106 Old Days on the Farm 



To the sable car and the measured tread 

 Of the men who walked by your coffined dead. 



I saw your grand-sires when they played 



In sehoolday glee underneath my shade, 



I saw them grown to manhood's day, 



I saw them bowed — with their hair grown grey, 



I saw them laid in their graves away; — : 



And as I saw your grand-sires once, 



I have seen your sires, I will see your sons. 



Alone in the world of the living I 



Seem touched by the hand of eternity. 



A prophet voice to the future years 



Prom the past with its buried joys and tears! 



The countless seasons come and go. 



And the summer sun and the winter snow 



Have beat on my giant trunk in vain. 



They came — they vanished — but I remain. 



THE HAYFIELD OF OTHER DAYS 



You may talk about pastures green, far-off 

 fields, baseball fields, fields of high, endeavour, or 

 any other enclosure that may be termed a field, 

 but you cannot beat, in attractiveness, the old hay- 

 field. I mean, of course, that one of other days 

 with the snake-fence about it, and some stumps 

 here and there and, perhaps, a few trees that were 

 overlooked by the wood butcher. There was clover 

 three feet long, timothy four feet high and a bum- 

 ble-bee on every other head of clover. The surface 

 was rough and it had to be mowed with a scythe 

 for the reason that there were no mowing 

 machines. 



