One day our grandpa—eighty-four— Complained that he could see no more; That, at his age, it worried him That his good eyesight should grow dim. “I’ve often seen it act that way,” The doctor solemnly did say: “Malaria—’tis plainly seen— Three times a day give him quinine.” But grandma said, “I never see! Old man, you’re growing old, like me!”
PUZZLED.
You ask me whether I’m High Church, You ask me whether I’m Low: I wish you’d tell the difference, For I’m sure that I don’t know. I’m just a plain old body, And my brain works pretty slow; So I don’t know whether I’m High Church, And I don’t know whether I’m Low.
I’m trying to be a Christian, In the plain, old-fashioned way, Laid down in my mother’s Bible, And I read it every day,— Our blessed Lord’s life in the Gospels, Or a comforting Psalm of old, Or a bit from the Revelation Of the city whose streets are gold.
Then I pray,—why, I’m generally praying, Though I don’t always kneel or speak out, But I ask the dear Lord, and keep asking, Till I fear he is all tired out; A piece of the Litany sometimes, The Collect, perhaps, for the day, Or a scrap of a prayer that my mother So long ago learned me to say.
But now my poor memory’s failing, And often and often I find That never a prayer from the Prayer-book Will seem to come into my mind. But I know what I want, and I ask it, And I make up the words as I go: Do you think that shows I ain’t High Church? Do you think that it means I am Low?
My blessed old husband has left me, ’Tis years since God took him away: I know he is safe, well, and happy, And yet, when I kneel down to pray, Perhaps it is wrong, but I never Leave the old man’s name out of my prayer, But I ask the dear Lord to do for him What I would do if I was there.
Of course he can do it much better; But he knows, and he surely won’t mind The worry about her old husband, Of the old woman left here behind. So I pray and I pray for the old man, And I’m sure that I shall till I die; So maybe that proves I ain’t Low Church, And maybe it shows I am High.
My old father was never a Churchman, But a Scotch Presbyterian saint: Still his white head is shining in heaven, I don’t care who says that it ain’t; To one of our blessed Lord’s mansions That old man was certain to go: And now do you think I am High Church? Are you sure that I ain’t pretty Low?