Edgar Albert Guest Poems

If I had hatred in my heart toward my fellow man,
If I were pressed to do him ill, to conjure up a plan
To wound him sorely and to rob his days of all their joy,
I'd wish his wife would go away and take their little boy.
...

Who is it lives to the full every minute,
Gets all the joy and the fun that is in it?
Tough as they make 'em, and ready to race,
...

Something to talk about, something to do,
Something to laugh at the whole day through,
Something to look at with pride and with glee,
Something for friends to come in just to see;
...

You may brag about your breakfast foods you eat at break of day,
Your crisp, delightful shavings and your stack of last year's hay,
Your toasted flakes of rye and corn that fairly swim in cream,
...

My Pa says that he used to be
A bright boy in geography;
An' when he went to school he knew
The rivers an' the mountains, too,
...

The roses are bedded for winter, the tulips are planted for spring;
The robins and martins have left us; there are only the sparrows to sing.
The garden seems solemnly silent, awaiting its blankets of snow,
...

I wish I was a poet like the men that write in books
The poems that we have to learn on valleys, hills an' brooks;
I'd write of things that children like an' know an' understand,
An' when the kids recited them the folks would call them grand.
...

Little lady at the altar,
Vowing by God's book and psalter
To be faithful, fond and true
Unto him who stands by you,
Think not that romance is ended,
...

It may be I'm old-fashioned, but the times I like the best
Are not the splendid parties with the women gaily dressed,
And the music tuned for dancing and the laughter of the throng,
With a paid comedian's antics or a hired musician's song,
...

Isn't it fine when the day is done,
And the petty battles are lost or won,
When the gold is made and the ink is dried,
To quit the struggle and turn aside
...