{40} [Illustration: Uncle Sidney to Marcellus--headpiece] UNCLE SIDNEY TO MARCELLUS Marcellus, won't you tell us-- Truly tell us, if you can,-- What will you be, Marcellus, When you get to be a man? You turn, with never answer But to the band that plays.-- O rapt and eerie dancer, What of your future days? Far in the years before us We dreamers see your fame, While song and praise in chorus Make music of your name. And though our dreams foretell us As only visions can, You must prove it, O Marcellus, When you get to be a man! {41} A SONG BY UNCLE SIDNEY O were I not a clod, intent On being just an earthly thing, I'd be that rare embodiment Of Heart and Spirit, Voice and Wing, With pure, ecstatic, rapture-sent, Divinely-tender twittering That Echo swoons to re-present,-- A bluebird in the Spring. {42} [Illustration: The poet's love for the children--headpiece] THE POET'S LOVE FOR THE CHILDREN Kindly and warm and tender, He nestled each childish palm So close in his own that his touch was a prayer And his speech a blessed psalm. He has turned from the marvelous pages Of many an alien tome-- Haply come down from Olivet, Or out from the gates of Rome-- {43} [Illustration: Of the orchard-lands of childhood] {45} Set sail o'er the seas between him And each little beckoning hand That fluttered about in the meadows And groves of his native land,-- Fluttered and flashed on his vision As, in the glimmering light Of the orchard-lands of childhood, The blossoms of pink and white. And there have been sobs in his bosom, As out on the shores he stept, And many a little welcomer Has wondered why he wept.-- That was because, O children, Ye might not always be The same that the Savior's arms were wound About, in Galilee. {46} [Illustration: Friend of a wayward hour--headpiece] FRIEND OF A WAYWARD HOUR Friend of a wayward hour, you came Like some good ghost, and went the same; And I within the haunted place Sit smiling on your vanished face, And talking with--your name. But thrice the pressure of your hand-- First hail--congratulations--and Your last "God bless you!" as the train That brought you snatched you back again Into the unknown land. {47} "God bless me?" Why, your very prayer Was answered ere you asked it there, I know--for when you came to lend Me your kind hand, and call me friend, God blessed me unaware. [Illustration: Friend of a wayward hour--tailpiece] {48} [Illustration: My Henry--headpiece] MY HENRY He's jes' a great, big, awk'ard, hulkin' Feller,--humped, and sort o' sulkin'-- Like, and ruther still-appearin'-- Kind-as-ef he wuzn't keerin' Whether school helt out er not-- That's my Henry, to a dot!