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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Benedictine University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with +Calera WordScan Plus 2.0 +donated by: Calera Recognition Systems +475 Potrero +Sunnyvale, CA 94086 +1-408-720-8300 +<mikel@calera.com> Mike Lynch + + +Memorial Edition +The Complete Works of +James Whitcomb Riley +IN TEN VOLUMES +Including Poems and Prose Sketches, many +of which have not heretofore been +published; an authentic Biography, an +elaborate Index and numerous +Illustrations in color from Paintings +by Howard Chandler Christy +and Ethyl Franklin Betts + +VOLUME I + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +NEW YORK AND LONDON + + +COPYRIGHT +1883, 1885, 1887, 1888, 1890, 1891, 189, 1893, 1894, +1896, 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 190, 1903, 1904, +1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 191, 1913, +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED +COPYRIGHT 1916 +JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + +TO +THE MEMORY OF +James Whitcomb Riley +AND +IN PLEASANT RECOLLECTION OF MORE THAN THIRTY-FIVE YEARS +OF BUSINESS AND PERSONAL ASSOCIATION +THESE FINAL VOLUMES +ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED + +BORN: DIED: +October 7, 1849, July 22, 1916 +Greenfield, Ind. Indianapolis, Ind. + + + +CONTENTS + + +JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY--A SKETCH +A BACKWARD LOOK +PHILIPER FLASH +THE SAME OLD STORY +TO A BOY WHISTLING +AN OLD FRIEND +WHAT SMITH KNEW ABOUT FARMING +A POET'S WOOING +MAN'S DEVOTION +A BALLAD +THE OLD TIMES WERE THE BEST +A SUMMER AFTERNOON +AT LAST +FARMER WHIPPLE--BACHELOR +MY JOLLY FRIEND'S SECRET +THE SPEEDING OF THE KING'S SPITE +JOB WORK +PRIVATE THEATRICAL +PLAIN SERMONS +"TRADIN' JOE" +DOT LEEDLE BOY +I SMOKE MY PIPE +RED RIDING HOOD +IF I KNEW WHAT POETS KNOW +AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE +SQUIRE HAWKINS'S STORY +A COUNTRY PATHWAY +THE OLD GUITAR +"FRIDAY AFTERNOON" +"JOHNSON'S BOY" +HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS +NATURAL PERVERSITIES +THE SILENT VICTORS +SCRAPS +AUGUST +DEAD IN SIGHT OF FAME +IN THE DARK +THE IRON HORSE +DEAD LEAVES +OVER THE EYES OF GLADNESS +ONLY A DREAM +OUR LlTTLE GIRL +THE FUNNY LITTLE FELLOW +SONG OF THE NEW YEAR +A LETTER TO A FRIEND +LINES FOR AN ALBUM +TO ANNIE +FAME +AN EMPTY NEST +MY FATHER'S HALLS +THE HARP OF THE MINSTREL +HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB +JOHN WALSH +ORLIE WILDE +THAT OTHER MAUDE MULLER +A MAN OF MANY PARTS +THE FROG +DEAD SELVES +A DREAM OF LONG AGO +CRAQUEODOOM +JUNE +WASH LOWRY'S REMINISCENCE +THE ANCIENT PRINTERMAN +PRIOR TO MISS BELLE'S APPEARANCE +WHEN MOTHER COMBED MY HAIR +A WRANGDILLION +GEORGE MULLEN'S CONFESSION +"TIRED OUT" +HARLIE +SAY SOMETHING TO ME +LEONAINIE +A TEST OF LOVE +FATHER WILLIAM +WHAT THE WIND SAID +MORTON +AN AUTUMNAL EXTRAVAGANZA +THE ROSE +THE MERMAN +THE RAINY MORNING +WE ARE NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN WE SMILE +A SUMMER SUNRISE +DAS KRIST KINDEL +AN OLD YEAR'S ADDRESS +A NEW YEAR S PLAINT +LUTHER BENSON +DREAM +WHEN EVENING SHADOWS FALL +YLLADMAR +A FANTASY +A DREAM +DREAMER, SAY +BRYANT +BABYHOOD +LIBERTY +TOM VAN ARDEN + + + +JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY--A SKETCH + + +On Sunday morning, October seventh, 1849, Reuben A. Riley and his +wife, Elizabeth Marine Riley, rejoiced over the birth of their +second son. They called him James Whitcomb. This was in a shady +little street in the shady little town of Greenfield, which is in +the county of Hancock and the state of Indiana. The young James +found a brother and a sister waiting to greet him--John Andrew +and Martha Celestia, and afterward came Elva May--Mrs. Henry +Eitel-- Alexander Humbolt and Mary Elizabeth, who, of all, alone +lives to see this collection of her brother's poems. + +James Whitcomb was a slender lad, with corn-silk hair and wide +blue eyes. He was shy and timid, not strong physically, dreading +the cold of winter, and avoiding the rougher sports of his +playmates. And yet he was full of the spirit of youth, a spirit +that manifested itself in the performance of many ingenious +pranks. His every-day life was that of the average boy in the +average country town of that day, but his home influences were +exceptional. His father, who became a captain of cavalry in the +Civil War, was a lawyer of ability and an orator of more than +local distinction. His mother was a woman of rare strength of +character combined with deep sympathy and a clear understanding. +Together, they made home a place to remember with thankful heart. + +When James was twenty years old, the death of his mother made a +profound impression on him, an impression that has influenced +much of his verse and has remained with him always. + +At an early age he was sent to school and, "then sent back +again," to use his own words. He was restive under what he +called the "iron discipline." A number of years ago, he spoke +of these early educational beginnings in phrases so picturesque +and so characteristic that they are quoted in full: + +"My first teacher was a little old woman, rosy and roly-poly, who +looked as though she might have just come tumbling out of a fairy +story, so lovable was she and so jolly and so amiable. She kept +school in her little Dame-Trot kind of dwelling of three rooms, +with a porch in the rear, like a bracket on the wall, which was +part of the play-ground of her 'scholars,'--for in those days +pupils were called 'scholars' by their affectionate teachers. +Among the twelve or fifteen boys and girls who were there I +remember particularly a little lame boy, who always got the first +ride in the locust-tree swing during recess. + +"This first teacher of mine was a mother to all her 'scholars,' +and in every way looked after their comfort, especially when +certain little ones grew drowsy. I was often, with others, +carried to the sitting-room and left to slumber on a small made- +down pallet on the floor. She would sometimes take three or four +of us together; and I recall how a playmate and I, having been +admonished into silence, grew deeply interested in watching a +spare old man who sat at a window with its shade drawn down. +After a while we became accustomed to this odd sight and would +laugh, and talk in whispers and give imitations, as we sat in a +low sewing-chair, of the little old pendulating blind man at the +window. Well, the old man was the gentle teacher's charge, and +for this reason, possibly, her life had become an heroic one, +caring for her helpless husband who, quietly content, waited +always at the window for his sight to come back to him. And +doubtless it is to-day, as he sits at another casement and sees +not only his earthly friends, but all the friends of the Eternal +Home, with the smiling, loyal, loving little woman forever at his +side. + +"She was the kindliest of souls even when constrained to punish +us. After a whipping she invariably took me into the little +kitchen and gave me two great white slabs of bread cemented +together with layers of butter and jam. As she always whipped me +with the same slender switch she used for a pointer, and cried +over every lick, you will have an idea how much punishment I +could stand. When I was old enough to be lifted by the ears out +of my seat that office was performed by a pedagogue whom I +promised to 'whip sure, if he'd just wait till I got big enough.' +He is still waiting! + +"There was but one book at school in which I found the slightest +interest: McGuffey's old leather-bound Sixth Reader. It was the +tallest book known, and to the boys of my size it was a matter of +eternal wonder how I could belong to 'the big class in that +reader.' When we were to read the death of 'Little Nell,' I +would run away, for I knew it would make me cry, that the other +boys would laugh at me, and the whole thing would become +ridiculous. I couldn't bear that. A later teacher, Captain Lee +O. Harris, came to understand me with thorough sympathy, took +compassion on my weaknesses and encouraged me to read the best +literature. He understood that he couldn't get numbers into my +head. You couldn't tamp them in! History I also disliked as a +dry thing without juice, and dates melted out of my memory as +speedily as tin-foil on a red-hot stove. But I always was ready +to declaim and took natively to anything dramatic or theatrical. +Captain Harris encouraged me in recitation and reading and had +ever the sweet spirit of a companion rather than the manner of an +instructor." + +But if there was "only one book at school in which he found the +slightest interest," he had before that time displayed an +affection for a book--simply as such and not for any printed word +it might contain. And this, after all, is the true book-lover's +love. Speaking of this incident--and he liked to refer to it +as his "first literary recollection," he said: "Long +before I was old enough to read I remember buying a book at an +old auctioneer's shop in Greenfield. I can not imagine what +prophetic impulse took possession of me and made me forego the +ginger cakes and the candy that usually took every cent of my +youthful income. The slender little volume must have cost all of +twenty-five cents! It was Francis Quarles' Divine Emblems,--a +neat little affair about the size of a pocket Testament. I +carried it around with me all day long, delighted with the very +feel of it. + +" 'What have you got there, Bub?' some one would ask. 'A book,' +I would reply. 'What kind of a book?' 'Poetry-book.' 'Poetry!' +would be the amused exclamation. 'Can you read poetry?' and, +embarrassed, I'd shake my head and make my escape, but I held on +to the beloved little volume." + +Every boy has an early determination--a first one--to follow some +ennobling profession, once he has come to man's estate, such as +being a policeman, or a performer on the high trapeze. The poet +would not have been the "Peoples' Laureate," had his fairy god- +mother granted his boy-wish, but the Greenfield baker. For to +his childish mind it "seemed the acme of delight," using again +his own happy expression, "to manufacture those snowy loaves of +bread, those delicious tarts, those toothsome bon-bons. And then +to own them all, to keep them in store, to watch over and +guardedly exhibit. The thought of getting money for them was +to me a sacrilege. Sell them? No indeed. Eat 'em--eat 'em, by +tray loads and dray loads! It was a great wonder to me why the +pale-faced baker in our town did not eat all his good things. +This I determined to do when I became owner of such a grand +establishment. Yes, sir. I would have a glorious feast. Maybe +I'd have Tom and Harry and perhaps little Kate and Florry in to +help us once in a while. The thought of these play-mates as +'grown-up folks' didn't appeal to me. I was but a child, with +wide-open eyes, a healthy appetite and a wondering mind. That +was all. But I have the same sweet tooth to-day, and every time +I pass a confectioner's shop, I think of the big baker of our +town, and Tom and Harry and the youngsters all." + +As a child, he often went with his father to the court-house +where the lawyers and clerks playfully called him "judge Wick." +Here as a privileged character he met and mingled with the +country folk who came to sue and be sued, and thus early the +dialect, the native speech, the quaint expressions of his "own +people" were made familiar to him, and took firm root in the +fresh soil of his young memory. At about this time, he made his +first poetic attempt in a valentine which he gave to his mother. +Not only did he write the verse, but he drew a sketch to +accompany it, greatly to his mother's delight, who, according to +the best authority, gave the young poet "three big cookies and +didn't spank me for two weeks. This was my earliest literary +encouragement." + +Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, young Riley turned his back +on the little schoolhouse and for a time wandered through the +different fields of art, indulging a slender talent for painting +until he thought he was destined for the brush and palette, and +then making merry with various musical instruments, the banjo, +the guitar, the violin, until finally he appeared as bass drummer +in a brass band. "In a few weeks," he said, "I had beat myself +into the more enviable position of snare drummer. Then I wanted +to travel with a circus, and dangle my legs before admiring +thousands over the back seat of a Golden Chariot. In a dearth of +comic songs for the banjo and guitar, I had written two or three +myself, and the idea took possession of me that I might be a +clown, introduced as a character-song-man and the composer of my +own ballads. + +"My father was thinking of something else, however, and one day I +found myself with a 'five-ought' paint brush under the eaves of +an old frame house that drank paint by the bucketful, learning to +be a painter. Finally, I graduated as a house, sign and +ornamental painter, and for two summers traveled about with a +small company of young fellows calling ourselves 'The Graphics,' +who covered all the barns and fences in the state with +advertisements." + +At another time his, young man's fancy saw attractive +possibilities in the village print-shop, and later his +ambition was diverted to acting, encouraged by the good times he +had in the theatricals of the Adelphian Society of Greenfield. +"In my dreamy way," he afterward said, "I did a little of a +number of things fairly well--sang, played the guitar and violin, +acted, painted signs and wrote poetry. My father did not +encourage my verse-making for he thought it too visionary, and +being a visionary himself, he believed he understood the dangers +of following the promptings of the poetic temperament. I doubted +if anything would come of the verse-writing myself. At this time +it is easy to picture my father, a lawyer of ability, regarding +me, nonplused, as the worst case he had ever had. He wanted me +to do something practical, besides being ambitious for me to +follow in his footsteps, and at last persuaded me to settle down +and read law in his office. This I really tried to do +conscientiously, but finding that political economy and +Blackstone did not rhyme and that the study of law was +unbearable, I slipped out of the office one summer afternoon, +when all out-doors called imperiously, shook the last dusty +premise from my head and was away. + +"The immediate instigator of my flight was a traveling medicine +man who appealed to me for this reason: My health was bad, very +bad,--as bad as I was. Our doctor had advised me to travel, but +how could I travel without money? The medicine man needed an +assistant and I plucked up courage to ask if I could join the +party and paint advertisements for him. + +"I rode out of town with that glittering cavalcade without saying +good-by to any one, and though my patron was not a diplomaed +doctor, as I found out, he was a man of excellent habits, and the +whole company was made up of good straight boys, jolly chirping +vagabonds like myself. It was delightful to bowl over the +country in that way. I laughed all the time. Miles and miles of +somber landscape were made bright with merry song, and when the +sun shone and all the golden summer lay spread out before us, it +was glorious just to drift on through it like a wisp, of +thistle-down, careless of how, or when, or where the wind should +anchor us. 'There's a tang of gipsy blood in my veins that pants +for the sun and the air.' + +"My duty proper was the manipulation of two blackboards, swung at +the sides of the wagon during our street lecture and concert. +These boards were alternately embellished with colored drawings +illustrative of the manifold virtues of the nostrum vended. +Sometimes I assisted the musical olio with dialect recitations +and character sketches from the back step of the wagon. These +selections in the main originated from incidents and experiences +along the route, and were composed on dull Sundays in lonesome +little towns where even the church bells seemed to bark at us." + + +On his return to Greenfield after this delightful but profitless +tour he became the local editor of his home paper and in a few +months "strangled the little thing into a change of ownership." +The new proprietor transferred him to the literary department and +the latter, not knowing what else to put in the space allotted +him, filled it with verse. But there was not room in his +department for all he produced, so he began, timidly, to offer +his poetic wares in foreign markets. The editor of The +Indianapolis Mirror accepted two or three shorter verses but in +doing so suggested that in the future he try prose. Being but an +humble beginner, Riley harkened to the advice, whereupon the +editor made a further suggestion; this time that he try poetry +again. The Danbury (Connecticut) News, then at the height of its +humorous reputation, accepted a contribution shortly after The +Mirror episode and Mr. McGeechy, its managing editor, wrote the +young poet a graceful note of congratulation. Commenting on +these parlous times, Riley afterward wrote, "It is strange how +little a thing sometimes makes or unmakes a fellow. In these +dark days I should have been content with the twinkle of the +tiniest star, but even this light was withheld from me. Just +then came the letter from McGeechy; and about the same time, +arrived my first check, a payment from Hearth and Home for a +contribution called A Destiny (now A Dreamer in A Child World). +The letter was signed, 'Editor' and unless sent by an assistant +it must have come from Ik Marvel himself, God bless him! I +thought my fortune made. Almost immediately I sent off another +contribution, whereupon to my dismay came this reply: 'The +management has decided to discontinue the publication and hopes +that you will find a market for your worthy work elsewhere.' +Then followed dark days indeed, until finally, inspired by my old +teacher and comrade, Captain Lee O. Harris, I sent some of my +poems to Longfellow, who replied in his kind and gentle manner +with the substantial encouragement for which I had long +thirsted." + +In the year following, Riley formed a connection with The +Anderson (Indiana) Democrat and contributed verse and locals in +more than generous quantities. He was happy in this work and had +begun to feel that at last he was making progress when evil +fortune knocked at his door and, conspiring with circumstances +and a friend or two, induced the young poet to devise what +afterward seemed to him the gravest of mistakes,--the Poe-poem +hoax. He was then writing for an audience of county papers and +never dreamed that this whimsical bit of fooling would be carried +beyond such boundaries. It was suggested by these circumstances. + +He was inwardly distressed by the belief that his failure to get +the magazines to accept his verse was due to his obscurity, while +outwardly he was harassed to desperation by the junior editor of +the rival paper who jeered daily at his poetical pretensions. +So, to prove that editors would praise from a known source what +they did not hesitate to condemn from one unknown, and to silence +his nagging contemporary, he wrote Leonainie in the style of +Poe, concocting a story, to accompany the poem, setting forth how +Poe came to write it and how all these years it had been lost to +view. In a few words Mr. Riley related the incident and then +dismissed it. "I studied Poe's methods. He seemed to have a +theory, rather misty to be sure, about the use of 'm's' and 'n's' +and mellifluous vowels and sonorous words. I remember that I was +a long time in evolving the name Leonainie, but at length the +verses were finished and ready for trial. + +"A friend, the editor of The Kokomo Dispatch, undertook the +launching of the hoax in his paper; he did this with great +editorial gusto while, at the same time, I attacked the +authenticity of the poem in The Democrat. That diverted all +possible suspicion from me. The hoax succeeded far too well, for +what had started as a boyish prank became a literary discussion +nation-wide, and the necessary expose had to be made. I was +appalled at the result. The press assailed me furiously, and +even my own paper dismissed me because I had given the +'discovery' to a rival." + +Two dreary and disheartening years followed this tragic event, +years in which the young poet found no present help, nor future +hope. But over in Indianapolis, twenty miles away, happier +circumstances were shaping themselves. Judge E. B. Martindale, +editor and proprietor of The Indianapolis Journal, had been +attracted by certain poems in various papers over the state and +at the very time that the poet was ready to confess himself +beaten, the judge wrote: "Come over to Indianapolis and we'll +give you, a place on The Journal." Mr. Riley went. That was the +turning point, and though the skies were not always clear, nor +the way easy, still from that time it was ever an ascending +journey. As soon as he was comfortably settled in his new +position, the first of the Benj. F. Johnson poems made its +appearance. These dialect verses were introduced with editorial +comment as coming from an old Boone county farmer, and their +reception was so cordial, so enthusiastic, indeed, that the +business manager of The Journal, Mr. George C. Hitt, privately +published them in pamphlet form and sold the first edition of one +thousand copies in local bookstores and over The Journal office +counter. This marked an epoch in the young poet's progress and +was the beginning of a friendship between him and Mr. Hitt that +has never known interruption. This first edition of The Old +Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More Poems has since become extremely +rare and now commands a high premium. A second edition was +promptly issued by a local book dealer, whose successors, The +Bowen-Merrill Company--now The Bobbs-Merrill Company--have +continued, practically without interruption, to publish Riley's +work. + +The call to read from the public platform had by this time become +so insistent that Riley could no longer resist it, although +modesty and shyness fought the battle for privacy. He told +briefly and in his own inimitable fashion of these trying +experiences. "In boyhood I had been vividly impressed with +Dickens' success in reading from his own works and dreamed that +some day I might follow his example. At first I read at Sunday- +school entertainments and later, on special occasions such as +Memorial Days and Fourth of Julys. At last I mustered up +sufficient courage to read in a city theater, where, despite the +conspiracy of a rainy night and a circus, I got encouragement +enough to lead me to extend my efforts. And so, my native state +and then the country at large were called upon to bear with me +and I think I visited every sequestered spot north or south +particularly distinguished for poor railroad connections. At +different times, I shared the program with Mark Twain, Robert J. +Burdette and George Cable, and for a while my gentlest and +cheeriest of friends, Bill Nye, joined with me and made the dusty +detested travel almost a delight. We were constantly playing +practical jokes on each other or indulging in some mischievous +banter before the audience. On one occasion, Mr. Nye, coming +before the foot-lights for a word of general introduction, said, +'Ladies and gentlemen, the entertainment to-night is of a dual +nature. Mr. Riley and I will speak alternately. First I come +out and talk until I get tired, then Mr. Riley comes out and +talks until YOU get tired!' And thus the trips went merrily +enough at times and besides I learned to know in Bill Nye a man +blessed with as noble and heroic a heart as ever beat. But the +making of trains, which were all in conspiracy to outwit me, +schedule or no schedule, and the rush and tyrannical pressure of +inviolable engagements, some hundred to a season and from Boston +to San Francisco, were a distress to my soul. I am glad that's +over with. Imagine yourself on a crowded day-long excursion; +imagine that you had to ride all the way on the platform of the +car; then imagine that you had to ride all the way back on the +same platform; and lastly, try to imagine how you would feel if +you did that every day of your life, and you will then get a +glimmer--a faint glimmer--of how one feels after traveling about +on a reading or lecturing tour. + +"All this time I had been writing whenever there was any strength +left in me. I could not resist the inclination to write. It was +what I most enjoyed doing. And so I wrote, laboriously ever, +more often using the rubber end of the pencil than the point. + +"In my readings I had an opportunity to study and find out for +myself what the public wants, and afterward I would endeavor to +use the knowledge gained in my writing. The