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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Afterwhiles, by James Whitcomb Riley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Afterwhiles
+
+Author: James Whitcomb Riley
+
+Release Date: May 19, 2005 [EBook #15862]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFTERWHILES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by "Teary Eyes" Anderson
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+***Transcriber's Note.
+Most of this etext was made with a "Top Scan" text scanner, with a bit
+of correcting here and there. Mr. Riley does spell pretty=purty and
+such things and have been left as printed, including the first poem
+in this book listed as "Proem" on both the contents page and the
+page headers, even though in later editions this poem is simply called
+"Afterwhiles." In "The South Wind and the Sun" the line is 'Laughed out in
+every look.' while in later versions it has the word 'nook', replacing
+'look.' The poem "Old Aunt Mary's" is later retitled "Out To Old Aunt
+Mary's" and later enlarged by 13 verses. The "In Dalect" section has the '
+to replace a letter that he left out, to make the word sound a certain way,
+including words like sure-enuff he writes as sho'-nuff, or He'pless as
+helpless and ect. This etext is based on the 1898 edition Published by The
+Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis Publishers. "Teary Eyes" Anderson***
+
+
+
+
+Afterwhiles by James Whitcomb Riley
+
+Dedicated to my mother Elizabeth
+
+
+   Contents
+Proem (AKA "Afterwhiles")
+Herr Weiser
+The Beautiful City
+Lockerbie Street
+Das Krist Kindel
+Anselmo
+A Home Made Fairy Tale
+The South Wind and the Sun
+The Lost Kiss
+The Sphinx
+If I knew What Poets Know
+Ike Walton's Prayer
+A Rough Sketch
+Our Kind of a Man
+The Harper
+Old Aunt Mary's  (AKA "Out To Old Aunt Mary's" Later was enlarged by 13
+verses)
+Illileo
+The King
+A Bride
+The Dead Lover
+A Song
+When Bessie Died
+The Shower
+A Life-Lesson
+A Scrawl
+Away
+Who Bides His Time
+From the Headboard of a Grave in Paraguay
+Laughter Holding Both His Sides
+Fame
+The Ripest Peach
+A Fruit Piece
+Their Sweet Sorrow
+John McKeen
+Out of Nazareth
+September Dark
+We to Sigh Instead of Sing
+The Blossoms on the Trees
+Last Night And This
+A Discouraging Model
+Back from a Two Year Sentence
+The Wandering Jew
+Becalmed
+To Santa Claus
+Where the Children Used to Play
+A Glipse of Pan
+
+   Sonnets
+Pan
+Dusk
+June
+Silence
+Sleep
+Her Hair
+Dearth
+A Voice from the Farm
+The Serenade
+Art and Love
+Longfellow
+Indiana
+Time
+Grant At Rest August 8, 1885
+
+   In Dialect
+Old Fashioned Roses
+Griggsby's Station
+Knee Deep in June
+When the Hearse Comes Back
+A Canary at the Farm
+A Liz Town Humorist
+Kingry's Mill
+Joney
+Like His Mother Used to Make
+The Train Misser
+Granny
+Old October
+Jim
+To Robert Burns
+A New Year's Time at Willard's
+The Town Karnteel
+Regardin' Terry Hut
+Leedle Dutch Baby
+Down on Wriggle Crick
+When de Folks is Gone
+The Little Town o' Tailholt
+Little Orphant Annie
+
+
+
+   _Proem_
+
+Where are they-- the Afterwhiles--
+Luring us the lengthening miles
+Of our lives? Where is the dawn
+With the dew across the lawn
+Stroked with eager feet the far
+Way the hills and valleys are?
+Were the sun that smites the frown
+Of the eastward-gazer down?
+Where the rifted wreaths of mist
+O'er us, tinged with amethyst,
+Round the mountain's steep defiles?
+Where are the afterwhiles?
+
+Afterwhile-- and we will go
+Thither, yon, and too and fro--
+From the stifling city streets
+To the country's cool retreats--
+From the riot to the rest
+Were hearts beat the placidest:
+Afterwhile, and we will fall
+Under breezy trees, and loll
+In the shade, with thirsty sight
+Drinking deep the blue delight
+Of the skies that will beguile
+Us as children-- afterwhile.
+
+Afterwhile-- and one intends
+To be gentler to his friends--,
+To walk with them, in the hush
+Of still evenings, o'er the plush
+Of home-leading fields, and stand
+Long at parting, hand in hand:
+One, in time, will joy to take
+New resolves for some one's sake,
+And wear then the look that lies
+Clear and pure in other eyes--
+We will soothe and reconcile
+His own conscience-- afterwhile.
+
+Afterwhile-- we have in view
+A far scene to journey to--,
+Where the old home is, and where
+The old mother waits us there,
+Peering, as the time grows late,
+Down the old path to the gate--.
+How we'll click the latch that locks
+In the pinks and hollyhocks,
+And leap up the path once more
+Where she waits us at the door--!
+How we'll greet the dear old smile,
+And the warm tears-- afterwhile!
+
+Ah, the endless afterwhiles--!
+Leagues on leagues, and miles on miles,
+In distance far withdrawn,
+Stretching on, and on, and on,
+Till the fancy is footsore
+And faints in the dust before
+The last milestone's granite face,
+Hacked with: Here Beginneth Space.
+O far glimmering worlds and wings,
+Mystic smiles and beckonings,
+Lead us through the shadowy aisles
+Out into the afterwhiles.
+
+
+   _Herr Weiser_
+
+Herr Weiser--! Three-score-years-and-ten--,
+A hale white rose of his country-men,
+Transplanted here in the Hoosier loam,
+And blossomy as his German home--
+As blossomy and as pure and sweet
+As the cool green glen of his calm retreat,
+Far withdrawn from the noisy town
+Where trade goes clamoring up and down,
+Whose fret and fever, and stress and strife,
+May not trouble his tranquil life!
+
+Breath of rest, what a balmy gust--!
+Quite of the city's heat and dust,
+Jostling down by the winding road,
+Through the orchard ways of his quaint abode--.
+Tether the horse, as we onward fare
+Under the pear-trees trailing there,
+And thumping the wood bridge at night
+With lumps of ripeness and lush delight,
+Till the stream, as it maunders on till dawn,
+Is powdered and pelted and smiled upon.
+
+Herr Weiser, with his wholesome face,
+And the gentle blue of his eyes, and grace
+Of unassuming honesty,
+Be there to welcome you and me!
+And what though the toil of the farm be stopped
+And the tireless plans of the place be dropped,
+While the prayerful master's knees are set
+In beds of pansy and mignonette
+And lily and aster and columbine,
+Offered in love, as yours and mine--?
+
+What, but a blessing of kindly thought,
+Sweet as the breath of forget-me-not--!
+What, but a spirit of lustrous love
+White as the aster he bends above--!
+What, but an odorous memory
+Of the dear old man, made known to me
+In days demanding a help like his--,
+As sweet as the life of the lily is--
+As sweet as the soul of a babe, bloom-wise
+Born of a lily in paradise.
+
+   _The Beautiful City_
+
+The Beautiful City! Forever
+Its rapturous praises resound;
+We fain would behold it-- but never
+A glimpse of its dory is found:
+We slacken our lips at the tender
+White breasts of our mothers to hear
+Of its marvellous beauty and splendor--;
+We see-- but the gleam of a tear!
+
+Yet never the story may tire us--
+First graven in symbols of stone--
+Rewritten on scrolls of papyrus
+And parchment, and scattered and blown
+By the winds of the tongues of all nations,
+Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled
+Down the rack of a hundred translations,
+From the earliest lisp of the world.
+
+We compass the earth and the ocean,
+From the Orient's uttermost light,
+To where the last ripple in motion
+Lips hem of the skirt of the night--,
+But the Beautiful City evades us--
+No spire of it glints in the sun--
+No glad-bannered battlement shades us
+When all our Journey is done.
+
+Where lies it? We question and listen;
+We lean from the mountain, or mast,
+And see but dull earth, or the glisten
+Of seas inconceivably vast:
+The dust of the one blurs our vision,
+The glare of the other our brain,
+Nor city nor island Elysian
+In all of the land or the main!
+
+We kneel in dim fanes where the thunders
+Of organs tumultuous roll,
+And the longing heart listens and wonders,
+And the eyes look aloft from the soul:
+But the chanson grows fainter and fainter,
+Swoons wholly away and is dead;
+AND our eyes only reach where the painter
+Has dabbled a saint overhead.
+
+The Beautiful City! O mortal,
+Fare hopefully on in thy quest,
+Pass down through the green grassy portal
+That leads to the Valley of Rest;
+There first passed the One who, in pity
+Of all thy great yearning, awaits
+To point out The Beautiful City,
+And loosen the trump at the gates.
+
+
+   _Lockerbie Street_
+
+Such a dear little street it is, nestled away
+From the noise of the city and heat of the day,
+In cool shady coverts of whispering trees,
+With their leaves lifted up to shake hands with the breeze
+Which in all its wide wanderings never may meet
+With a resting-place fairer than Lockerbie street!
+
+There is such a relief, from the clangor and din
+Of the heart of the town, to go loitering in
+Through the dim, narrow walks, with the sheltering shade
+Of the trees waving over the long promenade,
+And littering lightly the ways of our feet
+With the gold of the sunshine of Lockerbie street.
+
+And the nights that come down the dark pathways of dusk,
+With the stars in their tresses, and odors of musk
+In their moon-woven raiments, bespangled with dews,
+And looped up with lilies for lovers to use
+In the songs that they sing to the tinkle and beat
+Of their sweet serenadings through Lockerbie street.
+
+O my Lockerbie street!  You are fair to be seen--
+Be it noon of the day, or the rare and serene
+Afternoon of the night-- you are one to my heart,
+And I love you above all the phrases of art,
+For no language could frame and no lips could repeat
+My rhyme-haunted raptures of Lockerbie street.
+
+
+   _Das Krist Kindel_
+
+I had fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in delight
+Snapped their saucy little fingers at the chill December night;
+And in dressing-gown and slippers, I had tilted back "my throne--"
+The old split-bottomed rocker-- and was musing all alone.
+
+I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the outer door,
+And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza floor;
+But the sounds came to me only as the murmur of a stream
+That mingled with the current of a lazy-flowing dream.
+
+Like a fragrant incense rising, curled the smoke of my cigar,
+With the lamplight gleaming through it like a mist-enfolded star--;
+And as I gazed, the vapor like a curtain rolled away,
+With a sound of bells that tinkled, and the clatter of a sleigh.
+
+And in a vision, painted like a picture in the air,
+I saw the elfish figure, of a man with frosty hair--
+A quaint old man that chuckled with a laugh as he appeared,
+And with ruddy cheeks like embers in the ashes of his beard.
+
+He poised himself grotesquely, in an attitude of mirth,
+On a damask-covered hassock that was sitting on the hearth;
+And at a magic signal of his stubbly little thumb,
+I saw the fireplace changing to a bright proscenium.
+
+And looking there, I marvelled as I saw a mimic stage
+Alive with little actors of a very tender age;
+And some so very tiny that they tottered as they walked,
+And lisped and purled and gurgled like the brooklets, when they talked.
+
+And their faces were like lilies, and their eyes like purest dew,
+And their tresses like the shadows that the shine is woven through;
+And they each had little burdens, and a little tale to tell
+Of fairy lore, and giants, and delights delectable.
+
+And they mixed and intermingled, weaving melody with joy,
+Till the magic circle clustered round a blooming baby-boy;
+And they threw aside their treasures in an ecstasy of glee,
+And bent, with dazzled faces and with parted lips, to see.
+
+'Twas a wondrous little fellow, with a dainty double-chin
+And chubby-cheeks, and dimples for the smiles to blossom in;
+And he looked as ripe and rosy, on his bed of straw and reeds,
+As a mellow little pippin that had tumbled in the weeds.
+
+And I saw the happy mother, and a group surrounding her
+That knelt with costly presents of frankincense and myrrh;
+And I thrilled with awe and wonder, as a murmur on the air
+Came drifting o'er the hearing in a melody of prayer--:
+
+By the splendor in the heavens, and the hush upon the sea,
+And the majesty of silence reigning over Galilee,
+We feel Thy kingly presence, and we humbly bow the knee
+And lift our hearts and voices in gratefulness to Thee.
+
+Thy messenger has spoken, and our doubts have fled and gone
+As the dark and spectral shadows of the night before the dawn;
+And in kindly shelter of the light around us drawn,
+We would nestle down forever in the breast we lean upon.
+
+You have given us a shepherd-- You have given us a guide,
+And the light of Heaven grew dimmer when You sent him from Your side--,
+But he comes to lead Thy children where the gates will open wide
+To welcome his returning when his works are glorified.
+
+By the splendor in the heavens, and the hush upon the sea,
+And the majesty of silence reigning over Galilee--,
+We feel Thy kingly presence, and we humbly bow the knee
+And lift our hearts and voices in gratefulness to Thee.
+
+Then the vision, slowly failing, with the words of the refrain,
+Fell swooning in the moonlight through the frosty window-pane;
+And I heard the clock proclaiming, like an eager sentinel
+Who brings the world good tidings--, "It is Christmas-- all is well!"
+
+
+   _Anselmo_
+
+Years did I vainly seek the good Lord's grace--,
+Prayed, fasted, and did penance dire and dread;
+Did kneel, with bleeding knees and rainy face,
+And mouth the dust, with ashes on my head;
+Yea, still with knotted scourge the flesh I flayed,
+Rent fresh the wounds, and moaned and shrieked insanely;
+And froth oozed with the pleadings that I made,
+And yet I prayed on vainly, vainly, vainly!
+
+A time, from out of swoon I lifted eye,
+To find a wretched outcast, gray and grim,
+Bathing my brow, with many a pitying sigh,
+And I did pray God's grace might rest on him--.
+Then, lo! A gentle voice fell on mine ears--
+"Thou shalt not sob in suppliance hereafter;
+Take up thy prayers and wring them dry of tears,
+And lift them, white and pure with love and laughter!"
+
+So is it now for all men else I pray;
+So is it I am blest and glad alway.
+
+
+   _A Home-Made Fairy Tale_
+
+Bud, come here to your uncle a spell,
+And I'll tell you something you mustn't tell--
+For it's a secret and shore-'nuf true,
+And maybe I oughtn't to tell it to you--!
+But out in the garden, under the shade
+Of the apple-trees, where we romped and played
+Till the moon was up, and you thought I'd gone
+Fast asleep--, That was all put on!
+For I was a-watchin' something queer
+Goin' on there in the grass, my dear--!
+'Way down deep in it, there I see
+A little dude-Fairy who winked at me,
+And snapped his fingers, and laughed as low
+And fine as the whine of a mus-kee-to!
