many a spring we'd lived to see
The buds returning to the tree.

We had not felt the touch of woe;
What cares had come, had lightly flown;
Our burdens we had borne alone--
The need of God we did not know.
It seemed sufficient through the days
To think and act in worldly ways.

And then she closed her eyes in sleep;
She left us for a little while;
No more our lives would know her smile.
And oh, the hurt of it went deep!
It seemed to us that we must fall
Before the anguish of it all.

Our faith, which had not known the test,
Then blossomed with its comfort sweet,
Promised that some day we should meet
And whispered to us: "He knows best."
And when our bitter tears were dried,
We found our faith was glorified.

THE CALL

I must get out to the woods again, to the whispering tree, and the
birds a-wing,
Away from the haunts of pale-faced men, to the spaces wide where
strength is king;
I must get out where the skies are blue and the air is clean and the
rest is sweet,
Out where there's never a task to do or a goal to reach or a foe to meet.

I must get out on the trails once more that wind through shadowy haunts
and cool,
Away from the presence of wall and door, and see myself in a crystal pool;
I must get out with the silent things, where neither laughter nor hate
is heard,
Where malice never the humblest stings and no one is hurt by a spoken
word.

Oh, I've heard the call of the tall white pine, and heard the call of
the running brook;
I'm tired of the tasks which each day are mine, I'm weary of reading a
printed book;
I want to get out of the din and strife, the clang and clamor of
turning wheel,
And walk for a day where life is life, and the joys are true and the
pictures real.

MOTHER AND THE BABY

Mother and the baby! Oh, I know no lovelier pair,
For all the dreams of all the world are hovering 'round them there;
And be the baby in his cot or nestling in her arms,
The picture they present is one with never-fading charms.

Mother and the baby--and the mother's eye aglow
With joys that only mothers see and only mothers know!
And here is all there is to strife and all there is to fame,
And all that men have struggled for since first a baby came.

I never see this lovely pair nor hear the mother sing
The lullabies of babyhood, but I start wondering
How much of every man to-day the world thinks wise or brave
Is of the