public desires +nothing but what is absolutely natural, and so perfectly natural +as to be fairly artless. It can not tolerate affectation, and it +takes little interest in the classical production. It demands +simple sentiments that come direct from the heart. While on the +lecture platform I watched the effect that my readings had on the +audience very closely and whenever anybody left the hall I knew +that my recitation was at fault and tried to find out why. Once +a man and his wife made an exit while I was giving The Happy +Little Cripple--a recitation I had prepared with particular +enthusiasm and satisfaction. It fulfilled, as few poems do, all +the requirements of length, climax and those many necessary +features for a recitation. The subject was a theme of real +pathos, beautified by the cheer and optimism of the little +sufferer. Consequently when this couple left the hall I was very +anxious to know the reason and asked a friend to find out. He +learned that they had a little hunch-back child of their own. +After this experience I never used that recitation again. On the +other hand, it often required a long time for me to realize that +the public would enjoy a poem which, because of some blind +impulse, I thought unsuitable. Once a man said to me, 'Why don't +you recite When the Frost Is on the Punkin?' The use of it had +never occurred to me for I thought it 'wouldn't go.' He +persuaded me to try it and it became one of my most favored +recitations. Thus, I learned to judge and value my verses by +their effect upon the public. Occasionally, at first, I had +presumed to write 'over the heads' of the audience, consoling +myself for the cool reception by thinking my auditors were not of +sufficient intellectual height to appreciate my efforts. But +after a time it came home to me that I myself was at fault in +these failures, and then I disliked anything that did not appeal +to the public and learned to discriminate between that which did +not ring true to my hearers and that which won them by virtue of +its truthfulness and was simply heart high." + +As a reader of his own poems, as a teller of humorous stories, as +a mimic, indeed as a finished actor, Riley's genius was rare and +beyond question. In a lecture on the Humorous Story, Mark Twain, +referring to the story of the One Legged Soldier and the +different ways of telling it, once said: + +"It takes only a minute and a half to tell it in its comic form; +and it isn't worth telling after all. Put into the +humorous-story form, it takes ten minutes, and is about the +funniest thing I have ever listened to--as James Whitcomb Riley +tells it. + +"The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unconsciousness +of Riley's old farmer are perfectly simulated, and the result is +a performance which is thoroughly charming and delicious. This +is art--and fine and beautiful, and only a master can compass +it." + +It was in that The Old Swimmin' Hole and 'Leven More +Poems first appeared in volume form. Four years afterward, Riley +made his initial appearance before a New York City audience. The +entertainment was given in aid of an international copyright law, +and the country's most distinguished men of letters took part in +the program. It is probably true that no one appearing at that +time was less known to the vast audience in Chickering Hall than +James Whitcomb Riley, but so great and so spontaneous was the +enthusiasm when he left the stage after his contribution to the +first day's program, that the management immediately announced a +place would be made for Mr. Riley on the second and last day's +program. It was then that James Russell Lowell introduced him in +the following words: + +"Ladies and gentlemen: I have very great pleasure in presenting +to you the next reader of this afternoon, Mr. James Whitcomb +Riley, of Indiana. I confess, with no little chagrin and sense +of my own loss, that when yesterday afternoon, from this +platform, I presented him to a similar assemblage, I was almost +completely a stranger to his poems. But since that time I have +been looking into the volumes that have come from his pen, and in +them I have discovered so much of high worth and tender quality +that I deeply regret I had not long before made acquaintance with +his work. To-day, in presenting Mr. Riley to you, I can say to +you of my own knowledge, that you are to have the pleasure of +listening to the voice of a true poet." + + +Two years later a selection from his poems was published in +England under the title Old Fashioned Roses and his +international reputation was established. In his own country the +people had already conferred their highest degrees on him and now +the colleges and universities--seats of conservatism--gave him +scholastic recognition. Yale made him an Honorary Master of Arts +in 1902; in 1903, Wabash and, a year later, the University of +Pennsylvania conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Letters, +and in 1907 Indiana University gave him his LL. D. Still more +recently the Academy of Arts and Letters elected him to +membership, and in 1912 awarded him the gold medal for poetry. +About this time a yet dearer, more touching tribute came to him +from school children. On October 7, 1911, the schools of Indiana +and New York City celebrated his birthday by special exercises, +and one year later, the school children of practically every +section of the country had programs in his honor. + +As these distinguished honors came they found him each time +surprised anew and, though proud that they who dwell in the high +places of learning should come in cap and gown to welcome him, +yet gently and sincerely protesting his own unworthiness. And as +they found him when they came so they left him. + +Mr. Riley made his home in Indianapolis from the time judge +Martindale invited him to join The Journal's forces, and no one +of her citizens was more devoted, nor was any so universally +loved and honored. Everywhere he went the tribute of quick +recognition and cheery greeting was paid him, and his home was +the shrine of every visiting Hoosier. High on a sward of velvet +grass stands a dignified middle-aged brick house. A dwarfed +stone wall, broken by an iron gate, guards the front lawn, while +in the rear an old-fashioned garden revels in hollyhocks and wild +roses. Here among his books and his souvenirs the poet spent his +happy and contented days. To reach this restful spot, the +pilgrim must journey to Lockerbie Street, a miniature +thoroughfare half hidden between two more commanding avenues. It +is little more than a lane, shaded, unpaved and from end to end +no longer than a five minutes' walk, but its fame is for all +time. + + "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!" + + +Riley never married. He lived with devoted, loyal and +understanding friends, a part of whose life he became many years +ago. Kindly consideration, gentle affection, peace and order,-- +all that go to make home home, were found here blooming with the +hollyhocks and the wild roses. Every day some visitor knocked +for admittance and was not denied; every day saw the poet calling +for some companionable friend and driving with him through the +city's shaded streets or far out into the country. + +And so his life drew on to its last and most beautiful year. +Since his serious illness in 1910, the public had shown its love +for him more and more frequently. On the occasion of his +birthday in 1912, Greenfield had welcomed him home through a host +of children scattering flowers. Anderson, where he was living +when he first gained public recognition, had a Riley Day in 1913. + +The Indiana State University entertained him the same year, as +did also the city of Cincinnati. In 1915 there was a Riley Day +at Columbus, Indiana, and during all this time each birthday and +Christmas was marked by "poetry-showers," and by thousands of +letters of affectionate congratulation and by many tributes in +the newspapers and magazines. + +His last birthday, October 7, 1915, was the most notable of all. +Honorable Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, suggested +to the various school superintendents that one of Riley's poems +be read in each schoolhouse, with the result that Riley +celebrations were general among the children of the entire +country. In a proclamation by Governor Ralston the State of +Indiana designated the anniversary as Riley Day in honor of its +"most beloved citizen." Thousands of letters and gifts from the +poet's friends poured in--letters from schools and organizations +and Riley Clubs as well as from individuals--while flowers came +from every section of the country. Among them all, perhaps the +poet was most pleased with a bunch of violets picked from the +banks of the Brandywine by the children of a Riley school. + +It was on this last birthday that an afternoon festival of Riley +poems set to music and danced in pantomime took place at +Indianapolis. This was followed at night by a dinner in his +honor at which Charles Warren Fairbanks presided, and the +speakers were Governor Ralston, Doctor John Finley, Colonel +George Harvey, Young E. Allison, William Allen White, George Ade, +Ex-Senator Beveridge and Senator Kern. That night Riley smiled +his most wonderful smile, his dimpled boyish smile, and when he +rose to speak it was with a perceptible quaver in his voice that +he said: "Everywhere the faces of friends, a beautiful throng of +friends!" + +The winter and spring following, Riley spent quietly at Miami, +Florida, where he had gone the two previous seasons to escape the +cold and the rain. There was a Riley Day at Miami in February. +In April, he returned home, feeling at his best, and, as if by +premonition, sought out many of his friends, new and old, and +took them for last rides in his automobile. A few days before +the end, he visited Greenfield to attend the funeral of a dear +boyhood chum, Almon Keefer, of whom he wrote in A Child-World. +All Riley's old friends who were still left in Greenfield were +gathered there and to them he spoke words of faith and good +cheer. Almon Keefer had "just slipped out" quietly and +peacefully, he said, and "it was beautiful." + +And as quietly and peacefully his own end came--as he had desired +it, with no dimming of the faculties even to the very close, nor +suffering, nor confronting death. This was Saturday night, July +22, 1916. On Monday afternoon and evening his body lay in state +under the dome of Indiana's capitol, while the people filed by, +thousands upon thousands. Business men were there, and +schoolgirls, matrons carrying market baskets, mothers with little +children, here and there a swarthy foreigner, old folks, too, and +well-dressed youths, here a farmer and his wife, and there a +workman in a blue jumper with his hat in his band, silent, +inarticulate, yet bidding his good-by, too. On the following +day, with only his nearest and dearest about him, all that was +mortal of the people's poet was quietly and simply laid to rest. + + + +The Complete Works +of James Whitcomb Riley + +A BACKWARD LOOK + +As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday, + And lazily leaning back in my chair, +Enjoying myself in a general way-- +Allowing my thoughts a holiday + From weariness, toil and care,-- +My fancies--doubtless, for ventilation-- + Left ajar the gates of my mind,-- +And Memory, seeing the situation, + Slipped out in the street of "Auld Lang Syne."-- + + +Wandering ever with tireless feet + Through scenes of silence, and jubilee +Of long-hushed voices; and faces sweet +Were thronging the shadowy side of the street + As far as the eye could see; +Dreaming again, in anticipation, + The same old dreams of our boyhood's days +That never come true, from the vague sensation + Of walking asleep in the world's strange ways. + +Away to the house where I was born! + And there was the selfsame clock that ticked +From the close of dusk to the burst of morn, +When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn + And helped when the apples were picked. +And the "chany dog" on the mantel-shelf, + With the gilded collar and yellow eyes, +Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself + Sound asleep with the dear surprise. + +And down to the swing in the locust-tree, + Where the grass was worn from the trampled ground, +And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three +Or four such other boys used to be + "Doin' sky-scrapers," or "whirlin' round": +And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest, + And again "had shows" in the buggy-shed +Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed, + The old ghosts romp through the best days dead! + +And again I gazed from the old schoolroom + With a wistful look, of a long June day, +When on my cheek was the hectic bloom +Caught of Mischief, as I presume-- + He had such a "partial" way, +It seemed, toward me.--And again I thought + Of a probable likelihood to be +Kept in after school--for a girl was caught + Catching a note from me. + +And down through the woods to the swimming-hole-- + Where the big, white, hollow old sycamore grows,-- +And we never cared when the water was cold, +And always "ducked" the boy that told + On the fellow that tied the clothes.-- +When life went so like a dreamy rhyme, + That it seems to me now that then +The world was having a jollier time + Than it ever will have again. + + + +PHILIPER FLASH + +Young Philiper Flash was a promising lad, +His intentions were good--but oh, how sad + For a person to think + How the veriest pink +And bloom of perfection may turn out bad. +Old Flash himself was a moral man, +And prided himself on a moral plan, + Of a maxim as old + As the calf of gold, +Of making that boy do what he was told. + +And such a good mother had Philiper Flash; +Her voice was as soft as the creamy plash + Of the milky wave + With its musical lave +That gushed through the holes of her patent churn-dash;-- +And the excellent woman loved Philiper so, +She could cry sometimes when he stumped his toe,-- + And she stroked his hair + With such motherly care +When the dear little angel learned to swear. + +Old Flash himself would sometimes say +That his wife had "such a ridiculous way,-- + She'd, humor that child + Till he'd soon be sp'iled, +And then there'd be the devil to pay!" +And the excellent wife, with a martyr's look, +Would tell old Flash himself "he took + No notice at all + Of the bright-eyed doll +Unless when he spanked him for getting a fall!" + +Young Philiper Flash, as time passed by, +Grew into "a boy with a roguish eye": + He could smoke a cigar, + And seemed by far +The most promising youth.--"He's powerful sly, +Old Flash himself once told a friend, +"Every copper he gets he's sure to spend-- + And," said he, "don't you know + If he keeps on so +What a crop of wild oats the boy will grow!" + +But his dear good mother knew Philiper's ways +So--well, she managed the money to raise; + And old Flash himself + Was "laid on the shelf," +(In the manner of speaking we have nowadays). +For "gracious knows, her darling child, +If he went without money he'd soon grow wild." + So Philiper Flash + With a regular dash +"Swung on to the reins," and went "slingin' the cash." + +As old Flash himself, in his office one day, +Was shaving notes in a barberous way, + At the hour of four + Death entered the door +And shaved the note on his life, they say. +And he had for his grave a magnificent tomb, +Though the venturous finger that pointed "Gone Home," + Looked white and cold + From being so bold, +As it feared that a popular lie was told. + +Young Philiper Flash was a man of style +When he first began unpacking the pile + Of the dollars and dimes + Whose jingling chimes +Had clinked to the tune of his father's smile; +And he strewed his wealth with such lavish hand, +His rakish ways were the talk of the land, + And gossipers wise + Sat winking their eyes +(A certain foreboding of fresh surprise). + +A "fast young man" was Philiper Flash, +And wore "loud clothes" and a weak mustache, + And "done the Park," + For an "afternoon lark," +With a very fast horse of "remarkable dash." +And Philiper handled a billiard-cue +About as well as the best he knew, + And used to say + "He could make it pay +By playing two or three games a day." + +And Philiper Flash was his mother's joy, +He seemed to her the magic alloy + That made her glad, + When her heart was sad, +With the thought that "she lived for her darling boy." +His dear good mother wasn't aware +How her darling boy relished a "tare."-- + She said "one night + He gave her a fright +By coming home late and ACTING tight." + +Young Philiper Flash, on a winterish day, +Was published a bankrupt, so they say-- + And as far as I know + I suppose it was so, +For matters went on in a singular way; +His excellent mother, I think I was told, +Died from exposure and want and cold; + And Philiper Flash, + With a horrible slash, +Whacked his jugular open and went to smash. + + + +THE SAME OLD STORY + +The same old story told again-- + The maiden droops her head, +The ripening glow of her crimson cheek + Is answering in her stead. +The pleading tone of a trembling voice + Is telling her the way +He loved her when his heart was young + In Youth's sunshiny day: +The trembling tongue, the longing tone, + Imploringly ask why +They can not be as happy now + As in the days gone by. +And two more hearts, tumultuous + With overflowing joy, +Are dancing to the music + Which that dear, provoking boy +Is twanging on his bowstring, + As, fluttering his wings, +He sends his love-charged arrows + While merrily be sings: +"Ho! ho! my dainty maiden, + It surely can not be +You are thinking you are master + Of your heart, when it is me." +And another gleaming arrow + Does the little god's behest, +And the dainty little maiden + Falls upon her lover's breast. +"The same old story told again," + And listened o'er and o'er, +Will still be new, and pleasing, too, + Till "Time shall be no more." + + + +TO A BOY WHISTLING + +The smiling face of a happy boy + With its enchanted key + Is now unlocking in memory +My store of heartiest joy. + +And my lost life again to-day, + In pleasant colors all aglow, + From rainbow tints, to pure white snow, +Is a panorama sliding away. + +The whistled air of a simple tune + Eddies and whirls my thoughts around, + As fairy balloons of thistle-down +Sail through the air of June. + +O happy boy with untaught grace! + What is there in the world to give + That can buy one hour of the life you live +Or the trivial cause of your smiling face! + + + +AN OLD FRIEND + +Hey, Old Midsummer! are you here again, + With all your harvest-store of olden joys,-- +Vast overhanging meadow-lands of rain, +And drowsy dawns, and noons when golden grain + Nods in the sun, and lazy truant boys +Drift ever listlessly adown the day, +Too full of joy to rest, and dreams to play. + +The same old Summer, with the same old smile + Beaming upon us in the same old way +We knew in childhood! Though a weary while +Since that far time, yet memories reconcile + The heart with odorous breaths of clover hay; +And again I hear the doves, and the sun streams through +The old barn door just as it used to do. + +And so it seems like welcoming a friend-- + An old, OLD friend, upon his coming home +From some far country--coming home to spend +Long, loitering days with me: And I extend + My hand in rapturous glee:--And so you've come!-- +Ho, I'm so glad! Come in and take a chair: +Well, this is just like OLD times, I declare! + + + +WHAT SMITH KNEW ABOUT FARMING + +There wasn't two purtier farms in the state +Than the couple of which I'm about to relate;-- +Jinin' each other--belongin' to Brown, +And jest at the edge of a flourishin' town. +Brown was a man, as I understand, +That allus had handled a good 'eal o' land, +And was sharp as a tack in drivin' a trade-- +For that's the way most of his money was made. +And all the grounds and the orchards about +His two pet farms was all tricked out +With poppies and posies +And sweet-smellin' rosies; +And hundreds o' kinds +Of all sorts o' vines, +To tickle the most horticultural minds +And little dwarf trees not as thick as your wrist +With ripe apples on 'em as big as your fist: +And peaches,--Siberian crabs and pears, +And quinces--Well! ANY fruit ANY tree bears; +And th purtiest stream--jest a-swimmin' with fish, +And--JEST O'MOST EVERYTHING HEART COULD WISH! +The purtiest orch'rds--I wish you could see +How purty they was, fer I know it 'ud be +A regular treat!--but I'll go ahead with +My story! A man by the name o' Smith-- +(A bad name to rhyme, +But I reckon that I'm +Not goin' back on a Smith! nary time!) +'At hadn't a soul of kin nor kith, +And more money than he knowed what to do with,-- +So he comes a-ridin' along one day, +And HE says to Brown, in his offhand way-- +Who was trainin' some newfangled vines round a bay- +Winder--"Howdy-do--look-a-here--say: +What'll you take fer this property here?-- +I'm talkin' o' leavin' the city this year, +And I want to be +Where the air is free, +And I'll BUY this place, if it ain't too dear!"-- +Well--they grumbled and jawed aroun'-- +"I don't like to part with the place," says Brown; +"Well," says Smith, a-jerkin' his head, +"That house yonder--bricks painted red-- +Jest like this'n--a PURTIER VIEW-- +Who is it owns it?" "That's mine too," +Says Brown, as he winked at a hole in his shoe, +"But I'll tell you right here jest what I KIN do:-- +If you'll pay the figgers I'll sell IT to you.," +Smith went over and looked at the place-- +Badgered with Brown, and argied the case-- +Thought that Brown's figgers was rather too tall, +But, findin' that Brown wasn't goin' to fall, +In final agreed, +So they drawed up the deed +Fer the farm and the fixtures--the live stock an' all. +And so Smith moved from the city as soon +As he possibly could--But "the man in the moon" +Knowed more'n Smith o' farmin' pursuits, +And jest to convince you, and have no disputes, +How little he knowed, +I'll tell you his "mode," +As he called it, o' raisin' "the best that growed," +In the way o' potatoes-- +Cucumbers--tomatoes, +And squashes as lengthy as young alligators. +'Twas allus a curious thing to me +How big a fool a feller kin be +When he gits on a farm after leavin' a town!-- +Expectin' to raise himself up to renown, +And reap fer himself agricultural fame, +By growin' of squashes--WITHOUT ANY SHAME-- +As useless and long as a technical name. +To make the soil pure, +And certainly sure, +He plastered the ground with patent manure. +He had cultivators, and double-hoss plows, +And patent machines fer milkin' his cows; +And patent hay-forks--patent measures and weights, +And new patent back-action hinges fer gates, +And barn locks and latches, and such little dribs, +And patents to keep the rats out o' the cribs-- +Reapers and mowers, +And patent grain sowers; +And drillers +And tillers +And cucumber hillers, +And horries;--and had patent rollers and scrapers, +And took about ten agricultural papers. +So you can imagine how matters turned out: +But BROWN didn't have not a shadder o' doubt +That Smith didn't know what he was about +When he said that "the OLD way to farm was played out." +But Smith worked ahead, +And when any one said +That the OLD way o' workin' was better instead +O' his "modern idees," he allus turned red, +And wanted to know +What made people so +INFERNALLY anxious to hear theirselves crow? +And guessed that he'd manage to hoe his own row. +Brown he come onc't and leant over the fence, +And told Smith that he couldn't see any sense +In goin' to such a tremendous expense +Fer the sake o' such no-account experiments +"That'll never make corn! +As shore's you're born +It'll come out the leetlest end of the horn!" +Says Brown, as he pulled off a big roastin'-ear +From a stalk of his own +That had tribble outgrown +Smith's poor yaller shoots, and says he, "Looky here! +THIS corn was raised in the old-fashioned way, +And I rather imagine that THIS corn'll pay +Expenses fer RAISIN' it!--What do you say?" +Brown got him then to look over his crop.-- +HIS luck that season had been tip-top! +And you may surmise +Smith opened his eyes +And let out a look o' the wildest surprise +When Brown showed him punkins as big as the lies +He was stuffin' him with--about offers he's had +Fer his farm: "I don't want to sell very bad," +He says, but says he, +"Mr. Smith, you kin see +Fer yourself how matters is standin' with me, +I UNDERSTAND FARMIN' and I'd better stay, +You know, on my farm;--I'm a-makin' it pay-- +I oughtn't to grumble!--I reckon I'll clear +Away over four thousand dollars this year." +And that was the reason, he made it appear, +Why he didn't care about sellin' his farm, +And hinted at his havin' done himself harm +In sellin' the other, and wanted to know +If Smith wouldn't sell back ag'in to him.