heavenly throng
I'd like to feel along my way I'd left no sign
of wrong.

And yet the cares are many and the hours of
toil are few;
There is not time enough on earth for all I'd
like to do;
But, having lived and having toiled, I'd like the
world to find
Some little touch of beauty that my soul had
left behind.

{76}

THE FINEST AGE

When he was only nine months old,
And plump and round and pink of cheek,
A joy to tickle and to hold,
Before he'd even learned to speak,
His gentle mother used to say:
"It is too bad that he must grow.
If I could only have my way
His baby ways we'd always know."

And then the year was turned, and he
Began to toddle round the floor
And name the things that he could see
And soil the dresses that he wore.
Then many a night she whispered low:
"Our baby now is such a joy
I hate to think that he must grow
To be a wild and heedless boy."

But on he went and sweeter grew,
And then his mother, I recall,
Wished she could keep him always two,
For that's the finest age of all.
She thought the selfsame thing at three,
And now that he is four, she sighs
To think he cannot always be
The youngster with the laughing eyes.

Oh, little boy, my wish is not
Always to keep you four years old.
Each night I stand beside your cot
And think of what the years may hold;
And looking down on you I pray
That when we've lost our baby small,
The mother of our man will say
"This is the finest age of all."

{77}

SUCCESS AND FAILURE

I do not think all failure's undeserved,
And all success is merely someone's luck;
Some men are down because they were unnerved,
And some are up because they kept their pluck.
Some men are down because they chose to shirk;
Some men are high because they did their work.

I do not think that all the poor are good,
That riches are the uniform of shame;
The beggar might have conquered if he would,
And that he begs, the world is not to blame.
Misfortune is not all that comes to mar;
Most men, themselves, have shaped the things
they are.

{78}

CARE-FREE YOUTH

The skies are blue and the sun is out and the
grass is green and soft
And the old charm's back in the apple tree
and it calls a boy aloft;
And the same low voice that the old don't hear,