How Different

H OW different it seems as we journey along
      Through the fields where the maize in its glory
Has the color of gold for the young and the old,
      And the "rustle" is then a sweet story;
For the man or the child on the roadbed of life
      Has his schedule of time at command;
Besides there are others, although we see not,
      Expecting a grasp of our hand.

How different it seems when the winter is here
      And the fields are all mantled with snow,
If the crops are all garnered and fuel on hand
      And the stock is well housed as you know;
And the ice in the river that lazily moves
      With the current along down the stream,
Creates, as one ponders, a feeling of rest
      With the charm of a summer-time dream.

The bridge o'er the river is swinging perhaps
      In the gale that is sweeping along;
With words set to music, all Latin to me
      Yet that is no sign that a song
Is not being sung in the sweetest of lays
      By voices quite mute to my soul
And still as pronounced in the scale on their plane
      As sound-waves on ether to roll;

Life's parables in shorthand are puzzles that vex
      Our court, in its dignity chair,
The statutes; the pleadings may all be compiled
      For decisions awaiting us there,
Where the grain is all garnered, the grinding is past
      Where the "manna" was cast o'er the sea;

While the trade-winds of life have again brought the price
      To you, with its bread, and to me.