--So +Smith took the bait, and says he, "Mr. Brown, +I wouldn't SELL out but we might swap aroun'-- +How'll you trade your place fer mine?" +(Purty sharp way o' comin' the shine +Over Smith! Wasn't it?) Well, sir, this Brown +Played out his hand and brought Smithy down-- +Traded with him an', workin' it cute, +Raked in two thousand dollars to boot +As slick as a whistle, an' that wasn't all,-- +He managed to trade back ag'in the next fall,-- +And the next--and the next--as long as Smith stayed +He reaped with his harvests an annual trade.-- +Why, I reckon that Brown must 'a' easily made-- +On an AVERAGE--nearly two thousand a year-- +Together he made over seven thousand--clear.-- +Till Mr. Smith found he was losin' his health +In as big a proportion, almost, as his wealth; +So at last he concluded to move back to town, +And sold back his farm to this same Mr. Brown +At very low figgers, by gittin' it down. +Further'n this I have nothin' to say +Than merely advisin' the Smiths fer to stay +In their grocery stores in flourishin' towns +And leave agriculture alone--and the Browns. + + + + A POET'S WOOING + + I woo'd a woman once, +But she was sharper than an eastern wind. + --TENNYSON. + +"What may I do to make you glad, +To make you glad and free, + Till your light smiles glance + And your bright eyes dance +Like sunbeams on the sea? + Read some rhyme that is blithe and gay + Of a bright May morn and a marriage day?" +And she sighed in a listless way she had,-- +"Do not read--it will make me sad!" + +"What shall I do to make you glad-- +To make you glad and gay, + Till your eyes gleam bright + As the stars at night +When as light as the light of day + Sing some song as I twang the strings + Of my sweet guitar through its wanderings?" +And she sighed in the weary way she had,-- +"Do not sing--it will make me sad!" + +"What can I do to make you glad-- +As glad as glad can be, + Till your clear eyes seem + Like the rays that gleam +And glint through a dew-decked tree?-- + Will it please you, dear, that I now begin + A grand old air on my violin?" +And she spoke again in the following way,-- + "Yes, oh yes, it would please me, sir; +I would be so glad you'd play + Some grand old march--in character,-- +And then as you march away +I will no longer thus be sad, +But oh, so glad--so glad--so glad!" + + + +MAN'S DEVOTION + +A lover said, "O Maiden, love me well, +For I must go away: +And should ANOTHER ever come to tell +Of love--What WILL you say?" + +And she let fall a royal robe of hair +That folded on his arm +And made a golden pillow for her there; +Her face--as bright a charm + +As ever setting held in kingly crown-- +Made answer with a look, +And reading it, the lover bended down, +And, trusting, "kissed the book." + +He took a fond farewell and went away. +And slow the time went by-- +So weary--dreary was it, day by day +To love, and wait, and sigh. + +She kissed his pictured face sometimes, and said: + "O Lips, so cold and dumb, +I would that you would tell me, if not dead, + Why, why do you not come?" + +The picture, smiling, stared her in the face + Unmoved--e'en with the touch +Of tear-drops--HERS--bejeweling the case-- + 'Twas plain--she loved him much. + +And, thus she grew to think of him as gay + And joyous all the while, +And SHE was sorrowing--"Ah, welladay!" + But pictures ALWAYS smile! + +And years--dull years--in dull monotony + As ever went and came, +Still weaving changes on unceasingly, + And changing, changed her name. + +Was she untrue?--She oftentimes was glad + And happy as a wife; +But ONE remembrance oftentimes made sad + Her matrimonial life.-- + +Though its few years were hardly noted, when + Again her path was strown +With thorns--the roses swept away again, + And she again alone! + +And then--alas! ah THEN!--her lover came: + "I come to claim you now-- +My Darling, for I know you are the same, + And I have kept my vow + +Through these long, long, long years, and now no more + Shall we asundered be!" +She staggered back and, sinking to the floor, + Cried in her agony: + +"I have been false!" she moaned, "_I_ am not true-- + I am not worthy now, +Nor ever can I be a wife to YOU-- + For I have broke my vow!" + +And as she kneeled there, sobbing at his feet, + He calmly spoke--no sign +Betrayed his inward agony--"I count you meet + To be a wife of mine!" + +And raised her up forgiven, though untrue; + As fond he gazed on her, +She sighed,--"SO HAPPY!" And she never knew + HE was a WIDOWER. + + + +A BALLAD + +WITH A SERIOUS CONCLUSION + +Crowd about me, little children-- + Come and cluster 'round my knee +While I tell a little story + That happened once with me. + +My father he had gone away + A-sailing on the foam, +Leaving me--the merest infant-- + And my mother dear at home; + +For my father was a sailor, + And he sailed the ocean o'er +For full five years ere yet again + He reached his native shore. + +And I had grown up rugged + And healthy day by day, +Though I was but a puny babe + When father went away. + +Poor mother she would kiss me + And look at me and sigh +So strangely, oft I wondered + And would ask the reason why. + +And she would answer sadly, + Between her sobs and tears,-- +"You look so like your father, + Far away so many years!" + +And then she would caress me + And brush my hair away, +And tell me not to question, + But to run about my play. + +Thus I went playing thoughtfully-- + For that my mother said,-- +"YOU LOOK SO LIKE YOUR FATHER!" + Kept ringing in my head. + +So, ranging once the golden sands + That looked out on the sea, +I called aloud, "My father dear, + Come back to ma and me!" + +Then I saw a glancing shadow + On the sand, and heard the shriek +Of a sea-gull flying seaward, + And I heard a gruff voice speak:-- + +"Ay, ay, my little shipmate, + I thought I heard you hail; +Were you trumpeting that sea-gull, + Or do you see a sail?" + +And as rough and gruff a sailor + As ever sailed the sea +Was standing near grotesquely + And leering dreadfully. + +I replied, though I was frightened, + "It was my father dear +I was calling for across the sea-- + I think he didn't hear." + +And then the sailor leered again + In such a frightful way, +And made so many faces + I was little loath to stay: + +But he started fiercely toward me-- + Then made a sudden halt +And roared, "_I_ think he heard you!" + And turned a somersault. + +Then a wild fear overcame me, + And I flew off like the wind, +Shrieking "MOTHER!"--and the sailor + Just a little way behind! + +And then my mother heard me, + And I saw her shade her eyes, +Looking toward me from the doorway, + Transfixed with pale surprise + +For a moment--then her features + Glowed with all their wonted charms +As the sailor overtook me, + And I fainted in her arms. + +When I awoke to reason + I shuddered with affright +Till I felt my mother's presence + With a thrill of wild delight-- + +Till, amid a shower of kisses + Falling glad as summer rain, +A muffled thunder rumbled,-- + "Is he coming 'round again?" + +Then I shrieked and clung unto her, + While her features flushed and burned +As she told me it was father + From a foreign land returned. + +. . . . . . . + +I said--when I was calm again, + And thoughtfully once more +Had dwelt upon my mother's words + Of just the day before,-- + +"I DON'T look like my father, + As you told me yesterday-- +I know I don't--or father + Would have run the other way." + + + + +THE OLD TIMES WERE THE BEST + +Friends, my heart is half aweary + Of its happiness to-night: +Though your songs are gay and cheery, + And your spirits feather-light, +There's a ghostly music haunting + Still the heart of every guest +And a voiceless chorus chanting + That the Old Times were the best. + + + CHORUS + +All about is bright and pleasant + With the sound of song and jest, +Yet a feeling's ever present + That the Old Times were the best. + + + +A SUMMER AFTERNOON + +A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze, + With labored respiration, moves the wheat +From distant reaches, till the golden seas + Break in crisp whispers at my feet. + +My book, neglected of an idle mind, + Hides for a moment from the eyes of men; +Or lightly opened by a critic wind, + Affrightedly reviews itself again. + +Off through the haze that dances in the shine + The warm sun showers in the open glade, +The forest lies, a silhouette design + Dimmed through and through with shade. + +A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie + At anchor from all storms of mental strain; +With absent vision, gazing at the sky, + "Like one that hears it rain." + +The Katydid, so boisterous last night, + Clinging, inverted, in uneasy poise, +Beneath a wheat-blade, has forgotten quite + If "Katy DID or DIDN'T" make a noise. + +The twitter, sometimes, of a wayward bird + That checks the song abruptly at the sound, +And mildly, chiding echoes that have stirred, + Sink into silence, all the more profound. + +And drowsily I hear the plaintive strain + Of some poor dove . . . Why, I can scarcely keep +My heavy eyelids--there it is again-- + "Coo-coo!"--I mustn't--"Coo-coo!"--fall asleep! + + + +AT LAST + +A dark, tempestuous night; the stars shut in + With shrouds of fog; an inky, jet-black blot +The firmament; and where the moon has been + An hour agone seems like the darkest spot. +The weird wind--furious at its demon game-- +Rattles one's fancy like a window-frame. + +A care-worn face peers out into the dark, + And childish faces--frightened at the gloom-- +Grow awed and vacant as they turn to mark + The father's as he passes through the room: +The gate latch clatters, and wee baby Bess +Whispers, "The doctor's tummin' now, I dess!" + +The father turns; a sharp, swift flash of pain + Flits o'er his face: "Amanda, child! I said +A moment since--I see I must AGAIN-- + Go take your little sisters off to bed! +There, Effie, Rose, and CLARA MUSTN'T CRY!" +"I tan't he'p it--I'm fyaid 'at mama'll die!" + +What are his feelings, when this man alone + Sits in the silence, glaring in the grate +That sobs and sighs on in an undertone + As stoical--immovable as Fate, +While muffled voices from the sick one's room +Come in like heralds of a dreaded doom? + +The door-latch jingles: in the doorway stands + The doctor, while the draft puffs in a breath-- +The dead coals leap to life, and clap their hands, + The flames flash up. A face as pale as death +Turns slowly--teeth tight clenched, and with a look +The doctor, through his specs, reads like a book. + +"Come, brace up, Major!"--"Let me know the worst!" + "W'y you're the biggest fool I ever saw-- +Here, Major--take a little brandy first-- + There! She's a BOY--I mean HE is--hurrah!" +"Wake up the other girls--and shout for joy-- +Eureka is his name--I've found A BOY!" + + + +FARMER WHIPPLE--BACHELOR + +It's a mystery to see me--a man o' fifty-four, +Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more-- +A-lookin' glad and smilin'! And they's none o' you can say +That you can guess the reason why I feel so good to-day! + +I must tell you all about it! But I'll have to deviate +A little in beginnin', so's to set the matter straight +As to how it comes to happen that I never took a wife-- +Kindo' "crawfish" from the Present to the Springtime of my life! + +I was brought up in the country: Of a family of five-- +Three brothers and a sister--I'm the only one alive,-- +Fer they all died little babies; and 'twas one o' Mother's ways, +You know, to want a daughter; so she took a girl to raise. + +The sweetest little thing she was, with rosy cheeks, and fat-- +We was little chunks o' shavers then about as high as that! +But someway we sort a' SUITED-like! and Mother she'd declare +She never laid her eyes on a more lovin' pair + +Than WE was! So we growed up side by side fer thirteen year', +And every hour of it she growed to me more dear!-- +W'y, even Father's dyin', as he did, I do believe +Warn't more affectin' to me than it was to see her grieve! + +I was then a lad o' twenty; and I felt a flash o' pride +In thinkin' all depended on ME now to pervide +Fer Mother and fer Mary; and I went about the place +With sleeves rolled up--and workin', with a mighty smilin' +face.-- + +Fer SOMEPIN' ELSE was workin'! but not a word I said +Of a certain sort o' notion that was runnin' through my head,-- +"Some day I'd maybe marry, and a BROTHER'S love was one +Thing--a LOVER'S was another!" was the way the notion run! + +I remember onc't in harvest, when the "cradle-in' " was done, +(When the harvest of my summers mounted up to twenty-one), +I was ridin' home with Mary at the closin' o' the day-- +A-chawin' straws and thinkin', in a lover's lazy way! + +And Mary's cheeks was burnin' like the sunset down the lane: +I noticed she was thinkin', too, and ast her to explain. +Well--when she turned and KISSED ME, WITH HER ARMS AROUND +ME--LAW! +I'd a bigger load o' Heaven than I had a load o' straw! + +I don't p'tend to learnin', but I'll tell you what's a fac', +They's a mighty truthful sayin' somers in a' almanac-- +Er SOMERS--'bout "puore happiness"--perhaps some folks'll laugh +At the idy--"only lastin' jest two seconds and a half."-- + +But it's jest as true as preachin'!--fer that was a SISTER'S +kiss, +And a sister's lovin' confidence a-tellin' to me this:-- +"SHE was happy, BEIN' PROMISED TO THE SON O' FARMER BROWN."-- +And my feelin's struck a pardnership with sunset and went down! + +I don't know HOW I acted, and I don't know WHAT I said,-- +Fer my heart seemed jest a-turnin' to an ice-cold lump o' lead; +And the hosses kind o'glimmered before me in the road, +And the lines fell from my fingers--And that was all I knowed-- + +Fer--well, I don't know HOW long--They's a dim rememberence +Of a sound o' snortin' horses, and a stake-and-ridered fence +A-whizzin' past, and wheat-sheaves a-dancin' in the air, +And Mary screamin' "Murder!" and a-runnin' up to where + +_I_ was layin' by the roadside, and the wagon upside down +A-leanin' on the gate-post, with the wheels a-whirlin' roun'! +And I tried to raise and meet her, but I couldn't, with a vague +Sort o' notion comin' to me that I had a broken leg. + +Well, the women nussed me through it; but many a time I'd sigh +As I'd keep a-gittin' better instid o' goin' to die, +And wonder what was left ME worth livin' fer below, +When the girl I loved was married to another, don't you know! + +And my thoughts was as rebellious as the folks was good and kind +When Brown and Mary married--Railly must 'a' been my MIND +Was kind o' out o' kilter!--fer I hated Brown, you see, +Worse'n PIZEN--and the feller whittled crutches out fer ME-- + +And done a thousand little ac's o' kindness and respec'-- +And me a-wishin' all the time that I could break his neck! +My relief was like a mourner's when the funeral is done +When they moved to Illinois in the Fall o' Forty-one. + +Then I went to work in airnest--I had nothin' much in view +But to drownd out rickollections--and it kep' me busy, too! +But I slowly thrived and prospered, tel Mother used to say +She expected yit to see me a wealthy man some day. + +Then I'd think how little MONEY was, compared to happiness-- +And who'd be left to use it when I died I couldn't guess! +But I've still kep' speculatin' and a-gainin' year by year, +Tel I'm payin' half the taxes in the county, mighty near! + +Well!--A year ago er better, a letter comes to hand +Astin' how I'd like to dicker fer some Illinois land-- +"The feller that had owned it," it went ahead to state, +"Had jest deceased, insolvent, leavin' chance to speculate,"-- + +And then it closed by sayin' that I'd "better come and see."-- +I'd never been West, anyhow--a'most too wild fer ME, +I'd allus had a notion; but a lawyer here in town +Said I'd find myself mistakend when I come to look around. + +So I bids good-by to Mother, and I jumps aboard the train, +A-thinkin' what I'd bring her when I come back home again-- +And ef she'd had an idy what the present was to be, +I think it's more'n likely she'd 'a' went along with me! + +Cars is awful tejus ridin', fer all they go so fast! +But finally they called out my stoppin'-place at last: +And that night, at the tavern, I dreamp' I was a train +O' cars, and SKEERED at somepin', runnin' down a country lane! + +Well, in the morning airly--after huntin' up the man-- +The lawyer who was wantin' to swap the piece o' land-- +We started fer the country; and I ast the history +Of the farm--its former owner--and so forth, etcetery! + +And--well--it was interESTin'--I su'prised him, I suppose, +By the loud and frequent manner in which I blowed my nose!-- +But his su'prise was greater, and it made him wonder more, +When I kissed and hugged the widder when she met us at the +door!-- + +IT WAS MARY: . . . They's a feelin' a-hidin' down in here-- +Of course I can't explain it, ner ever make it clear.-- +It was with us in that meetin', I don't want you to fergit! +And it makes me kind o'nervous when I think about it yit! + +I BOUGHT that farm, and DEEDED it, afore I left the town +With "title clear to mansions in the skies," to Mary Brown! +And fu'thermore, I took her and the CHILDERN--fer you see, +They'd never seed their Grandma--and I fetched 'em home with me. + +So NOW you've got an idy why a man o' fifty-four, +Who's lived a cross old bachelor fer thirty year' and more +Is a-lookin' glad and smilin'!--And I've jest come into town +To git a pair o' license fer to MARRY Mary Brown. + + + +MY JOLLY FRIEND'S SECRET + +Ah, friend of mine, how goes it, + Since you've taken you a mate?-- +Your smile, though, plainly shows it + Is a very happy state! +Dan Cupid's necromancy! + You must sit you down and dine, +And lubricate your fancy + With a glass or two of wine. + +And as you have "deserted," + As my other chums have done, +While I laugh alone diverted, + As you drop off one by one-- +And I've remained unwedded, + Till--you see--look here--that I'm, +In a manner, "snatched bald-headed" + By the sportive hand of Time! + +I'm an "old 'un!" yes, but wrinkles + Are not so plenty, quite, +As to cover up the twinkles + Of the BOY--ain't I right? +Yet, there are ghosts of kisses + Under this mustache of mine +My mem'ry only misses + When I drown 'em out with wine. + +From acknowledgment so ample, + You would hardly take me for +What I am--a perfect sample + Of a "jolly bachelor"; +Not a bachelor has being + When he laughs at married life +But his heart and soul's agreeing + That he ought to have a wife! + +Ah, ha I old chum, this claret, + Like Fatima, holds the key +Of the old Blue-Beardish garret + Of my hidden mystery! +Did you say you'd like to listen? + Ah, my boy! the "SAD NO MORE!" +And the tear-drops that will glisten-- + TURN THE CATCH UPON THE DOOR, + +And sit you down beside me, + And put yourself at ease-- +I'll trouble you to slide me + That wine decanter, please; +The path is kind o' mazy + Where my fancies have to go, +And my heart gets sort o' lazy + On the journey--don't you know? + +Let me see--when I was twenty-- + It's a lordly age, my boy, +When a fellow's money's plenty, + And the leisure to enjoy-- +And a girl--with hair as golden + As--THAT; and lips--well--quite +As red as THIS I'm holdin' + Between you and the light. + +And eyes and a complexion-- + Ah, heavens!--le'-me-see-- +Well,--just in this connection,-- + DID YOU LOCK THAT DOOR FOR ME? +Did I start in recitation + My past life to recall? +Well, THAT'S an indication + I am purty tight--that's all! + + + +THE SPEEDING OF THE KING'S SPITE + +A king--estranged from his loving Queen + By a foolish royal whim-- +Tired and sick of the dull routine + Of matters surrounding him-- +Issued a mandate in this wise.-- + "THE DOWER OF MY DAUGHTER'S HAND +I WILL GIVE TO HIM WHO HOLDS THIS PRIZE, + THE STRANGEST THING IN THE LAND." + +But the King, sad sooth! in this grim decree + Had a motive low and mean;-- +'Twas a royal piece of chicanery + To harry and spite the Queen; +For King though he was, and beyond compare, + He had ruled all things save one-- +Then blamed the Queen that his only heir + Was a daughter--not a son. + +The girl had grown, in the mother's care, + Like a bud in the shine and shower +That drinks of the wine of the balmy air + Till it blooms into matchless flower; +Her waist was the rose's stem that bore + The flower--and the flower's perfume-- +That ripens on till it bulges o'er + With its wealth of bud and bloom. + +And she had a lover--lowly sprung,-- + But a purer, nobler heart +Never spake in a courtlier tongue + Or wooed with a dearer art: +And the fair pair paled at the King's decree; + But the smiling Fates contrived +To have them wed, in a secrecy + That the Queen HERSELF connived-- + +While the grim King's heralds scoured the land + And the countries roundabout, +Shouting aloud, at the King's command, + A challenge to knave or lout, +Prince or peasant,--"The mighty King + Would have ye understand +That he who shows him the strangest thing + Shall have his daughter's hand!" + +And thousands flocked to the royal throne, + Bringing a thousand things +Strange and curious;--One, a bone-- + The hinge of a fairy's wings; +And one, the glass of a mermaid queen, + Gemmed with a diamond dew, +Where, down in its reflex, dimly seen, + Her face smiled out at you. + +One brought a cluster of some strange date, + With a subtle and searching tang +That seemed, as you tasted, to penetrate + The heart like a serpent's fang; +And back you fell for a spell entranced, + As cold as a corpse of stone, +And heard your brains, as they laughed and danced + And talked in an undertone. + +One brought a bird that could whistle a tune + So piercingly pure and sweet, +That tears would fall from the eyes of the moon + In dewdrops at its feet; +And the winds would sigh at the sweet refrain, + Till they swooned in an ecstacy, +To waken again in a hurricane + Of riot and jubilee. + +One brought a lute that was wrought of a shell + Luminous as the shine +Of a new-born star in a dewy dell,-- + And its strings were strands of wine +That sprayed at the Fancy's touch and fused, + As your listening spirit leant +Drunken through with the airs that oozed + From the o'ersweet instrument. + +One brought a tablet of ivory + Whereon no thing was writ,-- +But, at night--and the dazzled eyes would see + Flickering lines o'er it,-- +And each, as you read from the magic tome, + Lightened and died in flame, +And the memory held but a golden poem + Too beautiful to name. + +Till it seemed all marvels that ever were known + Or dreamed of under the sun +Were brought and displayed at the royal throne, + And put by, one by one +Till a graybeard monster came to the King-- + Haggard and wrinkled and old-- +And spread to his gaze this wondrous thing,-- + A gossamer veil of gold.-- + +Strangely marvelous--mocking the gaze + Like a tangle of bright sunshine, +Dipping a million glittering rays + In a baptism divine: +And a maiden, sheened in this gauze attire-- + Sifting a glance of her eye-- +Dazzled men's souls with a fierce desire + To kiss and caress her and--die. + +And the grim King swore by his royal beard + That the veil had won the prize, +While the gray old monster blinked and leered + With his lashless, red-rimmed eyes, +As the fainting form of the princess fell, + And the mother's heart went wild, +Throbbing and swelling a muffled knell + For the dead hopes of her child. + +But her clouded face with a faint smile shone, + As suddenly, through the throng, +Pushing his way to the royal throne, + A fair youth strode along, +While a strange smile hovered about his eyes, + As he said to the grim old King:-- +"The veil of gold must lose the prize; + For _I_ have a stranger thing." + +He bent and whispered a sentence brief; + But the monarch shook his head, +With a look expressive of unbelief-- + "It can't be so," he said; +"Or give me proof; and I, the King, + Give you my daughter's hand,-- +For certes THAT IS a stranger thing-- + THE STRANGEST THING IN THE LAND!" + +Then the fair youth, turning, caught the Queen + In a rapturous caress, +While his lithe form towered in lordly mien, + As he said in a brief address:-- +"My fair bride's mother is this; and, lo, + As you stare in your royal awe, +By this pure kiss do I proudly show + A LOVE FOR A MOTHER-IN-LAW!" + +Then a thaw set in the old King's mood, + And a sweet Spring freshet came +Into his eyes, and his heart renewed + Its love for the favored dame: +But often he has been heard to declare + That "he never could clearly see +How, in the deuce, such a strange affair + Could have ended so happily!" + + +JOB WORK + +"Write me a rhyme of the present time". + And the poet took his pen +And wrote such lines as the miser minds + Hide in the hearts of men. + +He grew enthused, as the poets used + When their fingers kissed the strings +Of some sweet lyre, and caught the fire + True inspiration brings, + +And sang the song of a nation's wrong-- + Of the patriot's galling chain, +And the glad release that the angel, Peace, + Has given him again. + +He sang the lay of religion's sway, + Where a hundred creeds clasp hands +And shout in glee such a symphony + That the whole world understands. + +He struck the key of monopoly, + And sang of her swift decay, +And traveled the track of the railway back + With a blithesome roundelay-- + +Of the tranquil bliss of a true love kiss; + And painted the picture, too, +Of the wedded life, and the patient wife, + And the husband fond and true; + +And sang the joy that a noble boy + Brings to a father's soul, +Who lets the wine as a mocker shine + Stagnated in the bowl. + +And he stabbed his pen in the ink again, + And wrote with a writhing frown, +"This is the end." "And now, my friend, + You may print it--upside down!" + + +PRIVATE THEATRICALS + +A quite convincing axiom + Is, "Life is like a play"; +For, turning back its pages some + Few dog-eared years away, + I find where I + Committed my +Love-tale--with brackets where to sigh. + +I feel an idle interest + To read again the page; +I enter, as a lover dressed, + At twenty years of age, + And play the part + With throbbing heart, +And all an actor's glowing art. + +And she who plays my Lady-love + Excels!