think birds never had
A single care to fret 'em or a grief to make 'em sad.
Oh, I settle down contented in the shadow of a tree,
An' tell myself right proudly that the day was made fer me.

It's my day, my sky an' sunshine, an' the temper o' the breeze--
Here's the weather I would fashion could I run things as I please:
Beauty dancin' all around me, music ringin' everywhere,
Like a weddin' celebration--why, I've plumb fergot my care
An' the tasks I should be doin' fer the rainy days to be,
While I'm huggin' the delusion that God made this day fer me.

The Grate Fire

I'm sorry for a fellow if he cannot look and see
In a grate fire's friendly flaming all the joys which used to be.
If in quiet contemplation of a cheerful ruddy blaze
He sees nothing there recalling all his happy yesterdays,
Then his mind is dead to fancy and his life is bleak and bare,
And he's doomed to walk the highways that are always thick with care.

When the logs are dry as tinder and they crackle with the heat,
And the sparks, like merry children, come a-dancing round my feet,
In the cold, long nights of autumn I can sit before the blaze
And watch a panorama born of all my yesterdays.
I can leave the present burdens and the moment's bit of woe,
And claim once more the gladness of the bygone long-ago.

No loved ones ever vanish from the grate fire's merry throng;
No hands in death are folded and no lips are stilled to song.
All the friends who were are living--like the sparks that fly about
They come romping out to greet me with the same old merry shout,
Till it seems to me I'm playing once again on boyhood's stage,
Where there's no such thing as sorrow and there's no such thing as age.

I can be the care-free schoolboy! I can play the lover, too!
I can walk through Maytime orchards with the old sweetheart I knew,
I can dream the glad dreams over, greet the old familiar friends
In a land where there's no parting and the laughter never ends.
All the gladness life has given from a grate fire I reclaim,
And I'm sorry for the fellow-who sees nothing there but flame.

The Homely Man

Looks as though a cyclone hit him--
Can't buy clothes that seem to fit him;
An' his cheeks are rough like leather,
Made for standin' any weather.
Outwards he was fashioned plainly,
Loose o' joint an' blamed ungainly,
But I'd give a lot if I'd
Been built half as fine inside.

Best thing I can tell you of him
Is the way the children love him.
N