+I kept still-- watchin' him closer-- and
+I noticed a little guitar in his hand,
+Which he leant 'ginst a little dead bee-- and laid
+His cigarette down on a clean grass-blade,
+And then climbed up on the shell of a snail--
+Carefully dusting his swallowtail--
+And pulling up, by a waxed web-thread,
+This little guitar, you remember. I said!
+And there he trinkled and trilled a tune--,
+"My Love, so Fair, Tans in the Moon!"
+Till presently, out of the clover-top
+He seemed to be singing to, came k'pop!
+The purtiest, daintiest Fairy face
+In all this world, or any place!
+Then the little ser'nader waved his hand,
+As much as to say, "We'll excuse you!" and
+I heard, as I squinted my eyelids to,
+A kiss like the drip of a drop of dew!
+
+
+   _The South Wind and the Sun_
+
+O The South Wind and the Sun!
+How each loved the other one
+Full of fancy--- full folly--
+Full of jollity and fun!
+How they romped and ran about,
+Like two boys when school is out,
+With glowing face, and lisping lip,
+Low laugh, and lifted shout!
+
+And the South Wind-- he was dressed
+With a ribbon round his breast
+That floated, flapped and fluttered
+In a riotous unrest,
+And a drapery of mist
+From the shoulder and the wrist
+Flowing backward with the motion
+Of the waving hand he kissed.
+
+And the Sun had on a crown
+Wrought of gilded thistle-down,
+And a scarf of velvet vapor,
+And a ravelled-rainbow gown;
+And his tinsel-tangled hair,
+Tossed and lost upon the air,
+Was glossier and flossier
+Than any anywhere.
+
+And the South Wind's eyes were two
+Little dancing drops of dew,
+As he puffed his cheeks, and pursed his lips,
+And blew and blew and blew!
+And the Sun's-- like diamond-stone,
+Brighter yet than ever known,
+As he knit his brows and held his breath,
+And shone and shone and shone!
+
+And this pair of merry fays
+Wandered through the summer days;
+Arm-in-arm they went together
+Over heights of morning haze--
+Over slanting slopes of lawn
+They went on and on and on,
+Where the daisies looked like star-tracks
+Trailing up and down the dawn.
+
+And where'er they found the top
+Of a wheat-stalk droop and lop
+They chucked it underneath the chin
+And praised the lavish crop,
+Till it lifted with the pride
+Of the heads it grew beside,
+And then the South Wind and the Sun
+Went onward satisfied.
+
+Over meadow-lands they tripped,
+Where the dandelions dipped
+In crimson foam of clover-bloom,
+And dripped and dripped and dripped;
+And they clinched the bumble-stings,
+Gauming honey on their wings,
+And bundling them in lily-bells,
+With maudlin murmurings.
+
+And the humming-bird that hung
+Like a jewel up among
+The tilted honeysuckle-horns,
+They mesmerized, and swung
+In the palpitating air,
+Drowsed with odors strange and rare,
+And with whispered laughter, slipped away,
+And left him hanging there.
+
+And they braided blades of grass
+Where the truant had to pass;
+And they wriggled through the rushes
+And the reeds of the morass,
+Where they danced, in rapture sweet,
+O'er the leaves that laid a street
+Of undulant mosaic for
+The touches of their feet.
+
+By the brook with mossy brink
+Where the cattle came to drink.
+They trilled and piped and whistled
+With the thrush and bobolink,
+Till the kine in listless pause,
+Switched their tails in mute applause,
+With lifted heads and dreamy eyes,
+And bubble-dripping jaws.
+
+And where the melons grew,
+Streaked with yellow, green and blue
+These jolly sprites went wandering
+Through spangled paths of dew;
+And the melons, here and there,
+They made love to, everywhere
+Turning their pink souls to crimson
+With caresses fond and fair.
+
+Over orchard walls they went,
+Where the fruited boughs were bent
+Till they brushed the sward beneath them
+Where the shine and shadow blent;
+And the great green pear they shook
+Till the sallow hue forsook
+Its features, and the gleam of gold
+Laughed out in every look.
+
+And they stroked the downy cheek
+Of the peach, and smoothed it sleek,
+And flushed it into splendor;
+And with many an elfish freak,
+Gave the russet's rust a wipe--
+Prankt the rambo with a stripe,
+And the wine-sap blushed its reddest
+As they spanked the pippins ripe.
+
+Through the woven ambuscade
+That the twining vines had made,
+They found the grapes, in clusters,
+Drinking up the shine and shade--
+Plumpt like tiny skins of wine,
+With a vintage so divine
+That the tongue of fancy tingled
+With the tang of muscadine.
+
+And the golden-banded bees,
+Droning o'er the flowery leas,
+They bridled, reigned, and rode away
+Across the fragrant breeze,
+Till in hollow oak and elm
+They had groomed and stabled them
+In waxen stalls oozed with dews
+Of rose and lily-stem.
+
+Where the dusty highway leads,
+High above the wayside weeds
+They sowed the air with butterflies
+Like blooming flower-seeds,
+Till the dull grasshopper sprung
+Half a man's height up, and hung
+Tranced in the heat, with whirring wings,
+And sung and sung and sung!
+
+And they loitered, hand in hand,
+Where the snipe along the sand
+Of the river ran to meet them
+As the ripple meets the land,
+Till the dragon-fly, in light
+Gauzy armor, burnished bright,
+Came tilting down the waters
+In a wild, bewildered flight.
+
+And they heard the killdee's call,
+And afar, the waterfall,
+But the rustle of a falling leaf
+They heard above it all;
+And the trailing willow crept
+Deeper in the tide that swept
+The leafy shallop to the shore,
+And wept and wept and wept!
+
+And the fairy vessel veered
+From its moorings-- tacked and steered
+For the centre of the current
+Sailed away and disappeared:
+And the burthen that it bore
+From the long-enchanted shore--
+"Alas! The South Wind and the Sun!"
+I murmur evermore.
+
+For the South Wind and the Sun,
+Each so loves the other one,
+For all his jolly folly
+And frivolity and fun,
+That our love for them they weigh
+As their fickle fancies may,
+And when at last we love them most,
+They laugh and sail away.
+
+
+   _The Lost Kiss_
+
+I put by the half-written poem,
+While the pen, idly trailed in my hand,
+Writes on--, "Had I words to complete it,
+Who'd read it, or who'd understand?"
+But the little bare feet on the stairway,
+And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,
+And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,
+Cry up to me over it all.
+
+So I gather it up-- where was broken
+The tear-faded thread of my theme,
+Telling how, as one night I sat writing,
+A fairy broke in on my dream,
+A little inquisitive fairy--
+My own little girl, with the gold
+Of the sun in her hair, and the dewy
+Blue eyes of the fairies of old.
+
+'Twas the dear little girl that I scolded--
+"For was it a moment like this,"
+I said, "when she knew I was busy,
+To come romping in for a kiss--?
+Come rowdying up from her mother,
+And clamoring there at my knee
+For 'One 'ittle kiss for my dolly,
+And one 'ittle uzzer for me!"
+
+God pity, the heart that repelled her,
+And the cold hand that turned her away,
+And take, from the lips that denied her,
+This answerless prayer of to-day!
+Take Lord, from my mem'ry forever
+That pitiful sob of despair,
+And the patter and trip of the little bare feet,
+And the one piercing cry on the stair!
+
+I put by the half-written poem,
+While the pen, idly trailed in my hand
+Writes on--, "Had I words to complete it
+Who'd read it, or who'd understand?"
+But the little bare feet on the stairway,
+And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,
+And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,
+Cry up to me over it all.
+
+
+   _The Sphinx_
+
+I know all about the Sphinx--
+I know even what she thinks,
+Staring with her stony eyes
+Up forever at the skies.
+
+For last night I dreamed that she
+Told me all the mystery--
+Why for aeons mute she sat--:
+She was just cut out for that!
+
+
+   _If I knew What Poets Know_
+
+If I knew what poets know,
+Would I write a rhyme
+Of the buds that never blow
+In the summer-time ?
+Would I sing of golden seeds
+Springing up in ironweeds?
+And of raindrops turned to snow,
+If I knew what poets know?
+
+Did I know what poets do,
+Would I sing a song
+Sadder than the pigeon's coo
+When the days are long?
+Where I found a heart in pain,
+I would make it glad again;
+And the false should be the true,
+Did I know what poets do.
+
+If I knew what poets know,
+I would find a theme
+Sweeter than the placid flow
+Of the fairest dream:
+I would sing of love that lives
+On the errors it forgives;
+And the world would better grow
+If I knew what poets know.
+
+
+   _Ike Walton's Prayer_
+
+I crave, dear Lord,
+No boundless hoard
+Of gold and gear,
+Nor jewels fine,
+Nor lands, nor kine,
+Nor treasure-heaps of anything--.
+Let but a little hut be mine
+Where at the hearthstone I may hear
+The cricket sing,
+And have the shine
+Of one glad woman's eyes to make,
+For my poor sake,
+Our simple home a place divine--;
+Just the wee cot-- the cricket's chirr--
+Love and the smiling face of her.
+
+I pray not for
+Great riches, nor
+For vast estates and castle-halls--,
+Give me to hear the bare footfalls
+Of children o'er
+An oaken floor
+New-rinsed with sunshine, or bespread
+With but the tiny coverlet
+And pillow for the baby's head;
+And pray Thou, may
+The door stand open and the day
+Send ever in a gentle breeze,
+With fragrance from the locust-trees,
+And drowsy moan of doves, and blur
+Of robin-chirps, and drone of bees,
+With after-hushes of the stir
+Of intermingling sounds, and then
+The good-wife and the smile of her
+Filling the silences again--
+The cricket's call
+And the wee cot,
+Dear Lord of all,
+Deny me not!
+
+I pray not that
+Men tremble at
+My power of place
+And lordly sway--,
+I only pray for simple grace
+To look my neighbor in the face
+Full honestly from day to day--
+Yield me his horny palm to hold.
+And I'll not pray
+For gold--;
+The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,
+It hath the kingliest smile on earth;
+The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,
+Hath never need of coronet.
+And so I reach,
+Dear Lord, to Thee,
+And do beseech
+Thou givest me
+The wee cot, and the cricket's chirr,
+Love and the glad sweet face of her!
+
+
+   _A Rough Sketch_
+
+I caught, for a second, across the crowd--
+Just for a second, and barely that--
+A face, pox-pitted and evil-browed,
+Hid in the shade of a slouch-rim'd hat--
+With small gray eyes, of a look as keen
+As the long, sharp nose that grew between.
+
+And I said: 'Tis a sketch of Nature's own,
+Drawn i' the dark o' the moon, I swear,
+On a tatter of Fate that the winds have blown
+Hither and thither and everywhere--
+With its keen little sinister eyes of gray,
+And nose like the beak of a bird of prey!
+
+
+   _Our Kind of a Man_
+
+      1
+The kind of a man for you and me!
+He faces the world unflinchingly,
+And smites, as long as the wrong resists,
+With a knuckled faith and force like fists:
+He lives the life he is preaching of,
+And loves where most is the need of love;
+His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears,
+And his face sublime through the blind man's tears;
+The light shines out where the clouds were dim,
+And the widow's prayer goes up for him;
+The latch is clicked at the hovel door
+And the sick man sees the sun once more,
+And out o'er the barren fields he sees
+Springing blossoms and waving trees,
+Feeling as only the dying may,
+That God's own servant has come that way,
+Smoothing the path as it still winds on
+Through the golden gate where his loved have gone.
+
+      2
+The kind of a man for me and you!
+However little of worth we do
+He credits full, and abides in trust
+That time will teach us how more is just.
+He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds
+Of querulous and uneasy minds,
+And sympathizing, he shares the pain
+Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain;
+And knowing this, as we grasp his hand
+We are surely coming to understand!
+He looks on sin with pitying eyes--
+E'en as the Lord, since Paradise--,
+Else, should we read, Though our sins should glow
+As scarlet, they shall be white as snow--?
+And feeling still, with a grief half glad,
+That the bad are as good as the good are bad,
+He strikes straight out for the Right-- and he
+Is the kind of a man for you and me!
+
+
+   _The Harper_
+
+Like a drift of faded blossoms
+Caught in a slanting rain,
+His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp
+In a tremulous refrain:
+
+Patter and tinkle, and drip and drip!
+Ah! But the chords were rainy sweet!
+And I closed my eyes and I bit my lip,
+As he played there in the street.
+
+Patter, and drip, and tinkle!
+And there was the little bed
+In the corner of the garret,
+And the rafters overhead!
+
+And there was the little window--
+Tinkle, and drip, and drip--!
+The rain above, and a mother's love,
+And God's companionship!
+
+
+   _Old Aunt Mary's_
+
+Wasn't it pleasant, O brother mine,
+In those old days of the lost sunshine
+Of youth-- when the Saturday's chores were through,
+And the "Sunday's wood" in the kitchen too,
+And we went visiting, "me and you,"
+Out to Old Aunt Mary's?
+
+It all comes back so clear to-day!
+Though I am as bald as you are gray--
+Out by the barn-lot, and down the lane,
+We patter along in the dust again,
+As light as the tips of the drops of the rain,
+Out to Old Aunt Mary's!
+
+We cross the pasture, and through the wood
+Where the old gray snag of the poplar stood,
+Where the hammering "red-heads" hopped awry,
+And the buzzard "raised" in the "clearing" sky
+And lolled and circled, as we went by
+Out to Old Aunt Mary's.
+
+And then in the dust of the road again;
+And the teams we met, and the countrymen;
+And the long highway, with sunshine spread
+As thick as butter on country bread,
+Our cares behind, and our hearts ahead
+Out to Old Aunt Mary's.
+
+Why, I see her now in the open door,
+Where the little gourds grew up the sides and o'er
+The clapboard roof--! And her face-- ah, me!
+Wasn't it good for a boy to see--
+And wasn't it good for a boy to be
+Out to Old Aunt Mary's?
+
+The jelly-- the Jam and the marmalade,
+And the cherry and quince "preserves'' she made!
+And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear,
+With cinnamon in 'em, and all things rare--!
+And the more we ate was the more to spare,
+Out to Old Aunt Mary's!
+
+And the old spring-house in the cool green gloom
+Of the willow-trees--, and the cooler room
+Where the swinging-shelves and the crocks were kept--
+Where the cream in a golden languor slept
+While the waters gurgled and laughed and wept--
+Out to Old Aunt Mary's.
+
+And O my brother, so far away,
+This is to tell you she waits to-day
+To welcome us--: Aunt Mary fell
+Asleep this morning, whispering-- "Tell
+The boys to come!" And all is well
+Out to Old Aunt Mary's.
