One of the most treasured relics I have is a poem which my father wrote when I was a little boy. My father was a native of Maine, but for all that he was a man of sentiment and he had much literary taste, and ability, too. The poem which he gave me, and which I have always treasured, will (if I am not grievously in error) touch a responsive chord in many a human heart, for all humanity looks back with tenderness to the time of youth. THE MORNING BIRD A bird sat in the maple tree And this was the song he sang to me: "O little boy, awake, arise! The sun is high in the morning skies; The brook's a-play in the pasture lot And wondereth that the little boy It loveth dearly cometh not To share its turbulence and joy; The grass hath kisses cool and sweet For truant little brown bare feet-- So come, O child, awake, arise! The sun is high in the morning skies!" So from the yonder maple tree The bird kept singing unto me; But that was very long ago-- I did not think--I did not know-- Else would I not have longer slept And dreamt the precious hours away; Else would I from my bed have leapt To greet another happy day-- A day, untouched of care and ruth, With sweet companionship of youth-- The dear old friends which you and I Knew in the happy years gone by! Still in the maple can be heard The music of the morning bird, And still the song is of the day That runneth o'er with childish play; Still of each pleasant old-time place And of the old-time friends I knew-- The pool where hid the furtive dace, The lot the brook went scampering through; The mill, the lane, the bellflower tree That used to love to shelter me-- And all those others I knew _then_, But which I cannot know again! Alas! from yonder maple tree The morning bird sings not to me; Else would his ghostly voice prolong An evening, not a morning, song And he would tell of each dear spot I knew so well and cherished then, As all forgetting, not forgot By him who would be young again! O child, the voice from yonder tree Calleth to _you_, and not to _me_; So wake and know those friendships all I would to God I could recall! XIX OTHER PEOPLE'S DOGS