The Path to Home. Edgar A. Guest

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Held captive long in prison towers;

       We slay the villain in his lair,

       For we're possessed of magic powers.

       And though we desperately fight,

       When by our foes are we beset,

       We always triumph for the right;

       We have not lost a battle yet.

      It matters not how far we stray,

       Nor where our battle lines may be,

       We never get so far away

       That we must spend a night at sea.

       It matters not how high we climb,

       How many foes our pathway block,

       We always conquer just in time

       To go to bed at 9 o'clock.

The Mother Watch

       Table of Contents

      She never closed her eyes in sleep till we were all in bed;

       On party nights till we came home she often sat and read.

       We little thought about it then, when we were young and gay,

       How much the mother worried when we children were away.

       We only knew she never slept when we were out at night,

       And that she waited just to know that we'd come home all right.

      Why, sometimes when we'd stayed away till one or two or three,

       It seemed to us that mother heard the turning of the key;

       For always when we stepped inside she'd call and we'd reply,

       But we were all too young back then to understand just why.

       Until the last one had returned she always kept a light,

       For mother couldn't sleep until she'd kissed us all good night.

      She had to know that we were safe before she went to rest;

       She seemed to fear the world might harm the ones she loved the best.

       And once she said: "When you are grown to women and to men,

       Perhaps I'll sleep the whole night through; I may be different then."

       And so it seemed that night and day we knew a mother's care—

       That always when we got back home we'd find her waiting there.

      Then came the night that we were called to gather round her bed:

       "The children all are with you now," the kindly doctor said.

       And in her eyes there gleamed again the old-time tender light

       That told she had been waiting just to know we were all right.

       She smiled the old-familiar smile, and prayed to God to keep

       Us safe from harm throughout the years, and then she went to sleep.

Faces

       Table of Contents

      I look into the faces of the people passing by,

       The glad ones and the sad ones, and the lined with misery,

       And I wonder why the sorrow or the twinkle in the eye;

       But the pale and weary faces are the ones that trouble me.

      I saw a face this morning, and time was when it was fair;

       Youth had brushed it bright with color in the distant long ago,

       And the goddess of the lovely once had kept a temple there,

       But the cheeks were pale with grieving and the eyes were dull with woe.

      Who has done this thing I wondered; what has wrought the ruin here?

       Why these sunken cheeks and pallid where the roses once were pink?

       Why has beauty fled her palace; did some vandal hand appear?

       Did her lover prove unfaithful or her husband take to drink?

      Once the golden voice of promise whispered sweetly in her ears;

       She was born to be a garden where the smiles of love might lurk;

       Now the eyes that shone like jewels are but gateways for her tears,

       And she takes her place among us, toilers early bound for work.

      Is it fate that writes so sadly, or the cruelty of man?

       What foul deed has marred the parchment of a life so fair as this?

       Who has wrecked this lovely temple and destroyed the Maker's plan,

       Raining blows on cheeks of beauty God had fashioned just to kiss?

      Oh, the pale and weary faces of the people that I see

       Are the ones that seem to haunt me, and I pray to God above

       That such cruel desolation shall not ever come to be

       Stamped forever in the future on the faces that I love.

The Lost Purse

       Table of Contents

      I remember the excitement and the terrible alarm

       That worried everybody when William broke his arm;

       An' how frantic Pa and Ma got only jes' the other day

       When they couldn't find the baby coz he'd up an' walked away;

       But I'm sure there's no excitement that our house has ever shook

       Like the times Ma can't remember where she's put her pocketbook.

      When the laundry man is standin' at the door an' wants his pay

       Ma hurries in to get it, an' the fun starts right away.

       She hustles to the sideboard, coz she knows exactly where

       She can put her hand right on it, but alas! it isn't there.

       She СКАЧАТЬ