THE PATRIARCH
We met him in the northern woods,
Remote from city’s crowded streets;
One of nature’s nobleman,
The type of men one seldom meets.
A pioneer of early days,
He drew his living from the soil,
And earned his daily bread
By unremitting hours of toil.
No school house walls confined his mind;
He learned from Nature’s books,
The school of hard necessity,
The trees, the rocks, the brooks.
His memory was filled with tales,
Of happenings of long ago;
And often as he sat and talked,
His twinkling eyes would humor show.
His mind receptive to the last,
Of information held a store
Of daily news and world events
And other interesting lore.
We sat entranced to hear him tell
His sound philosophy of life;
Victorious he rose above
Life’s daily s struggles and its strife.
He is sleeping now beneath the pines;
In a place by sunshine blest;
Near Madawaska’s quiet flow,
The Patriarch has gone to rest.
