Songs Ysame Part 4

'TWIXT creek and bay We whisper to our white sails "stay!

Oh, Life, a little while delay!

'Twixt creek and bay."

So loath to go From these calm shallows that we know, We fain would stay the year's swift flow, Nor onward go

To banks more wide, Where seaward drawings of the tide Impel to deeper depths untried, Where Life grows wide.

'Twixt creek and bay-- The morning deepens into day, And richer freight we bear, alway, When in the bay.

When Youth is Gone.

HOW can we know when youth is gone,-- When age has surely come at last?

There is no marked meridian Through which we sail, and feel when past.

A keener air our faces strike, A chiller current swifter run; They meet and glide like tide with tide, Our youth and age, when youth is done.

The Fickle Heart.

CANST tell me, thou inconstant heart, What like unto thou art?

A gypsy wandering up and down Through April's green and Autumn's brown, Until the year is spent; And then, when hills are white with snow, And brooks, ice-bound, have ceased to flow, No place to pitch his tent.

Banditti.

UPON Life's lonely highway, robber bands Of grim-faced years seize with relentless hands Each traveler, and wrest from out his grasp The treasures that he fain would closer clasp.

None can escape. Each year demands its toll, Till robbed of youth, we grope toward the goal, Halting and blind, of all but life bereft, And death claims that--the only boon that's left.

The Silent Brotherhood.

ON through the cloisters of eternity The years, like monks, in slow procession pa.s.s, Telling their rosary beads, the golden days, With penance prayers of dark and dismal nights.

Hooded and cowled, with silence on they pa.s.s, Nor will they pause until their vesper rings A solemn curfew at the sunset hour, When all the fires of life are buried low, And all the worlds drop down upon their knees, To say a last ma.s.s ere the death of Time.

Spendthrift.

HE was a king one time, And they wrapped the ermine around him, And the bells rang out when they crowned him, Rang with a joyful chime.

And he sat on a throne!

The wealth that a world could offer Was heaped in the New Year's coffer, For the world was his own.

He was a spendthrift though, And the coins of his lavish giving Were the golden moments of living,-- Coins that he squandered so.

He is a beggar now.

In the night and the storm he lingers, No gold in his prodigal fingers,-- King with the uncrowned brow.

Nothing to call his own!

His fortune scattered behind him; Death empty-handed shall find him,-- A New Year takes his throne.

Lost.

CHILDHOOD flits by with flowers in both its hands,-- We know not why it leaves, nor when it goes; But suddenly we miss some subtle grace, As perfume pa.s.ses from a fading rose; We scarce divine, yet somehow faintly feel In the soft air a far-blown breath of snows.

Straying afar, unheeded and alone Upon life's highway 'mid the busy throng, Swept in its eager, restless race along To the great future, unexplored, unknown, The little child is lost. And when with haste The wanderer's footsteps through the streets are traced, They find a man with features pale and stern, But the lost child will nevermore return.

The Robber.

DO you know why Time flies by so slow When we are sad and old?

Why he turns and waits as if loath to go On his journey cold?

Because from our coffers of hope and youth, Where we kept life's gold, He has stolen our treasures all, in sooth, From their sacred hold.

He who came with a gift in hand Was a robber bold.

He whose greeting was smooth and bland Was a wolf in the fold.

And this is the reason that he goes by, When we're worn and old, So slowly, because he can scarcely fly With his weight of gold.

My Carol.

'TIS the time when holly berries Grow red as the Yule-log's glow, And hearth and hall are decked by all With the green of the mistletoe.

Time when the joy of giving Is felt at each fireside, And wings seek rest in the old home nest, For the time is Christmas-tide.