Poems (Kimball)/Hospitality

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HOSPITALITY.
to Mrs H. E. H.
SWEET friend, whose hospitality  Pervades your house like summer air, And at whose board I ever find A welcome marvellously kind  From all the dear ones gathered there,
How often when I take my place  One thought of swift regret will come, That to your circle I can bring In glad return no precious thing  To swell your pleasure's happy sum;
Nothing but simple loving rhymes  For some occasion like to-day, When any one, however dull, Some common flowers of thought might cull  And weave them in a birthday lay.
And this is all I bring you now,  A song of little worth, indeed, Whose end a version poor will prove Of one true poem that I love— A poem that I daily read—
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Of manhood high, and womanhood  Its equal match in loveliness; Of girlhood ripening hour by hour As simply as a wayside flower  That knows and knows not heaven's caress;
Of childhood gay as butterflies  That frolic as they lightly main; Of babyhood, whose dimpled hand Holds all the house in dear command,— The poem of your own sweet home!
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