living inside.If I had a bit of money and all my debts were paid,
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way that it used to be,
And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now a new home standing empty with staring window and door
Looks idle perhaps and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store,
But there's nothing mournful about it, it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and helped up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
Color in the Wheat
Like liquid gold the wheat field lies,
A marvel of yellow and russet and green,
That ripples and runs, that floats and flies,
With the subtle shadows, the change, the sheen,
That play in the golden hair of a girl,—
A ripple of amber—a flare
Of light sweeping after—a curl
In the hollows like swirling feet
Of fairy waltzers, the colors run
To the western sun
Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.
Broad as the fleckless, soaring sky,
Mysterious, fair as the moon-led sea,
The vast plain flames on the dazzled eye
Under the fierce sun's alchemy.
The slow hawk stoops
To his prey in the deeps;
The sunflower droops
To the lazy wave; the wind sleeps—
Then swirling in dazzling links and loops,
A riot of shadow and shine,
A glory of olive and amber and wine,
To the westering sun the colors run
Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.
O glorious land! My western land,
Outspread beneath the setting sun!
Once more amid your swells, I stand,
And cross your sod-lands dry and dun.
I hear the jocund calls of men
Who sweep amid the ripened grain
With swift, stern reapers; once again
The evening splendor floods the plain,
The crickets' chime
Makes pauseless rhyme,
And toward the sun,
The colors run
Before the wind's feet
In the wheat!
The Broken Pinion
I walked through the woodland meadows,
Where sweet the thrushes sing;
And I found on a bed of mosses
A bird with a broken wing.
I healed its wound, and each morning
It sang its old sweet strain,
But the bird with a broken pinion
Never soared as high again.
I found a young life broken
By sin's seductive art;
And touched with a Christlike pity,
I took him to my heart.
He lived with a noble purpose
And struggled not in vain;
But the life that sin had stricken
Never soared as high again.
But the bird with a broken pinion
Kept another from the snare;
And the life that sin had stricken
Raised another from despair.
Each loss has its compensation,
There is healing for every pain;
But the bird with a broken pinion
Never soars as high again.
Jamie Douglas
It was in the days when Claverhouse
Was scouring moor and glen,
To change, with fire and bloody sword,
The faith of Scottish men.
They had made a covenant with the Lord
Firm in their faith to bide,
Nor break to Him their plighted word,
Whatever might betide.
The sun was well-nigh setting,
When o'er the heather wild,
And up the narrow mountain-path,
Alone there walked a child.
He was a bonny, blithesome lad,
Sturdy and strong of limb—
A father's pride, a mother's love,
Were fast bound up in him.
His bright blue eyes glanced fearless round,
His step was firm and light;
What was it underneath his plaid
His little hands grasped tight?
It was bannocks which, that very morn,
His mother made with care.
From out her scanty store of meal;
And now, with many a prayer,
Had sent by Jamie her ane boy,
A trusty lad and brave,
To good old Pastor Tammons Roy,
Now hid in yonder cave,
And for whom the bloody Claverhouse
Had hunted long in vain,
And swore they would not leave that glen
Till old Tam Roy was slain.
So Jamie Douglas went his way
With heart that knew no fear;
He turned the great curve in the rock,
Nor dreamed that death was near.
And there were bloody Claverhouse men,
Who laughed aloud with glee,
When
