Edgar Albert Guest Poems

'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,'
Cried Romeo once, and truth he spoke I own;
And we should smell the autos down the street
Though gasoline were labeled French cologne.
...

Little woman, hourly sitting,
Something for a soldier knitting,
What in fancy can you see?
Many pictures come to me
Through the stitch that now you're making:
...

Wife says that I should be ashamed
To wear such garments as I do,
Full many a time has she exclaimed:
'A month ago that suit was new,
...

DO you know why men dig ditches
And why others till the soil?
Do you know why men seek riches,
And each morn go out to toil?
...

When mother baked an angel cake we kids would gather round
An' watch her gentle hands at work, an' never make a sound;
We'd watch her stir the eggs an' flour an' powdered sugar, too,
An' pour it in the crinkled tin, an' then when it was through
...

The boys upon the honor roll, God bless them all, I pray!
God watch them when they sleep at night, and guard them through the day.
We've stamped their names upon our walls, the list in glory grows,
Our brave boys and our splendid boys who stand to meet our foes.
...

I WAS somewhere off in Europe spending money like a king,
Owned a yacht like J. P. Morgan's, when the 'phone began to ring;
I was entertaining princes, dukes and earls, when wifie said:
'It's the telephone that's ringing, you must hustle out of bed.'
And I wandered down the stairway, grumbling o'er my vanished joy,
Growled: 'Hello;' and then he shouted: 'You're an uncle! It's a boy!'
...

THE dream ship is ready, the sea is like gold
And the fairy prince waits in command;
There's a cargo of wonderful dreams in the hold,
For the baby that seeks Slumberland.
...

He writes to us most every day, and how his letters thrill us!
I can't describe the joys with which his quaint expressions fill us.
He says the military life is not of his selection,
He's only soldiering to-day to give the Flag protection.
But since he's in the army now and doing duties humble,
He'll do what all good soldiers must, and he will never grumble.
...

Sometimes at the table, when
He gets misbehavin', then
Mother calls across to me:
'Look at him, now! Don't you see
...