All in the April evening, April airs were abroad; I saw the sheep with their lambs, And thought on the Lamb of God. ALL-SOULS The door of Heaven is on the latch To-night, and many a one is fain To go home for one's night's watch With his love again. Oh, where the father and mother sit There's a drift of dead leaves at the door Like pitter-patter of little feet That come no more. Their thoughts are in the night and cold, Their tears are heavier than the clay, But who is this at the threshold So young and gay? They are come from the land o' the young, They have forgotten how to weep; Words of comfort on the tongue, And a kiss to keep. They sit down and they stay awhile, Kisses and comfort none shall lack; At morn they steal forth with a smile And a long look back. _Owen Seaman_ One of the most delightful of English versifiers, Owen Seaman, was born in 1861. After receiving a classical education, he became Professor of Literature and began to write for Punch in 1894. In 1906 he was made editor of that internationally famous weekly, remaining in that capacity ever since. He was knighted in 1914. As a writer of light verse and as a parodist, his agile work has delighted a generation of admirers. Some of his most adroit lines may be found in his _In Cap and Bells_ (1902) and _The Battle of the Bays_ (1892). TO AN OLD FOGEY (_Who Contends that Christmas is Played Out_) O frankly bald and obviously stout! And so you find that Christmas as a fete Dispassionately viewed, is getting out Of date. The studied festal air is overdone; The humour of it grows a little thin; You fail, in fact, to gather where the fun Comes in. Visions of very heavy meals arise That tend to make your organism shiver; Roast beef that irks, and pies that agonise The liver; Those pies at which you annually wince, Hearing the tale how happy months will follow Proportioned to the total mass of mince You swallow. Visions of youth whose reverence is scant, Who with the brutal _verve_ of boyhood's prime Insist on being taken to the pant- -omime. Of infants, sitting up extremely late, Who run you on toboggans down the stair; Or make you fetch a rug and simulate A bear. This takes your faultless trousers at the knees, The other hurts them rather more behind; And both effect a fracture in your ease Of mind. My good dyspeptic, this will never do; Your weary withers must be sadly wrung! Yet once I well believe that even you Were young. Time was when you devoured, like other boys, Plum-pudding sequent on a turkey-hen; With cracker-mottos hinting of the joys Of men.