t will seem to me as though
Just a touch, however light,
Would make all the darkness day,
And along some sunny way
Lead me through an April-shower
Of my tears to this fair hour.

O the present is too sweet
To go on forever thus!
Round the corner of the street
Who can say what waits for us?--
Meeting--greeting, night and day,
Faring each the selfsame way--
Still somewhere the path must end.--
Reach your hand to me, my friend!

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN

Fer forty year and better you have been a friend to me,
Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,
You allus had a kind word of counsul to impart,
Which was like a healin' 'intment to the sorrow of my hart.

When I burried my first womern, William Leachman, it was you
Had the only consolation that I could listen to--
Fer I knowed you had gone through it and had rallied from the blow,
And when you said I'd do the same, I knowed you'd ort to know.

But that time I'll long remember; how I wundered here and thare--
Through the settin'-room and kitchen, and out in the open air--
And the snowflakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen glare,
And the neghbors' sleds and wagons congergatin' ev'rywhare.

I turned my eyes to'rds heaven, but the sun was hid away;
I turned my eyes to'rds earth again, but all was cold and gray;
And the clock, like ice a-crackin', clickt the icy hours in two--
And my eyes'd never thawed out ef it hadn't been fer you!

We set thare by the smoke-house--me and you out thare alone--
Me a-thinkin'--you a-talkin' in a soothin' undertone--
You a-talkin'--me a-thinkin' of the summers long ago,
And a-writin' "Marthy--Marthy" with my finger in the snow!

[Illustration]

William Leachman, I can see you jest as plane as I could then;
And your hand is on my shoulder, and you rouse me up again,
And I see the tears a-drippin' from your own eyes, as you say:
"Be rickonciled and bear it--we but linger fer a day!"

At the last Old Settlers' Meetin' we went j'intly, you and me--
Your hosses and my wagon, as you wanted it to be;
And sence I can remember, from the time we've neghbored here,
In all sich friendly actions you have double-done your sheer.

It was better than the meetin', too, that nine-mile talk we had
Of the times when we first settled here and travel was so bad;
When we had to go on hoss-back, and sometimes on "Shanks's mare,"
And