No loved ones ever vanish from the grate fire's merry throng;
No hands in death are folded and no lips are stilled to song.
All the friends who were are living--like the sparks that fly about
They come romping out to greet me with the same old merry shout,
Till it seems to me I'm playing once again on boyhood's stage,
Where there's no such thing as sorrow and there's no such thing as age.
I can be the care-free schoolboy! I can play the lover, too!
I can walk through Maytime orchards with the old sweetheart I knew,
I can dream the glad dreams over, greet the old familiar friends
In a land where there's no parting and the laughter never ends.
All the gladness life has given from a grate fire I reclaim,
And I'm sorry for the fellow-who sees nothing there but flame.
The Homely Man
Looks as though a cyclone hit him--
Can't buy clothes that seem to fit him;
An' his cheeks are rough like leather,
Made for standin' any weather.
Outwards he was fashioned plainly,
Loose o' joint an' blamed ungainly,
But I'd give a lot if I'd
Been built half as fine inside.
Best thing I can tell you of him
Is the way the children love him.
Now an' then I get to thinkin'
He's much like old Abe Lincoln;
Homely like a gargoyle graven--
Worse'n that when he's unshaven;
But I'd take his ugly phiz
Jes' to have a heart like his.
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