Oh, little boy, my wish is not Always to keep you four years old. Each night I stand beside your cot And think of what the years may hold; And looking down on you I pray That when we've lost our baby small, The mother of our man will say "This is the finest age of all." {77} SUCCESS AND FAILURE I do not think all failure's undeserved, And all success is merely someone's luck; Some men are down because they were unnerved, And some are up because they kept their pluck. Some men are down because they chose to shirk; Some men are high because they did their work. I do not think that all the poor are good, That riches are the uniform of shame; The beggar might have conquered if he would, And that he begs, the world is not to blame. Misfortune is not all that comes to mar; Most men, themselves, have shaped the things they are. {78} CARE-FREE YOUTH The skies are blue and the sun is out and the grass is green and soft And the old charm's back in the apple tree and it calls a boy aloft; And the same low voice that the old don't hear, but the care-free youngsters do, Is calling them to the fields and streams and the joys that once I knew. And if youth be wild desire for play and care is the mark of men, Beneath the skin that Time has tanned I'm a madcap youngster then. Far richer than king with his crown of gold and his heavy weight of care Is the sunburned boy with his stone-bruised feet and his tousled shock of hair; For the king can hear but the cry of hate or the sickly sound of praise, And lost to him are the voices sweet that called in his boyhood days. Far better than ruler, with pomp and power and riches, is it to be The urchin gay in his tattered clothes that is climbing the apple tree. Oh, once I heard all the calls that come to the quick, glad ears of boys, And a certain spot on the river bank told me of its many joys, And certain fields and certain trees were loyal friends to me, And I knew the birds, and I owned a dog, and we both could hear and see. Oh, never from tongues of men have dropped such messages wholly glad As the things that live in the great outdoors once told to a little lad. And I'm sorry for him who cannot hear what the tall trees have to say, Who is deaf to the call of a running stream and the lanes that lead to play. The boy that shins up the faithful elm or sprawls on a river bank Is more richly blessed with the joys of life than any old man of rank. For youth is the golden time of life, and this battered old heart of mine Beats fast to the march of its old-time joys, when the sun begins to shine. {80} MY PAW SAID SO