Part 4 (2/2)
SONG OF PARTING
Say farewell, and let me go; Shatter every vow!
All the future can bestow Will be welcome now!
And if this fair hand I touch I have wors.h.i.+pped overmuch, It was my mistake--and so, Say farewell, and let me go.
Say farewell, and let me go: Murmur no regret, Stay your tear-drops ere they flow-- Do not waste them yet!
They might pour as pours the rain, And not wash away the pain: I have tried them and I know.-- Say farewell, and let me go.
Say farewell, and let me go: Think me not untrue-- True as truth is, even so I am true to you!
If the ghost of love may stay Where my fond heart dies to-day, I am with you alway--so, Say farewell, and let me go.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
OUR KIND OF A MAN
I
The kind of a man for you and me!
He faces the world unflinchingly, And smites, as long as the wrong resists, With a knuckled faith and force like fists: He lives the life he is preaching of, And loves where most is the need of love; His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears, And his face sublime through the blind man's tears; The light s.h.i.+nes out where the clouds were dim, And the widow's prayer goes up for him; The latch is clicked at the hovel door And the sick man sees the sun once more, And out o'er the barren fields he sees Springing blossoms and waving trees, Feeling as only the dying may, That G.o.d's own servant has come that way, Smoothing the path as it still winds on Through the Golden Gate where his loved have gone.
II
The kind of a man for me and you!
However little of worth we do He credits full, and abides in trust That time will teach us how more is just.
He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds Of querulous and uneasy minds, And, sympathizing, he shares the pain Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain; And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand, We are surely coming to understand!
He looks on sin with pitying eyes-- E'en as the Lord, since Paradise,-- Else, should we read, ”Though our sins should glow As scarlet, they shall be white as snow”?-- And, feeling still, with a grief half glad, That the bad are as good as the good are bad, He strikes straight out for the Right--and he Is the kind of a man for you and me!
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?”
”How did you rest, last night?”-- I've heard my gran'pap say Them words a thousand times--that's right-- Jes them words thataway!
As punctchul-like as morning dast To ever heave in sight Gran'pap 'ud allus haf to ast-- ”How did you rest, last night?”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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