _prophesyin'_,?But last night whilse I wuz