SUCCESS
This I would claim for my success—not fame nor gold,
Nor the throng's changing cheers from day to day,
Not always ease and fortune's glad display,
Though all of these are pleasant joys to hold;
But I would like to have my story told
By smiling friends with whom I've shared the way,
Who, thinking of me, nod their heads and say:
"His heart was warm when other hearts were cold.
"None turned to him for aid and found it not,
His eyes were never blind to man's distress,
Youth and old age he lived, nor once forgot
The anguish and the ache of loneliness;
His name was free from stain or shameful blot
And in his friendship men found happiness."
THE LONELY OLD FELLOW
The roses are bedded for winter, the tulips are planted for spring;
The robins and martins have left us; there are only the sparrows to sing.
The garden seems solemnly silent, awaiting its blankets of snow,
And I feel like a lonely old fellow with nowhere to turn or to go.
All summer I've hovered about them, all summer they've nodded at me;
I've wandered and waited among them the first pink of blossom to see;
I've known them and loved and caressed them, and now all their splendor has fled,
And the harsh winds of winter all tell me the friends of my garden are dead.
I'm a lonely old fellow, that's certain. All winter with nothing to do
But sit by the window recalling the days when my skies were all blue;
But my heart is not given to sorrow and never my lips shall complain,
For winter shall pass and the sunshine shall give me my roses again.