IN OLD AGE
WHEN I have reached three score and ten I hope I will not be like sundry sad and ancient men that every day I see. I hope I’ll never be so old, so broken down and gray, that I will lift my voice and scold when children round me play. I hope I’ll never be so sere, so close to muffled drums, that I can’t waltz around and cheer whene’er the circus comes. I hope I’ll never wither up or yet so foundered be, that I won’t gambol with a pup when it would play with me. I hope I’ll not, while yet alive, be so much like a corse, that I won’t seize a chance to drive a good high-stepping horse. Though I must hobble on a crutch to help my feeble shins, I’ll always yell to beat the Dutch whene’er the home team wins. Perhaps I’ll live a thousand years—I sometimes fear I will, for something whispers in my ears I am too tough to kill—I may outlast the modern thrones and all the kings thereon, but while I navigate my bones I’ll try, so help me John, to be as young in mind and heart as any springald near, and when for Jordan I depart, go like a gay roan steer.
HOMELESS
WHEN the wind blows shrill, with a deadly chill, and we sit by the cheerful blaze, do we ever think of the homeless gink, a-going his weary ways? The daylight’s gone and we sit and yawn, and comfort is all around; do we care a whoop for the dismal troop adrift on the frozen ground? You eat and drink and count your chink as you sit in your easy chair; and you’ve grown hog-fat, and beneath your hat there’s hardly a sign of care. Do you never pause, as you ply your jaws, devouring the oyster stew, to heave a sigh for the waifs who lie outdoors, all the long night through? It was good of Fate that she paid the freight, and planted you here at ease, while the other lads, who are shy of scads, must sit in the park and freeze. But she may repent ere your days are spent, and juggle things all around, and the bo may sleep on your mattress deep, and you on the frozen ground!
THE HAPPY HOME
“OH these pancakes are sublime,” brightly cries Josiah Jakes; “mother, in the olden time, thought that she could fashion cakes; she was always getting praise, and deserved it, I maintain; but she, in her palmy days, couldn’t touch you, Sarah Jane. Oh, the king upon his throne for such fodder surely aches; you are in a class alone, when it comes to griddle cakes.” Then upon his shining dome he adjusts his lid and goes, and his wife remains at home, making pies and things like those. She is stewing luscious prunes, in her eye a happy tear, and her heart is singing tunes such as angels like to hear. O’er and o’er she still repeats all the kindly words he said, as she fixes further treats, pumpkin pie and gingerbread. When the evening’s growing gray, following the set of sun, “This has been a perfect day,” murmurs she, her labors done. Perfect nearly all the days of our loved ones well might be, if with words of honest praise we were generous and free.