--Her loving glance +Has power her audience to move-- + I am her audience.-- + Her acting tact, + To tell the fact, +"Brings down the house" in every act. + +And often we defy the curse + Of storms and thunder-showers, +To meet together and rehearse + This little play of ours-- + I think, when she + "Makes love" to me, +She kisses very naturally! + + . . . . . . + +Yes; it's convincing--rather-- + That "Life is like a play": +I am playing "Heavy Father" + In a "Screaming Farce" to-day, + That so "brings down + The house," I frown, +And fain would "ring the curtain down." + + +PLAIN SERMONS + +I saw a man--and envied him beside-- + Because of this world's goods he had great store; +But even as I envied him, he died, + And left me envious of him no more. + +I saw another man--and envied still-- + Because he was content with frugal lot; +But as I envied him, the rich man's will + Bequeathed him all, and envy I forgot. + +Yet still another man I saw, and he + I envied for a calm and tranquil mind +That nothing fretted in the least degree-- + Until, alas! I found that he was blind. + +What vanity is envy! for I find + I have been rich in dross of thought, and poor +In that I was a fool, and lastly blind + For never having seen myself before! + + +"TRADIN' JOE" + +I'm one o' these cur'ous kind o' chaps +You think you know when you don't, perhaps! +I hain't no fool--ner I don't p'tend +To be so smart I could rickommend +Myself fer a CONGERSSMAN my friend!-- +But I'm kind o' betwixt-and-between, you know,-- +One o' these fellers 'at folks call "slow." +And I'll say jest here I'm kind o' queer +Regardin' things 'at I SEE and HEAR,-- +Fer I'm THICK o' hearin' SOMETIMES, and +It's hard to git me to understand; +But other times it hain't, you bet! +Fer I don't sleep with both eyes shet! + +I've swapped a power in stock, and so +The neighbers calls me "Tradin' Joe"-- +And I'm goin' to tell you 'bout a trade,-- +And one o' the best I ever made: + +Folks has gone so fur's to say +'At I'm well fixed, in a WORLDLY way, +And BEIN' so, and a WIDOWER, +It's not su'prisin', as you'll infer, +I'm purty handy among the sect-- +Widders especially, rickollect! +And I won't deny that along o' late +I've hankered a heap fer the married state-- +But some way o' 'nother the longer we wait +The harder it is to discover a mate. + +Marshall Thomas,--a friend o' mine, +Doin' some in the tradin' line, +But a'most too YOUNG to know it all-- +On'y at PICNICS er some BALL!-- +Says to me, in a banterin' way, +As 'we was a-loadin' stock one day,-- +"You're a-huntin' a wife, and I want you to see +My girl's mother, at Kankakee!-- +She hain't over forty--good-lookin' and spry, +And jest the woman to fill your eye! +And I'm a-goin' there Sund'y,--and now," says he, +"I want to take you along with ME; +And you marry HER, and," he says, "by 'shaw I +You'll hev me fer yer son-in-law!" +I studied a while, and says I, "Well, I'll +First have to see ef she suits my style; +And ef she does, you kin bet your life +Your mother-in-law will be my wife!" + +Well, Sundy come; and I fixed up some-- +Putt on a collar--I did, by gum!-- +Got down my "plug," and my satin vest-- +(You wouldn't know me to see me dressed!-- +But any one knows ef you got the clothes +You kin go in the crowd wher' the best of 'em goes!) +And I greeced my boots, and combed my hair +Keerfully over the bald place there; +And Marshall Thomas and me that day +Eat our dinners with Widder Gray +And her girl Han'! * * * + + + Well, jest a glance +O' the widder's smilin' countenance, +A-cuttin' up chicken and big pot-pies, +Would make a man hungry in Paradise! +And passin' p'serves and jelly and cake +'At would make an ANGEL'S appetite ACHE!-- +Pourin' out coffee as yaller as gold-- +Twic't as much as the cup could hold-- +La! it was rich!--And then she'd say, +"Take some o' THIS!' in her coaxin' way, +Tell ef I'd been a hoss I'd 'a' FOUNDERED, shore, +And jest dropped dead on her white-oak floor! + +Well, the way I talked would 'a' done you good, +Ef you'd 'a' been there to 'a' understood; +Tel I noticed Hanner and Marshall, they +Was a-noticin' me in a cur'ous way; +So I says to myse'f, says I, "Now, Joe, +The best thing fer you is to jest go slow!" +And I simmered down, and let them do +The bulk o' the talkin' the evening through. + +And Marshall was still in a talkative gait +When he left, that evening--tolable late. +"How do you like her?" he says to me; +Says I, "She suits, to a 'T-Y-TEE'! +And then I ast how matters stood +With him in the OPPOSITE neighberhood? +"Bully!" he says; "I ruther guess +I'll finally git her to say the 'yes.' +I named it to her to-night, and she +Kind o' smiled, and said 'SHE'D SEE'-- +And that's a purty good sign!" says he: +"Yes" says I, "you're ahead o' ME!" +And then he laughed, and said, "GO IN! +And patted me on the shoulder ag'in. + +Well, ever sense then I've been ridin' a good +Deal through the Kankakee neighberhood; +And I make it convenient sometimes to stop +And hitch a few minutes, and kind o' drop +In at the widder's, and talk o' the crop +And one thing o' 'nother. And week afore last +The notion struck me, as I drove past, +I'd stop at the place and state my case-- +Might as well do it at first as last! + +I felt first-rate; so I hitched at the gate, +And went up to the house; and, strange to relate, +MARSHALL THOMAS had dropped in, TOO.-- +"Glad to see you, sir, how do you do?" +He says, says he! Well--it SOUNDED QUEER: + +And when Han' told me to take a cheer, +Marshall got up and putt out o' the room-- +And motioned his hand fer the WIDDER to come. +I didn't say nothin' fer quite a spell, +But thinks I to myse'f, "There's a dog in the well!" +And Han' SHE smiled so cur'ous at me-- +Says I, "What's up?" And she says, says she, +"Marshall's been at me to marry ag'in, +And I told him 'no,' jest as you come in." +Well, somepin' o' 'nother in that girl's voice +Says to me, "Joseph, here's your choice!" +And another minute her guileless breast +Was lovin'ly throbbin' ag'in my vest!-- +And then I kissed her, and heerd a smack +Come like a' echo a-flutterin' back, +And we looked around, and in full view +Marshall was kissin' the widder, too! +Well, we all of us laughed, in our glad su'prise, +Tel the tears come A-STREAMIN' out of our eyes! +And when Marsh said "'Twas the squarest trade +That ever me and him had made," +We both shuck hands, 'y jucks! and swore +We'd stick together ferevermore. +And old Squire Chipman tuck us the trip: +And Marshall and me's in pardnership! + + +DOT LEEDLE BOY + +Ot's a leedle Gristmas story + Dot I told der leedle folks-- +Und I vant you stop dot laughin' + Und grackin' funny jokes!-- +So help me Peter-Moses! + Ot's no time for monkey-shine, +Ober I vast told you somedings + Of dot leedle boy of mine! + +Ot vas von cold Vinter vedder, + Ven der snow vas all about-- +Dot you have to chop der hatchet + Eef you got der sauerkraut! +Und der cheekens on der hind leg + Vas standin' in der shine +Der sun shmile out dot morning + On dot leedle boy of mine. + +He vas yoost a leedle baby + Not bigger as a doll +Dot time I got acquaintet-- + Ach! you ought to heard 'im squall!-- +I grackys! dot's der moosic + Ot make me feel so fine +Ven first I vas been marriet-- + Oh, dot leedle boy of mine! + +He look yoost like his fader!-- + So, ven der vimmen said, +"Vot a purty leedle baby!" + Katrina shake der head. . . . +I dink she must 'a' notice + Dot der baby vas a-gryin', +Und she cover up der blankets + Of dot leedle boy of mine. + +Vel, ven he vas got bigger, + Dot he grawl und bump his nose, +Und make der table over, + Und molasses on his glothes-- +Dot make 'im all der sveeter,-- + So I say to my Katrine, +"Better you vas quit a-shpankin' + Dot leedle boy of mine!" + +No more he vas older + As about a dozen months +He speak der English language + Und der German--bote at vonce! +Und he dringk his glass of lager + Like a Londsman fon der Rhine-- +Und I klingk my glass togeder + Mit dot leedle boy of mine! + +I vish you could 'a' seen id-- + Ven he glimb up on der chair +Und shmash der lookin'-glasses + Ven he try to comb his hair +Mit a hammer!--Und Katrina + Say, "Dot's an ugly sign!" +But I laugh und vink my fingers + At dot leedle boy of mine. + +But vonce, dot Vinter morning, + He shlip out in der snow +Mitout no stockin's on 'im.-- + He say he "vant to go +Und fly some mit der birdies!" + Und ve give 'im medi-cine +Ven he catch der "parrygoric"-- + Dot leedle boy of mine! + +Und so I set und nurse 'im, + Vile der Gristmas vas come roun', +Und I told 'im 'bout "Kriss Kringle," + How he come der chimbly down: +Und I ask 'im eef he love 'im + Eef he bring 'im someding fine? +"Nicht besser as mein fader," + Say dot leedle boy of mine.-- + +Und he put his arms aroun' me + Und hug so close und tight, +I hear der gclock a-tickin' + All der balance of der night! . . . +Someding make me feel so funny + Ven I say to my Katrine, +"Let us go und fill der stockin's + Of dot leedle boy of mine." + +Vell.--Ve buyed a leedle horses + Dot you pull 'im mit a shtring, +Und a leedle fancy jay-bird-- + Eef you vant to hear 'im sing +You took 'im by der topknot + Und yoost blow in behine-- +Und dot make much spectakel + For dot leedle boy of mine! + +Und gandies, nuts und raizens-- + Und I buy a leedle drum +Dot I vant to hear 'im rattle + Ven der Gristmas morning come! +Und a leedle shmall tin rooster + Dot vould crow so loud und fine +Ven he sqveeze 'im in der morning, + Dot leedle boy of mine! + +Und--vile ve vas a-fixin'-- + Dot leedle boy vake out! +I t'ought he been a-dreamin' + "Kriss Kringle" vas about,-- +For he say--"DOT'S HIM!--I SEE 'IM + MIT DER SHTARS DOT MAKE DER SHINE!" +Und he yoost keep on a-gryin'-- + Dot leedle boy of mine,-- +Und gottin' vorse und vorser-- + Und tumble on der bed! +So--ven der doctor seen id, + He kindo' shake his head, +Und feel his pulse--und visper, + "Der boy is a-dyin'." +You dink I could BELIEVE id?-- + DOT LEEDLE BOY OF MINE? + +I told you, friends--dot's someding, + Der last time dot he speak +Und say, "GOOT-BY, KRISS KRINGLE!" + --Dot make me feel so veak +I yoost kneel down und drimble, + Und bur-sed out a-gryin', +"MEIN GOTT, MEIN GOTT IN HIMMEL!-- + DOT LEEDLE BOY OF MINE!" +. . . . . . . . . . + + +Der sun don't shine DOT Gristmas! + . . . Eef dot leedle boy vould LIFF'D-- +No deefer-en'! for HEAVEN vas + His leedle Gristmas gift! +Und der ROOSTER, und der GANDY, + Und me--und my Katrine-- +Und der jay-bird--is awaiting + For dot leedle boy of mine. + + +I SMOKE MY PIPE + +I can't extend to every friend + In need a helping hand-- +No matter though I wish it so, + 'Tis not as Fortune planned; +But haply may I fancy they + Are men of different stripe +Than others think who hint and wink,-- + And so--I smoke my pipe! + +A golden coal to crown the bowl-- + My pipe and I alone,-- +I sit and muse with idler views + Perchance than I should own:-- +It might be worse to own the purse + Whose glutted bowels gripe +In little qualms of stinted alms; + And so I smoke my pipe. + +And if inclined to moor my mind + And cast the anchor Hope, +A puff of breath will put to death + The morbid misanthrope +That lurks inside--as errors hide + In standing forms of type +To mar at birth some line of worth; + And so I smoke my pipe. + +The subtle stings misfortune flings + Can give me little pain +When my narcotic spell has wrought + This quiet in my brain: +When I can waste the past in taste + So luscious and so ripe +That like an elf I hug myself; + And so I smoke my pipe. + +And wrapped in shrouds of drifting clouds, + I watch the phantom's flight, +Till alien eyes from Paradise + Smile on me as I write: +And I forgive the wrongs that live, + As lightly as I wipe +Away the tear that rises here; + And so I smoke my pipe. + + + +RED RIDING-HOOD + +Sweet little myth of the nursery story-- + Earliest love of mine infantile breast, +Be something tangible, bloom in thy glory + Into existence, as thou art addressed! +Hasten! appear to me, guileless and good-- + Thou are so dear to me, Red Riding-Hood! + +Azure-blue eyes, in a marvel of wonder, + Over the dawn of a blush breaking out; +Sensitive nose, with a little smile under + Trying to hide in a blossoming pout-- +Couldn't be serious, try as you would, + Little mysterious Red Riding-Hood! + +Hah! little girl, it is desolate, lonely, + Out in this gloomy old forest of Life!-- +Here are not pansies and buttercups only-- + Brambles and briers as keen as a knife; +And a Heart, ravenous, trails in the wood +For the meal have he must,--Red Riding-Hood! + + +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 rain-drops 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. + + +AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE + +An old sweetheart of mine!--Is this her presence here with me, +Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory? +A fair, illusive vision that would vanish into air +Dared I even touch the silence with the whisper of a prayer? + +Nay, let me then believe in all the blended false and true-- +The semblance of the OLD love and the substance of the NEW,-- +The THEN of changeless sunny days--the NOW of shower and shine-- +But Love forever smiling--as that old sweetheart of mine. + +This ever-restful sense of HOME, though shouts ring in the +hall.-- +The easy chair--the old book-shelves and prints along the wall; +The rare HABANAS in their box, or gaunt church-warden-stem +That often wags, above the jar, derisively at them. + +As one who cons at evening o'er an album, all alone, +And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known, +So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till, in shadowy design, +I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine. + +The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise, +As I turn it low--to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes, +And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke +Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke. + +'Tis a FRAGRANT retrospection,--for the loving thoughts that +start +Into being are like perfume from the blossom of the heart; +And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine-- +When my truant fancies wander with that old sweetheart of mine. + +Though I hear beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings, +The voices of my children and the mother as she sings-- +I feel no twinge of conscience to deny me any theme +When Care has cast her anchor in the harbor of a dream-- + +In fact, to speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm +To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm,-- +For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine +That makes me drink the deeper to that old sweetheart of mine. + +O Childhood-days enchanted! O the magic of the Spring!-- +With all green boughs to blossom white, and all bluebirds to +sing! +When all the air, to toss and quaff, made life a jubilee +And changed the children's song and laugh to shrieks of ecstasy. + +With eyes half closed in clouds that ooze from lips that taste, +as well, +The peppermint and cinnamon, I hear the old School bell, +And from "Recess" romp in again from "Black-man's" broken line, +To smile, behind my "lesson," at that old sweetheart of mine. + +A face of lily-beauty, with a form of airy grace, +Floats out of my tobacco as the Genii from the vase; +And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes +As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies. + +I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress +She wore when first I kissed her and she answered the caress +With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine +Grew 'round the stump," she loved me--that old sweetheart of +mine. + +Again I made her presents, in a really helpless way,-- +The big "Rhode Island Greening"--I was hungry, too, that day!-- +But I follow her from Spelling, with her hand behind her--so-- +And I slip the apple in it--and the Teacher doesn't know! + +I give my TREASURES to her--all,--my pencil--blue-and-red;-- +And, if little girls played marbles, MINE should all be HERS, +instead! +But SHE gave me her PHOTOGRAPH, and printed "Ever Thine" +Across the back--in blue-and-red--that old sweet-heart of mine! + +And again I feel the pressure of her slender little hand, +As we used to talk together of the future we had planned,-- +When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do +But write the tender verses that she set the music to . . . + +When we should live together in a cozy little cot +Hid in a nest of roses, with a fairy garden-spot, +Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine, +And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine. + +When I should be her lover forever and a day, +And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray; +And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb +They would not smile in Heaven till the other's kiss had come. + +But, ah! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair, +And the door is softly opened, and--my wife is standing there: +Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign,-- +To greet the LIVING presence of that old sweetheart of mine. + + +SQUIRE HAWKINS'S STORY + +I hain't no hand at tellin' tales, +Er spinnin' yarns, as the sailors say; +Someway o' 'nother, language fails +To slide fer me in the oily way +That LAWYERS has; and I wisht it would, +Fer I've got somepin' that I call good; +But bein' only a country squire, +I've learned to listen and admire, +Ruther preferrin' to be addressed +Than talk myse'f--but I'll do my best:-- + +Old Jeff Thompson--well, I'll say, +Was the clos'test man I ever saw!-- +Rich as cream, but the porest pay, +And the meanest man to work fer--La! +I've knowed that man to work one "hand"-- +Fer little er nothin', you understand-- +From four o'clock in the morning light +Tel eight and nine o'clock at night, +And then find fault with his appetite! +He'd drive all over the neighberhood +To miss the place where a toll-gate stood, +And slip in town, by some old road +That no two men in the county knowed, +With a jag o' wood, and a sack o' wheat, +That wouldn't burn and you couldn't eat! +And the trades he'd make, 'll I jest de-clare, +Was enough to make a preacher swear! +And then he'd hitch, and hang about +Tel the lights in the toll-gate was blowed out, +And then the turnpike he'd turn in +And sneak his way back home ag'in! + +Some folks hint, and I make no doubt, +That that's what wore his old wife out-- +Toilin' away from day to day +And year to year, through heat and cold, +Uncomplainin'--the same old way +The martyrs died in the days of old; +And a-clingin', too, as the martyrs done, +To one fixed faith, and her ONLY one,-- +Little Patience, the sweetest child +That ever wept unrickonciled, +Er felt the pain and the ache and sting +That only a mother's death can bring. + +Patience Thompson!--I think that name +Must 'a' come from a power above, +Fer it seemed to fit her jest the same +As a GAITER would, er a fine kid glove! +And to see that girl, with all the care +Of the household on her--I de-clare +It was OUDACIOUS, the work she'd do, +And the thousand plans that she'd putt through; + +And sing like a medder-lark all day long, +And drowned her cares in the joys o' song; +And LAUGH sometimes tel the farmer's "hand," +Away fur off in the fields, would stand +A-listenin', with the plow half drawn, +Tel the coaxin' echoes called him on; +And the furries seemed, in his dreamy eyes, +Like foot-paths a-leadin' to Paradise, +As off through the hazy atmosphere +The call fer dinner reached his ear. + +Now LOVE'S as cunnin'a little thing +As a hummin'-bird upon the wing, +And as liable to poke his nose +Jest where folks would least suppose,-- +And more'n likely build his nest +Right in the heart you'd leave unguessed, +And live and thrive at your expense-- +At least, that's MY experience. +And old Jeff Thompson often thought, +In his se'fish way, that the quiet John +Was a stiddy chap, as a farm-hand OUGHT +To always be,--fer the airliest dawn +Found John busy--and "EASY," too, +Whenever his wages would fall due!-- +To sum him up with a final touch, +He EAT so little and WORKED so much, +That old Jeff laughed to hisse'f and said, +"He makes ME money and airns his bread!-- + +But John, fer all of his quietude, +Would sometimes drap a word er so +That none but PATIENCE understood, +And none but her was MEANT to know!-- +Maybe at meal-times John would say, +As the sugar-bowl come down his way, +"Thanky, no; MY coffee's sweet +Enough fer ME!" with sich conceit, +SHE'D know at once, without no doubt, +HE meant because she poured it out; +And smile and blush, and all sich stuff, +And ast ef it was "STRONG enough?" +And git the answer, neat and trim, +"It COULDN'T be too 'strong' fer HIM!" + +And so things went fer 'bout a year, +Tel John, at last, found pluck to go +And pour his tale in the old man's ear-- +And ef it had been HOT LEAD, I know +It couldn't 'a' raised a louder fuss, +Ner 'a' riled the old man's temper wuss! +He jest LIT in, and cussed and swore, +And lunged and rared, and ripped and tore, +And told John jest to leave his door, +And not to darken it no more! +But Patience cried, with eyes all wet, +"Remember, John, and don't ferget, +WHATEVER comes, I love you yet!" +But the old man thought, in his se'fish way, +"I'll see her married rich some day; +And THAT," thinks he, "is money fer ME-- +And my will's LAW, as it ought to be!" + +So when, in the course of a month er so, +A WIDOWER, with a farm er two, +Comes to Jeff's, w'y, the folks, you know, +Had to TALK--as the folks'll do: +It was the talk of the neighberhood-- +PATIENCE and JOHN, and THEIR affairs;-- +And this old chap with a few gray hairs +Had "cut John out," it was understood. +And some folks reckoned "Patience, too, +Knowed what SHE was a-goin' to do-- +It was LIKE her--la! indeed!-- +All she loved was DOLLARS and CENTS-- +Like old JEFF--and they saw no need +Fer JOHN to pine at HER negligence!" + +But others said, in a KINDER way, +They missed the songs she used to sing-- +They missed the smiles that used to play +Over her face, and the laughin' ring +Of her glad voice--that EVERYthing +Of her OLD se'f seemed dead and gone, +And this was the ghost that they gazed on! + +Tel finally it was noised about +There was a WEDDIN' soon to be +Down at Jeff's; and the "cat was out" +Shore enough!--'Ll the JEE-MUN-NEE! +It RILED me when John told me so,-- +Fer _I_ WAS A FRIEND O' JOHN'S, you know; +And his trimblin' voice jest broke in two-- +As a feller's voice'll sometimes do.-- +And I says, says I, "Ef I know my biz-- +And I think I know what JESTICE is,-- +I've read SOME law--and I'd advise +A man like you to wipe his eyes +And square his jaws and start AGIN, +FER JESTICE IS A-GOIN' TO WIN!" +And it wasn't long tel his eyes had cleared +As blue as the skies, and the sun appeared +In the shape of a good old-fashioned smile +That I hadn't seen fer a long, long while. + +So we talked on fer a' hour er more, +And sunned ourselves in the open door,-- +Tel a hoss-and-buggy down the road +Come a-drivin' up, that I guess John KNOWED,-- +Fer he winked and says, "I'll dessappear-- +THEY'D smell a mice ef they saw ME here!" +And he thumbed his nose at the old gray mare, +And hid hisse'f in the house somewhere. + +Well.--The rig drove up: and I raised my head +As old Jeff hollered to me and said +That "him and his old friend there had come +To see ef the squire was at home." +. . . I told 'em "I was; and I AIMED to be +At every chance of a weddin'-fee!" +And then I laughed--and they laughed, too,-- +Fer that was the object they had in view. +"Would I be on hands at eight that night?" +They ast; and 's-I, "You're mighty right, +I'LL be on hand!" And then I BU'ST +Out a-laughin' my very wu'st,-- +And so did they, as they wheeled away +And drove to'rds town in a cloud o' dust. +Then I shet the door, and me and John +Laughed and LAUGHED, and jest LAUGHED on, +Tel Mother drapped her specs, and BY +JEEWHILLIKERS! I thought she'd DIE!-- +And she couldn't 'a' told, I'll bet my hat, +What on earth she was laughin' at! + +But all o' the fun o' the tale hain't done!