+
+
+   _Illileo_
+
+Illileo, the moonlight seemed lost across the vales--
+The stars but strewed the azure as an armor's scattered scales;
+The airs of night were quiet as the breath of silken sails,
+And all your words were sweeter than the notes of nightingales.
+
+Illileo Legardi, in the garden there alone,
+With your figure carved of fervor, as the Psyche carved of stone,
+There came to me no murmur of the fountain's undertone
+So mystically, musically mellow as your own.
+
+You whispered low, Illileo-- so low the leaves were mute,
+And the echoes faltered breathless in your voice's vain pursuit;
+And there died the distant dalliance of the serenader's lute:
+And I held you in my bosom as the husk may hold the fruit.
+
+Illileo, I listened. I believed you. In my bliss,
+What were all the worlds above me since I found you thus in this--?
+Let them reeling reach to win me-- even Heaven I would miss,
+Grasping earthward--! I would cling here, though I clung by just a kiss.
+
+And blossoms should grow odorless-- and lilies all aghast--
+And I said the stars should slacken in their paces through the vast,
+Ere yet my loyalty should fail enduring to the last--.
+So vowed I. It is written. It is changeless as the past.
+
+IIlileo Legardi, in the shade your palace throws
+Like a cowl about the singer at your gilded porticos,
+A moan goes with the music that may vex the high repose
+Of a heart that fades and crumbles as the crimson of a rose.
+
+
+   _The King_
+
+They rode right out of the morning sun--
+A glimmering, glittering cavalcade
+Of knights and ladies and every one
+In princely sheen arrayed;
+And the king of them all, O he rode ahead,
+With a helmet of gold, and a plume of red
+That spurted about in the breeze and bled
+In the bloom of the everglade.
+
+And they rode high over the dewy lawn,
+With brave, glad banners of every hue
+That rolled in ripples, as they rode on
+In splendor, two and two;
+And the tinkling links of the golden reins
+Of the steeds they rode rang such refrains
+As the castanets in a dream of Spain's
+Intensest gold and blue.
+
+And they rode and rode; and the steeds they neighed
+And pranced, and the sun on their glossy hides
+Flickered and lightened and glanced and played
+Like the moon on rippling tides;
+
+And their manes were silken, and thick and strong,
+And their tails were flossy, and fetlock-long,
+And jostled in time to the teeming throng,
+And their knightly song besides.
+
+Clank of scabbard and jingle of spur,
+And the fluttering sash of the queen went wild
+In the wind, and the proud king glanced at her
+As one at a wilful child--,
+And as knight and lady away they flew,
+And the banners flapped, and the falcon too,
+And the lances flashed and the bugle blew,
+He kissed his hand and smiled.
+
+And then, like a slanting sunlit shower,
+The pageant glittered across the plain,
+And the turf spun back, and the wildweed flower
+Was only a crimson stain.
+And a dreamer's eyes they are downward cast,
+As he blends these words with the wailing blast:
+"It is the King of the Year rides past!"
+And Autumn is here again.
+
+
+   _A Bride_
+
+"O I am weary!" she sighed, as her billowy
+Hair she unloosed in a torrent of gold
+That rippled and fell o'er a figure as willowy,
+Graceful and fair as a goddess of old:
+Over her jewels she flung herself drearily,
+Crumpled the laces that snowed on her breast,
+Crushed with her fingers the lily that wearily
+Clung in her hair like a dove in its nest--.
+And naught but her shadowy form in the mirror
+To kneel in dumb agony down and weep near her!
+
+"Weary--?" Of what? Could we fathom the mystery--?
+Lift up the lashes weighed down by her tears
+And wash with their dews one white face from her history,
+Set like a gem in the red rust of years?
+Nothing will rest her-- unless he who died of her
+Strayed from his grave, and in place of the groom,
+Tipping her face, kneeling there by the side of her,
+Drained the old kiss to the dregs of his doom--.
+And naught but that shadowy form in the mirror
+To heel in dumb agony down and weep near her!
+
+
+   _The Dead Lover_
+
+Time is so long when a man is dead!
+Some one sews; and the room is made
+Very clean; and the light is shed
+Soft through the window-shade.
+
+Yesterday I thought: "I know
+Just how the bells will sound, and how
+The friends will talk, and the sermon go,
+And the hearse-horse bow and bow!"
+
+This is to-day; and I have no thing
+To think of-- nothing whatever to do
+But to hear the throb of the pulse of a wing
+That wants to fly back to you.
+
+
+   _A Song_
+
+There is ever a song somewhere, my dear;
+There is ever a something sings alway:
+There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear,
+And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray.
+The sunshine showers across the grain,
+And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree;
+And in and out, when the eaves dip rain,
+The swallows are twittering ceaselessly.
+
+There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
+Be the skies above or dark or fair,
+There is ever a song that our hearts may hear--
+There is ever a song somewhere, my dear
+There is ever a song somewhere!
+
+There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
+In the midnight black, or the mid-day blue:
+The robin pipes when the sun is here,
+And the cricket chirrups the whole night through.
+The buds may blow, and the fruit may grow,
+And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sear;
+But whether the sun, or the rain, or the snow,
+There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.
+
+There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
+Be the skies above or dark or fair,
+There is ever a song that our hearts may hear--
+There is ever a song somewhere, my dear--
+There is ever a song somewhere!
+
+
+   _When Bessie Died_
+
+If from your own the dimpled hands had slipped,
+And ne'er would nestle in your palm again;
+If the white feet into the grave had tripped--"
+
+When Bessie died--
+We braided the brown hair, and tied
+It just as her own little hands
+Had fastened back the silken strands
+A thousand times-- the crimson bit
+Of ribbon woven into it
+That she had worn with childish pride--
+Smoothed down the dainty bow-- and cried
+When Bessie died.
+
+When Bessie died--
+We drew the nursery blinds aside,
+And as the morning in the room
+Burst like a primrose into bloom,
+Her pet canary's cage we hung
+Where she might hear him when he sung--
+And yet not any note he tried,
+Though she lay listening folded-eyed.
+
+When Bessie died--
+We writhed in prayer unsatisfied:
+We begged of God, and He did smile
+In silence on us all the while;
+And we did see Him, through our tears,
+Enfolding that fair form of hers,
+She laughing back against His love
+The kisses had nothing of--
+And death to us He still denied,
+When Bessie died--
+When Bessie died.
+
+
+   _The Shower_
+
+The landscape, like the awed face of a child,
+Grew curiously blurred; a hush of death
+Fell on the fields, and in the darkened wild
+The zephyr held its breath.
+
+No wavering glamour-work of light and shade
+Dappled the shivering surface of the brook;
+The frightened ripples in their ambuscade
+Of willows thrilled and shook.
+
+The sullen day grew darker, and anon
+Dim flashes of pent anger lit the sky;
+With rumbling wheels of wrath came rolling on
+The storm's artillery.
+
+The cloud above put on its blackest frown,
+And then, as with a vengeful cry of pain,
+The lightning snatched it, ripped and flung it down
+In ravelled shreds of rain:
+
+While I, transfigured by some wondrous art,
+Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod,
+My empty soul brimmed over, and my heart
+Drenched with the love of God.
+
+
+   _A Life Lesson_
+
+There! Little girl; don't cry!
+They have broken your doll, I know;
+And your tea-set blue,
+And your play-house too,
+Are things of the long ago;
+But childish troubles will soon pass by--.
+There! Little girl; don't cry!
+
+There! Little girl; don't cry!
+They have broken your slate, I know;
+And the glad, wild ways
+Of your school-girl days
+Are things of the long ago;
+But life and love will soon come by--.
+There! Little girl; don't cry!
+
+There! Little girl; don't cry!
+They have broken your heart, I know;
+And the rainbow gleams
+Of your youthful dreams
+Are things of the long ago;
+But heaven holds all for which you sigh--.
+There! Little girl; don't cry!
+
+
+   _A Scrawl_
+
+I want to sing something-- but this is all--
+I try and I try, but the rhymes are dull
+As though they were damp, and the echoes fall
+Limp and unlovable.
+
+Words will not say what I yearn to say--
+They will not walk as I want them to,
+But they stumble and fall in the path of the way
+Of my telling my love for you.
+
+Simply take what the scrawl is worth--
+Knowing I love you as sun the sod
+On the ripening side of the great round earth
+That swings in the smile of God.
+
+
+   _Away_
+
+I cannot say, and I will not say
+That he is dead--. He is just away!
+
+With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand
+He has wandered into an unknown land,
+
+And left us dreaming how very fair
+It needs must be, since he lingers there.
+
+And you-- O you, who the wildest yearn
+For the old-time step and the glad return--,
+
+Think of him faring on, as dear
+In the love of There as the love of Here;
+
+And loyal still, as he gave the blows
+Of his warrior-strength to his country's foes--.
+
+Mild and gentle, as he was brave--,
+When the sweetest love of his life he gave
+
+To simple things--: Where the violets grew
+Blue as the eyes they were likened to,
+
+The touches of his hands have strayed
+As reverently as his lips have prayed:
+
+When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred
+Was dear to him as the mocking-bird;
+
+And he pitied as much as a man in pain
+A writhing honey-bee wet with rain--.
+
+Think of him still as the same, I say:
+He is not dead-- he is just away!
+
+
+   _Who Bides His Time_
+
+Who bides his time, and day by day
+Faces defeat full patiently,
+And lifts a mirthful roundelay,
+However poor his fortunes be--,
+He will not fail in any qualm
+Of poverty-- the paltry dime
+It will grow golden in his palm,
+Who bides his time.
+
+Who bides his time-- he tastes the sweet
+Of honey in the saltest tear;
+And though he fares with slowest feet,
+Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;
+The birds are heralds of his cause;
+And like a never-ending rhyme,
+The roadsides bloom in his applause,
+Who bides his time.
+
+Who bides his time, and fevers not
+In the hot race that none achieves,
+Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought
+With crimson berries in the leaves;
+And he shall reign a goodly king,
+And sway his hand o'er every clime,
+With peace writ on his signet-ring,
+Who bides his time.
+
+
+   _From the Headboard of a Grave in Paraguay_
+
+A troth, and a grief, and a blessing,
+Disguised them and came this way--,
+And one was a promise, and one was a doubt,
+And one was a rainy day.
+
+And they met betimes with this maiden,
+And the promise it spake and lied,
+And the doubt it gibbered and hugged itself,
+And the rainy day-- she died.
+
+
+   _Laughter Holding Both His Sides_
+
+Ay, thou varlet! Laugh away!
+All the world's a holiday!
+Laugh away, and roar and shout
+Till thy hoarse tongue lolleth out!
+Bloat thy cheeks, and bulge thine eyes
+Unto bursting; pelt thy thighs
+With thy swollen palms, and roar
+As thou never hast before!
+Lustier! Wilt thou! Peal on peal!
+Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel--
+Wrestle with thy loins, and then
+Wheeze thee whiles, and whoop again!
+
+
+   _Fame_
+
+      1
+Once, in a dream, I saw a man,
+With haggard face and tangled hair,
+And eyes that nursed as wild a care
+As gaunt Starvation ever can;
+And in his hand he held a wand
+Whose magic touch gave life and thought
+Unto a form his fancy wrought
+And robed with coloring so grand,
+It seemed the reflex of some child
+Of Heaven, fair and undefiled--
+A face of purity and love--
+To woo him into worlds above:
+And as I gazed with dazzled eyes,
+A gleaming smile lit up his lips
+As his bright soul from its eclipse
+Went flashing into Paradise.
+Then tardy Fame came through the door
+And found a picture-- nothing more.
+
+      2
+And once I saw a man alone,
+In abject poverty, with hand
+Uplifted o'er a block of stone
+That took a shape at his command
+And smiled upon him, fair and good--
+A perfect work of womanhood,
+Save that the eyes might never weep,
+Nor weary hands be crossed in sleep,
+Nor hair that fell from crown to wrist,
+Be brushed away, caressed and kissed.
+And as in awe I gazed on her,
+I saw the sculptor's chisel fall--
+I saw him sink, without a moan,
+Sink life less at the feet of stone,
+And lie there like a worshipper.
+Fame crossed the threshold of the hall,
+And found a statue-- that was all.
+
+      3
+And once I saw a man who drew
+A gloom about him like cloak,
+And wandered aimlessly. The few
+Who spoke of him at all, but spoke
+Disparagingly of a mind
+The Fates had faultily designed:
+Too indolent for modern times--
+Too fanciful, and full of whims--
+For talking to himself in rhymes,
+And scrawling never-heard-of hymns,
+The idle life to which he clung
+Was worthless as the songs he sung!
+I saw him, in my vision, filled
+With rapture o'er a spray of bloom
+The wind threw in his lonely room;
+And of the sweet perfume it spilled
+He drank to drunkenness, and flung
+His long hair back, and laughed and sung
+And clapped his hands as children do
+At fairy tales they listen to,
+While from his flying quill there dripped
+Such music on his manuscript
+That he who listens to the words
+May close his eyes and dream the birds
+Are twittering on every hand
+A language he can understand.
+He journeyed on through life unknown,
+Without one friend to call his own;
+He tired. No kindly hand to press
+The cooling touch of tenderness
+Upon his burning brow, nor lift
+To his parched lips God's freest gift--
+No sympathetic sob or sigh
+Of trembling lips-- no sorrowing eye
+Looked out through tears to see him die.
+And Fame her greenest laurels brought
+To crown a head that heeded not.
+
+And this is Fame! A thing indeed,
+That only comes when least the need:
+The wisest minds of every age
+The book of life from page to page
+Have searched in vain; each lesson conned
+Will promise it the page beyond--
+Until the last, when dusk of night
+Falls over it, and reason's light
+Is smothered by that unknown friend
+Who signs his nom de plume, The End.
+
+
+   _The Ripest Peach_
+
+The ripest peach is highest on the tree--
+And so her love, beyond the reach of me,
+Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes bow
+Her heart down to me where I worship now!
+
+She looms aloft where every eye may see
+The ripest peach is highest on the tree.
+Such fruitage as her love I know, alas!
+I may not reach here from the orchard grass.
+
+I drink the sunshine showered past her lips
+As roses drain the dewdrop as it drips.
+The ripest peach is highest on the tree,
+And so mine eyes gaze upward eagerly.
+
+Why-- why do I not turn away in wrath
+And pluck some heart here hanging in my path--?
+Lover's lower boughs bend with them-- but, ah me!
+The ripest peach is highest on the tree!
+
+
+   _A Fruit Piece_
+
+The afternoon of summer folds
+Its warm arms round the marigolds,
+
+And with its gleaming fingers, pets
+The watered pinks and violets
+
+That from the casement vases spill,
+Over the cottage window-sill,
+
+Their fragrance down the garden walks
+Where droop the dry-mouthed hollyhocks.
