Our Host and His House
NAY, rail not, dear, at Time in such rude way,
’Tis scarcely fair, since he has been our host
For such a while. And rail not at the world,
This grey old ivy-covered manor-house wherein
He long has entertained us both. Since we
Have broken bread with him, danced in his halls,
Let us not talk of him in slighting way.
What though
He has not given lavishly,
For daily use, the rich things in his store?
Rare things grow common, quite, when they are used
In common way—you know this for yourself—
And delicacies lose their flavor when
The palate tires of them.
But ah, on state
Occasions has he not been prodigal?
O wine of life that he has poured for us!
Poured freely till it ran the goblet o’er,
And trickled down in little rosy streams!
Believe me, dear, for all his length of beard
So snowy white, his venerable air,
Enough of youth lurks in his bosom still
To make him lenient with foolishness.
For often has he stolen off and left
Us standing heart to heart,
And has he not
Sometimes, stilled all his house lest we should wake
Too soon from some wrapt dream of tenderness?
Then, too, for playthings he has given us hours
Filled full enough of rapture unalloyed
To cover every day of all the years
With common happiness if properly
Spread out.
As for this grey old world,
It is not half so murk, so wanting in
All light, all glow, and warmth, as some declare—
As we oft picture to ourselves, my dear,
It has its windows looking east and west,
It has its sunset and its morning gold;
The trouble is we will look toward the east
At eventide, and toward the sombre west
When heaven is shaking down upon the world,
A lusty infant day. And so we miss
The glory of the sunset and the dawn.
The Mother’s Story
SHE told a wonderful story, the mother so fair and good,
Of the deep and strange old mystery men have never understood.
It was such a pretty story I wove it into a rhyme
To read to myself, when the skies were grey, at the end of summertime.
“Now listen,” she said, “my children, to every word that I say,
Dear Marjory, share the hearthrug with your restless sister May,
And you, my lad, with the great dark eyes, may share the couch with me,
While the baby-girl, with doll in arms, shall sit upon mother’s knee.