-- +Fer a drizzlin' rain had jest begun, +And a-havin' 'bout four mile' to ride, +I jest concluded I'd better light +Out fer Jeff's and save my hide,-- +Fer IT WAS A-GOIN' TO STORM, THAT NIGHT! +So we went down to the barn, and John +Saddled my beast, and I got on; +And he told me somepin' to not ferget, +And when I left, he was LAUGHIN' yet. + +And, 'proachin' on to my journey's end, +The great big draps o' the rain come down, +And the thunder growled in a way to lend +An awful look to the lowerin' frown +The dull sky wore; and the lightnin' glanced +Tel my old mare jest MORE'N pranced, +And tossed her head, and bugged her eyes +To about four times their natchurl size, +As the big black lips of the clouds 'ud drap +Out some oath of a thunderclap, +And threaten on in an undertone +That chilled a feller clean to the bone! + +But I struck shelter soon enough +To save myse'f. And the house was jammed +With the women-folks, and the weddin'stuff:-- +A great, long table, fairly CRAMMED +With big pound-cakes--and chops and steaks-- +And roasts and stews--and stumick-aches +Of every fashion, form, and size, +From twisters up to punkin-pies! +And candies, oranges, and figs, +And reezins,--all the "whilligigs" +And "jim-cracks" that the law allows +On sich occasions!--Bobs and bows +Of gigglin' girls, with corkscrew curls, +And fancy ribbons, reds and blues, +And "beau-ketchers" and "curliques" +To beat the world! And seven o'clock +Brought old Jeff;-and brought--THE GROOM,-- +With a sideboard-collar on, and stock +That choked him so, he hadn't room +To SWALLER in, er even sneeze, +Er clear his th'oat with any case +Er comfort--and a good square cough +Would saw his Adam's apple off! + +But as fer PATIENCE--MY! Oomh-OOMH!-- +I never saw her look so sweet!-- +Her face was cream and roses, too; +And then them eyes o' heavenly blue +Jest made an angel all complete! +And when she split 'em up in smiles +And splintered 'em around the room, +And danced acrost and met the groom, +And LAUGHED OUT LOUD--It kind o' spiles +My language when I come to that-- +Fer, as she laid away his hat, +Thinks I, "THE PAPERS HID INSIDE +OF THAT SAID HAT MUST MAKE A BRIDE +A HAPPY ONE FER ALL HER LIFE, +Er else a WRECKED AND WRETCHED WIFE!" +And, someway, then, I thought of JOHN,-- +Then looked towards PATIENCE. . . . She was GONE!-- +The door stood open, and the rain +Was dashin' in; and sharp and plain +Above the storm we heerd a cry-- +A ringin', laughin', loud "Good-by!" +That died away, as fleet and fast +A hoss's hoofs went splashin' past! +And that was all. 'Twas done that quick! . . . +You've heerd o' fellers "lookin' sick"? +I wisht you'd seen THE GROOM jest then-- +I wisht you'd seen them two old men, +With starin' eyes that fairly GLARED +At one another, and the scared +And empty faces of the crowd,-- +I wisht you could 'a' been allowed +To jest look on and see it all,-- +And heerd the girls and women bawl +And wring their hands; and heerd old Jeff +A-cussin' as he swung hisse'f +Upon his hoss, who champed his bit +As though old Nick had holt of it: +And cheek by jowl the two old wrecks +Rode off as though they'd break their necks. + +And as we all stood starin' out +Into the night, I felt the brush +Of some one's hand, and turned about, +And heerd a voice that whispered, "HUSH!-- +THEY'RE WAITIN' IN THE KITCHEN, AND +YOU'RE WANTED. DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?" +Well, ef my MEMORY serves me now, +I think I winked.--Well, anyhow, +I left the crowd a-gawkin' there, +And jest slipped off around to where +The back door opened, and went in, +And turned and shet the door ag'in, +And maybe LOCKED it--couldn't swear,-- +A woman's arms around me makes +Me liable to make mistakes.-- +I read a marriage license nex', +But as I didn't have my specs +I jest INFERRED it was all right, +And tied the knot so mortal-tight +That Patience and my old friend John +Was safe enough from that time on! + +Well, now, I might go on and tell +How all the joke at last leaked out, +And how the youngsters raised the yell +And rode the happy groom about +Upon their shoulders; how the bride +Was kissed a hunderd times beside +The one _I_ give her,--tel she cried +And laughed untel she like to died! +I might go on and tell you all +About the supper--and the BALL.-- +You'd ought to see me twist my heel +Through jest one old Furginny reel +Afore you die! er tromp the strings +Of some old fiddle tel she sings +Some old cowtillion, don't you know, +That putts the devil in yer toe! + +We kep' the dancin' up tel FOUR +O'clock, I reckon--maybe more.-- +We hardly heerd the thunders roar, +ER THOUGHT about the STORM that blowed-- +AND THEM TWO FELLERS ON THE ROAD! +Tel all at onc't we heerd the door +Bu'st open, and a voice that SWORE,-- +And old Jeff Thompson tuck the floor. +He shuck hisse'f and looked around +Like some old dog about half-drowned-- +HIS HAT, I reckon, WEIGHED TEN POUND +To say the least, and I'll say, SHORE, +HIS OVERCOAT WEIGHED FIFTY more-- +THE WETTEST MAN YOU EVER SAW, +TO HAVE SO DRY A SON-IN-LAW! + +He sized it all; and Patience laid +Her hand in John's, and looked afraid, +And waited. And a stiller set +O' folks, I KNOW, you never met +In any court room, where with dread +They wait to hear a verdick read. + +The old man turned his eyes on me: +"And have you married 'em?" says he. +I nodded "Yes." "Well, that'll do," +He says, "and now we're th'ough with YOU,-- +YOU jest clear out, and I decide +And promise to be satisfied!" +He hadn't nothin' more to say. +I saw, of course, how matters lay, +And left. But as I rode away +I heerd the roosters crow fer day. + + +A COUNTRY PATHWAY + +I come upon it suddenly, alone-- + A little pathway winding in the weeds +That fringe the roadside; and with dreams my own, + I wander as it leads. + +Full wistfully along the slender way, + Through summer tan of freckled shade and shine, +I take the path that leads me as it may-- + Its every choice is mine. + +A chipmunk, or a sudden-whirring quail, + Is startled by my step as on I fare-- +A garter-snake across the dusty trail + Glances and--is not there. + +Above the arching jimson-weeds flare twos + And twos of sallow-yellow butterflies, +Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose + When autumn winds arise. + +The trail dips--dwindles--broadens then, and lifts + Itself astride a cross-road dubiously, +And, from the fennel marge beyond it, drifts + Still onward, beckoning me. + +And though it needs must lure me mile on mile + Out of the public highway, still I go, +My thoughts, far in advance in Indian file, + Allure me even so. + +Why, I am as a long-lost boy that went + At dusk to bring the cattle to the bars, +And was not found again, though Heaven lent + His mother all the stars + +With which to seek him through that awful night + O years of nights as vain!--Stars never rise +But well might miss their glitter in the light + Of tears in mother-eyes! + +So--on, with quickened breaths, I follow still-- + My avant-courier must be obeyed! +Thus am I led, and thus the path, at will, + Invites me to invade + +A meadow's precincts, where my daring guide + Clambers the steps of an old-fashioned stile, +And stumbles down again, the other side, + To gambol there a while. + +In pranks of hide-and-seek, as on ahead + I see it running, while the clover-stalks +Shake rosy fists at me, as though they said-- + "You dog our country walks + +"And mutilate us with your walking-stick!-- + We will not suffer tamely what you do, +And warn you at your peril,--for we'll sick + Our bumblebees on you!" + +But I smile back, in airy nonchalance,-- + The more determined on my wayward quest, +As some bright memory a moment dawns + A morning in my breast-- + +Sending a thrill that hurries me along + In faulty similes of childish skips, +Enthused with lithe contortions of a song + Performing on my lips. + +In wild meanderings o'er pasture wealth-- + Erratic wanderings through dead'ning lands, +Where sly old brambles, plucking me by stealth, + Put berries in my hands: + +Or the path climbs a boulder--wades a slough-- + Or, rollicking through buttercups and flags, +Goes gaily dancing o'er a deep bayou + On old tree-trunks and snags: + +Or, at the creek, leads o'er a limpid pool + Upon a bridge the stream itself has made, +With some Spring-freshet for the mighty tool + That its foundation laid. + +I pause a moment here to bend and muse, + With dreamy eyes, on my reflection, where +A boat-backed bug drifts on a helpless cruise, + Or wildly oars the air, + +As, dimly seen, the pirate of the brook-- + The pike, whose jaunty hulk denotes his speed-- +Swings pivoting about, with wary look + Of low and cunning greed. + +Till, filled with other thought, I turn again + To where the pathway enters in a realm +Of lordly woodland, under sovereign reign + Of towering oak and elm. + +A puritanic quiet here reviles + The almost whispered warble from the hedge, +And takes a locust's rasping voice and files + The silence to an edge. + +In such a solitude my somber way + Strays like a misanthrope within a gloom +Of his own shadows--till the perfect day + Bursts into sudden bloom, + +And crowns a long, declining stretch of space, + Where King Corn's armies lie with flags unfurled, +And where the valley's dint in Nature's face + Dimples a smiling world. + +And lo! through mists that may not be dispelled, + I see an old farm homestead, as in dreams, +Where, like a gem in costly setting held, + The old log cabin gleams. + + . . . . . . . + +O darling Pathway! lead me bravely on + Adown your valley-way, and run before +Among the roses crowding up the lawn + And thronging at the door,-- + +And carry up the echo there that shall + Arouse the drowsy dog, that he may bay +The household out to greet the prodigal + That wanders home to-day. + + +THE OLD GUITAR + +Neglected now is the old guitar + And moldering into decay; +Fretted with many a rift and scar + That the dull dust hides away, +While the spider spins a silver star + In its silent lips to-day. + +The keys hold only nerveless strings-- + The sinews of brave old airs +Are pulseless now; and the scarf that clings + So closely here declares +A sad regret in its ravelings + And the faded hue it wears. + +But the old guitar, with a lenient grace, + Has cherished a smile for me; +And its features hint of a fairer face + That comes with a memory +Of a flower-and-perfume-haunted place + And a moonlit balcony. + +Music sweeter than words confess, + Or the minstrel's powers invent, +Thrilled here once at the light caress + Of the fairy hands that lent +This excuse for the kiss I press + On the dear old instrument. + +The rose of pearl with the jeweled stem + Still blooms; and the tiny sets +In the circle all are here; the gem + In the keys, and the silver frets; +But the dainty fingers that danced o'er them-- + Alas for the heart's regrets!-- + +Alas for the loosened strings to-day, + And the wounds of rift and scar +On a worn old heart, with its roundelay + Enthralled with a stronger bar +That Fate weaves on, through a dull decay + Like that of the old guitar! + + +"FRIDAY AFTERNOON" + +TO WILLIAM MORRIS PIERSON + +[1868-1870] + +Of the wealth of facts and fancies + That our memories may recall, +The old school-day romances + Are the dearest, after all!--. +When some sweet thought revises + The half-forgotten tune +That opened "Exercises" + On "Friday Afternoon." + +We seem to hear the clicking + Of the pencil and the pen, +And the solemn, ceaseless ticking + Of the timepiece ticking then; +And we note the watchful master, + As he waves the warning rod, +With our own heart beating faster + Than the boy's who threw the wad. + +Some little hand uplifted, + And the creaking of a shoe:-- +A problem left unsifted + For the teacher's hand to do: +The murmured hum of learning-- + And the flutter of a book; +The smell of something burning, + And the school's inquiring look. + +The bashful boy in blushes; + And the girl, with glancing eyes, +Who hides her smiles, and hushes + The laugh about to rise,-- +Then, with a quick invention, + Assumes a serious face, +To meet the words, "Attention! + Every scholar in his place!" + +The opening song, page 20.-- + Ah! dear old "Golden Wreath," +You willed your sweets in plenty; + And some who look beneath +The leaves of Time will linger, + And loving tears will start, +As Fancy trails her finger + O'er the index of the heart. + +"Good News from Home"--We hear it + Welling tremulous, yet clear +And holy as the spirit + Of the song we used to hear-- +"Good news for me" (A throbbing + And an aching melody)-- +"Has come across the"--(sobbing, + Yea, and salty) "dark blue sea!" + +Or the paean "Scotland's burning!" + With its mighty surge and swell +Of chorus, still returning + To its universal yell-- +Till we're almost glad to drop to + Something sad and full of pain-- +And "Skip verse three," and stop, too, + Ere our hearts are broke again. + +Then "the big girls'" compositions, + With their doubt, and hope, and glow +Of heart and face,--conditions + Of "the big boys"--even so,-- +When themes of "Spring," and "Summer" + And of "Fall," and "Winter-time" +Droop our heads and hold us dumber + Than the sleigh-bell's fancied chime. + +Elocutionary science-- + (Still in changeless infancy!)-- +With its "Cataline's Defiance," + And "The Banner of the Free": +Or, lured from Grandma's attic, + A ramshackle "rocker" there, +Adds a skreek of the dramatic + To the poet's "Old Arm-Chair." + +Or the "Speech of Logan" shifts us + From the pathos, to the fire; +And Tell (with Gessler) lifts us + Many noble notches higher.-- +Till a youngster, far from sunny, + With sad eyes of watery blue, +Winds up with something "funny," + Like "Cock-a-doodle-do!" + +Then a dialogue--selected + For its realistic worth:-- +The Cruel Boy detected + With a turtle turned to earth +Back downward; and, in pleading, + The Good Boy--strangely gay +At such a sad proceeding-- + Says, "Turn him over, pray!" + +So the exercises taper + Through gradations of delight +To the reading of "The Paper," + Which is entertaining--quite! +For it goes ahead and mentions + "If a certain Mr. O. +Has serious intentions + That he ought to tell her so." + +It also "Asks permission + To intimate to 'John' +The dubious condition + Of the ground he's standing on"; +And, dropping the suggestion + To "mind what he's about," +It stuns him with the question: + "Does his mother know he's out?" + +And among the contributions + To this "Academic Press" +Are "Versified Effusions" + By--"Our lady editress"-- +Which fact is proudly stated + By the CHIEF of the concern,-- +"Though the verse communicated + Bears the pen-name 'Fanny Fern.' " + + . . . . . . +When all has been recited, + And the teacher's bell is heard, +And visitors, invited, + Have dropped a kindly word, +A hush of holy feeling + Falls down upon us there, +As though the day were kneeling, + With the twilight for the prayer. + + . . . . . . +Midst the wealth of facts and fancies + That our memories may recall, +Thus the old school-day romances + Are the dearest, after all!-- +When some sweet thought revises + The half-forgotten tune +That opened "Exercises," + On "Friday Afternoon." + + +"JOHNSON'S BOY" + +The world is turned ag'in' me, + And people says, "They guess +That nothin' else is in me + But pure maliciousness!" +I git the blame for doin' + What other chaps destroy, +And I'm a-goin' to ruin + Because I'm "Johnson's boy." + +THAT ain't my name--I'd ruther + They'd call me IKE or PAT-- +But they've forgot the other-- + And so have _I_, for that! +I reckon it's as handy, + When Nibsy breaks his toy, +Or some one steals his candy, + To say 'twas "JOHNSON'S BOY!" + +You can't git any water + At the pump, and find the spout +So durn chuck-full o' mortar + That you have to bore it out; +You tackle any scholar + In Wisdom's wise employ, +And I'll bet you half a dollar + He'll say it's "Johnson's boy!" + +Folks don't know how I suffer + In my uncomplainin' way-- +They think I'm gittin' tougher + And tougher every day. +Last Sunday night, when Flinder + Was a-shoutin' out for joy, +And some one shook the winder, + He prayed for "Johnson's boy." + +I'm tired of bein' follered + By farmers every day, +And then o' bein' collared + For coaxin' hounds away; +Hounds always plays me double-- + It's a trick they all enjoy-- +To git me into trouble, + Because I'm "Johnson's boy." + +But if I git to Heaven, + I hope the Lord'll see +SOME boy has been perfect, + And lay it on to me; +I'll swell the song sonorous, + And clap my wings for joy, +And sail off on the chorus-- + "Hurrah for 'Johnson's boy!'" + + +HER BEAUTIFUL HANDS + +Your hands--they are strangely fair! +O Fair--for the jewels that sparkle there,-- +Fair--for the witchery of the spell +That ivory keys alone can tell; +But when their delicate touches rest +Here in my own do I love them best, +As I clasp with eager, acquisitive spans +My glorious treasure of beautiful hands! + +Marvelous--wonderful--beautiful hands! +They can coax roses to bloom in the strands +Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine, +Under mysterious touches of thine, +Into such knots as entangle the soul +And fetter the heart under such a control +As only the strength of my love understands-- +My passionate love for your beautiful hands. + +As I remember the first fair touch +Of those beautiful hands that I love so much, +I seem to thrill as I then was thrilled, +Kissing the glove that I found unfilled-- +When I met your gaze, and the queenly bow, +As you said to me, laughingly, "Keep it now!" . . . +And dazed and alone in a dream I stand, +Kissing this ghost of your beautiful hand. + +When first I loved, in the long ago, +And held your hand as I told you so-- +Pressed and caressed it and gave it a kiss +And said "I could die for a hand like this!" +Little I dreamed love's fullness yet +Had to ripen when eyes were wet +And prayers were vain in their wild demands +For one warm touch of your beautiful hands. + +. . . . . . . . . +Beautiful Hands!--O Beautiful Hands! +Could you reach out of the alien lands +Where you are lingering, and give me, to-night, +Only a touch--were it ever so light-- +My heart were soothed, and my weary brain +Would lull itself into rest again; +For there is no solace the world commands +Like the caress of your beautiful hands. + + +NATURAL PERVERSITIES + +I am not prone to moralize + In scientific doubt +On certain facts that Nature tries + To puzzle us about,-- +For I am no philosopher + Of wise elucidation, +But speak of things as they occur, + From simple observation. + +I notice LITTLE things--to wit:-- + I never missed a train +Because I didn't RUN for it; + I never knew it rain +That my umbrella wasn't lent,-- + Or, when in my possession, +The sun but wore, to all intent, + A jocular expression. + +I never knew a creditor + To dun me for a debt +But I was "cramped" or "bu'sted"; or + I never knew one yet, +When I had plenty in my purse, + To make the least invasion,-- +As I, accordingly perverse, + Have courted no occasion. + +Nor do I claim to comprehend + What Nature has in view +In giving us the very friend + To trust we oughtn't to.-- +But so it is: The trusty gun + Disastrously exploded +Is always sure to be the one + We didn't think was loaded. + +Our moaning is another's mirth,-- + And what is worse by half, +We say the funniest thing on earth + And never raise a laugh: +'Mid friends that love us over well, + And sparkling jests and liquor, +Our hearts somehow are liable + To melt in tears the quicker. + +We reach the wrong when most we seek + The right; in like effect, +We stay the strong and not the weak-- + Do most when we neglect.-- +Neglected genius--truth be said-- + As wild and quick as tinder, +The more you seek to help ahead + The more you seem to hinder. + +I've known the least the greatest, too-- + And, on the selfsame plan, +The biggest fool I ever knew + Was quite a little man: +We find we ought, and then we won't-- + We prove a thing, then doubt it,-- +Know EVERYTHING but when we don't + Know ANYTHING about it. + + +THE SILENT VICTORS + +MAY 30, 1878, + +Dying for victory, cheer on cheer +Thundered on his eager ear. + --CHARLES L. HOLSTEIN. + +I + +Deep, tender, firm and true, the Nation's heart + Throbs for her gallant heroes passed away, +Who in grim Battle's drama played their part, + And slumber here to-day.-- + +Warm hearts that beat their lives out at the shrine + Of Freedom, while our country held its breath +As brave battalions wheeled themselves in line + And marched upon their death: + +When Freedom's Flag, its natal wounds scarce healed, + Was torn from peaceful winds and flung again +To shudder in the storm of battle-field-- + The elements of men,-- + +When every star that glittered was a mark + For Treason's ball, and every rippling bar +Of red and white was sullied with the dark + And purple stain of war: + +When angry guns, like famished beasts of prey, + Were howling o'er their gory feast of lives, +And sending dismal echoes far away + To mothers, maids, and wives:-- + +The mother, kneeling in the empty night, + With pleading hands uplifted for the son +Who, even as she prayed, had fought the fight-- + The victory had won: + +The wife, with trembling hand that wrote to say + The babe was waiting for the sire's caress-- +The letter meeting that upon the way,-- + The babe was fatherless: + +The maiden, with her lips, in fancy, pressed + Against the brow once dewy with her breath, +Now lying numb, unknown, and uncaressed + Save by the dews of death. + +II + +What meed of tribute can the poet pay + The Soldier, but to trail the ivy-vine +Of idle rhyme above his grave to-day + In epitaph design?-- + +Or wreathe with laurel-words the icy brows + That ache no longer with a dream of fame, +But, pillowed lowly in the narrow house, + Renowned beyond the name. + +The dewy tear-drops of the night may fall, + And tender morning with her shining hand +May brush them from the grasses green and tall + That undulate the land.-- + +Yet song of Peace nor din of toil and thrift, + Nor chanted honors, with the flowers we heap, +Can yield us hope the Hero's head to lift + Out of its dreamless sleep: + +The dear old Flag, whose faintest flutter flies + A stirring echo through each patriot breast, +Can never coax to life the folded eyes + That saw its wrongs redressed-- + +That watched it waver when the fight was hot, + And blazed with newer courage to its aid, +Regardless of the shower of shell and shot + Through which the charge was made;-- + +And when, at last, they saw it plume its wings, + Like some proud bird in stormy element, +And soar untrammeled on its wanderings, + They closed in death, content. + +III + +O Mother, you who miss the smiling face + Of that dear boy who vanished from your sight, +And left you weeping o'er the vacant place + He used to fill at night,-- + +Who left you dazed, bewildered, on a day + That echoed wild huzzas, and roar of guns +That drowned the farewell words you tried to say + To incoherent ones;-- + +Be glad and proud you had the life to give-- + Be comforted through all the years to come,-- +Your country has a longer life to live, + Your son a better home. + +O Widow, weeping o'er the orphaned child, + Who only lifts his questioning eyes to send +A keener pang to grief unreconciled,-- + Teach him to comprehend + +He had a father brave enough to stand + Before the fire of Treason's blazing gun, +That, dying, he might will the rich old land + Of Freedom to his son. + +And, Maiden, living on through lonely years + In fealty to love's enduring ties,-- +With strong faith gleaming through the tender tears + That gather in your eyes, + +Look up! and own, in gratefulness of prayer, + Submission to the will of Heaven's High Host:-- +I see your Angel-soldier pacing there, + Expectant at his post.-- + +I see the rank and file of armies vast, + That muster under one supreme control; +I hear the trumpet sound the signal-blast-- + The calling of the roll-- + +The grand divisions falling into line + And forming, under voice of One alone +Who gives command, and joins with tongue divine + The hymn that shakes the Throne. + +IV + +And thus, in tribute to the forms that rest + In their last camping-ground, we strew the bloom +And fragrance of the flowers they loved the best, + In silence o'er the tomb. + +With reverent hands we twine the Hero's wreath + And clasp it tenderly on stake or stone +That stands the sentinel for each beneath + Whose glory is our own. + +While in the violet that greets the sun, + We see the azure eye of some lost boy; +And in the rose the ruddy cheek of one + We kissed in childish joy,-- + +Recalling, haply, when he marched away, + He laughed his loudest though his eyes were wet.