HIS TOAST

Fill, fill your slender goblets

    A-brim with blood-red wine,

And drink a toast with laughter

    To maids with eyes a-shine;

Aye, toast your absent sweethearts!

    With laugh and lilt and swing;

Fill high the brimming goblets

    And let your accents ring.

Aye, fill the brimming beakers,

    And think of gold-crowned head;

And think of blue eyes shining,

    And curving lips and red ;

And toast, each one, his sweetheart,

    And drill the bumper down,

To maids with blue or gray eyes,

    Or maids with eyes of brown.

But fill for me no Jumper

    Of ruby-colored wine ;

My thoughts are far a-faring

    In paths that once were mine"

Back of the years of trying,

    Back of the sweetest smile

A sweetheart ever gave me;

    To years of otherwhile,

Back of the clink of glasses

    And friendships that are mine,

Back of lips curved in laughter

    And youthful eyes a-shine,

Where a fern-bordered hollow

    Gives up a bubbling spring,

And where, in beechen shadows,

    The robin redbreasts sing.

My soul, by some enchantment,

    Harks back to other days,

To one who led me upward

    Through wondrous, untried ways;

To one of rough endearments,

    In homely garments: clad;

Drink, you, each to his sweetheart,

    I drink to dear old. Dad.

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