Part 17 (1/2)

You have given me safe harbor from harm, Untroubled I've slept through the nights And have waked to the new morning's charm And claimed as my own its delights.

I have taken the finest of fine From your orchards and fields where it grew, But, oh wonderful country of mine, How little I've given to you!

You have given me a home and a place Where in safety my babies may play; Health blooms on each bright dimpled face And laughter is theirs every day.

You have guarded from danger the shrine Where I wors.h.i.+p when toiling is through, But, oh wonderful country of mine, How little have I done for you!

I have taken your gifts without thought, I have reveled in joys that you gave, That I see now with blood had been bought, The blood of your earlier braves.

I have lived without making one sign That the source of my riches I knew, Now, oh wonderful country of mine, I'm here to do something for you!

A Wish

G.o.d grant my children may Not think in terms of gold When I have pa.s.sed away And my poor form is cold.

When I no more shall be, If of me they would brag, I'd have them speak of me As one who loved the Flag.

G.o.d grant my children may Not speak of me as one Who trod a selfish way, When I am dead and gone.

When they recall my name I'd have them tell that I Held dear my Country's fame And kept her standards high.

Not for the things I gave Would I be counted kind; When I am in my grave, If they my worth would find, I'd have them read it there In red and white and blue And stars of radiance rare!

And say that I was true.

Living

If through the years we're not to do Much finer deeds than we have done; If we must merely wander through Time's garden, idling in the sun; If there is nothing big ahead, Why do we fear to join the dead?

Unless to-morrow means that we Shall do some needed service here; That tasks are waiting you and me That will be lost, save we appear; Then why this dreadful thought of sorrow That we may never see to-morrow?

If all our finest deeds are done, And all our splendor's in the past; If there's no battle to be won, What matter if to-day's our last?

Is life so sweet that we would live Though nothing back to life we give?

Not to have lived through seventy years Is greatness. Fitter to be sung In poet's praises and in cheers Is he who dies in action, young; Who ventures all for one great deed And gives his life to serve life's need.

Life's Slacker

The saddest sort of death to die Would be to quit the game called life And know, beneath the gentle sky, You'd lived a slacker in the strife.

That nothing men on earth would find To mark the spot that you had filled; That you must go and leave behind No patch of soil your hands had tilled.

I know no greater shame than this: To feel that yours were empty years; That after death no man would miss Your presence in this vale of tears; That you had breathed the fragrant air And sat by kindly fires that burn, And in earth's riches had a share But gave no labor in return.

Yet some men die this way, nor care: They enter and they leave life's door And at the end, their record's bare-- The world's no better than before.

A few false tears are shed, and then, In busy service, they're forgot.

We have no time to mourn for men Who lived on earth but served it not.

A man in perfect peace to die Must leave some mark of toil behind, Some building towering to the sky, Some symbol that his heart was kind, Some roadway where strange feet may tread That out of grat.i.tude he made; He cannot bravely look ahead Unless his debt to life is paid.