-- +The kiss he gave his mother's brow that day + Is there and burning yet: + +And through the storm of grief around her tossed, + One ray of saddest comfort she may see,-- +Four hundred thousand sons like hers were lost + To weeping Liberty. + + . . . . . . . . +But draw aside the drapery of gloom, + And let the sunshine chase the clouds away +And gild with brighter glory every tomb + We decorate to-day: + +And in the holy silence reigning round, + While prayers of perfume bless the atmosphere, +Where loyal souls of love and faith are found, + Thank God that Peace is here! + +And let each angry impulse that may start, + Be smothered out of every loyal breast; +And, rocked within the cradle of the heart, + Let every sorrow rest. + + +SCRAPS + +There's a habit I have nurtured, + From the sentimental time +When my life was like a story, + And my heart a happy rhyme,-- +Of clipping from the paper, + Or magazine, perhaps, +The idle songs of dreamers, + Which I treasure as my scraps. + +They hide among my letters, + And they find a cozy nest +In the bosom of my wrapper, + And the pockets of my vest; +They clamber in my fingers + Till my dreams of wealth relapse +In fairer dreams than Fortune's + Though I find them only scraps. + +Sometimes I find, in tatters + Like a beggar, form as fair +As ever gave to Heaven + The treasure of a prayer; +And words all dim and faded, + And obliterate in part, +Grow into fadeless meanings + That are printed on the heart. + +Sometimes a childish jingle + Flings an echo, sweet and clear, +And thrills me as I listen + To the laughs I used to hear; +And I catch the gleam of faces, + And the glimmer of glad eyes +That peep at me expectant + O'er the walls of Paradise. + +O syllables of measure! + Though you wheel yourselves in line, +And await the further order + Of this eager voice of mine; +You are powerless to follow + O'er the field my fancy maps, +So I lead you back to silence + Feeling you are only scraps. + + +AUGUST + +A day of torpor in the sullen heat + Of Summer's passion: In the sluggish stream +The panting cattle lave their lazy feet, + With drowsy eyes, and dream. + +Long since the winds have died, and in the sky + There lives no cloud to hint of Nature's grief; +The sun glares ever like an evil eye, + And withers flower and leaf. + +Upon the gleaming harvest-field remote + The thresher lies deserted, like some old +Dismantled galleon that hangs afloat + Upon a sea of gold. + +The yearning cry of some bewildered bird + Above an empty nest, and truant boys +Along the river's shady margin heard-- + A harmony of noise-- + +A melody of wrangling voices blent + With liquid laughter, and with rippling calls +Of piping lips and thrilling echoes sent + To mimic waterfalls. + +And through the hazy veil the atmosphere + Has draped about the gleaming face of Day, +The sifted glances of the sun appear + In splinterings of spray. + +The dusty highway, like a cloud of dawn, + Trails o'er the hillside, and the passer-by, +A tired ghost in misty shroud, toils on + His journey to the sky. + +And down across the valley's drooping sweep, + Withdrawn to farthest limit of the glade, +The forest stands in silence, drinking deep + Its purple wine of shade. + +The gossamer floats up on phantom wing; + The sailor-vision voyages the skies +And carries into chaos everything + That freights the weary eyes: + +Till, throbbing on and on, the pulse of heat + Increases--reaches--passes fever's height, +And Day sinks into slumber, cool and sweet, + Within the arms of Night. + + +DEAD IN SIGHT OF FAME + + DIED--Early morning of September 5, 1876, and +in the gleaming dawn of "name and fame," +Hamilton J. Dunbar. + +Dead! Dead! Dead! + We thought him ours alone; +And were so proud to see him tread +The rounds of fame, and lift his head + Where sunlight ever shone; +But now our aching eyes are dim, +And look through tears in vain for him. + +Name! Name! Name! + It was his diadem; +Nor ever tarnish-taint of shame +Could dim its luster--like a flame + Reflected in a gem, +He wears it blazing on his brow +Within the courts of Heaven now. + +Tears! Tears! Tears! + Like dews upon the leaf +That bursts at last--from out the years +The blossom of a trust appears + That blooms above the grief; +And mother, brother, wife and child +Will see it and be reconciled. + + +IN THE DARK + +O In the depths of midnight + What fancies haunt the brain! +When even the sigh of the sleeper + Sounds like a sob of pain. + +A sense of awe and of wonder + I may never well define,-- +For the thoughts that come in the shadows + Never come in the shine. + +The old clock down in the parlor + Like a sleepless mourner grieves, +And the seconds drip in the silence + As the rain drips from the eaves. + +And I think of the hands that signal + The hours there in the gloom, +And wonder what angel watchers + Wait in the darkened room. + +And I think of the smiling faces + That used to watch and wait, +Till the click of the clock was answered + By the click of the opening gate.-- + +They are not there now in the evening-- + Morning or noon--not there; +Yet I know that they keep their vigil, + And wait for me Somewhere. + + +THE IRON HORSE + +No song is mine of Arab steed-- + My courser is of nobler blood, +And cleaner limb and fleeter speed, + And greater strength and hardihood +Than ever cantered wild and free +Across the plains of Araby. + +Go search the level desert land +From Sana on to Samarcand-- +Wherever Persian prince has been, +Or Dervish, Sheik, or Bedouin, +And I defy you there to point + Me out a steed the half so fine-- +From tip of ear to pastern-joint-- + As this old iron horse of mine. + +You do not know what beauty is-- + You do not know what gentleness + His answer is to my caress!-- +Why, look upon this gait of his,-- +A touch upon his iron rein-- + He moves with such a stately grace +The sunlight on his burnished mane + Is barely shaken in its place; + And at a touch he changes pace, +And, gliding backward, stops again. + +And talk of mettle--Ah! my friend, + Such passion smolders in his breast +That when awakened it will send + A thrill of rapture wilder than + E'er palpitated heart of man + When flaming at its mightiest. +And there's a fierceness in his ire-- + A maddened majesty that leaps +Along his veins in blood of fire, + Until the path his vision sweeps +Spins out behind him like a thread + Unraveled from the reel of time, + As, wheeling on his course sublime, +The earth revolves beneath his tread. + +Then stretch away, my gallant steed! + Thy mission is a noble one: + Thou bear'st the father to the son, +And sweet relief to bitter need; +Thou bear'st the stranger to his friends; + Thou bear'st the pilgrim to the shrine, +And back again the prayer he sends + That God will prosper me and mine,-- +The star that on thy forehead gleams +Has blossomed in our brightest dreams. + +Then speed thee on thy glorious race! +The mother waits thy ringing pace; +The father leans an anxious ear +The thunder of thy hooves to hear; +The lover listens, far away, +To catch thy keen exultant neigh; +And, where thy breathings roll and rise, +The husband strains his eager eyes, +And laugh of wife and baby-glee +Ring out to greet and welcome thee. +Then stretch away! and when at last + The master's hand shall gently check +Thy mighty speed, and hold thee fast, + The world will pat thee on the neck. + + +DEAD LEAVES + + DAWN + +As though a gipsy maiden with dim look, + Sat crooning by the roadside of the year, + So, Autumn, in thy strangeness, thou art here +To read dark fortunes for us from the book +Of fate; thou flingest in the crinkled brook + The trembling maple's gold, and frosty-clear + Thy mocking laughter thrills the atmosphere, +And drifting on its current calls the rook +To other lands. As one who wades, alone, + Deep in the dusk, and hears the minor talk +Of distant melody, and finds the tone, + In some wierd way compelling him to stalk +The paths of childhood over,--so I moan, + And like a troubled sleeper, groping, walk. + + 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 somber 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. + + NIGHT + +Funereal Darkness, drear and desolate, + Muffles the world. The moaning of the wind + Is piteous with sobs of saddest kind; +And laughter is a phantom at the gate +Of memory. The long-neglected grate + Within sprouts into flame and lights the mind + With hopes and wishes long ago refined +To ashes,--long departed friends await + Our words of welcome: and our lips are dumb +And powerless to greet the ones that press + Old kisses there. The baby beats its drum, +And fancy marches to the dear caress + Of mother-arms, and all the gleeful hum +Of home intrudes upon our loneliness. + + +OVER THE EYES OF GLADNESS + +"The voice of One hath spoken, + And the bended reed is bruised-- +The golden bowl is broken, + And the silver cord is loosed." + +Over the eyes of gladness + The lids of sorrow fall, +And the light of mirth is darkened + Under the funeral pall. + +The hearts that throbbed with rapture + In dreams of the future years, +Are wakened from their slumbers, + And their visions drowned in tears. + + . . . . . . . +Two buds on the bough in the morning-- + Twin buds in the smiling sun, +But the frost of death has fallen + And blighted the bloom of one. + +One leaf of life still folded + Has fallen from the stem, +Leaving the symbol teaching + There still are two of them,-- + +For though--through Time's gradations, + The LIVING bud may burst,-- +The WITHERED one is gathered, + And blooms in Heaven first. + + +ONLY A DREAM + +Only a dream! + Her head is bent +Over the keys of the instrument, +While her trembling fingers go astray +In the foolish tune she tries to play. +He smiles in his heart, though his deep, sad eyes +Never change to a glad surprise +As he finds the answer he seeks confessed +In glowing features, and heaving breast. + +Only a dream! + Though the fete is grand, +And a hundred hearts at her command, +She takes no part, for her soul is sick +Of the Coquette's art and the Serpent's trick,-- +She someway feels she would like to fling +Her sins away as a robe, and spring +Up like a lily pure and white, +And bloom alone for HIM to-night. + +Only a dream + That the fancy weaves. +The lids unfold like the rose's leaves, +And the upraised eyes are moist and mild +As the prayerful eyes of a drowsy child. +Does she remember the spell they once +Wrought in the past a few short months? +Haply not--yet her lover's eyes +Never change to the glad surprise. + +Only a dream! + He winds her form +Close in the coil of his curving arm, +And whirls her away in a gust of sound +As wild and sweet as the poets found +In the paradise where the silken tent +Of the Persian blooms in the Orient,-- +While ever the chords of the music seem +Whispering sadly,--"Only a dream!" + + +OUR LITTLE GIRL + +Her heart knew naught of sorrow, + Nor the vaguest taint of sin-- +'Twas an ever-blooming blossom + Of the purity within: +And her hands knew only touches + Of the mother's gentle care, +And the kisses and caresses + Through the interludes of prayer. + +Her baby-feet had journeyed + Such a little distance here, +They could have found no briers + In the path to interfere; +The little cross she carried + Could not weary her, we know, +For it lay as lightly on her + As a shadow on the snow. + +And yet the way before us-- + O how empty now and drear!-- +How ev'n the dews of roses + Seem as dripping tears for her! +And the song-birds all seem crying, + As the winds cry and the rain, +All sobbingly,--"We want--we want + Our little girl again!" + + +THE FUNNY LITTLE FELLOW + +'Twas a Funny Little Fellow + Of the very purest type, +For he had a heart as mellow + As an apple over ripe; +And the brightest little twinkle + When a funny thing occurred, +And the lightest little tinkle + Of a laugh you ever heard! + +His smile was like the glitter + Of the sun in tropic lands, +And his talk a sweeter twitter + Than the swallow understands; +Hear him sing--and tell a story-- + Snap a joke--ignite a pun,-- +'Twas a capture--rapture--glory, + An explosion--all in one! + +Though he hadn't any money-- + That condiment which tends +To make a fellow "honey" + For the palate of his friends;-- +Sweet simples he compounded-- + Sovereign antidotes for sin +Or taint,--a faith unbounded + That his friends were genuine. + +He wasn't honored, maybe-- + For his songs of praise were slim,-- +Yet I never knew a baby + That wouldn't crow for him; +I never knew a mother + But urged a kindly claim +Upon him as a brother, + At the mention of his name. + +The sick have ceased their sighing, + And have even found the grace +Of a smile when they were dying + As they looked upon his face; +And I've seen his eyes of laughter + Melt in tears that only ran +As though, swift-dancing after, + Came the Funny Little Man. + +He laughed away the sorrow + And he laughed away the gloom +We are all so prone to borrow + From the darkness of the tomb; +And he laughed across the ocean + Of a happy life, and passed, +With a laugh of glad emotion, + Into Paradise at last. + +And I think the Angels knew him, + And had gathered to await +His coming, and run to him + Through the widely opened Gate, +With their faces gleaming sunny + For his laughter-loving sake, +And thinking, "What a funny + Little Angel he will make!" + + +SONG OF THE NEW YEAR + +I heard the bells at midnight + Ring in the dawning year; +And above the clanging chorus + Of the song, I seemed to hear +A choir of mystic voices + Flinging echoes, ringing clear, +From a band of angels winging + Through the haunted atmosphere: + "Ring out the shame and sorrow, + And the misery and sin, + That the dawning of the morrow + May in peace be ushered in." + +And I thought of all the trials + The departed years had cost, +And the blooming hopes and pleasures + That are withered now and lost; +And with joy I drank the music + Stealing o'er the feeling there +As the spirit song came pealing + On the silence everywhere: + "Ring out the shame and sorrow, + And the misery and sin, + That the dawning of the morrow + May in peace be ushered in." + +And I listened as a lover + To an utterance that flows +In syllables like dewdrops + From the red lips of a rose, +Till the anthem, fainter growing, + Climbing higher, chiming on +Up the rounds of happy rhyming, + Slowly vanished in the dawn: + "Ring out the shame and sorrow, + And the misery and sin, + That the dawning of the morrow + May in peace be ushered in." + +Then I raised my eyes to Heaven, + And with trembling lips I pled +For a blessing for the living + And a pardon for the dead; +And like a ghost of music + Slowly whispered--lowly sung-- +Came the echo pure and holy + In the happy angel tongue: + "Ring out the shame and sorrow, + And the misery and sin, + And the dawn of every morrow + Will in peace be ushered in." + + +A LETTER TO A FRIEND + +The past is like a story + I have listened to in dreams +That vanished in the glory + Of the Morning's early gleams; +And--at my shadow glancing-- + I feel a loss of strength, +As the Day of Life advancing + Leaves it shorn of half its length. + +But it's all in vain to worry + At the rapid race of Time-- +And he flies in such a flurry + When I trip him with a rhyme, +I'll bother him no longer + Than to thank you for the thought +That "my fame is growing stronger + As you really think it ought." + +And though I fall below it, + I might know as much of mirth +To live and die a poet + Of unacknowledged worth; +For Fame is but a vagrant-- + Though a loyal one and brave, +And his laurels ne'er so fragrant + As when scattered o'er the grave. + + +LINES FOR AN ALBUM + +I would not trace the hackneyed phrase +Of shallow words and empty praise, +And prate of "peace" till one might think +My foolish pen was drunk with ink. +Nor will I here the wish express +Of "lasting love and happiness," +And "cloudless skies"--for after all +"Into each life some rain must fall." +--No. Keep the empty page below, +In my remembrance, white as snow-- +Nor sigh to know the secret prayer +My spirit hand has written there. + + +TO ANNIE + +When the lids of dusk are falling + O'er the dreamy eyes of day, +And the whippoorwills are calling, + And the lesson laid away,-- +May Mem'ry soft and tender + As the prelude of the night, +Bend over you and render + As tranquil a delight. + + +FAME + +I + +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. + +II + +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 lifeless at the feet of stone, +And lie there like a worshiper. + Fame crossed the threshold of the hall, + And found a statue--that was all. + +III + +And once I saw a man who drew + A gloom about him like a 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 + + +AN EMPTY NEST + +I find an old deserted nest, + Half-hidden in the underbrush: +A withered leaf, in phantom jest, + Has nestled in it like a thrush +With weary, palpitating breast. + +I muse as one in sad surprise + Who seeks his childhood's home once more, +And finds it in a strange disguise + Of vacant rooms and naked floor, +With sudden tear-drops in his eyes. + +An empty nest! It used to bear + A happy burden, when the breeze +Of summer rocked it, and a pair + Of merry tattlers told the trees +What treasures they had hidden there. + +But Fancy, flitting through the gleams + Of youth's sunshiny atmosphere, +Has fallen in the past, and seems, + Like this poor leaflet nestled here,-- +A phantom guest of empty dreams. + + +MY FATHER'S HALLS + +My father's halls, so rich and rare, +Are desolate and bleak and bare; +My father's heart and halls are one, +Since I, their life and light, am gone. + +O, valiant knight, with hand of steel +And heart of gold, hear my appeal: +Release me from the spoiler's charms, +And bear me to my father's arms. + + +THE HARP OF THE MINSTREL + +The harp of the minstrel has never a tone + As sad as the song in his bosom to-night, +For the magical touch of his fingers alone + Can not waken the echoes that breathe it aright; +But oh! as the smile of the moon may impart + A sorrow to one in an alien clime, +Let the light of the melody fall on the heart, + And cadence his grief into musical rhyme. + +The faces have faded, the eyes have grown dim + That once were his passionate love and his pride; +And alas! all the smiles that once blossomed for him + Have fallen away as the flowers have died. +The hands that entwined him the laureate's wreath + And crowned him with fame in the long, long ago, +Like the laurels are withered and folded beneath + The grass and the stubble--the frost and the snow. + +Then sigh, if thou wilt, as the whispering strings + Strive ever in vain for the utterance clear, +And think of the sorrowful spirit that sings, + And jewel the song with the gem of a tear. +For the harp of the minstrel has never a tone + As sad as the song in his bosom tonight, +And the magical touch of his fingers alone + Can not waken the echoes that breathe it aright. + + +HONEY DRIPPING FROM THE COMB + +How slight a thing may set one's fancy drifting + Upon the dead sea of the Past!--A view-- +Sometimes an odor--or a rooster lifting + A far-off "OOH! OOH-OOH!" + +And suddenly we find ourselves astray + In some wood's-pasture of the Long Ago-- +Or idly dream again upon a day + Of rest we used to know. + +I bit an apple but a moment since-- + A wilted apple that the worm had spurned,-- +Yet hidden in the taste were happy hints + Of good old days returned.-- + +And so my heart, like some enraptured lute, + Tinkles a tune so tender and complete, +God's blessing must be resting on the fruit-- + So bitter, yet so sweet! + + +JOHN WALSH + +A strange life--strangely passed! + We may not read the soul + When God has folded up the scroll + In death at last. +We may not--dare not say of one +Whose task of life as well was done +As he could do it,--"This is lost, +And prayers may never pay the cost." + +Who listens to the song + That sings within the breast, + Should ever hear the good expressed + Above the wrong. +And he who leans an eager ear +To catch the discord, he will hear +The echoes of his own weak heart +Beat out the most discordant part. + +Whose tender heart could build + Affection's bower above + A heart where baby nests of love + Were ever filled,-- +With upward growth may reach and twine +About the children, grown divine, +That once were his a time so brief +His very joy was more than grief. + +O Sorrow--"Peace, be still!" + God reads the riddle right; + And we who grope in constant night + But serve His will; +And when sometime the doubt is gone, +And darkness blossoms into dawn,-- +"God keeps the good," we then will say: +" 'Tis but the dross He throws away." + + +ORLIE WILDE + +A goddess, with a siren's grace,-- +A sun-haired girl on a craggy place +Above a bay where fish-boats lay +Drifting about like birds of prey. + +Wrought was she of a painter's dream,-- +Wise only as are artists wise, +My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem, +With deep sad eyes of oversize, +And face of melancholy guise. + +I pressed him that he tell to me +This masterpiece's history. +He turned--REturned--and thus beguiled +Me with the tale of Orlie Wilde:-- + +"We artists live ideally: +We breed our firmest facts of air; +We make our own reality-- +We dream a thing and it is so. +The fairest scenes we ever see +Are mirages of memory; +The sweetest thoughts we ever know +We plagiarize from Long Ago: +And as the girl on canvas there +Is marvelously rare and fair, +'Tis only inasmuch as she +Is dumb and may not speak to me!" +He tapped me with his mahlstick--then +The picture,--and went on again: + +"Orlie Wilde, the fisher's child-- +I see her yet, as fair and mild +As ever nursling summer day +Dreamed on the bosom of the bay: +For I was twenty then, and went +Alone and long-haired--all content +With promises of sounding name +And fantasies of future fame, +And thoughts that now my mind discards +As editor a fledgling bard's. + +"At evening once I chanced to go, +With pencil and portfolio, +Adown the street of silver sand +That winds beneath this craggy land, +To make a sketch of some old scurf +Of driftage, nosing through the surf +A splintered mast, with knarl and strand +Of rigging-rope and tattered threads +Of flag and streamer and of sail +That fluttered idly in the gale +Or whipped themselves to sadder shreds. +The while I wrought, half listlessly, +On my dismantled subject, came +A sea-bird, settling on the same +With plaintive moan, as though that he +Had lost his mate upon the sea; +And--with my melancholy trend-- +It brought dim dreams half understood-- +It wrought upon my morbid mood,-- +I thought of my own voyagings +That had no end--that have no end.-- +And, like the sea-bird, I made moan +That I was loveless and alone. +And when at last with weary wings +It went upon its wanderings, +With upturned face I watched its flight +Until this picture met my sight: +A goddess, with a siren's grace,-- +A sun-haired girl on a craggy place +Above a bay where fish-boats lay +Drifting about like birds of prey. + +"In airy poise she, gazing, stood +A machless form of womanhood, +That brought a thought that if for me +Such eyes had sought across the sea, +I could have swum the widest tide +That ever mariner defied, +And, at the shore, could on have gone +To that high crag she stood upon, +To there entreat and say, 'My Sweet, +Behold thy servant at thy feet.' +And to my soul I said: 'Above, +There stands the idol of thy love!' + +"In this rapt, awed, ecstatic state +I gazed--till lo! I was aware +A fisherman had joined her there-- +A weary man, with halting gait, +Who toiled beneath a basket's weight: +Her father, as I guessed, for she +Had run to meet him gleefully +And ta'en his burden to herself, +That perched upon her shoulder's shelf +So lightly that she, tripping, neared +A jutting crag and disappeared; +But she left the echo of a song +That thrills me yet, and will as long +As I have being! . . . + + + . . . "Evenings came +And went,--but each the same--the same: +She watched above, and even so +I stood there watching from below; +Till, grown so bold at last, I sung,-- +(What matter now the theme thereof!)-- +It brought an answer from her tongue-- +Faint as the murmur of a dove, +Yet all the more the song of love. . . . + +"I turned and looked upon the bay, +With palm to forehead--eyes a-blur +In the sea's smile--meant but for her!-- +I saw the fish-boats far away +In misty distance, lightly drawn +In chalk-dots on the horizon-- +Looked back at her, long, wistfully;-- +And, pushing off an empty skiff, +I beckoned her to quit the cliff +And yield me her rare company +Upon a little pleasure-cruise.-- +She stood, as loathful to refuse, +To muse for full a moment's time,-- +Then answered back in pantomime +'She feared some danger from the sea +Were she discovered thus with me.' +I motioned then to ask her if +I might not join her on the cliff +And back again, with graceful wave +Of lifted arm, she answer gave +'She feared some danger from the sea.' + +"Impatient, piqued, impetuous, I +Sprang in the boat, and flung 'Good-by' +From pouted mouth with angry hand, +And madly pulled away from land +With lusty stroke, despite that she +Held out her hands entreatingly: +And when far out, with covert eye +I shoreward glanced, I saw her fly +In reckless haste adown the crag, +Her hair a-flutter like a flag +Of gold that danced across the strand +In little mists of silver sand. +All curious I, pausing, tried +To fancy what it all implied,-- +When suddenly I found my feet +Were wet; and, underneath the seat +On which I sat, I heard the sound +Of gurgling waters, and I found +The boat aleak alarmingly. . . . +I turned and looked upon the sea, +Whose every wave seemed mocking me; +I saw the fishers' sails once more-- +In dimmer distance than before; +I saw the sea-bird wheeling by, +With foolish wish that _I_ could fly: +I thought of firm earth, home and friends-- +I thought of everything that tends +To drive a man to frenzy and +To wholly lose his own command; +I thought of all my waywardness-- +Thought of a mother's deep distress; +Of youthful follies yet unpurged-- +Sins, as the seas, about me surged-- +Thought of the printer's ready pen +To-morrow drowning me again;-- +A million things without a name-- +I thought of everything but--Fame. . . . + +"A memory yet is in my mind, +So keenly clear and sharp-defined, +I picture every phase and line +Of life and death, and neither mine,-- +While some fair seraph, golden-haired, +Bends over me,--with white arms bared, +That strongly plait themselves about +My drowning weight and lift me out-- +With joy too great for words to state +Or tongue to dare articulate! + +"And this seraphic ocean-child +And heroine was Orlie Wilde: +And thus it was I came to hear +Her voice's music in my ear-- +Ay, thus it was Fate paved the way +That I walk desolate to-day!" . . . + +The artist paused and bowed his face +Within his palms a little space, +While reverently on his form +I bent my gaze and marked a storm +That shook his frame as wrathfully +As some typhoon of agony, +And fraught with sobs--the more profound +For that peculiar laughing sound +We hear when strong men weep. . . . I leant +With warmest sympathy--I bent +To stroke with soothing hand his brow, +He murmuring--"Tis over now!-- + +And shall I tie the silken thread +Of my frail romance?" "Yes," I said.-- +He faintly smiled; and then, with brow +In kneading palm, as one in dread-- +His tasseled cap pushed from his head +" 'Her voice's music,' I repeat," +He said,--" 'twas sweet--O passing sweet!-- +Though she herself, in uttering +Its melody, proved not the thing +Of loveliness my dreams made meet +For me--there, yearning, at her feet-- +Prone at her feet--a worshiper,-- +For lo! she spake a tongue," moaned he, +"Unknown to me;--unknown to me +As mine to her--as mine to her." + + +THAT OTHER MAUD MULLER + +Maud Muller worked at making hay, +And cleared her forty cents a day. + +Her clothes were coarse, but her health was fine, +And so she worked in the sweet sunshine + +Singing as glad as a bird in May +"Barbara Allen" the livelong day. + +She often glanced at the far-off town, +And wondered if eggs were up or down. + +And the sweet song died of a strange disease, +Leaving a phantom taste of cheese, + +And an appetite and a nameless ache +For soda-water and ginger cake. + +The judge rode slowly into view-- +Stopped his horse in the shade and threw + +His fine-cut out, while the blushing Maud +Marveled much at the kind he "chawed." + +"He was dry as a fish," he said with a wink, +"And kind o' thought that a good square drink + +Would brace him up." So the cup was filled +With the crystal wine that old spring spilled; + +And she gave it him with a sun-browned hand. +"Thanks," said the judge in accents bland; + +"A thousand thanks! for a sweeter draught, +From a fairer hand"--but there he laughed. + +And the sweet girl stood in the sun that day, +And raked the judge instead of the hay. + + +A MAN OF MANY PARTS + +It was a man of many parts, + Who in his coffer mind +Had stored the Classics and the Arts + And Sciences combined; +The purest gems of poesy + Came flashing from his pen-- +The wholesome truths of History + He gave his fellow men. + +He knew the stars from "Dog" to Mars; + And he could tell you, too, +Their distances--as though the cars + Had often checked him through-- +And time 'twould take to reach the sun, + Or by the "Milky Way," +Drop in upon the moon, or run + The homeward trip, or stay. + +With Logic at his fingers' ends, + Theology in mind, +He often entertained his friends + Until they died resigned; +And with inquiring mind intent + Upon Alchemic arts +A dynamite experiment-- + . . . . . . . + A man of many parts! + + +THE FROG + +Who am I but the Frog--the Frog! + My realm is the dark bayou, +And my throne is the muddy and moss-grown log + That the poison-vine clings to-- +And the blacksnakes slide in the slimy tide + Where the ghost of the moon looks blue. + +What am I but a King--a King!-- + For the royal robes I wear-- +A scepter, too, and a signet-ring, + As vassals and serfs declare: +And a voice, god wot, that is equaled not + In the wide world anywhere! + +I can talk to the Night--the Night!-- + Under her big black wing +She tells me the tale of the world outright, + And the secret of everything; +For she knows you all, from the time you crawl, + To the doom that death will bring. + +The Storm swoops down, and he blows--and blows,-- + While I drum on his swollen cheek, +And croak in his angered eye that glows + With the lurid lightning's streak; +While the rushes drown in the watery frown + That his bursting passions leak. + +And I can see through the sky--the sky-- + As clear as a piece of glass; +And I can tell you the how and why + Of the things that come to pass-- +And whether the dead are there instead, + Or under the graveyard grass. + +To your Sovereign lord all hail--all hail!-- + To your Prince on his throne so grim! +Let the moon swing low, and the high stars trail + Their heads in the dust to him; +And the wide world sing: Long live the King, + And grace to his royal whim! + + +DEAD SELVES + +How many of my selves are dead? + The ghosts of many haunt me: Lo, +The baby in the tiny bed +With rockers on, is blanketed + And sleeping in the long ago; +And so I ask, with shaking head, +How many of my selves are dead? + +A little face with drowsy eyes + And lisping lips comes mistily +From out the faded past, and tries +The prayers a mother breathed with sighs + Of anxious care in teaching me; +But face and form and prayers have fled-- +How many of my selves are dead? + +The little naked feet that slipped + In truant paths, and led the way +Through dead'ning pasture-lands, and tripped +O'er tangled poison-vines, and dipped + In streams forbidden--where are they? +In vain I listen for their tread-- +How many of my selves are dead? + +The awkward boy the teacher caught + Inditing letters filled with love, +Who was compelled, for all he fought, +To read aloud each tender thought + Of "Sugar Lump" and "Turtle Dove." +I wonder where he hides his head-- +How many of my selves are dead? + +The earnest features of a youth + With manly fringe on lip and chin, +With eager tongue to tell the truth, +To offer love and life, forsooth, + So brave was he to woo and win; +A prouder man was never wed-- +How many of my selves are dead? + +The great, strong hands so all-inclined + To welcome toil, or smooth the care +From mother-brows, or quick to find +A leisure-scrap of any kind, + To toss the baby in the air, +Or clap at babbling things it said-- +How many of my selves are dead? + +The pact of brawn and scheming brain-- + Conspiring in the plots of wealth, +Still delving, till the lengthened chain, +Unwindlassed in the mines of gain, + Recoils with dregs of ruined health +And pain and poverty instead-- +How many of my selves are dead? + +The faltering step, the faded hair-- + Head, heart and soul, all echoing +With maundering fancies that declare +That life and love were never there, + Nor ever joy in anything, +Nor wounded heart that ever bled-- +How many of my selves are dead? + +So many of my selves are dead, + That, bending here above the brink +Of my last grave, with dizzy head, +I find my spirit comforted, + For all the idle things I think: +It can but be a peaceful bed, +Since all my other selves are dead. + + +A DREAM OF LONG AGO + +Lying listless in the mosses +Underneath a tree that tosses +Flakes of sunshine, and embosses + Its green shadow with the snow-- +Drowsy-eyed, I sink in slumber +Born of fancies without number-- +Tangled fancies that encumber + Me with dreams of long ago. + +Ripples of the river singing; +And the water-lilies swinging +Bells of Parian, and ringing + Peals of perfume faint and fine, +While old forms and fairy faces +Leap from out their hiding-places +In the past, with glad embraces + Fraught with kisses sweet as wine. + +Willows dip their slender fingers +O'er the little fisher's stringers, +While he baits his hook and lingers + Till the shadows gather dim; +And afar off comes a calling +Like the sounds of water falling, +With the lazy echoes drawling + Messages of haste to him. + +Little naked feet that tinkle +Through the stubble-fields, and twinkle +Down the winding road, and sprinkle + Little mists of dusty rain, +While in pasture-lands the cattle +Cease their grazing with a rattle +Of the bells whose clappers tattle + To their masters down the lane. + +Trees that hold their tempting treasures +O'er the orchard's hedge embrasures, +Furnish their forbidden pleasures + As in Eden lands of old; +And the coming of the master +Indicates a like disaster +To the frightened heart that faster + Beats pulsations manifold. + +Puckered lips whose pipings tingle +In staccato notes that mingle +Musically with the jingle- + Haunted winds that lightly fan +Mellow twilights, crimson-tinted +By the sun, and picture-printed +Like a book that sweetly hinted + Of the Nights Arabian. + +Porticoes with columns plaited +And entwined with vines and freighted +With a bloom all radiated + With the light of moon and star; +Where some tender voice is winging +In sad flights of song, and singing +To the dancing fingers flinging + Dripping from the sweet guitar. + +Would my dreams were never taken +From me: that with faith unshaken +I might sleep and never waken + On a weary world of woe! +Links of love would never sever +As I dreamed them, never, never! +I would glide along forever + Through the dreams of long ago. + + +CRAQUEODOOM + +The Crankadox leaned o'er the edge of the moon + And wistfully gazed on the sea +Where the Gryxabodill madly whistled a tune + To the air of "Ti-fol-de-ding-dee." +The quavering shriek of the Fly-up-the-creek + Was fitfully wafted afar +To the Queen of the Wunks as she powdered her cheek + With the pulverized rays of a star. + +The Gool closed his ear on the voice of the Grig, + And his heart it grew heavy as lead +As he marked the Baldekin adjusting his wing + On the opposite side of his head, +And the air it grew chill as the Gryxabodill + Raised his dank, dripping fins to the skies, +And plead with the Plunk for the use of her bill + To pick the tears out of his eyes. + +The ghost of the Zhack flitted by in a trance, + And the Squidjum hid under a tub +As he heard the loud hooves of the Hooken advance + With a rub-a-dub--dub-a-dub--dub! +And the Crankadox cried, as he lay down and died, + "My fate there is none to bewail," +While the Queen of the Wunks drifted over the tide + With a long piece of crape to her tail. + + +JUNE + +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! + + +WASH LOWRY'S REMINISCENCE + +And you're the poet of this concern? + I've seed your name in print +A dozen times, but I'll be dern + I'd 'a' never 'a' took the hint +O' the size you are--fer I'd pictured you + A kind of a tallish man-- +Dark-complected and sallor too, + And on the consumpted plan. + +'Stid o' that you're little and small, + With a milk-and-water face-- +'Thout no snap in your eyes at all, + Er nothin' to suit the case! +Kind o'look like a--I don't know-- + One o' these fair-ground chaps +That runs a thingamajig to blow, + Er a candy-stand perhaps. + +'Ll I've allus thought that poetry + Was a sort of a--some disease-- +Fer I knowed a poet once, and he + Was techy and hard to please, +And moody-like, and kindo' sad + And didn't seem to mix +With other folks--like his health was bad, + Er his liver out o' fix. + +Used to teach fer a livelihood-- + There's folks in Pipe Crick yit +Remembers him--and he was good + At cipherin' I'll admit-- +And posted up in G'ography + But when it comes to tact, +And gittin' along with the school, you see, + He fizzled, and that's a fact! + +Boarded with us fer fourteen months + And in all that time I'll say +We never catched him a-sleepin' once + Er idle a single day. +But shucks! It made him worse and worse + A-writin' rhymes and stuff, +And the school committee used to furse + 'At the school warn't good enough. + +He warn't as strict as he ought to been, + And never was known to whip, +Or even to keep a scholard in + At work at his penmanship; +'Stid o' that he'd learn 'em notes, + And have 'em every day, +Spilin' hymns and a-splittin' th'oats + With his "Do-sol-fa-me-ra!" + +Tel finally it was jest agreed + We'd have to let him go, +And we all felt bad--we did indeed, + When we come to tell him so; +Fer I remember, he turned so white, + And smiled so sad, somehow, +I someway felt it wasn't right, + And I'm shore it wasn't now! + +He hadn't no complaints at all-- + He bid the school adieu, +And all o' the scholards great and small + Was mighty sorry too! +And when he closed that afternoon + They sung some lines that he +Had writ a purpose, to some old tune + That suited the case, you see. + +And then he lingered and delayed + And wouldn't go away-- +And shet himself in his room and stayed + A-writin' from day to day; +And kep' a-gittin' stranger still, + And thinner all the time, +You know, as any feller will + On nothin' else but rhyme. + +He didn't seem adzactly right, + Er like he was crossed in love, +He'd work away night after night, + And walk the floor above; +We'd hear him read and talk, and sing + So lonesome-like and low, +My woman's cried like ever'thing-- + 'Way in the night, you know. + +And when at last he tuck to bed + He'd have his ink and pen; +"So's he could coat the muse" he said, + "He'd die contented then"; +And jest before he past away + He read with dyin' gaze +The epitaph that stands to-day + To show you where he lays. + +And ever sence then I've allus thought + That poetry's some disease, +And them like you that's got it ought + To watch their q's and p's ; +And leave the sweets of rhyme, to sup + On the wholesome draughts of toil, +And git your health recruited up + By plowin' in rougher soil. + + +THE ANCIENT PRINTERMAN + +"O Printerman of sallow face, + And look of absent guile, +Is it the 'copy' on your 'case' + That causes you to smile? +Or is it some old treasure scrap + You cull from Memory's file? + +"I fain would guess its mystery-- + For often I can trace +A fellow dreamer's history + Whene'er it haunts the face; +Your fancy's running riot + In a retrospective race! + +"Ah, Printerman, you're straying + Afar from 'stick' and type-- +Your heart has 'gone a-maying,' + And you taste old kisses, ripe +Again on lips that pucker + At your old asthmatic pipe! + +"You are dreaming of old pleasures + That have faded from your view; +And the music-burdened measures + Of the laughs you listen to +Are now but angel-echoes-- + O, have I spoken true?" + +The ancient Printer hinted + With a motion full of grace +To where the words were printed + On a card above his "case,"-- +"I am deaf and dumb!" I left him + With a smile upon his face. + + +PRIOR TO MISS BELLE'S APPEARANCE + +What makes you come HERE fer, Mister, + So much to our house?--SAY? +Come to see our big sister!-- +An' Charley he says 'at you kissed her + An' he ketched you, th'uther day!-- +Didn' you, Charley?--But we p'omised Belle +An' crossed our heart to never to tell-- +'Cause SHE gived us some o' them-er +Chawk'lut-drops 'at you bringed to her! + +Charley he's my little b'uther-- + An' we has a-mostest fun, +Don't we, Charley?--Our Muther, +Whenever we whips one anuther, + Tries to whip US--an' we RUN-- +Don't we, Charley?--An' nen, bime-by, +Nen she gives us cake--an' pie-- +Don't she, Charley?--when we come in +An' pomise never to do it ag'in! + +HE'S named Charley.--I'm WILLIE-- + An' I'm got the purtiest name! +But Uncle Bob HE calls me "Billy"-- +Don't he, Charley?--'N' our filly + We named "Billy," the same +Ist like me! An' our Ma said +'At "Bob puts foolishnuss into our head!"-- +Didn' she, Charley?--An' SHE don't know +Much about BOYS!--'Cause Bob said so! + +Baby's a funniest feller! + Nain't no hair on his head-- +IS they, Charley?--It's meller +Wite up there! An' ef Belle er + Us ask wuz WE that way, Ma said,-- +"Yes; an' yer PA'S head wuz soft as that, +An' it's that way yet!"--An' Pa grabs his hat +An' says, "Yes, childern, she's right about Pa-- +'Cause that's the reason he married yer Ma!" + +An' our Ma says 'at "Belle couldn' + Ketch nothin' at all but ist 'BOWS!"-- +An' PA says 'at "you're soft as puddun!"-- +An' UNCLE BOB says "you're a good-un-- + 'Cause he can tell by yer nose!"- +Didn' he, Charley?--An' when Belle'll play +In the poller on th' pianer, some day, +Bob makes up funny songs about you, +Till she gits mad-like he wants her to! + +Our sister FANNY she's 'LEVEN + Years old! 'At's mucher 'an _I_-- +Ain't it, Charley? . . . I'm seven!-- +But our sister Fanny's in HEAVEN! + Nere's where you go ef you die!-- +Don't you, Charley?--Nen you has WINGS-- +IST LIKE FANNY!--an' PURTIEST THINGS!-- +Don't you, Charley?--An' nen you can FLY-- +Ist fly-an' EVER'thing! . . . I Wisht I'D die! + + +WHEN MOTHER COMBED MY HAIR + +When Memory, with gentle hand, +Has led me to that foreign land +Of childhood days, I long to be +Again the boy on bended knee, +With head a-bow, and drowsy smile +Hid in a mother's lap the while, +With tender touch and kindly care, +She bends above and combs my hair. + +Ere threats of Time, or ghosts of cares +Had paled it to the hue it wears, +Its tangled threads of amber light +Fell o'er a forehead, fair and white, +That only knew the light caress +Of loving hands, or sudden press +Of kisses that were sifted there +The times when mother combed my hair. + +But its last gleams of gold have slipped +Away; and Sorrow's manuscript +Is fashioned of the snowy brow-- +So lined and underscored now +That you, to see it, scarce would guess +It e'er had felt the fond caress +Of loving lips, or known the care +Of those dear hands that combed my hair. + +. . . . . . . . + +I am so tired! Let me be +A moment at my mother's knee; +One moment--that I may forget +The trials waiting for me yet: +One moment free from every pain-- +O! Mother! Comb my hair again! +And I will, oh, so humbly bow, +For I've a wife that combs it now. + + + +A WRANGDILLION + +Dexery-tethery! down in the dike, + Under the ooze and the slime, +Nestles the wraith of a reticent Gryke, + Blubbering bubbles of rhyme: +Though the reeds touch him and tickle his teeth-- + Though the Graigroll and the Cheest +Pluck at the leaves of his laureate-wreath, + Nothing affects him the least. + +He sinks to the dregs in the dead o' the night, + And he shuffles the shadows about +As he gathers the stars in a nest of delight + And sets there and hatches them out: +The Zhederrill peers from his watery mine + In scorn with the Will-o'-the-wisp, +As he twinkles his eyes in a whisper of shine + That ends in a luminous lisp. + +The Morning is born like a baby of gold, + And it lies in a spasm of pink, +And rallies the Cheest for the horrible cold + He has dragged to the willowy brink, +The Gryke blots his tears with a scrap of his grief, + And growls at the wary Graigroll +As he twunkers a tune on a Tiljicum leaf + And hums like a telegraph pole. + + +GEORGE MULLEN'S CONFESSION + +For the sake of guilty conscience, and the heart that ticks the +time +Of the clockworks of my nature, I desire to say that I'm +A weak and sinful creature, as regards my daily walk +The last five years and better. It ain't worth while to talk-- + +I've been too mean to tell it! I've been so hard, you see, +And full of pride, and--onry--now there's the word for me-- +Just onry--and to show you, I'll give my history +With vital points in question, and I think you'll all agree. + +I was always stiff and stubborn since I could recollect, +And had an awful temper, and never would reflect; +And always into trouble--I remember once at school +The teacher tried to flog me, and I reversed that rule. + +O I was bad I tell you! And it's a funny move +That a fellow wild as I was could ever fall in love; +And it's a funny notion that an animal like me, +Under a girl's weak fingers was as tame as tame could be! + +But it's so, and sets me thinking of the easy way she had +Of cooling down my temper--though I'd be fighting mad. +"My Lion Queen" I called her--when a spell of mine occurred +She'd come in a den of feelings and quell them with a word. + +I'll tell you how she loved me--and what her people thought: +When I asked to marry Annie they said "they reckoned not-- +That I cut too many didoes and monkey-shines to suit +Their idea of a son-in-law, and I could go, to boot!" + +I tell you that thing riled me! Why, I felt my face turn white, +And my teeth shut like a steel trap, and the fingers of my right +Hand pained me with their pressure--all the rest's a mystery +Till I heard my Annie saying--"I'm going, too, you see." + +We were coming through the gateway, and she wavered for a spell +When she heard her mother crying and her raving father yell +That she wa'n't no child of his'n--like an actor in a play +We saw at Independence, coming through the other day. + +Well! that's the way we started. And for days and weeks and +months +And even years we journeyed on, regretting never once +Of starting out together upon the path of life-- +Akind o' sort o' husband, but a mighty loving wife,-- + +And the cutest little baby--little Grace--I see her now +A-standin' on the pig-pen as her mother milked the cow-- +And I can hear her shouting--as I stood unloading straw,-- +"I'm ain't as big as papa, but I'm biggerest'n ma." + +Now folks that never married don't seem to understand +That a little baby's language is the sweetest ever planned-- +Why, I tell you it's pure music, and I'll just go on to say +That I sometimes have a notion that the angels talk that way! + +There's a chapter in this story I'd be happy to destroy; +I could burn it up before you with a mighty sight of joy; +But I'll go ahead and give it--not in detail, no, my friend, +For it takes five years of reading before you find the end. + +My Annie's folks relented--at least, in some degree; +They sent one time for Annie, but they didn't send for me. +The old man wrote the message with a heart as hot and dry +As a furnace--"Annie Mullen, come and see your mother die." + +I saw the slur intended--why I fancied I could see +The old man shoot the insult like a poison dart at me; +And in that heat of passion I swore an inward oath +That if Annie pleased her father she could never please us both. + +I watched her--dark and sullen--as she hurried on her shawl; +I watched her--calm and cruel, though I saw her tear-drops fall; +I watched her--cold and heartless, though I heard her moaning, +call +For mercy from high Heaven--and I smiled throughout it all. + +Why even when she kissed me, and her tears were on my brow, +As she murmured, "George, forgive me--I must go to mother now!" +Such hate there was within me that I answered not at all, +But calm, and cold and cruel, I smiled throughout it all. + +But a shadow in the doorway caught my eye, and then the face +Full of innocence and sunshine of little baby Grace. +And I snatched her up and kissed her, and I softened through and +through +For a minute when she told me "I must kiss her muvver too." + +I remember, at the starting, how I tried to freeze again +As I watched them slowly driving down the little crooked lane-- +When Annie shouted something that ended in a cry, +And how I tried to whistle and it fizzled in a sigh. + +I remember running after, with a glimmer in my sight-- +Pretending I'd discovered that the traces wasn't right; +And the last that I remember, as they disappeared from view, +Was little Grace a-calling, "I see papa! Howdy-do!" + +And left alone to ponder, I again took up my hate +For the old man who would chuckle that I was desolate; +And I mouthed my wrongs in mutters till my pride called up the +pain +His last insult had given me--until I smiled again + +Till the wild beast in my nature was raging in the den-- +With no one now to quell it, and I wrote a letter then +Full of hissing things, and heated with so hot a heat of hate +That my pen flashed out black lightning at a most terrific rate. + +I wrote that "she had wronged me when she went away from me-- +Though to see her dying mother 'twas her father's victory, +And a woman that could waver when her husband's pride was rent +Was no longer worthy of it." And I shut the house and went. + +To tell of my long exile would be of little good-- +Though I couldn't half-way tell it, and I wouldn't if I could! +I could tell of California--of a wild and vicious life; +Of trackless plains, and mountains, and the Indian's +scalping-knife. + +I could tell of gloomy forests howling wild with threats of +death; +I could tell of fiery deserts that have scorched me with their +breath; +I could tell of wretched outcasts by the hundreds, great and +small, +And could claim the nasty honor of the greatest of them all. + +I could tell of toil and hardship; and of sickness and disease, +And hollow-eyed starvation, but I tell you, friend, that these +Are trifles in comparison with what a fellow feels +With that bloodhound, Remorsefulness, forever at his heels. + +I remember--worn and weary of the long, long years of care, +When the frost of time was making early harvest of my hair-- +I remember, wrecked and hopeless of a rest beneath the sky, +My resolve to quit the country, and to seek the East, and die. + +I remember my long journey, like a dull, oppressive dream, +Across the empty prairies till I caught the distant gleam +Of a city in the beauty of its broad and shining stream +On whose bosom, flocked together, float the mighty swans of +steam. + +I remember drifting with them till I found myself again +In the rush and roar and rattle of the engine and the train; +And when from my surroundings something spoke of child and wife, +It seemed the train was rumbling through a tunnel in my life. + +Then I remember something--like a sudden burst of light-- +That don't exactly tell it, but I couldn't tell it right-- +A something clinging to me with its arms around my neck-- +A little girl, for instance--or an angel, I expect-- + +For she kissed me, cried and called me "her dear papa," and I +felt +My heart was pure virgin gold, and just about to melt-- +And so it did--it melted in a mist of gleaming rain +When she took my hand and whispered, "My mama's on the train." + +There's some things I can dwell on, and get off pretty well, +But the balance of this story I know I couldn't tell; +So I ain't going to try it, for to tell the reason why-- +I'm so chicken-hearted lately I'd be certain 'most to cry. + + +"TIRED OUT" + +"tired out!" Yet face and brow +Do not look aweary now, +And the eyelids lie like two +Pure, white rose-leaves washed with dew. +Was her life so hard a task?