SONNETS TO A SHOEMAKER.

THE cobbler’s always cheerful, though His path of life be crost, He does not tear his hair in woe, Whene’er his all is lost. He welts a lot, but not the wife With whom his lot is cast; She’ll find him, whatsoe’er their strife, Still faithful to the last. Onward his motto, aye, he strives To grasp some other feat, And in the dullest times contrives Somehow to make ends meet. The world may smite him without cause, He never shuns its whacks, And seldom grumbles at the laws That regulate his tax. We know but little of the good His many acts reveal— Were he ’midst madmen, why, he would Their understandings heal. And a much higher motive yet His generous heart controls, You would not see that saint forget Their perishable souls.