Edgar Albert Guest Poems

ACONVALESCIN' woman does the strangest sort o' things,
An' it's wonderful the courage that a little new strength brings;
O, it's never safe to leave her for an hour or two alone,
...

The world is full of roses, blooming red for me I and you,
They smile a morning welcome and are wet with heavenly dew,
And every oak and maple, and every apple thorn
Have a song bird on their branches singing gayly in the morn;
But you never see a red rose waiting in a cloud of gloom
...

They come to my room at the break of the day,
With their faces all smiles and their minds full of play;
They come on their tip-toes and silently creep
To the edge of the bed where I'm lying asleep,
...

MEBBE I shall weep tomorrow,
Mebbe I shall lose my job,
Mebbe bowed in grief and sorrow
I shall sit alone and sob.
...

JUST now I think
I 'd like to be
At the river's brink
Beneath a tree,
...

To us the Flag has little meant.
Each glorious stripe of red
Was woven there to represent
The blood of heroes dead.
...

Queerest little chap he is,
Always saying: 'Aw Gee Whiz!'
Needing something from the store
That you've got to send him for
...

These are the lessons I would learn,
Not how to climb above all men,
Not how the greatest sums to earn,
Not how to wield a master pen;
...

I'm sorry for a feller if he hasn't any aunt,
To let him eat and do the things his mother says he can't.
An aunt to come a visitin' or one to go and see
Is just about the finest kind of lady there could be.
...

These are the peaks of valor; keeping clean your father's name,
Too brave for petty profit to risk the brand of shame,
Adventuring for the future, yet mindful of the past,
For God, for country and for home, still valorous to the last.
...