The Passing Throng

by Edgar A. Guest

Dresses high and dresses low,
Fashion bids them come and go;
Tresses bobbed and tresses long,
Fashion sways the moving throng;
What was new becomes the old,
Thus this changing life is told.
First we view it with a smile,
Then adopt the latest style—
But with all the passing days,
Mothers never change their ways.

Gay of heart and bright of face,
Fashion seems to rule the place.
With the swinging of the clock
Youth gives Age another shock,
Flaunting into public view
Something Age would never do,
Laughing at us when we preach,
Scornful of us when we teach—
But with all of fashion's wiles,
Mothers never change their styles.

Motherhood's no fickle thing,
To be changed each fall and spring;
As it was, so it remains,
Spite of all its cares and pains.
Joy may call and pleasure lure
But a mother's love is pure,
And the baby sinks to rest,
Pillowed on her lovely breast,
Closing little drowsy eyes
To the softest lullabies.

Mothers worry night and day
When their children are away;
Mothers grieve when they are ill,
Always have and always will.
They would shield you with their care
Every day and every where,
And they're happy through and through
At the slightest smile from you—
To the ending of their days
Mothers never change their ways.

High Chair Days

High chair days are the best of all,
Or so they seem to me,
Days when tumbler and platter fall
And the King smiles merrily;
When the regal arms and the regal feet
A constant patter of music beat,
And the grown-ups bow in a gracious way
To the high chair monarch who rules the day.

High chair days, and the throne not dressed
In golden or purple hues
But an old style thing, let it be confessed,
His grandmother used to use;
Its legs are scarred and a trifle bowed,
But the king who sits on the chair is proud,
And he throws his rattle and silver cup
For the joy of making us pick them up.

The old high chair in the dining room
Is a handsomer thing by far
Than the costly chairs in the lonely gloom
Of the childless mansions are,
For the sweetest laughter the world has known
Comes day by day from that humble throne,
And the happiest tables, morn and night,
Have a high chair placed at the mother's right.

The old high chair is a joy sublime,
Yet it brings us its hour of pain,
For we've put it away from time to time,
Perhaps never to need again;
Yet God was good, and the angles tapped,
And again was the old high chair unwrapped,
And proud was I when I heard the call
To bring it back to the dining hall.