+
+How vividly the sunshine scrawls
+The grape-vine shadows on the walls!
+
+How like a truant swings the breeze
+In high boughs of the apple-trees!
+
+The slender "free-stone" lifts aloof,
+Full languidly above the roof,
+
+A hoard of fruitage, stamped with gold
+And precious mintings manifold.
+
+High up, through curled green leaves, a pear
+Hangs hot with ripeness here and there.
+
+Beneath the sagging trellisings,
+In lush, lack-lustre clusterings,
+
+Great torpid grapes, all fattened through
+With moon and sunshine, shade and dew,
+
+Until their swollen girths express
+But forms of limp deliciousness--
+
+Drugged to an indolence divine
+With heaven's own sacramental wine.
+
+
+   _Their Sweet Sorrow_
+
+They meet to say farewell: Their way
+Of saying this is hard to say--.
+He holds her hand an Instant, wholly
+Distressed-- and she unclasps it slowly,
+
+He lends his gaze evasively
+Over the printed page that she
+Recurs to, with a new-moon shoulder
+Glimpsed from the lace-mists that infold her.
+
+The clock, beneath its crystal cup,
+Discreetly clicks-- "Quick! Act! Speak up!"
+A tension circles both her slender
+Wrists-- and her raised eyes flash in splendor,
+
+Even as he feels his dazzled own--.
+Then blindingly, round either thrown,
+They feel a stress of arms that ever
+Strain tremblingly-- and "Never! Never!"
+
+Is whispered brokenly, with half
+A sob, like a belated laugh--,
+While cloyingly their blurred kiss closes--,
+Sweet as the dew's lip to the rose's.
+
+
+   _John McKeen_
+
+John McKeen, in his rusty dress,
+His loosened collar, and swarthy throat,
+His face unshaven, and none the less,
+His hearty laugh and his wholesomeness,
+And the wealth of a workman's vote!
+
+Bring him, O Memory, here once more,
+And tilt him back in his Windsor chair
+By the kitchen stove, when the day is o'er
+And the light of the hearth is across the floor,
+And the crickets everywhere!
+
+And let their voices be gladly blent
+With a watery jingle of pans and spoons,
+And a motherly chirrup of sweet content,
+And neighborly gossip and merriment,
+And old-time fiddle-tunes!
+
+Tick the clock with a wooden sound,
+And fill the hearing with childish glee
+Of rhyming riddle, or story found
+In the Robinson Crusoe, leather-bound
+Old book of the Used-to-be!
+
+John McKeen of the Past! Ah John,
+To have grown ambitious in worldly ways--!
+To have rolled your shirt-sleeves down, to don
+A broadcloth suit, and forgetful, gone
+Out on election days!
+
+John ah, John! Did it prove your worth
+To yield you the office you still maintain--?
+To fill your pockets, but leave the dearth
+Of all the happier things on earth
+To the hunger of heart and brain?
+
+Under the dusk of your villa trees,
+Edging the drives where your blooded span
+Paw the pebbles and wait your ease--,
+Where are the children about your knees,
+And the mirth, and the happy man?
+
+The blinds of your mansion are battened to;
+Your faded wife is a close recluse;
+And your "finished" daughters will doubtless do
+Dutifully all that is willed of you,
+And marry as you shall choose--!
+
+But O for the old-home voices, blent
+With the watery jingle of pans and spoons,
+And the motherly chirrup of glad content,
+And neighborly gossip and merriment,
+And the old-time fiddle-tunes!
+
+   _Out of Nazareth_
+
+"He shall sleep unscathed of thieves
+Who loves Allah and believes."
+Thus heard one who shared the tent,
+In the far-off Orient,
+Of the Bedouin ben Ahrzz--
+Nobler never loved the stars
+Through the palm-leaves nigh the dim
+Dawn his courser neighed to him!
+
+He said: "Let the sands be swarmed
+With such thieves as I, and thou
+Shalt at morning rise unharmed,
+Light as eyelash to the brow
+Of thy camel amber-eyed,
+Ever munching either side,
+Striding still, with nestled knees,
+Through the midnight's oases."
+
+"Who can rob thee an thou hast
+More than this that thou hast cast
+At my feet-- this dust of gold?
+Simply this and that, all told!
+Hast thou not a treasure of
+Such a thing as men call love?"
+
+"Can the dusky band I lead
+Rob thee of thy daily need
+Of a whiter soul, or steal
+What thy lordly prayers reveal?
+Who could be enriched of thee
+By such hoard of poverty
+As thy niggard hand pretends
+To dole me-- thy worst of friends?
+Therefore shouldst thou pause to bless
+One indeed who blesses thee:
+Robbing thee, I dispossess
+But myself--. Pray thou for me!"
+
+He shall sleep unscathed of thieves
+Who loves Allah and believes.
+
+
+   _September Dark_
+
+      1
+The air falls chill;
+The whippoorwill
+Pipes lonesomely behind the Hill:
+The dusk grows dense,
+The silence tense;
+And lo, the katydids commence.
+
+      2
+Through shadowy rifts
+Of woodland lifts
+The low, slow moon, and upward drifts,
+While left and right
+The fireflies' light
+Swirls eddying in the skirts of Night.
+
+      3
+O Cloudland gray
+And level lay
+Thy mists across the face of Day!
+At foot and head,
+Above the dead
+O Dews, weep on uncomforted!
+
+
+   _We To Sigh Instead of Sing_
+
+"Rain and rain! And rain and rain!"
+Yesterday we muttered
+Grimly as the grim refrain
+That the thunders uttered:
+All the heavens under cloud--
+All the sunshine sleeping;
+All the grasses limply bowed
+With their weight of weeping.
+
+Sigh and sigh! And sigh and sigh!
+Never end of sighing;
+Rain and rain for our reply--
+Hopes half drowned and dying;
+Peering through the window-pane,
+Naught but endless raining--
+Endless sighing, and as vain,
+Endlessly complaining,
+
+Shine and shine! And shine and shine!
+Ah! To-day the splendor--!
+All this glory yours and mine--
+God! But God is tender!
+We to sigh instead of sing,
+Yesterday, in sorrow,
+While the Lord was fashioning
+This for our To-morrow!
+
+
+   _The Blossoms on the Trees_
+
+Blossoms crimson, white, or blue,
+Purple, pink, and every hue,
+From sunny skies, to tintings drowned
+In dusky drops of dew,
+I praise you all, wherever found,
+And love you through and through--;
+But, Blossoms On The Trees,
+With your breath upon the breeze
+There's nothing all the world around
+As half as sweet as you!
+
+Could the rhymer only wring
+All the sweetness to the lees
+Of all the kisses clustering
+In juicy Used-to-bes,
+To dip his rhymes therein and sing
+The blossoms on the trees--,
+"O Blossoms on the Trees,"
+He would twitter, trill, and coo,
+"However sweet, such songs as these
+Are not as sweet as you--:
+For you are blooming melodies
+The eyes may listen to!"
+
+
+   _Last Night-- And This_
+
+Last night-- how deep the darkness was!
+And well I knew its depths, because
+I waded it from shore to shore,
+Thinking to reach the light no more.
+
+She would not even touch my hand---.
+The winds rose and the cedars fanned
+The moon out, and the stars fled back
+In heaven and hid-- and all was black!
+
+But ah! To-night a summons came,
+Signed with a tear-drop for a name,
+For as I wondering kissed it, lo
+A line beneath it told me so.
+
+And now-- the moon hangs over me
+A disk of dazzling brilliancy,
+And every star-tip stabs my sights
+With splintered glitterings of light!
+
+
+   _A Discouraging Model_
+
+Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing,
+With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing,
+Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air,
+And a knot of red roses sown in under there
+Where the shadows are lost in her hair.
+
+Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground
+Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound;
+And the gleam of a smile, O as fair and as faint
+And as sweet as the master of old used to paint
+Round the lips of their favorite saint!
+
+And that lace at her throat-- and fluttering hands
+Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands,
+The flakes of their touches-- first fluttering at
+The bow-- then the roses-- the hair and then that
+Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat.
+
+Ah, what artist on earth with a model like this,
+Holding not on his palette the tint of a kiss,
+Nor a pigment to hint of the hue of her hair
+Nor the gold of her smile-- O what artist could dare
+To expect a result half so fair?
+
+
+   _Back From a Two-years' Sentence_
+
+Back from a two-years' sentence!
+And though it had been ten,
+You think, I were scarred no deeper
+In the eyes of my fellow-men.
+"My fellow-men--?" Sounds like a satire,
+You think-- and I so allow,
+Here in my home since childhood,
+Yet more than a stranger now!
+
+Pardon--! Not wholly a stranger--,
+For I have a wife and child:
+That woman has wept for two long years,
+And yet last night she smiled--!
+Smiled, as I leapt from the platform
+Of the midnight train, and then--
+All that I knew was that smile of hers,
+And our babe in my arms again!
+
+Back from a two-years' sentence--
+But I've thought the whole thing through--,
+A hint of it came when the bars swung back
+And I looked straight up in the blue
+Of the blessed skies with my hat off!
+O-ho! I've a wife and child:
+That woman has wept for two long years,
+And yet last night she smiled!
+
+
+   _The Wandering Jew_
+
+The stars are falling, and the sky
+Is like a field of faded flowers;
+The winds on weary wings go by;
+The moon hides, and the tempest lowers;
+And still through every clime and age
+I wander on a pilgrimage
+That all men know an idle quest,
+For that the goal I seek is-- Rest!
+
+I hear the voice of summer streams,
+And following, I find the brink
+Of cooling springs, with childish dreams
+Returning as I bend to drink--
+But suddenly, with startled eyes,
+My face looks on its grim disguise
+Of long gray beard; and so, distressed,
+I hasten on, nor taste of rest.
+
+I come upon a merry group
+Of children in the dusky wood,
+Who answer back the owlet's whoop,
+That laughs as it had understood;
+And I would pause a little space,
+But that each happy blossom-face
+Is like to one His hands have blessed
+Who sent me forth in search of rest.
+
+Sometimes I fain would stay my feet
+In shady lanes, where huddled kine
+Couch in the grasses cool and sweet,
+And lift their patient eyes to mine;
+But I, for thoughts that ever then
+Go back to Bethlehem again,
+Must needs fare on my weary quest,
+And weep for very need of rest.
+
+Is there no end? I plead in vain:
+Lost worlds nor living answer me.
+Since Pontius Pilate's awful reign
+Have I not passed eternity?
+Have I not drunk the fetid breath
+Of every fevered phase of death,
+And come unscathed through every pest
+And scourge and plague that promised rest?
+
+Have I not seen the stars go out
+That shed their light o'er Galilee,
+And mighty kingdoms tossed about
+And crumbled clod-like in the sea?
+Dead ashes of dead ages blow
+And cover me like drifting snow,
+And time laughs on as 'twere a jest
+That I have any need of rest.
+
+   _Becalmed_
+
+      1
+Would that the winds might only blow
+As they blew in the golden long ago--!
+Laden with odors of Orient isles
+Where ever and ever the sunshine smiles,
+And the bright sands blend with the shady trees,
+And the lotus blooms in the midst of these.
+
+      2
+Warm winds won from the midland vales
+To where the tress of the Siren trails
+O'er the flossy tip of the mountain phlox
+And the bare limbs twined in the crested rocks,
+High above as the seagulls flap
+Their lopping wings at the thunder-clap.
+
+      3
+Ah! That the winds might rise and blow
+The great surge up from the port below,
+Bloating the sad, lank, silken sails
+Of the Argo out with the swift, sweet gales
+That blew from Colchis when Jason had
+His love's full will and his heart was glad--
+When Medea's voice was soft and low.
+Ah! That the winds might rise and blow!
+
+
+   _To Santa Claus_
+
+Most tangible of all the gods that be,
+O Santa Claus-- our own since Infancy!
+As first we scampered to thee-- now, as then,
+Take us as children to thy heart again.
+
+Be wholly good to us, just as of old:
+As a pleased father, let thine arms infold
+Us, homed within the haven of thy love,
+And all the cheer and wholesomeness thereof.
+
+Thou lone reality, when O so long
+Life's unrealities have wrought us wrong:
+Ambition hath allured us--, fame likewise,
+And all that promised honor in men's eyes.
+
+Throughout the world's evasions, wiles, and shifts,
+Thou only bidest stable as thy gifts--:
+A grateful king re-ruleth from thy lap,
+Crowned with a little tinselled soldier-cap:
+
+A mighty general-- a nation's pride--
+Thou givest again a rocking-horse to ride,
+And wildly glad he groweth as the grim
+Old jurist with the drum thou givest him:
+
+The sculptor's chisel, at thy mirth's command,
+Is as a whistle in his boyish hand;
+The painters model fadeth utterly,
+And there thou standest--, and he painteth thee--:
+
+Most like a winter pippin, sound and fine
+And tingling-red that ripe old face of thine,
+Set in thy frosty beard of cheek and chin
+As midst the snows the thaws of spring set in.
+
+Ho! Santa Claus-- our own since Infancy--
+Most tangible of all the gods that be--!
+As first we scampered to thee-- now, as then,
+Take us as children to thy heart again.
+
+
+   _Where the Children used to Play_
+
+The old farm-home is Mother's yet and mine,
+And filled it is with plenty and to spare--,
+But we are lonely here in life's decline,
+Though fortune smiles around us everywhere:
+We look across the gold
+Of the harvests, as of old--
+The corn, the fragrant clover, and the hay;
+But most we turn our gaze,
+As with eyes of other days,
+To the orchard where the children used to play.
+
+O from our life's full measure
+And rich hoard of worldly treasure
+We often turn our weary eyes away,
+And hand in hand we wander
+Down the old path winding yonder
+To the orchard where the children used to play.
+
+Our sloping pasture-lands are filled with herds;
+The barn and granary-bins are bulging o'ver;
+The grove's a paradise of singing birds--
+The woodland brook leaps laughing by the door;
+Yet lonely, lonely still,
+Let us prosper as we will,
+Our old hearts seem so empty everyway--
+We can only through a mist
+See the faces we have kissed
+In the orchard where the children used to play.
+
+O from our life's full measure
+And rich hoard of worldly treasure
+We often turn our weary eyes away,
+And hand in hand we wander
+Down the old path winding yonder
+To the orchard where the children used to play.
+
+
+   _A Glimpse of Pan_
+
+I caught but a glimpse of him. Summer was here.
+And I strayed from the town and its dust and heat.
+And walked in a wood, while the noon was near,
+Where the shadows were cool, and the atmosphere
+Was misty with fragrances stirred by my feet
+From surges of blossoms that billowed sheer
+Of the grasses, green and sweet.
+
+And I peered through a vista of leaning tree,
+Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept
+To the face of a river, that answered these
+With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze,
+Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept
+And kissed them, with quavering ecstasies,
+And wistfully laughed and wept
+
+And there, like a dream in swoon, I swear
+I saw Pan lying--, his limbs in the dew
+And the shade, and his face in the dazzle and glare
+Of the glad sunshine; while everywhere,
+Over across, and around him blew
+Filmy dragon-flies hither and there,
+And little white butterflies, two and two,
+In eddies of odorous air.
+
+
+
+      Sonnets
+
+
+
+   _Pan_
+
+This Pan is but an idle god, I guess,
+Since all the fair midsummer of my dreams
+He loiters listlessly by woody streams,
+Soaking the lush glooms up with laziness;
+Or drowsing while the maiden-winds caress
+Him prankishly, and powder him with gleams
+Of sifted sunshine. And he ever seems
+Drugged with a joy unutterable-- unless
+His low pipes whistle hints of it far out
+Across the ripples to the dragon-fly
+That like a wind-born blossom blown about,
+Drops quiveringly down, as though to die--
+Then lifts and wavers on, as if in doubt
+Whether to fan his wings or fly without.
+
+
+   _Dusk_
+
+The frightened herds of clouds across the sky
+Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day
+Into the dusky forest-lands of gray
+And sombre twilight. Far and faint, and high,
+The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry
+Sad as the wail of some poor castaway
+Who sees a vessel drifting far astray
+Of his last hope, and lays him down to die.
+The children, riotous from school, grow bold
+And quarrel with the wind whose angry gust
+Plucks off the summer-hat, and flaps the fold
+Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dust
+In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold
+Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust.
+
+
+   _June_
+
+O queenly month of indolent repose!
+I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume,
+As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom
+I nestle like a drowsy child and doze
+The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws
+The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom
+And weaves a damask-work of gleam and gloom
+Before thy listless feet. The lily blows
+A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade;
+And wheeling into ranks, with plume and spear,
+Thy harvest-armies gather on parade;
+While faint and far away, yet pure and clear,
+A voice calls out of alien lands of shade--:
+All hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year!
+
+
+   _Silence_
+
+Thousands of thousands of hushed years ago,
+Out on the edge of Chaos, all alone
+I stood on peaks of vapor, high upthrown
+Above a sea that knew nor ebb nor flow,
+Nor any motion won of winds that blow,
+Nor any sound of watery wail or moan,
+Nor lisp of wave, nor wandering undertone
+Of any tide lost in the night below.
+So still it was, I mind me, as I laid
+My thirsty ear against mine own faint sigh
+To drink of that, I sipped it, half afraid
+'Twas but the ghost of a dead voice spilled by
+The one starved star that tottered through the shade
+And came tiptoeing toward me down the sky.
+
+
+   _Sleep_
+
+Thou drowsy god, whose blurred eyes, half awink
+Muse on me--, drifting out upon thy dreams,
+I lave my soul as in enchanted streams
+Where revelling satyrs pipe along the brink,
+And tipsy with the melody they drink,
+Uplift their dangling hooves, and down the beams
+Of sunshine dance like motes. Thy languor seems
+An ocean-depth of love wherein I sink
+Like some fond Argonaut, right willingly--,
+Because of wooing eyes upturned to mine,
+And siren-arms that coil their sorcery
+About my neck, with kisses so divine,
+The heavens reel above me, and the sea
+Swallows and licks its wet lips over me.
+
+
+   _Her Hair_
+
+The beauty of her hair bewilders me--
+Pouring adown the brow, its cloven tide
+Swirling about the ears on either side
+And storming round the neck tumultuously:
+Or like the lights of old antiquity
+Through mullioned windows, in cathedrals wide
+Spilled moltenly o'er figures deified
+In chastest marble, nude of drapery.
+And so I love it--. Either unconfined;
+Or plaited in close braidings manifold;
+Or smoothly drawn; or indolently twined
+In careless knots whose coilings come unrolled
+At any lightest kiss; or by the wind
+Whipped out in flossy ravellings of gold.
+
+
+   _Dearth_
+
+I hold your trembling hand to-night-- and yet
+I may not know what wealth of bliss is mine,
+My heart is such a curious design
+Of trust and jealousy! Your eyes are wet--
+So must I think they jewel some regret--,
+And lo, the loving arms that round me twine
+Cling only as the tendrils of a vine
+Whose fruit has long been gathered: I forget,
+While crimson clusters of your kisses press
+Their wine out on my lips, my royal fair
+Of rapture, since blind fancy needs must guess
+They once poured out their sweetness otherwhere,
+With fuller flavoring of happiness
+Than e'en your broken sobs may now declare.
+
+
+   _A Voice From the Farm_
+
+It is my dream to have you here with me,
+Out of the heated city's dust and din--
+Here where the colts have room to gambol in,
+And kine to graze, in clover to the knee.
+I want to see your wan face happily
+Lit with the wholesome smiles that have not been
+In use since the old games you used to win
+When we pitched horseshoes: And I want to be
+At utter loaf with you in this dim land
+Of grove and meadow, while the crickets make
+Our own talk tedious, and the bat wields
+His bulky flight, as we cease converse and
+In a dusk like velvet smoothly take
+Our way toward home across the dewy fields.
+
+
+   _The Serenade_
+
+The midnight is not more bewildering
+To her drowsed eyes, than to her ears, the sound
+Of dim, sweet singing voices, interwound
+With purl of flute and subtle twang of string,
+Strained through the lattice, where the roses cling
+And, with their fragrance, waft the notes around
+Her haunted senses.  Thirsting beyond bound
+Of her slow-yielding dreams, the lilt and swing
+Of the mysterious delirious tune,
+She drains like some strange opiate, with awed eyes
+Upraised against her casement, where aswoon,
+The stars fail from her sight, and up the skies
+Of alien azure rolls the full round moon
+Like some vast bubble blown of summer noon.
+
+
+   _Art and Love_
+
+He faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken
+Pierces the crust of this existence through)
+And smiled beyond on that his genius knew
+Ere mated with his being. Conscious then
+Of his high theme alone, he smiled again
+Straight back upon himself in many a hue
+And tint, and light and shade, which slowly grew
+Enfeatured of a fair girl's face, as when
+First time she smiles for love's sake with no fear.
+So wrought he, witless that behind him leant
+A woman, with old features, dim and sear,
+And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming tear,
+And with a voice, like some sad instrument,
+That sighing said, "I'm dead there; love me here!"
+
+
+   _Longfellow_
+
+The winds have talked with him confidingly;
+The trees have whispered to him; and the night
+Hath held him gently as a mother might,
+And taught him all sad tones of melody:
+The mountains have bowed to him; and the sea,
+In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite,
+Hath told him all her sorrow and delight--
+Her legends fair-- her darkest mystery.
+His verse blooms like a flower, night and day;
+Bees cluster round his rhymes; and twitterings
+Of lark and swallow, in an endless May,
+Are mingling with the tender songs he sings--.
+Nor shall he cease to sing-- in every lay
+Of Nature's voice he sings-- and will alway.
+
+
+   _Indiana_
+
+Our Land-- our Home-- the common home indeed
+Of soil-born children and adopted ones--
+The stately daughters and the stalwart sons
+Of Industry--: All greeting and godspeed!
+O home to proudly live for, and if need
+Be proudly die for, with the roar of guns
+Blent with our latest prayer--. So died men once...
+Lo Peace...! As we look on the land They freed--
+Its harvests all in ocean-over flow
+Poured round autumnal coasts in billowy gold--
+Its corn and wine and balmed fruits and flow'rs--,
+We know the exaltation that they know
+Who now, steadfast inheritors, behold
+The Land Elysian, marvelling "This is ours?"
+
+
+   _Time_
+
+      1
+The ticking-- ticking-- ticking of the clock--!
+That vexed me so last night--! "For though Time keeps
+Such drowsy watch," I moaned, "he never sleeps,
+But only nods above the world to mock
+Its restless occupant, then rudely rock
+It as the cradle of a babe that weeps!"
+I seemed to see the seconds piled in heaps
+Like sand about me; and at every shock
+O' the bell, the piled sands were swirled away
+As by a desert-storm that swept the earth
+Stark as a granary floor, whereon the gray
+And mist-bedrizzled moon amidst the dearth
+Came crawling, like a sickly child, to lay
+Its pale face next mine own and weep for day.
+
+      2
+Wait for the morning! Ah! We wait indeed
+For daylight, we who toss about through stress
+Of vacant-armed desires and emptiness
+Of all the warm, warm touches that we need,
+And the warm kisses upon which we feed
+Our famished lips in fancy! May God bless
+The starved lips of us with but one caress
+Warm as the yearning blood our poor hearts bleed...!
+A wild prayer--! Bite thy pillow, praying so--
+Toss this side, and whirl that, and moan for dawn;
+Let the clock's seconds dribble out their woe,
+And Time be drained of sorrow! Long ago
+We heard the crowing cock, with answer drawn
+As hoarsely sad at throat as sobs... Pray on!
+
+
+         Grant
+At Rest-- August 8, 1885
+
+   Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a wide forest,  and held no
+path but as wild adventure led him... And he  returned and came again to his
+horse, and took off his saddle and his bridle, and let him pasture; and
+unlaced his helm, and ungirdled his sword, and laid him down to sleep upon
+his shield before the cross.  --Age of Chivalary
+
+   _Grant_
+
+What shall we say of the soldier. Grant,
+His sword put by and his great soul free?
+How shall we cheer him now or chant
+His requiem befittingly?
+The fields of his conquest now are seen
+Ranged no more with his armed men--
+But the rank and file of the gold and green
+Of the waving grain is there again.
+
+Though his valiant life is a nation's pride,
+And his death heroic and half divine,
+And our grief as great as the world is wide,
+There breaks in speech but a single line--:
+We loved him living, revere him dead--!
+A silence then on our lips is laid:
+We can say no thing that has not been said,
+Nor pray one prayer that has not been prayed.
+
+But a spirit within us speaks: and lo,
+We lean and listen to wondrous words
+That have a sound as of winds that blow,
+And the voice of waters and low of herds;
+And we hear, as the song flows on serene,
+The neigh of horses, and then the beat
+Of hooves that skurry o'er pastures green,
+And the patter and pad of a boy's bare feet.
+
+A brave lad, wearing a manly brow,
+Knit as with problems of grave dispute,
+And a face, like the bloom of the orchard bough,
+Pink and pallid, but resolute;
+And flushed it grows as the clover-bloom,
+And fresh it gleams as the morning dew,
+As he reins his steed where the quick quails boom
+Up from the grasses he races through.
+
+And ho! As he rides what dreams are his?
+And what have the breezes to suggest--?
+Do they whisper to him of shells that whiz
+O'er fields made ruddy with wrongs redressed?
+Does the hawk above him an Eagle float?
+Does he thrill and his boyish heart beat high,
+Hearing the ribbon about his throat
+Flap as a Flag as the winds go by?
+
+And does he dream of the Warrior's fame--
+This Western boy in his rustic dress?
+For in miniature, this is the man that came
+Riding out of the Wilderness--!
+The selfsame figure-- the knitted brow--
+The eyes full steady-- the lips full mute--
+And the face, like the bloom of the orchard bough,
+Pink and pallid, but resolute.
+
+Ay, this is the man, with features grim
+And stoical as the Sphinx's own,
+That heard the harsh guns calling him,
+As musical as the bugle blown,
+When the sweet spring heavens were clouded o'er
+With a tempest, glowering and wild,
+And our country's flag bowed down before
+Its bursting wrath as a stricken child.
+
+Thus, ready mounted and booted and spurred,
+He loosed his bridle and dashed away--!
+Like a roll of drums were his hoof-beats heard,
+Like the shriek of the fife his charger's neigh!
+And over his shoulder and backward blown,
+We heard his voice, and we saw the sod
+Reel, as our wild steeds chased his own
+As though hurled on by the hand of God!
+
+And still, in fancy, we see him ride
+In the blood-red front of a hundred frays,
+His face set stolid, but glorified
+As a knight's of the old Arthurian days:
+And victor ever as courtly too,
+Gently lifting the vanquished foe,
+And staying him with a hand as true
+As dealt the deadly avenging blow.
+
+So brighter than all of the cluster of stars
+Of the flag enshrouding his form to-day,
+His face shines forth from the grime of wars
+With a glory that shall not pass away:
+He rests at last: he has borne his part
+Of salutes and salvos and cheers on cheers--
+But O the sobs of his country's heart,
+And the driving rain of a nations tears!
+
+
+
+
+      In Dialect
+
+
+   _Old Fashioned Roses_
+
+They ain't no style about 'em,
+And they're sorto' pale and faded,
+Yit the doorway here, without 'em,
+Would be lonesomer, and shaded
+With a good 'eal blacker shudder
+Than the morning-glories makes,
+And the sunshine would look sadder
+Fer their good old-fashion' sakes.
+
+I like 'em 'cause they kindo'--
+Sorto' make a feller like 'em!
+And I tell you, when I find a
+Bunch out whur the sun kin strike 'em,
+It allus sets me thinkin'
+O' the ones 'at used to grow
+And peek in thro' the chinkin'
+O' the cabin, don't you know!
+
+And then I think o' mother,
+And how she ust to love 'em--
+When they wuzn't any other,
+'Less she found 'em up above 'em!
+And her eyes, afore she shut 'em,
+Whispered with a smile and said
+We must pick a bunch and putt 'em
+In her hand when she wuz dead.
+
+But as I wuz a-sayin',
+They ain't no style about 'em
+Very gaudy er displayin',
+But I wouldn't be without 'em--,
+'Cause I'm happier in these posies,
+And the hollyhawks and sich,
+Than the hummin'-bird 'at noses
+In the roses of the rich.
+
+
+   _Griggsby's Station_
+
+Pap's got his patent-right, and rich is all creation;
+But where's the peace and comfort that we all had before?
+Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station--
+Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
+
+The likes of us a-livin' here! It's jest a mortal pity
+To see us in this great big house, with cyarpets on the stairs,
+And the pump right in the kitchen! And the city! City! City
+And nothin' but the city all around us ever'wheres!
+
+Climb clean above the roof and look from the steeple,
+And never see a robin, nor a beech or ellum tree!
+And right here in ear-shot of at least a thousan' people,
+And none that neighbors with us or we want to go and see!
+
+Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station--
+Back where the latch-strings a-hangin' from the door,
+And ever' neighbor round the place is dear as a relation--
+Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
+
+I want to see the Wiggenses, the whole kit-and-bilin',
+A-drivin' up from Shallor Ford to stay the Sunday through;
+And I want to see 'em hitchin' at their son-in-law's and pilin'
+Out there at 'Lizy Ellen's like they ust to do!
