er change
His manners loud and flashy,
Nor learn with neatness to arrange
His clothing, cheap and trashy.

Like other louts, he'll jog along,
And swig at shanty liquors,
And chew and spit. Here ends the song
Of Mr. Billy Vickers.

Persia

I am writing this song at the close
Of a beautiful day of the spring
In a dell where the daffodil grows
By a grove of the glimmering wing;
From glades where a musical word
Comes ever from luminous fall,
I send you the song of a bird
That I wish to be dear to you all.

I have given my darling the name
Of a land at the gates of the day,
Where morning is always the same,
And spring never passes away.
With a prayer for a lifetime of light,
I christened her Persia, you see;
And I hope that some fathers to-night
Will kneel in the spirit with me.

She is only commencing to look
At the beauty in which she is set;
And forest and flower and brook,
To her are all mysteries yet.
I know that to many my words
Will seem insignificant things;
But _you_ who are mothers of birds
Will feel for the father who sings.

For all of you doubtless have been
Where sorrows are many and wild;
And you _know_ what a beautiful scene
Of this world can be made by a child:
I am sure, if they listen to this,
Sweet women will quiver, and long
To tenderly stoop to and kiss
The Persia I've put in a song.

And I'm certain the critic will pause,
And excuse, for the sake of my bird,
My sins against critical laws--
The slips in the thought and the word.
And haply some dear little face
Of his own to his mind will occur--
Some Persia who brightens his place--
And I'll be forgiven for her.

A life that is turning to grey
Has hardly been happy, you see;
But the rose that has dropped on my way
Is morning and music to me.
Yea, she that I hold by the hand
Is changing white winter to green,
And making a light of the land--
All fathers will know what I mean:

All women and men who have known
The sickness of sorrow and sin,
Will feel--having babes of their own--
My verse and the pathos therein.
For that must be touching which shows
How a life has been led from the wild
To a garden of glitter and rose,
By the flower-like hand of a child.

She is strange to this wonderful