234 A QUESTION.
And grandfather s queer childish fancies,
Unwatched, lead to fearful mishap ; Grandmother finds real discomfort
In crumples in kerchief and cap ; Poor Jack, fighting terrible fractions,
The school-boy s implacable foe, Calls loudly for Mabel. She listens,
And straightway her temples lie low.
Oh see at your feet, little Mabel,
Yon path winding up to yon door ! Oh seek in the isles of the ocean
For God-given duties no more ! In the quiet home-lighted horizon
You bound with the sound of a hymn, Go garner the sheaf of the present ;
The duties beyond it are dim.
��A QUESTION.
PRAY, may I ask you, country-lad, Whose smile no care can smother, Tho busy life throbs round about,
"Have you written home to mother?"
You are forgetting, aren t you, quite How fast the weeks went flying,
And that a little blotted sheet Unanswered still is lying?
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