Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1902 — PLACE I ONCE CALLED HOME. [ARTICLE]

PLACE I ONCE CALLED HOME.

As the low and lingering shadows steal softly to the night, I tread with silent footsteps toward a welcome parlor light; A light that seems far brighter than the stars in heavens dome. The light that lights the parlor of the place I once called home. I long toswing the portal that's beep clos-ed to me for years; Lo, the wim.ows dim and frosty; no, uo, it Is my tears; For I see, in loving silence, the family sitting there, And mother knitting absently beside an empty chair. In a gentle retrospection. I chase the tears away. And lure to fading memory that sunny summer day When I started out. light-hearted, with blessings and advice, To those distance fields of Fortune, with Fate to cast the dice. I remember 1 was picturing myself, as off I went, Well—that somehow I was destined to be the President, And how mother rudely shattered that castle in the air, As she sobbed. ‘‘Whatever happens, I’ll keep your empty chair." ' A score of years have flitted to‘.he limbos of the past; I stand with courage vanished, where all wand’rers stand at last, At the threshold of the homestead, there, with a long-drawn sigh. Praying for a word of counsel on the way that sinners die; Pleading just for food and shelter, and a mother’s loving kiss, Anda father’s grip of friendship, fora hope that’s gone amiss— Pleading from a heart that's welling in abreast o'er filled with strife. For love to shed its luster on the shadow of a life. Shall I enter? Can I enter? With failure in my pack. And vainly try to turn the hands of Life’s old timepiece back To the happy days of childhood, to boyhood’s magic spell With the linnets in the orchard, watching windfalls as they fell; With little brother Willie, riding every day to school Down the daisy-dotted meadow, astride our lop-eared mule; With all the other children romping in our wildtime play. With the little bed to go to when daylight stole away? I know they’d gladly greet me, if I’d only just walk in. And surprise them with my presence, Alas, I can’t begin To muster up the grit I had. for all my courage went With the vision of the future when I’d be President. But O! mother! mother!! mother!!! do come and ope the door. Hold out your arms to take me to the happy days of yore. Help lay aside the burden of my trouble and my pain That my bent and sumken shoulders can never bear again! When the sun marks noon of lifetime, when once the morning’s dune, k And from dawn we turn reluctant to face the setting sun, We grow more worldly, somehow, for our hearts turn callous-like. And don’t seem much to notice, then, the stumps aloug the pike; And. once the journey's started, might as j well trudge on ahead— So I'll keep ever moving aud not bring to ' life the dead. Nor the hopes that peaceful slumber, nor break the mystic air Of the memories bright that linger around the empty chair. —Success.