With slow-paced feet
I take my way; yet still, again, to-night,
I pause and sob before the dreary fight.

 

Oh, comrade, comrade, I have missed you so!
The long drear months still lagging come and go;
And I, I strive to fill them to the brim,
But still my heart cries out, But what of him?

Love Is a Star

Love is a star that lights the night
Of life, and makes its fancies bright
As days of June with June’s perfume;
A star that melts the clinging gloom
And makes the heart’s dark chambers light.

 

To any depth, from any height
Its light doth leap; the dusk of doom
Could not its silver trace consume
Love is a star.

 

It shines undimmed, a beacon white
To Faith’s unwavering, trustful sight.
’Mid warp and woof it findeth room
And weaves bright thoughts on Sorrow’s loom
With lovestrung threads of pure delight.

 

Love is a star.

The Making Up

Little Miss Margaret sits in a pout,
She and her Dolly have just fallen out.

 

Dolly is gazing with sorest stare,
Fitted dejectedly back in her chair.

 

Angry at Margaret, tearful and grieved,
Sore at the spanking so lately received.

 

Pursed are the maiden’s lips close as can be,
They are not speaking, Miss Dolly and she.

Dolly unbendingly sits in her place,
Never a change coming over her face.

 

Up mad goes, Margaret dropping her pout,
Clasping her playmate she whispers in doubt.

 

Let’s don’t play and cry, it’s too much like true,
Let’s make up Dolly I ain’t mad is you?

A Toast to Dayton (1917)

Love of home, sublimest passion
That the human heart can know!
Changeless still, though fate and fashion
Rise and fall and ebb and flow,
To the glory of our nation,
To the welfare of our state,
Let us all with veneration
Every effort consecrate.

 

And our city, shall we fail her?
Or desert her gracious cause?
Nay—with loyalty we hail her
And revere her righteous laws.
She shall ever claim our duty,
For she shines—the brightest gem
That has ever decked with beauty
Dear Ohio’s diadem.

Sold A C.H.S. Episode (1890)

Sing, heavenly muse, in accents tender,
This bright romance of a local fruit-vender,
How fleeting are all earthly joys!
How badly did he soak the boys!
’Tis hard to dress the thing in rhymes
And narrate how they lost their dimes;
The vender pleaded, they heard, ah, well.
The fruit, you know, was intended to sell
But only the boys (not the fruit) were sold.
They gave their money, as you’ve been told,
All through the day they saw at hand
Their smooth-tongued friend and his welcome stand;
All Sunday night they dreamed the same
And longed for the fruit that never came,
And Sunday eve saw that vender slick
Aboarding the train, time doubled quick,
Lament, oh muse, the wiles of men!
Farewell, ye dimes, we’ll ne’er see again.

After the Struggle (1900)

Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,
Out of the dust and the dimness of death,
Burst into blossoms of glory eternal
Flowers that sweeten the world with their breath.
Flowers of charity, peace and devotion
Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;
Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean
Leaps into beauty and fullness of life.
So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,
And with the flag flashing high in the sun,
Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels
Which their unfaltering valor has won!

The Builder (1905) To John H. Patterson, Esq.

To hue a statue from the formless stone,
To lead a regiment when death is rife,
To walk the ways of sorrow all alone
And laugh with life,
To write a paean that a nation sings
That art must own—
All this is life.
What is it then, to sit beside the fire,
And dream of things and idly to aspire?
To live, to struggle, nobly to desire,
And do is life.
It is not that one needs the world’s acclaim,
Brief is the sweetness of the taste of fame,
But doing, building is the nobler thing,
By which men live, and which their poets sing.
Today a builder comes, one whom we know—
A dreamer say you, of the long ago—
But, ah, the dream’s fulfillment is at hand,
And all in awe of the Creator’s glow,
A city’s people, glad and thankful stand
To welcome one who found it good to know
And better yet to do
The things that prove man nobly great and true.

Lullaby (II)

A little brook runs where the shadows creep,
And the whispering rushes grow,
And over the brook is the Land of Sleep,
Where the tired children go,
And down to the water the white sheep come,
And they nibble the tender clover,
And the children must wait in the shadows dim,
Till all of the sheep go over.
So it’s one, two, three, and it’s one, two, three,
Counting the snow-white sheep.
And fly away, little one, fly away, pretty one,
Fly away to the Land of Sleep.
The little brook laughs in the moonlight fair,
With the dancing shadows playing,
And over the bank where the daisies grow
The wayward lambs are straying.
And the children wait while the night-birds call
From their nest in the hazel-cover,
And they count the sheep—for they must not sleep
Till the last little lamb goes over.
The little brook hushes its rippling song
To a tender lullaby,
And the shadows grow heavy, and deep, and long,
And the clouds are white in the sky.
But the children have gone to the Land of Sleep,
And sweet is the breath of the clover.
And the world lies dreaming beneath the stars,
For the sheep have all gone over.

Index of Titles

Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . .