The following are some examples of Mary/May’s work.  Search Amazon.com for reprints of May Riley Smith’s books.

~excerpt from Waifs and Their Authors by Alphonso A. Hopkins
Digitized by Google

 

The Child In Me

She follows me about my House of Life
(This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!)
She has no part in Time’s relentless strife
She keeps her old simplicity and truth —
And laughs at grim Mortality,
This deathless Child that stays with me —
(This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!)

My House of Life is weather-stained with years —
(O Child in Me, I wonder why you stay.)
Its windows are bedimmed with rain of tears,
The walls have lost their rose, its thatch is gray.
One after one its guests depart,
So dull a host is my old heart.
(O Child in Me, I wonder why you stay!)

For jealous Age, whose face I would forget,
Pulls the bright flowers you bring me from my hair
And powders it with snow; and yet — and yet
I love your dancing feet and jocund air.
I have no taste for caps of lace
To tie about my faded face —
I love to wear your flowers in my hair.

O Child in Me, leave not my House of Clay
Until we pass together through the Door,
When lights are out, and Life has gone away
And we depart to come again no more.
We comrades who have travelled far
Will hail the Twilight and the Star,
And smiling, pass together through the Door!
~May Riley Smith

Christ Has Risen!

O sad-faced mourners, who each day are wending
Through churchyard paths of cypress and of yew,
Leave, for today, the low graves you are tending,
And lift your eyes to God’s eternal blue!

Leave, for today, all murmuring and sadness;
Twine Easter lilies, and not asphodels;
Let your souls answer to the thrill of gladness,
And to the melody of Easter bells.

If Christ were still within the grave’s low prison-
A captive to the enemy you dread;
If from that mouldering cell he had not risen,
Who then could chide the bitter tears you shed?

Poor hearts! the butterfly, with pinions golden,
Spurns the gray cell which erst its freedom barred;
And the freed soul, with wings no longer holden,
Shines back on life as on a broken shard.

If Christ were dead, you would have need to sorrow;
But he has risen, and conquered death for aye!
Then dry your tears, if only till the morrow;
Arise, and give your grief a holiday!
~May Riley Smith

What March Does

In the dark silence of her chambers low
March works out sweeter things than mortals know;

Her noisless looms ply on with busy care,
Weaving the fine cloth that the flowers wear.

She sews the seams in the violet’s queer hood,
and paints the sweet arbutus of the wood;

Out of a bit of sky’s delicious blue,
She fashions hyacinths and harebells, too;

And from a sunbeam makes a cowslip fair,
Or spins a gown for a dafflodil to wear.

She pulls the cover from the crocus-beds,
And bids the sleepers lift their drowsy heads;

“Come, early risers! Come, Anemone,
My pale Wind-flower, awake, awake!” calls she–

“The world expects you and your lovers wait
To give you welcome at Spring’s open gate.”

She marshals the close armies of the grass,
And polishes their green blades as they pass;

And all the blossoms of the fruit-trees sweet
Are piled in rosy shells about her feet.

Within her great alembic she distils
The dainty odors which each flower fills;

Nor does she err, and give to mignonette
The perfume that belongs to violet.

Nature does well whatever task she tries
Because obedient; there the secret lies.
~May Riley Smith in Farm Journal

Coming Home

I have come to the dear old threshold,
With eager, hurrying feet,
To scent the odorous lilies
That once were so white and sweet.
To taste the apricots mellow
That crimson the garden wall;
To gather the golden pippins
That down in the orchard fall.

I passed by the uncut hedges,
And up through the thistled walk,
And beside the fall of my footsteps
There was only the crickets’ talk.
The weeds grew high in the arbor,
And the nettles, rank and tall,
Had throttled the sweet-breathed lilies
That leaned on the latticed wall.

The little white house is empty,
Its ceilings are cobwebbed o’er,
And the dust and mould are lying
Thick on the trackless floor.
There are no prints in the doorway,
No garments hung in the hall,
And the ghosts of death and silence
Sit and gloat over all!

No eager faces of children
Brightened the window-pane,
Never a peal of laughter
Rippled along the lane;
So I turned through the daisies yellow,
That nodded to see me pass,
To seek for the mellow pippins
That drop in the orchard grass.

But I found a worm in my apples,
And flung them sadly away;
The pool that I thought eternal
All foul and poisonous lay.
A black snake crept from its hiding
And hissed in the marshes wild,
And I bent my head in the rushes
And sobbed like a homesick child!
~May Riley Smith

Aurora Borealis

The northern cheek of the heavens,
By a sudden glory kissed,
Blushed to the tint of roses,
And hid in an amber mist,
And through the northern pathway,
Trailing her robe of flame,
The queenly Borealis
In her dazzling beauty came!

I stood and watched the tilting
Of each dainty, rosy lance,
As it seemed to pierce the bosom
Of an emerald expanse;
And I thought if heaven’s gateway
Is so very fair to see,
What must the inner glory
Of the “many mansions” be?

I thought of the “Golden City,”
Where the wondrous lights unfurl;
Of its sea of clearest crystal,
Of its gates–each one a pearl;
Thought, till the glowing splendor
Had quietly passed us by,
And the track of Aurora’s chariot
Bleached out from the northern sky!
~May Riley Smith

The Burial of Abraham Lincoln

Written by request, for the occasion of the depositing of Abraham Lincoln’s remains in the tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL.

