The wan sun peeped through the wee patched pane
And checkered the floor where the pale beams shone
And the pen wrought on and the head drooped low
And a tear plashed down on the rusted pen, As it traced a verse of the long ago
That his grief had brought to his heart again.
Be kind to thy father for when thou wast young, Who loved thee so fondly as lied He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue.
Be kind to thy father for now he is old, His locks intermingled with gray;
His footsteps are feeble, once fearless and bold
Be kind to thy mother for lo, on her brow, May traces of sorrow be seen.
Oh, well mayst thou cherish and comfort her now,
For loving and kind has she been. Remember thy mother, for thee she will pray As long as God giveth her breath With accents of kindness; then cheer her hard way E’en thro’ the dark valley of death.”
Listlessly threshed in a careless court The poor, plain tale of a home was told, Furnishing food for the lawyers’ sport And a jest at the fond and the foolish old. The counsel said as he winked an eye, “Deeded the farm to their only son;
And after’twas deeded they didn’t die Quite as quick as they should have done.”
Quest thro’ the law for an old home place,
--Put never a word of two broken hearts. Only a suit where the son and wife
Pledged themselves when they coaxed the deed,
To comfort the close of the old folks’ life:
--Only another case where greed Sneered at the toil of the long, hard years Of martyrdom to the hoe and axe,
And told in the curve of the old bent backs, --Bent in the strife with the rocky soil,
When the grinding work was never done, With just one rift in the cloud of toil:
--‘Twas all for the sake of their only son. Simply a tedious legal maze
With neighbors stirring the thing for sport,
And loungers eyeing with listless gaze This queer old couple dragged to court.
Meekly they would have granted greed All that it sought for--all its spoil;
Nor selfishly reckoned their years of toil.
Mute when the law vouchsafed their prayer;
--Courts soothe not such grief as surged In the hearts of the old folks trembling there.
What though the jury’s word restored The walls and roof of the old home place?
Would it give them back the blessed hoard Of trust that knew no son’s disgrace?