Samuel Ellsworth Kiser

I fight a battle every day
Against discouragement and fear;
Some foe stands always in my way,
The path ahead is never clear!
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I have hoped, I have planned, I have striven,
To the will I have added the deed;
The best that was in me I've given,
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WHY try to make us think that all is wrong
And that the world is drifting to its doom ?
Why interrupt a singer's hopeful song
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That I may not in blindness grope,
But that I may with vision clear
Know when to speak a word of hope
Or add a little wholesome cheer.
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Faith is not merely praying
Upon your knees at night;
Faith is not merely straying
Through darkness to the light.
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WHY should I sit in doubt or fear? If I
Awake some morning from that dreaded sleep
To find myself new-born and lifted high,
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If I was paw and paw was me,
Gee! what a great thing that 'ud be!
I wouldn't whip him just 'cause he
Went sneakin' off sometimes to fish;
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OH, if you only knowed how much I like
To stand here, when the 'old man' ain't around
And watch your soft, white fingers while you pound
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I WISH, when you was through your work some night
And goin' home alone, and had your pay
Stuck in your stockin'--what you drew that day--
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I HAVE failed in a thousand cases,
But I still have the heart to try ;
I am scarred in a hundred places,
No darling of Luck am I
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IF you can go to heaven your way,
I know of no good reason why
I ought to curse you, or display
Contempt when you are passing by ;
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LAST night I dreamed about her in my sleep;
I thought that her and me had went away
Out on some hill where birds sung 'round all day,
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THIS morning when we come to work I got
Jammed in the elevator back of you, and there
They made you stick your elbow in me where
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WHEN her and me were here alone, at noon,
And she had bit a pickle square in two,
I set and watched and listened to her chew,
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LAST night I heard Jones astin' you to go
To see the opery next Thursday night,
And you said yes--and he'll be settin' right
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WHEN I was dustin' off her desk one day,
And she was standin' there, I took the pad
She writes on when she gets dictates and had
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I'D like to have a lock of her brown hair,
For that would be a part of her, you know;
And if she'd tie it with a little bow
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I WISH, some day, when she's typewritin' and
I've took a note out for the boss somewhere,
They'd be some outlaws sneak in here and scare
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I HEARD the old man scoldin' yesterday
Because your spellin' didn't suit him quite;
He said you'd better go to school at night,
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LAST night, when she'd got on her coat and hat
And felt her dress behind and then her hair,
To see if everything was all right there,
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