Say farewell, and let me go: 
  Think me not untrue—­
True as truth is, even so
  I am true to you! 
    If the ghost of love may stay
    Where my fond heart dies to-day,
    I am with you alway—­so,
    Say farewell, and let me go.

[Illustration]

OUR KIND OF A MAN

I

The kind of a man for you and me! 
He faces the world unflinchingly,
And smites, as long as the wrong resists,
With a knuckled faith and force like fists: 
He lives the life he is preaching of,
And loves where most is the need of love;
His voice is clear to the deaf man’s ears,
And his face sublime through the blind man’s tears;
The light shines out where the clouds were dim,
And the widow’s prayer goes up for him;
The latch is clicked at the hovel door
And the sick man sees the sun once more,
And out o’er the barren fields he sees
Springing blossoms and waving trees,
Feeling as only the dying may,
That God’s own servant has come that way,
Smoothing the path as it still winds on
Through the Golden Gate where his loved have gone.

II

The kind of a man for me and you! 
However little of worth we do
He credits full, and abides in trust
That time will teach us how more is just. 
He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds
Of querulous and uneasy minds,
And, sympathizing, he shares the pain
Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain;
And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand,
We are surely coming to understand! 
He looks on sin with pitying eyes—­
E’en as the Lord, since Paradise,—­
Else, should we read, “Though our sins should glow
As scarlet, they shall be white as snow"?—­
And, feeling still, with a grief half glad,
That the bad are as good as the good are bad,
He strikes straight out for the Right—­and he
Is the kind of a man for you and me!

[Illustration]

“HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?”

“How did you rest, last night?”—­
  I’ve heard my gran’pap say
Them words a thousand times—­that’s right—­
  Jes them words thataway! 
As punctchul-like as morning dast
  To ever heave in sight
Gran’pap ’ud allus haf to ast—­
  “How did you rest, last night?”

[Illustration]

Us young-uns used to grin,
  At breakfast, on the sly,
And mock the wobble of his chin
  And eyebrows belt so high
And kind:  "How did you rest, last night?"
  We’d mumble and let on
Our voices trimbled, and our sight
  Was dim, and hearin’ gone.

* * * * *

Bad as I used to be,
  All I’m a-wantin’ is
As puore and ca’m a sleep fer me
  And sweet a sleep as his! 
And so I pray, on Jedgment Day
  To wake, and with its light
See his face dawn, and hear him say—­
  “How did you rest, last night?”