Edgar Albert Guest Poems

We cannot count our friends, nor say
How many praise us day by day.
Each one of us has friends that he
Has yet to meet and really know,
...

Who shall sit at the table, then, when the terms
of peace are made-
The wisest men of the troubled lands in their
silver and gold brocade?
...

As fall the leaves, so drop the days
In silence from the tree of life;
Born for a little while to blaze
...

We've had a letter from the boy,
And oh, the gladness and the joy
It brought to us! We read it o'er
I'd say a dozen times or more.
...

We all are warriors with sin. Crusading knights,
we come to earth
With spotless plumes and shining shields to joust
with foes and prove our worth.
...

There in the flame of the open grate,
All that is good in the past I see:
Red-lipped youth on the swinging gate,
...

I'd like to be a boy again, a care-free prince of joy again,
I'd like to tread the hills and dales the way I used to do;
I'd like the tattered shirt again, the knickers thick with dirt again,
...

A table cloth that's slightly soiled
Where greasy little hands have toiled;
The napkins kept in silver rings,
And only ordinary things
...

No one is beat till he quits,
No one is through till he stops,
No matter how hard Failure hits,
...

Let others sing their songs of war
And chant their hymns of splendid death,
Let others praise the soldiers' ways
...