The Stars: A Poem

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206 IMPROVEMENT ERA

Glancing inside one might have guessed that the last rays of the setting sun had been imprisoned there, until the shadows had made it too dark for them to seek the west. In the parlor the young people were gathered about the piano, singing. In the dining room the small children were playing games. Mr. and Mrs. Brown sat there watching them. They were thinking of the lonely man across the street. "Aren't you glad that we will not have to face regret when tht years of our lives grow few?" he asked as his arms stole around her. "And aren't you glad," she whispered, as her head found a resting place on his shoulder, "that we have been able to give them a heritage that is worth while?" The great stone house across the street was in darkness and the shadows seemed to concentrate about it. Mr. Gordon sat by the library window and watched the trees melt into the darkness. Like a pantomime his past life rose up before him. The darkness of the house seemed to mock him. He turned on the light and taking his diary, wrote in an unsteady hand: "This day I learned that it is harvest time and I have planted nothing."

Ogden, Utah

The Stars

Long, long ago, I often viewed the starlit sky. I saw the twink'ling stars And wondered why they were so high, And why they did not fall, and whose they were? Then sweetly, mother said, "An angel holds each lisht To guide the weary wand'rers through the night."

There came a time When I did gaze upon the sky, And doubt that childish dream, My skeptic moods to satisfy! I knew, as all the wise ones know, that stars Were from this world of ours apart, were planets old, I sneered, and cast aside that dream of old!

But now I know .That dear, old, childhood dream is true. That God sends evening stars To light the way for me and you; And in their streams of light, this message sends: "Mv stars are lights of universal harmonv. And though apart, they guide direct to me." Tcbiona, Utah Guy C. Coleman.