bless you all this Christmas Day
And drive the cares and griefs away.
Oh, may the shining Bethlehem star
Which led the wise men from afar
Upon your heads, good sirs, still glow
To light the path that ye should go.

As God once blessed the stable grim
And made it radiant for Him;
As it was fit to shield His Son,
May thy roof be a holy one;
May all who come this house to share
Rest sweetly in His gracious care.

Within thy walls may peace abide,
The peace for which the Savior died.
Though humble be the rafters here,
Above them may the stars shine clear,
And in this home thou lovest well
May excellence of spirit dwell.

God bless you all this Christmas Day;
May Bethlehem's star still light thy way
And guide thee to the perfect peace
When every fear and doubt shall cease.
And may thy home such glory know
As did the stable long ago.

Forgotten Boyhood

He wears a long and solemn face
And drives the children from his place;
He doesn't like to hear them shout
Or race and run and romp about,
And if they chance to climb his tree,
He is as ugly as can be.
If in his yard they drive a ball,
Which near his pretty flowers should fall,
He hides the leather sphere away,
Thus hoping to prevent their play.

The youngsters worry him a lot,
This sorry man who has forgot
That once upon a time, he too
The self-same mischief used to do.
The boyhood he has left behind
Has strangely vanished from his mind,
And he is old and gray and cross
For having suffered such a loss.
He thinks he never had the joy
That is the birthright of a boy.

He has forgotten how he ran,
Or to a dog's tail tied a can,
Broke window panes, and loved to swipe
Some neighbor's apples, red and ripe—
He thinks that always, day or night,
His conduct was exactly right.
In boys to-day he cannot see
The youngster that he used to be,
Forgotten is that by-gone day,
When he was mischievous as they.

Poor man! I'm sorry for your lot.
The best of life you have forgot.
Could you remember what you were,
Unharnessed and untouched by spur,
These youngsters that you drive away
Would be your comrades here to-day.
Among them you could gayly walk
And share their laughter and their talk;
You could be young and blithe as they,
Could you recall your yesterday.

The Peaks of Valor

These are the peaks of valor; keeping clean your father's name,
Too brave for petty profit to risk the brand of shame,
Adventuring for the future, yet mindful of the past,
For God, for country and for home, still valorous to the last.

These are the peaks of valor: a speech that knows no lie,
A standard of what's right and wrong which no man's wealth can buy,
All unafraid of failure, to venture forth to fight,
Yet never for the victory's sake to turn away from right.

Ten thousand times the victor is he who fails to win,
Who could have worn the conqueror's crown by stooping low in sin;
Ten thousand times the braver is he who turns away
And scorns to crush a weaker man that he may rule the day.

These are the peaks of valor: standing firm and standing true
To the best your father taught you and the best you've learned anew,
Helpful to all who need you, winning what joys you can,
Writing in triumph to the end your record as a man.

When the Minister Calls

My Paw says that it used to be,
Whenever the minister came for tea,
'At they sat up straight in their chairs at night
An' put all their common things out o' sight,
An' nobody cracked a joke or grinned,
But they talked o' the way that people sinned,
An' the burnin' fires that would cook you sure
When you came to die, if you wasn't pure—
Such a gloomy affair it used to be
Whenever the minister came for tea.

But now when the minister comes to call
I get him out for a game of ball,
And you'd never know if you'd see him bat,
Without any coat or vest or hat,
That he is a minister, no, siree!
He looks like a regular man to me.
An' he knows just how to go down to the dirt
For the grounders hot without gettin' hurt—
An' when they call us, both him an' me
Have to git washed up again for tea.

Our minister says if you'll just play fair
You'll be fit for heaven or anywhere;
An' fun's all right if your hands are clean
An' you never cheat an' you don't get mean.
He says that he never has understood
Why a feller can't play an' still be good.
An' my Paw says that he's just the kind
Of a minister that he likes to find—
So I'm always tickled as I can be
Whenever our minister comes for tea.

The Age of Ink

Swiftly the changes come. Each day
Sees some lost beauty blown away
And some new touch of lovely grace
Come into life to take its place.
The little babe that once we had
One morning woke a roguish lad;
The babe that we had put to bed
Out of our arms and lives had fled.

Frocks vanished from our castle then,
Ne'er to be worn or seen again,
And in his knickerbocker pride
He boasted pockets at each side
And stored them deep with various things—
Stones, tops and jacks and-colored strings;
Then for a time we claimed the joy
Of calling him our little boy.

Brief was the reign of such a spell.
One morning sounded out a bell;
With tears I saw her brown eyes swim
And knew that it was calling him.
Time, the harsh master of us all,
Was bidding him to heed his call;
This shadow fell across life's pool—
Our boy was on his way to school.

Our little boy! And still we dreamed,
For such a little boy he seemed!
And yesterday, with eyes aglow
Like one who has just come to know
Some great and unexpected bliss,
He bounded in, announcing this:
"Oh, Dad! Oh, Ma! Say, what d'you think?
This year we're going to write with ink!"

Here was a change I'd not foreseen,
Another step from what had been.
I paused a little while to think
About this older age of ink—
What follows this great step, thought I,
What next shall come as the time goes by?
And something said: "His pathway leads
Unto the day he'll write with deeds."

No Use Sighin'

No use frettin' when the rain comes down,
No use grievin' when the gray clouds frown,
No use sighin' when the wind blows strong,
No use wailin' when the world's all wrong;
Only thing that a man can do
Is work an' wait till the sky gets blue.

No use mopin' when you lose the game,
No use sobbin' if you're free from shame,
No use cryin' when the harm is done,
Just keep on tryin' an' workin' on;
Only thing for a man to do,
Is take the loss an' begin anew.

No use weepin' when the milk is spilled,
No use growlin' when your hopes are killed,
No use kickin'