We mourn for him whose soul on heights divine
Has reached the stature of the undefiled,
In whom a judgment ripe and honor fine
Were blended with the nature of a child;
Whose pen with patient toil and godlike grace
Picked out the puzzled knot of slavery;
Unclasped the gyves that bound a hapless race,
And dared to write “the bondman shall be free.”

The kind humanities that graced his life,
The tenderness which through his justice shone;
The sympathy that softened human strife
And made a brother’s suffering his own;
The life which shadowed forth the perfect plan
Of heaven’s law of equity and right:
Such were the attributes, and such the man
Whom death has hidden from our mortal sight.

His deeds move onward, though his life is done;
His words still sway us like a mighty host.
“Write down,” he said, “my humble name as one
Whose love of country was his highest boast.”
O man of men, whose name we all revere!–
The dearest name in Liberty’s fair crown!–
Only thy corse rests in these chambers here;
Death cannot touch thy honor and renown!

Along the years his gentle words shall fall–
“With malice towards none, with charity for all;”
And men shall write in tears upon his grave,
“He bound the nation, and unbound the slave.”
~May Riley Smith

His Birthday

The day the Christ-child’s tender eyes
Unveiled their beauty on the earth,
God lit a new star in the skies
To flash the message of his birth;
And wise men read the glowing sign,
And came to greet the Child divine.

Low kneeling in the stable’s gloom
Their precious treasures they unrolled;
The place was rich with sweet perfume;
Upon the floor lay gifts of gold.
And thus, adoring, they did bring
To Christ the earliest offering.

I think no nimbus wreathed the head
Of the young King so rudely throned;
The quilt of hay beneath him spread
The sleepy kind beside him owned;
And here and there in the torn thatch
The sky thrust in a starry patch.

Oh, when was newborn monarch shrined
Within such canopy as this?
The birds have cradles feather-lined;
And for their new babes princesses
Have sheets of lace without a flaw–
His pillow was a wisp of straw!

He chose this way, it may have been,
That those poor mothers, everywhere,
Whose babies in the world’s great inn
Find scanty cradle-room and fare,
As did the babe of Bethlehem,
May find somewhat to comfort them.

Thus was he born. And since that time
We crown the day with wreath and song;
The bells laugh out in merry chime,
And he his royal Guest doth wrong
Who welcomes him with gloomy fears,
Or salts the birthday feast with tears.
~May Riley Smith

Purple Aster

Bravely my sweet flower resists
Heat of August, autumn cold;
And though she has amethysts
For her dower, and some gold,
Never roadside beggar passed her
Without nod from purple aster.

Dear plebeian, but for thee
And thy lover, golden-rod,
Lonesomer the road would be
Which the country folk must plod;
And each little maid and master
Would regret thee, purple aster!

When November winds blow chill,
And the fields are brown and sear,
You will find her, cheerful still,
With her lover standing near,
While old Winter fast and faster
Comes to claim brave purple aster.
~May Riley Smith

A Thanksgiving Prayer

For toil that is a medicine for woe,
For strength that grows with every lifted cross,
For thorns, since with each thorn a rose did grow,
For gain that I have wrongly reckoned loss,
For ignorance, where it were harm to know–
Teach me to thank thee, Lord.

For cups of honeyed pleasure thou didst spill
Before their foam had quenched my purer sense;
For that my soul has power to struggle still,
Though panting in the trappings of pretense;
And for mistakes that saved from greater ill–
Teach me to thank thee, Lord.

That thou dost ravel out the tinselled thread
Of my poor work I thought so bravely done;
That thou dost show me every flimsy shred
In the thin coat of honor I have spun,
And pluck’st the slender garland from my head–
Teach me to thank thee, Lord.

For ills averted, all unseen by me,
For darkened days that healed my dazzled eyes,
For suffering which brought a company
Of gentle ministers, in stern disguise;
For weariness, which made me lean on thee–
Teach me to thank thee, Lord.

For chalices of tears that thou dost pour,
For unrequited love and wounded pride;
If they but tempt my lonesome heart the more
To seek the faithful shelter of thy side;
For homelessness, which drives me to thy door–
Teach me to thank thee, Lord.
~May Riley Smith

May wrote the lyrics to many Hymns.

THE DAY THE CHRIST-CHILD’S TENDER EYES

The day the Christ-child’s tender eyes
Unveiled their beauty on the earth,
God lit a new star in the skies
To flash the message of His birth;
And wise men read the glowing sign,
And came to greet the Child divine.

Low kneeling in the stable’s gloom,
Their precious treasures they unrolled;
The place was rich with sweet perfume;
Upon the floor lay gifts of gold.
And thus adoring they did bring
To Christ the earliest offering.

I think no nimbus wreathed the head
Of the young King so rudely throned;
The quilt of hay beneath Him spread
The sleepy kine beside Him owned;
And here and there in the torn thatch
The sky thrust in a starry patch.

Oh, when was new-born monarch shrined
Within such canopy as this?
The birds have cradles feather lined;
And for their new babes princesses
Have sheets of lace without a flaw,
His pillow was a wisp of straw!

He chose this way, it may have been,
That those poor mothers, everywhere,
Whose babies in the world’s great inn
Find scanty cradle-room and fare,
As did the Babe of Bethlehem,
May find somewhat to comfort them.
~ sung to the music of St. Petersburg.
attributed to Dmitri S. Bortniansky, 1825

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St. Petersburg
Scatter Seeds of Kindness