rade,
To hide the smile it made,
Old Man?

{95}

[Illustration: In your reposeful gaze]

{97}

Now, fair, and square, and true,
Don't your old soul tremble through,
As in youth it used to do
When it brimmed and overran
With the strange, enchanted sights,
And the splendors and delights
Of the old "Arabian Nights,"
Old Man?

When, haply, you have fared
Where glad Aladdin shared
His lamp with you, and dared
The Afrite and his clan;
And, with him, clambered through
The trees where jewels grew--
And filled your pockets, too,
Old Man?

Or, with Sinbad, at sea--
And in veracity
Who has sinned as bad as he,
Or would, or will, or can?--
Have you listened to his lies,
With open mouth and eyes,
And learned his art likewise,
Old Man?

{98}

And you need not deny
That your eyes were wet as dry,
Reading novels on the sly!
And review them, if you can
And the same warm tears will fall--
Only faster, that is all--
Over Little Nell and Paul,
Old Man!

Oh, you were a lucky lad--
Just as good as you were bad!
And the host of friends you had--
Charley, Tom, and Dick, and Dan;
And the old School-Teacher, too,
Though he often censured you;
And the girls in pink and blue,
Old Man.

And--as often you have leant,
In boyish sentiment,
To kiss the letter sent
By Nelly, Belle, or Nan--
Wherein the rose's hue
Was red, the violet blue--
And sugar sweet--and you,
Old Man,--

{99}

So, to-day, as lives the bloom,
And the sweetness, and perfume
Of the blossoms, I assume,
On the same mysterious plan
The Master's love assures,
That the selfsame boy endures
In that hale old heart of yours,
Old Man.

[Illustration: The old man--tailpiece]

{100}

JAMES B. MAYNARD

His daily, nightly task is o'er--
He leans above his desk no more.

His pencil and his pen say not
One further word of gracious thought.

All silent is his _voice_, yet clear
For all a grateful world to hear;

He poured abroad his human love
In opulence unmeasured of--

While, in return, his meek demand,--
The warm clasp of a neighbor-hand

In recognition of the true
World's duty that he lived to do.

So was he kin of yours and mine--
So, even by the hallowed sign

Of silence which he listens to,
He hears our tears as falls the dew.

{101}