+
+I want to see the piece-quilts the Jones girls is makin';
+And I want to pester Laury 'bout their freckled hired hand,
+And joke her 'bout the widower she come purt' nigh a-takin',
+Till her Pap got his pension 'lowed in time to save his land.
+
+Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station--
+Back where they's nothin' aggervatin' any more,
+Shet away safe in the woods around the old location--
+Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
+
+I want to see Marindy and he'p her with her sewin',
+And hear her talk so lovin' of her man that's dead and gone,
+And stand up with Emanuel to show me how he's growin',
+And smile as I have saw her 'fore she putt her mournin' on.
+
+And I want to see the Samples, on the old lower eighty,
+Where John, our oldest boy, he was tuk and burried-- for
+His own sake and Katy's--, and I want to cry with Katy
+As she reads all his letters over, writ from The War.
+
+What's in all this grand life and high situation,
+And nary pink nor hollyhawk a-bloomin' at the door--?
+Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station--
+Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore!
+
+
+   _Knee Deep in June_
+
+      1
+Tell you what I like the best--
+'Long about knee-deep in June,
+'Bout the time strawberries melts
+On the vine--, some afternoon
+Like to jes' git out and rest,
+And not work at nothin' else!
+
+      2
+Orchard's where I'd ruther be--
+Needn't fence it in fer me--!
+Jes' the whole sky overhead,
+And the whole airth underneath--
+Sorto' so's a man kin breathe
+Like he ort, and kindo' has
+Elbow-room to keerlessly
+Sprawl out len'thways on the grass
+Where the shadders thick and soft
+As the kivvers on the bed
+Mother fixes in the loft
+Allus, when they's company!
+
+      3
+Jes' a-sorto' lazin' there--
+S'lazy, 'at you peeks and peer
+Through the wavin' leaves above,
+Like a feller 'ats in love
+And don't know it, ner don't keer!
+Ever'thing you hear and see
+Got some sort o' interest--
+Maybe find a bluebird's nest
+Tucked up there conveenently
+Fer the boy 'at's ap' to be
+Up some other apple-tree!
+Watch the swallers skootin' past
+'Bout as peert as you could ast;
+Er the Bob-white raise and whiz
+Where some other's whistle is.
+
+      4
+Ketch a shadder down below,
+And look up to find the crow--
+Er a hawk--, away up there
+'Pearantly froze in the air--!
+Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
+Over ever' chick she's got,
+Suddent-like--! And she knows where
+That-air hawk is, well as you--!
+You jes' bet yer life she do--!
+Eyes a-glittern' like glass,
+Waitin' till he makes a pass!
+
+      5
+Pee-wees' singin', to express
+My opinion, 's second class,
+Yit you'll hear 'em more er less;
+Sapsucks gittin' down to biz,
+Weedin' out the lonesomeness;
+Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass,
+In them base-ball clothes o' his,
+Sportin' round the orchard jes'
+Life he owned the premises!
+Sun out in the fields kin sizz,
+But flat on yer back, I guess,
+In the shade's where glory is!
+That's jes' what I'd like to do
+Stiddy fer a year er two!
+
+      6
+Plague! Ef they ain't somepin' in
+Work 'at kindo' goes ag'in'
+My convictions--! 'Long about
+Here in June especially--!
+Under some old apple-tree,
+Jes' a-restin' through and through,
+I could git along without
+Nothin' else at all to do
+Only jes' a-wishin' you
+Wuz a-gittin' there like me,
+And June was eternity!
+
+      7
+Lay out there and try to see
+Jes' how lazy you kin be--!
+Tumble round and souse yer head
+In the clover-bloom, er pull
+Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes
+And peek through it at the skies,
+Thinkin' of old chums 'at's dead,
+Maybe, smilin' back at you
+In betwixt the 'beautiful
+Clouds o' gold and white and blue--!
+Month a man kin railly love
+June, you know, I'm talkin' of!
+
+      8
+March ain't never nothin' new--!
+Aprile's altogether too
+Brash fer me! And May-- I jes'
+'Bominate its promises--,
+Little hints o' sunshine and
+Green around the timber-land--
+A few blossoms, and a few
+Chip-birds, and a sprout er two--,
+Drap asleep, and it turns in
+'Fore daylight and snows ag'in--!
+But when June comes-- Clear my th'oat
+With wild honey--! Rench my hair
+In the dew! And hold my coat!
+Whoop out loud! And th'ow my hat--!
+June wants me, and I'm to spare!
+Spread them shadders anywhere,
+I'll git down and waller there,
+And obleeged to you at that!
+
+
+   _When The Hearse Comes Back_
+
+A thing 'at's 'bout as tryin' as a healthy man kin meet
+Is some poor feller's funeral a-joggin' 'long the street:
+The slow hearse and the hosses-- slow enough, to say at least,
+Fer to even tax the patience of gentleman deceased!
+The low scrunch of the gravel-- and the slow grind of the wheels--,
+The slow, slow go of ev'ry woe 'at ev'rybody feels!
+So I ruther like the contrast when I hear the whip-lash crack
+A quickstep fer the hosses,
+                       When the
+                            Hearse
+                                  Comes
+                                       Back!
+
+Meet it goin' to'rds the cimet'ry, you'll want to drap yer eyes--
+But ef the plumes don't fetch you, it'll ketch you otherwise--
+You'll haf to see the caskit, though you'd ort to look away
+And 'conomize and save yer sighs fer any other day!
+Yer sympathizin' won't wake up the sleeper from his rest--
+Yer tears won't thaw them hands o' his 'at's froze acrost his breast!
+And this is why-- when airth and sky's a gittin blurred and black--
+I like the flash and hurry
+                       When the
+                            Hearse
+                                  Comes
+                                       Back!
+
+It's not 'cause I don't 'preciate it ain't no time fer jokes,
+Ner 'cause I' got no common human feelin' fer the folks--;
+I've went to funerals myse'f, and tuk on some, perhaps--
+Fer my hearth's 'bout as mal'able as any other chap's--,
+I've buried father, mother-- But I'll haf to jes' git you
+To "excuse me," as the feller says--. The p'int I'm drivin' to
+Is simply when we're plum broke down and all knocked out o' whack,
+It he'ps to shape us up like,
+                       When the
+                            Hearse
+                                  Comes
+                                       Back!
+
+The idy! Wadin round here over shoe-mouth deep in woe,
+When they's a graded 'pike o' joy and sunshine don't you know!
+When evening strikes the pastur', cows'll pull out fer the bars,
+And skittish-like from out the night'll prance the happy stars.
+And so when my time comes to die, and I've got ary friend
+'At wants expressed my last request-- I'll mebby, rickommend
+To drive slow, ef they haf to, goin' 'long the out'ard track,
+But I'll smile and say, "You speed 'em
+                       When the
+                            Hearse
+                                  Comes
+                                       Back!"
+
+
+   _A Canary At the Farm_
+
+Folks has be'n to town, and Sahry
+Fetched 'er home a pet canary--,
+And of all the blame', contrary,
+Aggervatin' things alive!
+I love music-- that I love it
+When it's free-- and plenty of it--;
+But I kindo' git above it,
+At a dollar-eighty-five!
+
+Reason's plain as I'm a-sayin'--,
+Jes' the idy, now, o' layin'
+Out yer money, and a-payin'
+Fer a willer-cage and bird,
+When the medder-larks is wingin'
+Round you, and the woods is ringin'
+With the beautifullest singin'
+That a mortal ever heard!
+
+Sahry's sot, tho'--. So I tell her
+He's a purty little feller,
+With his wings o' creamy-yeller,
+And his eyes keen as a cat;
+And the twitter o' the critter
+'Pears to absolutely glitter!
+Guess I'll haf to go and git her
+A high-priceter cage 'n that!
+
+
+   _A Liz Town Humorist_
+
+Settin' round the stove, last night,
+Down at Wess's store, was me
+And Mart Strimples, Tunk, and White,
+And Doc Bills, and two er three
+Fellers o' the Mudsock tribe
+No use tryin' to describe!
+And says Doc, he says, says he--,
+"Talkin' 'bout good things to eat,
+Ripe mushmillon's hard to beat!"
+
+I chawed on. And Mart he 'lowed
+Wortermillon beat the mush--.
+"Red," he says, "and juicy-- Hush--!
+I'll jes' leave it to the crowd!"
+Then a Mudsock chap, says he--,
+"Punkin's good enough fer me--
+Punkin pies, I mean," he says--,
+Them beats millons--! What say, Wess?
+
+I chawed on. And Wess says--, "Well,
+You jes' fetch that wife of mine
+All yer wortermillon-rine--,
+And she'll bile it down a spell--
+In with sorghum, I suppose,
+And what else, Lord only knows--!
+But I'm here to tell all hands
+Them p'serves meets my demands!"
+
+I chawed on. And White he says--,
+"Well, I'll jes' stand, in with Wess--
+I'm no hog!" And Tunk says--, "I
+Guess I'll pastur' out on pie
+With the Mudsock boys!" says he;
+"Now what's yourn?" he says to me:
+I chawed on-- fer-- quite a spell
+Then I speaks up, slow and dry--,
+Jes' tobacker!" I-says-I--.
+And you'd ort o' heerd 'em yell!
+
+
+   _Kingry's Mill_
+
+On old Brandywine-- about
+Where White's Lots is now laid out,
+And the old crick narries down
+To the ditch that splits the town--,
+Kingry's Mill stood. Hardly see
+Where the old dam ust to be;
+Shallor, long, dry trought o' grass
+Where the old race ust to pass!
+
+That's be'n forty years ago--
+Forty years o' frost and snow--
+Forty years o' shade and shine
+Sence them boyhood-days o' mine--!
+All the old landmarks o' town.
+Changed about, er rotted down!
+Where's the Tanyard? Where's the Still?
+Tell me where's old Kingry's Mill?
+
+Don't seem furder back, to me,
+I'll be dogg'd! Than yisterd'y,
+Since us fellers, in bare feet
+And straw hats, went through the wheat,
+Cuttin' 'crost the shortest shoot
+Fer that-air old ellum root
+Jest above the mill-dam-- where
+The blame' cars now crosses there!
+
+Through the willers down the crick
+We could see the old mill stick
+Its red gable up, as if
+It jest knowed we'd stol'd the skiff!
+See the winders in the sun
+Blink like they wuz wonderun'
+What the miller ort to do
+With sich boys as me and you!
+
+But old Kingry--! Who could fear
+That old chap, with all his cheer--?
+Leanin' at the window-sill,
+Er the half-door o' the mill,
+Swoppin' lies, and pokin' fun,
+'N jigglin' like his hoppers done--
+Laughin' grists o' gold and red
+Right out o' the wagon-bed!
+
+What did he keer where we went--?
+"Jest keep out o' devilment,
+And don't fool around the belts,
+Bolts, ner burrs, ner nothin' else
+'Bout the blame machinery,
+And that's all I ast!" says-ee.
+Then we'd climb the stairs, and play
+In the bran-bins half the day!
+
+Rickollect the dusty wall,
+And the spider-webs, and all!
+Rickollect the trimblin' spout
+Where the meal come josslln' out--
+Stand and comb yer fingers through
+The fool-truck an hour er two--
+Felt so sorto' warm-like and
+Soothin' to a feller's hand!
+
+Climb, high up above the stream,
+And "coon" out the wobbly beam
+And peek down from out the lof'
+Where the weather-boards was off--
+Gee-mun-nee! w'y, it takes grit
+Even jest to think of it--!
+Lookin' 'way down there below
+On the worter roarin' so!
+
+Rickollect the flume, and wheel,
+And the worter slosh and reel
+And jest ravel out in froth
+Flossier'n satin cloth!
+Rickollect them paddles jest
+Knock the bubbles galley-west,
+And plunge under, and come up
+Drippin' like a worter-pup!
+
+And to see them old things gone
+That I onc't was bettin' on,
+In rale p'int o' fact, I feel
+kindo' like that worter-wheel--,
+Sorto' drippy-like and wet
+Round the eyes-- but paddlin' yet,
+And in mem'ry, loafin' still
+Down around old Kingry's Mill!
+
+
+   _Joney_
+
+Had a hare-lip-- Joney had:
+Spiled his looks, and Joney knowed it:
+Fellers tried to bore him, bad--
+But ef ever he got mad,
+He kep' still and never showed it.
+'Druther have his mouth all pouted
+And split up, and like it wuz,
+Than the ones 'at laughed about it.
+Purty is as purty does!
+
+Had to listen ruther clos't
+'Fore you knowed "what he wuz givin'
+You; and yet, without no boast,
+Joney he wuz jest the most
+Entertainin' talker livin'!
+Take the Scriptur's and run through 'em,
+Might say, like a' auctioneer,
+And 'ud argy and review 'em
+'At wuz beautiful to hear!
+
+Hare-lip and inpediment,
+Both wuz bad, and both ag'in' him--
+But the old folks where he went,
+'Preared like, knowin' his intent,
+'Scused his mouth fer what wuz in him.
+And the childern all loved Joney--
+And he loved 'em back, you bet--!
+Putt their arms around him-- on'y
+None had ever kissed him yet!
+
+In young company, someway,
+Boys 'ud grin at one another
+On the sly; and girls 'ud lay
+Low, with nothin' much to say,
+Er leave Joney with their mother.
+Many and many a time he's fetched 'em
+Candy by the paper sack,
+And turned right around and ketched 'em
+Makin mouths behind his back!
+
+S'prised sometimes, the slurs he took--.
+Chap said onc't his mouth looked sorter
+Like a fish's mouth 'ud look
+When he'd be'n jerked off the hook
+And plunked back into the worter--.
+Same durn feller-- it's su'prisin',
+But it's facts-- 'at stood and cherred
+From the bank that big babtizin'
+'Pike-bridge accident occurred--!
+
+Cherred for Joney while he give
+Life to little childern drowndin'!
+Which wuz fittenest to live--
+Him 'at cherred, er him 'at div'
+And saved thirteen lives...? They found one
+Body, three days later, floated
+Down the by-o, eight mile' south,
+All so colored-up and bloated--
+On'y knowed him by his mouth!
+
+Had a hare-lip-- Joney had--
+Folks 'at filed apast all knowed it--.
+Them 'at ust to smile looked sad,
+But ef he thought good er bad,
+He kep' still and never showed it.
+'Druther have that mouth, all pouted
+And split up, and like it wuz,
+Than the ones 'at laughed about it--.
+Purty is as purty does!
