To hear his name called over there, My memory thrilled with glee And leaped to picture him young and fair In youth, as he used to be. But looking, only as glad eyes can, For the boy I knew of yore, I smiled on a portly little man I had never seen before!-- Grave as a judge in courtliness-- Professor-like and bland-- A little fat doctor and nothing less, With his hat in his kimboed hand. But how we talked old times, and "chaffed" Each other with "Minnie" and "Jim"--- And how the little fat doctor laughed, And how I laughed with him! "And it's pleasant," I thought, "though I yearn to see The face of the youth that was, To know no boy could smile on me As the little fat doctor does!" THE SHOEMAKER. Thou Poet, who, like any lark, Dost whet thy beak and trill From misty morn till murky dark, Nor ever pipe thy fill: Hast thou not, in thy cheery note, One poor chirp to confer-- One verseful twitter to devote Unto the Shoe-ma-ker? At early dawn he doth peg in His noble work and brave; And eke from cark and wordly sin He seeketh soles to save; And all day long, with quip and song, Thus stitcheth he the way Our feet may know the right from wrong, Nor ever go a stray. Soak kip in mind the Shoe-ma-ker, Nor slight his lasting fame: Alway he waxeth tenderer In warmth of our acclaim;-- Aye, more than any artisan We glory in his art Who ne'er, to help the under man, Neglects the upper part. But toe the mark for him, and heel Respond to thee in kine-- Or kid--or calf, shouldst thou reveal A taste so superfine: Thus let him jest--join in his laugh-- Draw on his stock, and be A shoer'd there's no rival half Sole liberal as he. Then, Poet, hail the Shoe-ma-ker For all his goodly deeds,-- Yea, bless him free for booting thee-- The first of all thy needs! And when at last his eyes grow dim, And nerveless drops his clamp, In golden shoon pray think of him Upon his latest tramp. THE OLD RETIRED SEA CAPTAIN. The old sea captain has sailed the seas So long, that the waves at mirth, Or the waves gone wild, and the crests of these, Were as near playmates from birth: He has loved both the storm and the calm, because They seemed as his brothers twain,-- The flapping sail was his soul's applause, And his rapture, the roaring main. But now--like a battered hulk seems he, Cast high on a foreign strand, Though he feels "in port," as it need must be, And the stay of a daughter's hand-- Yet ever the round of the listless hours,-- His pipe, in the languid air-- The grass, the trees, and the garden flowers, And the strange earth everywhere!