I want them to recall this place
As one of charm and tender grace,
To love these walls of calm content
Wherein their youthful years were spent,
And feel through each succeeding year,
They lived their happiest moments here.
I feel I shall have failed unless
This house shall shelter happiness.
Save they shall find their truest mirth
Around their father's humble hearth,
And here life's finest joys attain,
I shall have lived my life in vain.
Spring Fever
When the blue gets back in the skies once more
And the vines grow green 'round the kitchen door,
When the roses bud and the robins come,
I stretch myself and I say: "Ho-hum!
I ought to work but I guess I won't;
Though some want riches to-day, I don't;
This looks to me like the sort of day
That was made to idle and dream away."
When the sun is high and the air just right,
With the trees all blossomy, pink and white,
And the grass, as soft as a feather bed
With the white clouds drifting just overhead,
I stretch and yawn like a school boy then,
And turn away from the walks of men
And tell myself in a shamefaced way:
"I'm going to play hookey from work to-day!"
"Here is a morning too rare to miss,
And what is gold to a day like this,
And what is fame to the things I'll see
Through the lattice-work of a fine old tree?
There is work to do, but the work can wait;
There are goals to reach, there are foes to hate,
There are hurtful things which the smart might say,
But nothing like that shall spoil to-day."
"To-day I'll turn from the noisy town
And just put all of my burdens down;
I'll quit the world and its common sense,
And the things men think are of consequence,
To chum with birds and the friendly trees
And try to fathom their mysteries,
For here is a day which looks to be
The kind I can fritter away on me."
Father Song