Day after day he'd kept his pace
And seen her careworn, gentle face.
She watched for him to come and took
The papers with an anxious look,
But disappointment followed hope—
She missed the one glad envelope.
He stopped to chat with her awhile
And saw the sadness of her smile,
He fancied he could hear her sigh
The morning that he traveled by;
He knew that when to-morrow came
She would be waiting just the same.
The boy who was so far away
Could never hear her gently say:
"Well, have you brought good news to me?"
Her eager face he could not see,
Or note the lines of anxious care
As every day she waited there.
But when he wrote, on lighter feet
The happy postman walked the street.
"Well, here it is, at last," he'd shout,
"To end the worry and the doubt."
The robin on the maple limb
Began to sing: "She's heard from him."
Her eyes with joy began to glow,
The neighbors round her seemed to know
That with the postman at the door
Sweet peace had come to her once more.
When letters bring so much delight,
Why do the sons forget to write?
The Tower Clock
Day after day the clock in the tower
Strikes on its resonant bell, the hour.
Telling the throngs in the city block
Once again it's ten o'clock!
Day after day, and the crowds pass on,
Till they and another hour have gone.
I heard it first as an eager lad,
The largest clock which the city had,
And it rang the hour in the self-same way
That it rings it out for the town to-day,
And many who heard it then have gone,
Gone like the days that have journeyed on.
Mighty and many the throngs have grown,
Many the changes the town has known,
But the old clock still in its tower stands,
Telling the hour with its silent hands;
And the great pass by and they come no more,
But the bell still rings as it did of yore.