+
+
+   _Like His Mother Used To Make_
+
+"Uncle Jake's Place," St. Jo, Mo., 1874
+
+"I was born in Indiany," says a stranger, lank and slim,
+As us fellers in the restarunt was kindo' guyin' him,
+And Uncle Jake was slidin' him another punkin pie
+And a' extry cup o' coffee, with a twinkle in his eye.
+"I was born in Indiany-- more'n forty year' ago--
+I hain't be'n back in twenty-- and I'm workin' back'ards slow;
+But I've et in ever' restarunt 'twixt here and Santy Fee,
+And I want to state this coffee tastes like gittin' home, to me!"
+
+"Pour us out another, Daddy," says the feller, warmin' up,
+A-speakin' 'cost a saucerful, as Uncle tuk his cup--,
+"When I seed yer sign out yander," he went on, to Uncle Jake- -,
+"'Come in and git some coffee like yer mother used to make'--
+I thought of my old mother, and the Posey County farm,
+And me a little kid ag'in, a-hangin' in her arm,
+As she set the pot: a-bilin', broke the eggs and poured 'em in--"
+And the feller kindo' halted, with a trimble in his chin:
+
+And Uncle Jake he fetched the feller's coffee back, and stood
+As solemn, fer a minute, as a' undertaker would;
+Then he sorto' turned and tiptoed to'rds the kitchen door-- and nex',
+Here comes his old wife out with him, a-rubbin' of her specs--
+And she rushes fer the stranger, and she hollers out, "It's him--!
+Thank God we've met him comin'--! Don't you know, yer mother, Jim?"
+And the feller, as he grabbed her, says--, "You bet I hain't forgot--
+But," wipin' of his eyes, says he, "yer coffee's mighty hot!"
+
+
+   _The Train Misser_
+
+   At Union Station
+
+'Ll where in the world my eyes has bin--
+Ef I hain't missed that train ag'in!
+Chuff! And whistle! And toot! And ring!
+But blast and blister the dasted train--!
+How it does it I can't explain!
+Git here thirty-five minutes before
+The durn things due--! And, drat the thing
+It'll manage to git past-shore!
+
+The more I travel around, the more
+I got no sense--! To stand right here
+And let it beat me! 'Ll ding my melts!
+I got no gumption, ner nothin' else!
+Ticket Agent's a dad-burned bore--!
+Sell you a tickets all they keer--!
+Ticket Agents ort to all be
+
+Prosecuted-- and that's jes what--!
+How'd I know which train's fer me?
+And how'd I know which train was not--?
+Goern and comin' and gone astray,
+And backin' and switchin' ever'-which-way!
+
+Ef I could jes sneak round behind
+Myse'f, where I could git full swing,
+I'd lift my coat, and kick, by jing!
+Till I jes got jerked up and fined--!
+Fer here I stood, as a durn fool's apt
+To, and let that train jes chuff and choo
+Right apast me-- and mouth jes gapped
+Like a blamed old sandwitch warped in two!
+
+
+   _Granny_
+
+Granny's come to our house,
+And ho! My lawzy-daisy!
+All the childern round the place
+Is ist a-runnin' crazy!
+Fetched a cake fer little Jake,
+And fetched a pie fer Nanny,
+And fetched a pear fer all the pack
+That runs to kiss their Granny!
+
+Lucy Ellen's in her lap,
+And Wade and Silas Walker
+Both's a ridin' on her foot,
+And 'Pollos on the rocker;
+And Marthy's twins, from Aunt Marinn's
+And little Orphant Annie,
+All's a-eatin' gingerbread
+And giggle-un at Granny!
+
+Tells us all the fairy tales
+Ever thought er wundered--
+And 'bundance o' other stories--
+Bet she knows a hunderd--!
+
+Bob's the one fer "Whittington,"
+And "Golden Locks" fer Fanny!
+Hear 'em laugh and clap their hands,
+Listenin' at Granny!
+
+"Jack the Giant-Killer" 's good;
+And "Bean-Stalk" 's another--!
+So's the one of "Cinderell'"
+And her old godmother--;
+That-un's best of all the rest--
+Bestest one of any--,
+Where the mices scampers home
+Like we runs to Granny!
+
+Granny's come to our house,
+Ho! My lawzy-daisy!
+All the childern round the place
+Is ist a runnin' crazy!
+Fetched a cake fer little Jake,
+And fetched a pie fer Nanny,
+And fetched a pear fer all the pack
+That runs to kiss their Granny!
+
+
+   _Old October_
+
+Old October's purt' nigh gone,
+And the frosts is comin' on
+Little heavier every day--
+Like our hearts is thataway!
+Leaves is changin' overhead
+Back from green to gray and red,
+Brown and yeller, with their stems
+Loosenin' on the oaks and e'ms;
+And the balance of the trees
+Gittin' balder every breeze--
+Like the heads we're scratchin' on!
+Old October's purt' nigh gone.
+
+I love Old October so,
+I can't bear to see her go--
+Seems to me like losin' some
+Old-home relative er chum--
+'Pears like sorto' settin' by
+Some old friend 'at sigh by sigh
+Was a-passin' out o' sight
+Into everlastin' night!
+Hickernuts a feller hears
+Rattlin' down is more like tears
+Drappin' on the leaves below--
+I love Old October so!
+
+Can't tell what it is about
+Old October knock me out--!
+I sleep well enough at night--
+And the blamedest appetite
+Ever mortal man possessed--,
+Last thing et, it tastes the best--!
+Warnuts, butternuts, pawpaws,
+'Iles and limbers up my jaws
+Fer raal service, sich as new
+Pork, spareribs, and sausage, too--.
+Yit fer all, they's somepin' 'bout
+Old October knocks me out!
+
+
+   _Jim_
+
+He was jes a plain ever'-day, all-round kind of a jour.,
+Consumpted-Iookin'-- but la!
+The jokeiest, wittiest, story-tellin', song-singin', laughin'est, jolliest
+Feller you ever saw!
+Worked at jes coarse work, but you kin bet he was fine enough in his talk,
+And his feelin's too!
+Lordy! Ef he was on'y back on his bench ag'in to-day, a- carryin' on
+Like he ust to do!
+
+Any shopmate'll tell you there never was, on top o' dirt,
+A better feller'n Jim!
+You want a favor, and couldn't git it anywheres else--
+You could git it o' him!
+Most free-heartedest man thataway in the world, I guess!
+Give up ever' nickel he's worth--
+And ef you'd a-wanted it, and named it to him, and it was his,
+He'd a-give you the earth!
+
+Allus a reachin' out, Jim was, and a-he'ppin' some
+Pore feller onto his feet--
+He'd a-never a-keered how hungry he was hisse'f,
+So's the feller got somepin' to eat!
+Didn't make no differ'nce at all to him how he was dressed,
+He ust to say to me--,
+"You togg out a tramp purty comfortable in winter-time, a huntin' a job,
+And he'll git along!" says he.
+
+Jim didn't have, ner never could git ahead, so overly much
+O' this world's goods at a time--.
+'Fore now I've saw him, more'n onc't, lend a dollar, and haf to, more'n
+likely,
+Turn round and borry a dime!
+Mebby laugh and joke about it hisse'f fer awhile-- then jerk his coat,
+And kindo' square his chin,
+Tie on his apern, and squat hisse'f on his old shoe-bench,
+And go to peggin' ag'in!
+
+Patientest feller too, I reckon, 'at ever jes natchurly
+Coughed hisse'f to death!
+Long enough after his voice was lost he'd laugh in a whisper and say
+He could git ever'thing but his breath--
+"You fellers," he'd sorto' twinkle his eyes and say,
+"Is a-pilin' onto me
+A mighty big debt fer that-air little weak-chested ghost o' mine to pack
+Through all Eternity!"
+
+Now there was a man 'at jes 'peared-like, to me,
+'At ortn't a-never a-died!
+"But death hain't a-showin' no favors," the old boss said--
+"On'y to Jim!" and cried:
+And Wigger, who puts up the best sewed-work in the shop--
+Er the whole blame neighborhood--,
+He says, "When God made Jim, I bet you He didn't do anything else that day
+But jes set around and feel good!"
+
+   _To Robert Burns_
+
+Sweet Singer that I loe the maist
+O' ony, sin' wi' eager haste
+I smacket bairn-lips ower the taste
+O' hinnied sang,
+I hail thee, though a blessed ghaist
+In Heaven lang!
+
+For weel I ken, nae cantie phrase,
+Nor courtly airs, nor lairdly ways,
+Could gar me freer blame, or praise,
+Or proffer hand,
+Where "Rantin' Robbie" and his lays
+Thegither stand.
+
+And sae these hamely lines I send,
+Wi' jinglin' words at ilka end,
+In echo o' the sangs that wend
+Frae thee to me
+Like simmer-brooks, wi mony a bend
+O' wimplin' glee.
+
+In fancy, as wi' dewy een,
+I part the clouds aboon the scene
+Where thou wast born, and peer atween,
+I see nae spot
+In a' the Hielands half sae green
+And unforgot?
+
+I see nae storied castle-hall,
+Wi' banners flauntin' ower the wall
+And serf and page in ready call,
+Sae grand to me
+As ane puir cotter's hut, wi' all
+Its poverty.
+
+There where the simple daisy grew
+Sae bonnie sweet, and modest too,
+Thy liltin' filled its wee head fu'
+O' sic a grace,
+It aye is weepin' tears o' dew
+Wi' droopit face.
+
+Frae where the heather bluebells fling
+Their sangs o' fragrance to the Spring,
+To where the lavrock soars to sing,
+Still lives thy strain,
+For' a' the birds are twittering
+Sangs like thine ain.
+
+And aye, by light o' sun or moon,
+By banks o' Ayr, or Bonnie Doon,
+The waters lilt nae tender tune
+But sweeter seems
+Because they poured their limpid rune
+Through a' thy dreams.
+
+Wi' brimmin' lip, and laughin' ee,
+Thou shookest even Grief wi' glee,
+Yet had nae niggart sympathy
+Where Sorrow bowed,
+But gavest a' thy tears as free
+As a' thy gowd.
+
+And sae it is we be thy name
+To see bleeze up wi' sic a flame,
+That a' pretentious stars o' fame
+Maun blink asklent,
+To see how simple worth may shame
+Their brightest glent.
+
+
+   _A New Year's Time at Willards's_
+
+      1
+   The Hired Man Talks
+
+There's old man Willards; an' his wife;
+An' Marg'et-- S'repty's sister--; an'
+There's me-- an' I'm the hired man;
+An' Tomps McClure, you better yer life!
+
+Well now, old Willards hain't so bad,
+Considerin' the chance he's had.
+Of course, he's rich, an' sleeps an' eats
+Whenever he's a mind to: Takes
+An' leans back in the Amen-seats
+An' thanks the Lord fer all he makes--.
+That's purty much all folks has got
+Ag'inst the old man, like as not!
+But there's his woman-- jes the turn
+Of them-air two wild girls o' hern--
+Marg'et an' S'repty-- allus in
+Fer any cuttin'-up concern--
+Church festibals, and foolishin'
+Round Christmas-trees, an' New Year's sprees--
+Set up to watch the Old Year go
+An' New Year come-- sich things as these;
+An' turkey-dinners, don't you know!
+S'repty's younger, an' more gay,
+An' purtier, an' finer dressed
+Than Marg'et is-- but, lawzy-day!
+She hain't the independentest!
+"Take care!" old Willards used to say,
+"Take care--! Let Marg'et have her way,
+An' S'repty, you go off an' play
+On your melodeum--!" But, best
+Of all, comes Tomps! An' I'll be bound,
+Ef he hain't jes the beatin'est
+Young chap in all the country round!
+Ef you knowed Tomps you'd like him, shore!
+They hain't no man on top o' ground
+Walks into my affections more--!
+An' all the Settlement'll say
+That Tomps was liked jes thataway
+By ever'body, till he tuk
+A shine to S'repty Willards--. Then
+You'd ort'o see the old man buck
+An' h'ist hisse'f, an' paw the dirt,
+An' hint that "common workin'-men
+That didn't want their feelin's hurt
+'Ud better hunt fer 'comp'ny' where
+The folks was pore an' didn't care--!"
+The pine-blank facts is--, the old man,
+Last Christmas was a year ago,
+Found out some presents Tomps had got
+Fer S'repty, an' hit made him hot--
+Set down an' tuk his pen in hand
+An' writ to Tomps an' told him so
+On legal cap, in white an' black,
+An' give him jes to understand
+"No Christmas-gifts o' 'lily-white'
+An' bear's-ile could fix matters right,"
+An' wropped 'em up an' sent 'em back!
+Well, S'repty cried an' snuffled round
+Consid'able. But Marg'et she
+Toed out another sock, an' wound
+Her knittin' up, an' drawed the tea,
+An' then set on the supper-things,
+An' went up in the loft an' dressed--
+An' through it all you'd never guessed
+What she was up to! An' she brings
+Her best hat with her an her shawl,
+An' gloves, an' redicule, an' all,
+An' injirubbers, an' comes down
+An' tells 'em she's a-goin' to town
+To he'p the Christmas goin's-on
+Her Church got up. An' go she does--
+The best hosswoman ever was!
+"An" what'll We do while you're gone?"
+The old man says, a-tryin' to be
+Agreeable. "Oh! You?" says she--,
+"You kin jaw S'repty, like you did,
+An' slander Tomps!" An' off she rid!
+
+Now, this is all I'm goin' to tell
+Of this-here story-- that is, I
+Have done my very level best
+As fur as this, an' here I "dwell,"
+As auctioneers says, winkin' sly:
+Hit's old man Willards tells the rest.
+
+      2
+   The Old Man Talks
+
+Adzackly jes one year ago,
+This New Year's day, Tomps comes to me--
+In my own house, an' whilse the folks
+Was gittin' dinner--, an' he pokes
+His nose right in, an' says, says he:
+"I got yer note-- an' read it slow!
+You don't like me, ner I don't you,"
+He says--, "we're even there, you know!
+But you've said, furder that no gal
+Of yourn kin marry me, er shall,
+An' I'd best shet off comin', too!"
+An' then he says--, "Well, them's Your views--;
+But havin' talked with S'repty, we
+Have both agreed to disagree
+With your peculiar notions-- some;
+An', that s the reason, I refuse
+To quit a-comin' here, but come--
+Not fer to threat, ner raise no skeer
+An' spile yer turkey-dinner here--,
+But jes fer S'repty's sake, to sheer
+Yer New Year's. Shall I take a cheer?"
+
+Well, blame-don! Ef I ever see
+Sich impidence! I couldn't say
+Not nary word! But Mother she
+Sot out a cheer fer Tomps, an' they
+Shuk hands an' turnt their back on me.
+Then I riz-- mad as mad could be--!
+But Marg'et says--, "Now, Pap! You set
+Right where you're settin'--! Don't you fret!
