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.

I ain’t over-sentimental,
But old Blake is so blamed gentle
An’ so thoughtfull-like of others
He reminds us of our mothers. 
Rough roads he is always smoothing
An’ his way is, Oh, so soothin’,
That he takes away the sting
When your heart is sorrowing.

Children gather round about him
Like they can’t get on without him. 
An’ the old depend upon him,
Pilin’ all their burdens on him,
Like as though the thing that grieves ’em
Has been lifted when he leaves ’em. 
Homely?  That can’t be denied,
But he’s glorious inside.

The Joys We Miss

There never comes a lonely day but that we miss the laughing ways
Of those who used to walk with us through all our happy yesterdays. 
We seldom miss the earthly great—­the famous men that life has known—­
But, as the years go racing by, we miss the friends we used to own.

The chair wherein he used to sit recalls the kindly father true
For, Oh, so filled with fun he was, and, Oh, so very much he knew! 
And as we face the problems grave with which the years of life are filled. 
We miss the hand which guided us and miss the voice forever stilled.

We little guessed how much he did to smooth our pathway day by day,
How much of joy he brought to us, how much of care he brushed away;
But now that we must tread alone the thorough-fare of life, we find
How many burdens we were spared by him who was so brave and kind.

Death robs the living, not the dead—­they sweetly sleep whose tasks are
    done;
But we are weaker than before who still must live and labor on. 
For when come care and grief to us, and heavy burdens bring us woe,
We miss the smiling, helpful friends on whom we leaned long years ago.

We miss the happy, tender ways of those who brought us mirth and cheer;
We never gather round the hearth but that we wish our friends were near;
For peace is born of simple things—­a kindly word, a goodnight kiss,
The prattle of a babe, and love—­these are the vanished joys we miss.