_The Eyes of Lincoln_ Sad eyes, that were patient and tender, sad eyes, that were steadfast and true, and warm with the unchanging splendor of courage no ills could subdue! Eyes dark with the dread of the morrow, and woe for the day that was gone, the sleepless companions of sorrow, the watchers that witnessed the dawn. Eyes tired from the clamor and goading, and dim from the stress of the years, and hollowed by pain and foreboding, and strained by repression of tears. Sad eyes that were wearied and blighted, by visions of sieges and wars, now watch o'er a country united from the luminous slopes of the stars! _The Better Land_ There is a better world, they say, where tears and woe are done away; there shining hosts in fields sublime are playing baseball all the time, and there (where no one ever sins) the home team nearly always wins. Upon that bright and sunny shore, we'll never need to sorrow more; no umpires on the field are slain, no games are called because of rain. So let us live that we may fly, on snowy pinions, when we die, to where the pitcher never falls, or gives a man first base on balls; where goose-eggs don't adorn the score, and shortstops fumble never more. _Knowledge is Power_ One day a farmer found a bone; he thought at first it was a stone, and threw it at a passing snake ere he discovered his mistake. But when he knew it was a bone, and not a diamond or a stone, he took it to an ancient sage, who said: "In prehistoric age, this was the shin-bone of a Thor-dineriomegantosaur-megopium-permastodon-letheriumsohelpmejohn." The farmer cried: "Dad bing my eyes! Was ever man so wondrous wise? He gazes on a piece of bone, that I supposed to be a stone, and, with a confidence sublime, he looks across the void of time, and gives this fossil bone a name, the fragment of some creature's frame! To have such knowledge, sir, as thine, I'd give those fertile farms of mine." "Don't envy me," the sage replied, and shook his weary head, and sighed, "Your life to me seems full and sweet--you always have enough to eat!" _The Pie Eaters_