+An' Tomps-- you warm yer feet!" says she,
+"An throw yer mitts an' comfert on
+The bed there! Where is S'repty gone!
+The cabbage is a-scortchin'! Ma,
+Stop cryin' there an' stir the slaw!"
+Well--! What was Mother cryin' fer--?
+I half riz up-- but Marg'et's chin
+Hit squared-- an' I set down ag'in--
+I allus was afeard o' her,
+I was, by jucks! So there I set,
+Betwixt a sinkin'-chill an' sweat,
+An' scuffled with my wrath, an' shet
+My teeth to mighty tight, you bet!
+An' yit, fer all that I could do,
+I eeched to jes git up an' whet
+The carvin'-knife a rasp er two
+On Tomps's ribs-- an' so would you--!
+Fer he had riz an' faced around,
+An' stood there, smilin', as they brung
+The turkey in, all stuffed an' browned--
+Too sweet fer nose, er tooth, er tongue!
+With sniffs o' sage, an' p'r'aps a dash
+Of old burnt brandy, steamin'-hot
+Mixed kindo' in with apple-mash
+An' mince-meat, an' the Lord knows what!
+Nobody was a-talkin' then,
+To 'filiate any awk'ardness--
+No noise o' any kind but jes
+The rattle o' the dishes when
+They'd fetch 'em in an' set 'em down,
+An' fix an' change 'em round an' round,
+Like women does-- till Mother says--,
+"Vittels is ready; Abner, call
+Down S'repty-- she's up-stairs, I guess--."
+And Marg'et she says, "Ef you bawl
+Like that, she'll not come down at all!
+Besides, we needn't wait till she
+Gits down! Here Temps, set down by me,
+An' Pap: say grace...!" Well, there I was--!
+What could I do! I drapped my head
+Behind my fists an' groaned; an' said--:
+"Indulgent Parent! In Thy cause
+We bow the head an' bend the knee
+An' break the bread, an' pour the wine,
+Feelin'--" (The stair-door suddently
+Went bang! An' S'repty flounced by me--)
+"Feelin'," I says, "this feast is Thine--
+This New Year's feast--" an' rap-rap-rap!
+Went Marg'ets case-knife on her plate--
+An' next, I heerd a sasser drap--,
+Then I looked up, an' strange to state,
+There S'repty set in Tomps lap--
+An' huggin' him, as shore as fate!
+An' Mother kissin' him k-slap!
+An' Marg'et-- she chips in to drap
+The ruther peert remark to me--:
+"That 'grace' o' yourn," she says, "won't 'gee'--
+This hain't no 'New Year's feast,'" says she--,
+"This is a' Infair-Dinner, Pap!"
+
+An' so it was--! Be'n married fer
+Purt' nigh a week--! 'Twas Marg'et planned
+The whole thing fer 'em, through an' through.
+I'm rickonciled; an' understand,
+I take things jes as they occur--,
+Ef Marg'et liked Tomps, Tomps 'ud do--!
+But I-says-I, a-holt his hand--,
+"I'm glad you didn't marry Her--
+'Cause Marg'et's my guardeen-- yes-sir--!
+An' S'repty's good enough fer you!"
+
+
+   _The Town Karnteel_
+
+The Town Karnteel--! It's who'll reveal
+Its praises jushtifiable?
+For who can sing av anything
+So lovely and reliable?
+Whin Summer, Spring, or Winter lies
+From Malin's Head to Tipperary,
+There's no such town for interprise
+Bechuxt Youghal and Londonderry!
+
+There's not its likes in Ireland--
+For twic't the week, be gorries!
+They're playing jigs upon the band,
+And joomping there in sacks-- and-- and--
+And racing, wid wheelborries!
+
+Kanteel-- it's there, like any fair,
+The purty gurrls is plinty, sure--!
+And man-alive! At forty-five
+The leg's av me air twinty, sure!
+I lave me cares, and hoein' too,
+Behint me, as is sinsible,
+And it's Karnteel I'm goin' to,
+To cilebrate in principle!
+
+For there's the town av all the land!
+And twic't the week, be-gorries!
+They're playing jigs upon the band,
+And joomping there in sacks-- and-- and--
+And racing, wid wheelborries!
+
+And whilst I feel for owld Karnteel
+That I've no phrases glorious,
+It stands above the need av love
+That boasts in voice uproarious--!
+Lave that for Cork, and Dublin too,
+And Armagh and Killarney thin--,
+And Karnteel won't be troublin' you
+Wid any jilous blarney, thin!
+
+For there's the town av all the land
+Where twic't the week, be-gorries!
+They're playing jigs upon the band,
+And joomping there in sacks-- and-- and--
+And racing, wid wheelborries!
+
+
+   _Regardin' Terry Hut_
+
+Sence I tuk holt o' Gibbses' Churn
+And be'n a-handlin' the concern,
+I've travelled round the grand old State
+Of Indiany, lots, o' late--!
+I've canvassed Crawferdsville and sweat
+Around the town o' Layfayette;
+I've saw a many a County-seat
+I ust to think was hard to beat:
+At constant dreenage and expense
+I've worked Greencastle and Vincennes--
+Drapped out o' Putnam into Clay,
+Owen, and on down thataway
+Plum into Knox, on the back-track
+Fer home ag'in-- and glad I'm back--!
+I've saw these towns, as I say-- but
+They's none 'at beats old Terry Hut!
+
+It's more'n likely you'll insist
+I claim this 'cause I'm prejudist,
+Bein' born'd here in ole Vygo
+In sight o' Terry Hut--; but no,
+Yer clean dead wrong--! And I maintain
+They's nary drap in ary vein
+O' mine but what's as free as air
+To jest take issue with you there--!
+'Cause, boy and man, fer forty year,
+I've argied ag'inst livin' here,
+And jawed around and traded lies
+About our lack o' enterprise,
+And tuk and turned in and agreed
+All other towns was in the lead,
+When-- drat my melts--! They couldn't cut
+No shine a-tall with Terry Hut!
+
+Take even, statesmanship, and wit,
+And ginerel git-up-and-git,
+Old Terry Hut is sound clean through--!
+Turn old Dick Thompson loose, er Dan
+Vorehees-- and where's they any man
+Kin even hold a candle to
+Their eloquence--? And where's as clean
+A fi-nan-seer as Rile' McKeen--
+Er puorer, in his daily walk,
+In railroad er in racin' stock!
+And there's 'Gene Debs-- a man 'at stands
+And jest holds out in his two hands
+As warm a heart as ever beat
+Betwixt here and the Jedgement Seat--!
+All these is reasons why I putt
+Sich bulk o' faith in Terry Hut.
+
+So I've come back, with eyes 'at sees
+My faults, at last--, to make my peace
+With this old place, and truthful' swear--
+Like Gineral Tom Nelson does--,
+"They hain't no city anywhere
+On God's green earth lays over us!"
+Our city government is grand--
+"Ner is they better farmin'-land
+Sun-kissed--" as Tom goes on and says--
+"Er dower'd with sich advantages!"
+And I've come back, with welcome tread,
+From journeyin's vain, as I have said,
+To settle down in ca'm content,
+And cuss the towns where I have went,
+And brag on ourn, and boast and strut
+Around the streets o' Terry Hut!
+
+
+   _Leedle Dutch Baby_
+
+Leedle Dutch baby haff come ter town!
+Jabber und jump till der day gone down--
+Jabber und sphlutter und sphlit hees jaws--
+Vot a Dutch baby dees Londsmon vas!
+I dink dose mout' vas leedle too vide
+Ober he laugh fon dot altso-side!
+Haff got blenty off deemple und vrown--?
+Hey! Leedle Dutchman come ter town!
+
+Leedle Dutch baby, I dink me proud
+Ober your fader can schquall dot loud
+Ven he vas leedle Dutch baby like you
+Und yoost don't gare, like he alvays do--!
+Guess ven dey vean him on beer, you bet
+Dot's der because dot he aind veaned yet--!
+Vot you said off he dringk you down--?
+Hey! Leedle Dutchman come ter town!
+
+Leedle Dutch baby, yoost schquall avay--
+Schquall fon preakfast till gisterday!
+Better you all time gry und shout
+Dan shmile me vonce fon der coffin out!
+Vot I gare off you keek my nose
+Downside-up mit your heels und toes--
+Downside, oder der oopside-down--?
+Hey! Leedle Dutchman come ter town!
+
+
+   _Down On Wriggle Crick_
+
+"Best time to kill a hog's when he's fat." --Old Saw.
+
+Mostly folks is law-abidin'
+Down on Wriggle Crick--,
+Seein' they's no Squire residin'
+In our bailywick;
+No grand juries, no suppeenies,
+Ner no vested rights to pick
+Out yer man, jerk up and jail ef
+He's outragin' Wriggle Crick!
+
+
+Wriggle Crick hain't got no lawin',
+Ner no suits to beat;
+Ner no court-house gee-and-hawin'
+Like a County-seat;
+Hain't no waitin' round fer verdick,
+Ner non-gittin' witness-fees;
+Ner no thiefs 'at gits "new heain's,"
+By some lawyer slick as grease!
+
+Wriggle Cricks's leadin' spirit
+Is old Johnts Culwell--,
+Keeps post-office, and right near it
+Owns what's called "The Grand Hotel--"
+(Warehouse now--) buys wheat and ships it;
+Gits out ties, and trades in stock,
+And knows all the high-toned drummers
+'Twixt South Bend and Mishawauk'
+
+Last year comes along a feller--
+Sharper 'an a lance--
+Stovepipe-hat and silk umbreller,
+And a boughten all-wool pants--,
+Tinkerin of clocks and watches:
+Says a trial's all he wants--
+And rents out the tavern-office
+Next to Uncle Johnts.
+
+Well--. He tacked up his k'dentials,
+And got down to biz--.
+Captured Johnts by cuttin' stenchils
+Fer them old wheat-sacks o' his--.
+
+Fixed his clock, in the post-office--
+Painted fer him, clean and slick,
+'Crost his safe, in gold-leaf letters,
+"J. Culwells's Wriggle Crick."
+
+Any kindo' job you keered to
+Resk him with, and bring,
+He'd fix fer you-- jest appeared to
+Turn his hand to anything--!
+Rings, er earbobs, er umbrellers--
+Glue a cheer er chany doll--,
+W'y, of all the beatin' fellers,
+He Jest beat 'em all!
+
+Made his friends, but wouldn't stop there--,
+One mistake he learnt,
+That was, sleepin' in his shop there--.
+And one Sund'y night it burnt!
+Come in one o' jest a-sweepin'
+All the whole town high and dry--
+And that feller, when they waked him,
+Suffocatin', mighty nigh!
+
+Johnts he drug him from the buildin',
+He'pless-- 'peared to be--,
+And the women and the childern
+Drenchin' him with sympathy!
+But I noticed Johnts helt on him
+With a' extry lovin' grip,
+And the men-folks gethered round him
+In most warmest pardership!
+
+That's the whole mess, grease-and-dopin'!
+Johnt's safe was saved--,
+But the lock was found sprung open,
+And the inside caved.
+Was no trial-- ner no jury--
+Ner no jedge ner court-house-click--.
+Circumstances alters cases
+Down on Wriggle Crick!
+
+
+   _When De Folks Is Gone_
+
+What dat scratchin' at de kitchin do'?
+Done heah'n dat foh an hour er mo'!
+Tell you Mr. Niggah, das sho's yo' bo'n,
+Hit's mighty lonesome waitin' when de folks is gone!
+
+Blame my trap! How de wind do blow!
+An' dis is das de night foh de witches, sho'!
+Dey's trouble gon' to waste when de old slut whine,
+An' you heah de cat a-spittin' when de moon don't shine!
+
+Chune my fiddle, an' de bridge go "bang!"
+An' I lef' 'er right back whah she allus hang,
+An' de tribble snap short an' de apern split
+When dey no mortal man wah a-tetchin' hit!
+
+Dah! Now, what? How de ole j'ice cracks!
+'Spec' dis house, ef hit tell plain fac's,
+'Ud talk about de ha'nts wid dey long tails on
+What das'n't on'y come when de folks is gone!
+
+What I tuk an' done ef a sho'-nuff ghos'
+Pop right up by de ole bed-pos'?
+What dat shinin' fru de front do' crack...?
+God bress de Lo'd! Hit's de folks got back!
+
+
+   _The Little Town O' Tailholt_
+
+You kin boast about yer cities, and their stiddy growth and size,
+And brag about yer County-seats, and business enterprise,
+And railroads, and factories, and all sich foolery--
+But the little Town o' Tailholt is big enough fer me!
+
+You kin harp about yer churches, with their steeples in the clouds,
+And gas about yer graded streets, and blow about yer crowds;
+You kin talk about yer "theaters," and all you've got to see--
+But the little Town o' Tailholt is show enough fer me!
+
+They hain't no style in our town-- hit's little-like and small--
+They hain't no "churches," nuther--, jes' the meetin' house is all;
+They's no sidewalks, to speak of-- but the highway's allus free,
+And the little Town o' Tailholt is wide enough fer me!
+
+Some find it discommodin'-like, I'm willin' to admit,
+To hev but one post-office, and a womern keepin' hit,
+And the drug-store, and shoe-shop, and grocery, all three--
+But the little Town o' Tailholt is handy 'nough fer me!
+
+You kin smile and turn yer nose up, and joke and hev yer fun,
+And laugh and holler "Tail-holts is better holts'n none!
+Ef the city suits you better w'y, hit's where you'd ort'o be--
+But the little Town o' Tailholt's good enough fer me!
+
+
+   _Little Orphant Annie_
+
+Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
+An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away,
+An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,
+An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
+An' all us other childern, when the supper things is done,
+We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
+A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,
+An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
+          Ef you
+               Don't
+                   Watch
+                       Out!
+
+Onc't they was a little boy wouldn't say his prayers--,
+An' when he went to bed at night, away up stairs,
+His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
+An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all!
+An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
+An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess;
+But all they found was thist his pants an' roundabout--:
+An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
+          Ef you
+               Don't
+                   Watch
+                       Out!
+
+An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh and grin,
+An' make fun of ever'one, an' all her blood an' kin;
+An' onc't, when they was "company," an' ole folks was there,
+She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care!
+An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide,
+They was two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side,
+An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what she's about!
+An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
+          Ef you
+               Don't
+                   Watch
+                       Out!
+
+An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
+An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
+An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
+An' the lightn'-bugs in dew is all squenched away--,
+You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachers fond an' dear,
+An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
+An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about
+Er the Gobble-uns 'll git you
+          Ef you
+               Don't
+                   Watch
+                       Out!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Afterwhiles, by James Whitcomb Riley
+
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