-- +Strange that we forget to ask +What the lips now dumb for aye +Could have told us yesterday! + +"Tired out!" A faded scrawl +Pinned upon the ragged shawl-- +Nothing else to leave a clue +Even of a friend or two, +Who might come to fold the hands, +Or smooth back the dripping strands +Of her tresses, or to wet +Them anew with fond regret. + +"Tired out!" We can but guess +Of her little happiness-- +Long ago, in some fair land, +When a lover held her hand +In the dream that frees us all, +Soon or later, from its thrall-- +Be it either false or true, +We, at last, must tire, too. + + +HARLIE + +Fold the little waxen hands +Lightly. Let your warmest tears +Speak regrets, but never fears,-- + Heaven understands! +Let the sad heart, o'er the tomb, +Lift again and burst in bloom +Fragrant with a prayer as sweet +As the lily at your feet. + +Bend and kiss the folded eyes-- +They are only feigning sleep +While their truant glances peep + Into Paradise. +See, the face, though cold and white, +Holds a hint of some delight +E'en with Death, whose finger-tips +Rest upon the frozen lips. + +When, within the years to come, +Vanished echoes live once more-- +Pattering footsteps on the floor, + And the sounds of home,-- +Let your arms in fancy fold +Little Harlie as of old-- +As of old and as he waits +At the City's golden gates. + + +SAY SOMETHING TO ME + +Say something to me! I've waited so long-- + Waited and wondered in vain; +Only a sentence would fall like a song + Over this listening pain-- +Over a silence that glowers and frowns,-- + Even my pencil to-night +Slips in the dews of my sorrow and wounds + Each tender word that I write. + +Say something to me--if only to tell + Me you remember the past; +Let the sweet words, like the notes of a bell, + Ring out my vigil at last. +O it were better, far better than this + Doubt and distrust in the breast,-- +For in the wine of a fanciful kiss + I could taste Heaven, and--rest. + +Say something to me! I kneel and I plead, + In my wild need, for a word; +If my poor heart from this silence were freed, + I could soar up like a bird +In the glad morning, and twitter and sing, + Carol and warble and cry +Blithe as the lark as he cruises awing + Over the deeps of the sky. + + +LEONAINIE + +Leonainie--Angels named her; + And they took the light +Of the laughing stars and framed her + In a smile of white; + And they made her hair of gloomy + Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy + Moonshine, and they brought her to me + In the solemn night.-- + +In a solemn night of summer, + When my heart of gloom +Blossomed up to greet the comer + Like a rose in bloom; + All forebodings that distressed me + I forgot as Joy caressed me-- + (LYING Joy! that caught and pressed me + In the arms of doom!) + +Only spake the little lisper + In the Angel-tongue; +Yet I, listening, heard her whisper,-- + "Songs are only sung + Here below that they may grieve you-- + Tales but told you to deceive you,-- + So must Leonainie leave you + While her love is young." + +Then God smiled and it was morning. + Matchless and supreme +Heaven's glory seemed adorning + Earth with its esteem: + Every heart but mine seemed gifted + With the voice of prayer, and lifted + Where my Leonainie drifted + From me like a dream. + + +A TEST OF LOVE + +"Now who shall say he loves me not." + +He wooed her first in an atmosphere + Of tender and low-breathed sighs; +But the pang of her laugh went cutting clear + To the soul of the enterprise; +"You beg so pert for the kiss you seek + It reminds me, John," she said, +"Of a poodle pet that jumps to 'speak' + For a crumb or a crust of bread." + +And flashing up, with the blush that flushed + His face like a tableau-light, +Came a bitter threat that his white lips hushed + To a chill, hoarse-voiced "Good night!" +And again her laugh, like a knell that tolled, + And a wide-eyed mock surprise,-- +"Why, John," she said, "you have taken cold + In the chill air of your sighs!" + +And then he turned, and with teeth tight clenched, + He told her he hated her,-- +That his love for her from his heart he wrenched + Like a corpse from a sepulcher. +And then she called him "a ghoul all red + With the quintessence of crimes"-- +"But I know you love me now," she said, + And kissed him a hundred times. + + +FATHER WILLIAM + +A NEW VERSION BY LEE O. HARRIS AND JAMES +WHITCOMB RILEY + +"You are old, Father William, and though one would think + All the veins in your body were dry, +Yet the end of your nose is red as a pink; + I beg your indulgence, but why?" + +"You see," Father William replied, "in my youth-- + 'Tis a thing I must ever regret-- +It worried me so to keep up with the truth + That my nose has a flush on it yet." + +"You are old," said the youth, "and I grieve to detect + A feverish gleam in your eye; +Yet I'm willing to give you full time to reflect. + Now, pray, can you answer me why?" + +"Alas," said the sage, "I was tempted to choose + Me a wife in my earlier years, +And the grief, when I think that she didn't refuse, + Has reddened my eyelids with tears." + +"You are old, Father William," the young man said, + "And you never touch wine, you declare, +Yet you sleep with your feet at the head of the bed; + Now answer me that if you dare." + +"In my youth," said the sage, "I was told it was true, + That the world turned around in the night; +I cherished the lesson, my boy, and I knew + That at morning my feet would be right." + +"You are old," said the youth, "and it grieved me to note, + As you recently fell through the door, +That 'full as a goose' had been chalked on your coat; + Now answer me that I implore." + +"My boy," said the sage, "I have answered you fair, + While you stuck to the point in dispute, +But this is a personal matter, and there + Is my answer--the toe of my boot." + + +WHAT THE WIND SAID + +'I muse to-day, in a listless way, + In the gleam of a summer land; +I close my eyes as a lover may + At the touch of his sweetheart's hand, +And I hear these things in the whisperings + Of the zephyrs round me fanned':-- + +I am the Wind, and I rule mankind, + And I hold a sovereign reign +Over the lands, as God designed, + And the waters they contain: +Lo! the bound of the wide world round + Falleth in my domain! + +I was born on a stormy morn + In a kingdom walled with snow, +Whose crystal cities laugh to scorn + The proudest the world can show; +And the daylight's glare is frozen there + In the breath of the blasts that blow. + +Life to me was a jubilee + From the first of my youthful days: +Clinking my icy toys with glee-- + Playing my childish plays; +Filling my hands with the silver sands + To scatter a thousand ways: + +Chasing the flakes that the Polar shakes + From his shaggy coat of white, +Or hunting the trace of the track he makes + And sweeping it from sight, +As he turned to glare from the slippery stair + Of the iceberg's farthest height. + +Till I grew so strong that I strayed ere long + From my home of ice and chill; +With an eager heart and a merry song + I traveled the snows until +I heard the thaws in the ice-crag's jaws + Crunched with a hungry will; + +And the angry crash of the waves that dash + Themselves on the jagged shore +Where the splintered masts of the ice-wrecks flash, + And the frightened breakers roar +In wild unrest on the ocean's breast + For a thousand leagues or more. + +And the grand old sea invited me + With a million beckoning hands, +And I spread my wings for a flight as free + As ever a sailor plans +When his thoughts are wild and his heart beguiled + With the dreams of foreign lands. + +I passed a ship on its homeward trip, + With a weary and toil-worn crew; +And I kissed their flag with a welcome lip, + And so glad a gale I blew +That the sailors quaffed their grog and laughed + At the work I made them do. + +I drifted by where sea-groves lie + Like brides in the fond caress +Of the warm sunshine and the tender sky-- + Where the ocean, passionless +And tranquil, lies like a child whose eyes + Are blurred with drowsiness. + +I drank the air and the perfume there, + And bathed in a fountain's spray; +And I smoothed the wings and the plumage rare + Of a bird for his roundelay, +And fluttered a rag from a signal-crag + For a wretched castaway. + +With a sea-gull resting on my breast, + I launched on a madder flight: +And I lashed the waves to a wild unrest, + And howled with a fierce delight +Till the daylight slept; and I wailed and wept + Like a fretful babe all night. + +For I heard the boom of a gun strike doom; + And the gleam of a blood-red star +Glared at me through the mirk and gloom + From the lighthouse tower afar; +And I held my breath at the shriek of death + That came from the harbor bar. + +For I am the Wind, and I rule mankind, + And I hold a sovereign reign +Over the lands, as God designed, + And the waters they contain: +Lo! the bound of the wide world round + Falleth in my domain! + +I journeyed on, when the night was gone, + O'er a coast of oak and pine; +And I followed a path that a stream had drawn + Through a land of vale and vine, +And here and there was a village fair + In a nest of shade and shine. + +I passed o'er lakes where the sunshine shakes + And shivers his golden lance +On the glittering shield of the wave that breaks + Where the fish-boats dip and dance, +And the trader sails where the mist unveils + The glory of old romance. + +I joyed to stand where the jeweled hand + Of the maiden-morning lies +On the tawny brow of the mountain-land. + Where the eagle shrieks and cries, +And holds his throne to himself alone + From the light of human eyes. + +Adown deep glades where the forest shades + Are dim as the dusk of day-- +Where only the foot of the wild beast wades, + Or the Indian dares to stray, +As the blacksnakes glide through the reeds and hide + In the swamp-depths grim and gray. + +And I turned and fled from the place of dread + To the far-off haunts of men. +"In the city's heart is rest," I said,-- + But I found it not, and when +I saw but care and vice reign there + I was filled with wrath again: + +And I blew a spark in the midnight dark + Till it flashed to an angry flame +And scarred the sky with a lurid mark + As red as the blush of shame: +And a hint of hell was the dying yell + That up from the ruins came. + +The bells went wild, and the black smoke piled + Its pillars against the night, +Till I gathered them, like flocks defiled, + And scattered them left and right, +While the holocaust's red tresses tossed + As a maddened Fury's might. + +"Ye overthrown!" did I jeer and groan-- + "Ho! who is your master?--say!-- +Ye shapes that writhe in the slag and moan + Your slow-charred souls away-- +Ye worse than worst of things accurst-- + Ye dead leaves of a day!" + +I am the Wind, and I rule mankind, + And I hold a sovereign reign +Over the lands, as God designed, + And the waters they contain: +Lo! the bound of the wide world round + Falleth in my domain! + + . . . . . . . + +'I wake, as one from a dream half done, + And gaze with a dazzled eye +On an autumn leaf like a scrap of sun + That the wind goes whirling by, +While afar I hear, with a chill of fear, + The winter storm-king sigh.' + + +MORTON + +The warm pulse of the nation has grown chill; + The muffled heart of Freedom, like a knell, +Throbs solemnly for one whose earthly will + Wrought every mission well. + +Whose glowing reason towered above the sea + Of dark disaster like a beacon light, +And led the Ship of State, unscathed and free, + Out of the gulfs of night. + +When Treason, rabid-mouthed, and fanged with steel, + Lay growling o'er the bones of fallen braves, +And when beneath the tyrant's iron heel + Were ground the hearts of slaves, + +And War, with all his train of horrors, leapt + Across the fortress-walls of Liberty +With havoc e'en the marble goddess wept + With tears of blood to see. + +Throughout it all his brave and kingly mind + Kept loyal vigil o'er the patriot's vow, +And yet the flag he lifted to the wind + Is drooping o'er him now. + +And Peace--all pallid from the battle-field + When first again it hovered o'er the land +And found his voice above it like a shield, + Had nestled in his hand. + + . . . . . . . . + +O throne of State and gilded Senate halls-- + Though thousands throng your aisles and galleries-- +How empty are ye! and what silence falls + On your hilarities! + +And yet, though great the loss to us appears, + The consolation sweetens all our pain-- +Though hushed the voice, through all the coming years + Its echoes will remain. + + +AN AUTUMNAL EXTRAVAGANZA + +With a sweeter voice than birds + Dare to twitter in their sleep, +Pipe for me a tune of words, + Till my dancing fancies leap +Into freedom vaster far +Than the realms of Reason are! +Sing for me with wilder fire + Than the lover ever sung, +From the time he twanged the lyre + When the world was baby-young. + +O my maiden Autumn, you-- +You have filled me through and through +With a passion so intense, +All of earthly eloquence + Fails, and falls, and swoons away +In your presence. Like as one +Who essays to look the sun + Fairly in the face, I say, +Though my eyes you dazzle blind +Greater dazzled is my mind. +So, my Autumn, let me kneel + At your feet and worship you! +Be my sweetheart; let me feel +Your caress; and tell me too +Why your smiles bewilder me-- +Glancing into laughter, then +Trancing into calm again, +Till your meaning drowning lies +In the dim depths of your eyes. +Let me see the things you see +Down the depths of mystery! +Blow aside the hazy veil + From the daylight of your face +With the fragrance-ladened gale + Of your spicy breath and chase + Every dimple to its place. +Lift your gipsy finger-tips +To the roses of your lips, +And fling down to me a bud-- + But an unblown kiss--but one-- +It shall blossom in my blood, + Even after life is done-- +When I dare to touch the brow +Your rare hair is veiling now-- +When the rich, red-golden strands +Of the treasure in my hands +Shall be all of worldly worth +Heaven lifted from the earth, +Like a banner to have set +On its highest minaret. + + +THE ROSE + +It tossed its head at the wooing breeze; + And the sun, like a bashful swain, +Beamed on it through the waving trees + With a passion all in vain,-- +For my rose laughed in a crimson glee, +And hid in the leaves in wait for me. + +The honey-bee came there to sing + His love through the languid hours, +And vaunt of his hives, as a proud old king + Might boast of his palace-towers: +But my rose bowed in a mockery, +And hid in the leaves in wait for me. + +The humming-bird, like a courtier gay, + Dipped down with a dalliant song, +And twanged his wings through the roundelay + Of love the whole day long: +Yet my rose turned from his minstrelsy +And hid in the leaves in wait for me. + +The firefly came in the twilight dim + My red, red rose to woo-- +Till quenched was the flame of love in him, + And the light of his lantern too, +As my rose wept with dewdrops three +And hid in the leaves in wait for me. + +And I said: I will cull my own sweet rose-- + Some day I will claim as mine +The priceless worth of the flower that knows + No change, but a bloom divine-- +The bloom of a fadeless constancy +That hides in the leaves in wait for me! + +But time passed by in a strange disguise, + And I marked it not, but lay +In a lazy dream, with drowsy eyes, + Till the summer slipped away, +And a chill wind sang in a minor key: +"Where is the rose that waits for thee?" + + . . . . . . . . + +I dream to-day, o'er a purple stain + Of bloom on a withered stalk, +Pelted down by the autumn rain + In the dust of the garden-walk, +That an Angel-rose in the world to be +Will hide in the leaves in wait for me. + + +THE MERMAN + +I + +Who would be + A merman gay, + Singing alone, + Sitting alone, +With a mermaid's knee, + For instance--hey-- + For a throne? + +II + +I would be a merman gay; + I would sit and sing the whole day long; +I would fill my lungs with the strongest brine, + And squirt it up in a spray of song, +And soak my head in my liquid voice; + I'd curl my tail in curves divine, +And let each curve in a kink rejoice. + I'd tackle the mermaids under the sea, +And yank 'em around till they yanked me, + Sportively, sportively; +And then we would wiggle away, away, +To the pea-green groves on the coast of day, + Chasing each other sportively. + +III + +There would be neither moon nor star; +But the waves would twang like a wet guitar +Low thunder and thrum in the darkness grum-- + Neither moon nor star; +We would shriek aloud in the dismal dales-- +Shriek at each other and squawk and squeal, + "All night!" rakishly, rakishly; +They would pelt me with oysters and wiggletails, +Laughing and clapping their hands at me, + "All night!" prankishly, prankishly; +But I would toss them back in mine, +Lobsters and turtles of quaint design; +Then leaping out in an abrupt way, +I'd snatch them bald in my devilish glee, +And skip away when they snatched at me, + Fiendishly, fiendishly. +O, what a jolly life I'd lead, +Ah, what a "bang-up" life indeed! +Soft are the mermaids under the sea-- +We would live merrily, merrily. + + +THE RAINY MORNING + +The dawn of the day was dreary, + And the lowering clouds o'erhead +Wept in a silent sorrow + Where the sweet sunshine lay dead; +And a wind came out of the eastward + Like an endless sigh of pain, +And the leaves fell down in the pathway + And writhed in the falling rain. + +I had tried in a brave endeavor + To chord my harp with the sun, +But the strings would slacken ever, + And the task was a weary one: +And so, like a child impatient + And sick of a discontent, +I bowed in a shower of tear-drops + And mourned with the instrument. + +And lo! as I bowed, the splendor + Of the sun bent over me, +With a touch as warm and tender + As a father's hand might be: +And, even as I felt its presence, + My clouded soul grew bright, +And the tears, like the rain of morning, + Melted in mists of light. + + +WE ARE NOT ALWAYS GLAD WHEN +WE SMILE + +We are not always glad when we smile: + Though we wear a fair face and are gay, + And the world we deceive + May not ever believe + We could laugh in a happier way.-- +Yet, down in the deeps of the soul, + Ofttimes, with our faces aglow, + There's an ache and a moan + That we know of alone, + And as only the hopeless may know. + +We are not always glad when we smile,-- + For the heart, in a tempest of pain, + May live in the guise + Of a smile in the eyes + As a rainbow may live in the rain; +And the stormiest night of our woe + May hang out a radiant star + Whose light in the sky + Of despair is a lie + As black as the thunder-clouds are. + +We are not always glad when we smile!-- + But the conscience is quick to record, + All the sorrow and sin + We are hiding within + Is plain in the sight of the Lord: +And ever, O ever, till pride + And evasion shall cease to defile + The sacred recess + Of the soul, we confess + We are not always glad when we smile. + + +A SUMMER SUNRISE + +AFTER LEE O. HARRIS + +The master-hand whose pencils trace + This wondrous landscape of the morn, +Is but the sun, whose glowing face +Reflects the rapture and the grace + Of inspiration Heaven-born. + +And yet with vision-dazzled eyes, + I see the lotus-lands of old, +Where odorous breezes fall and rise, +And mountains, peering in the skies, + Stand ankle-deep in lakes of gold. + +And, spangled with the shine and shade, + I see the rivers raveled out +In strands of silver, slowly fade +In threads of light along the glade + Where truant roses hide and pout. + +The tamarind on gleaming sands + Droops drowsily beneath the heat; +And bowed as though aweary, stands +The stately palm, with lazy hands + That fold their shadows round his feet. + +And mistily, as through a veil, + I catch the glances of a sea +Of sapphire, dimpled with a gale +Toward Colch's blowing, where the sail + Of Jason's Argo beckons me. + +And gazing on and farther yet, + I see the isles enchanted, bright +With fretted spire and parapet, +And gilded mosque and minaret, + That glitter in the crimson light. + +But as I gaze, the city's walls + Are keenly smitten with a gleam +Of pallid splendor, that appalls +The fancy as the ruin falls + In ashen embers of a dream. + +Yet over all the waking earth + The tears of night are brushed away, +And eyes are lit with love and mirth, +And benisons of richest worth + Go up to bless the new-born day. + + +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 stubby little thumb, +I saw the fireplace changing to a bright proscenium. + +And looking there, I marveled 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 ecstacy 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 the 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!" + + +AN OLD YEAR'S ADDRESS + +"I have twankled the strings of the twinkering rain; + I have burnished the meteor's mail; + I have bridled the wind + When he whinnied and whined + With a bunch of stars tied to his tail; +But my sky-rocket hopes, hanging over the past, +Must fuzzle and fazzle and fizzle at last!" + +I had waded far out in a drizzling dream, + And my fancies had spattered my eyes + With a vision of dread, + With a number ten head, + And a form of diminutive size-- +That wavered and wagged in a singular way +As he wound himself up and proceeded to say,-- + +"I have trimmed all my corns with the blade of the moon; + I have picked every tooth with a star: + And I thrill to recall + That I went through it all + Like a tune through a tickled guitar. +I have ripped up the rainbow and raveled the ends +When the sun and myself were particular friends." + +And pausing again, and producing a sponge + And wiping the tears from his eyes, + He sank in a chair + With a technical air + That he struggled in vain to disguise,-- +For a sigh that he breathed, as I over him leant, +Was haunted and hot with a peppermint scent. + +"Alas!" he continued in quavering tones + As a pang rippled over his face, + "The life was too fast + For the pleasure to last + In my very unfortunate case; +And I'm going"--he said as he turned to adjust +A fuse in his bosom,--"I'm going to--BUST!" + +I shrieked and awoke with the sullen che-boom + Of a five-pounder filling my ears; + And a roseate bloom + Of a light in the room + I saw through the mist of my tears,-- +But my guest of the night never saw the display, +He had fuzzled and fazzled and fizzled away! + + +A NEW YEAR'S PLAINT + +In words like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, + Like coarsest clothes against the cold; + But that large grief which these enfold +Is given in outline and no more. + --TENNYSON. + +The bells that lift their yawning throats + And lolling tongues with wrangling cries +Flung up in harsh, discordant notes, + As though in anger, at the skies,-- +Are filled with echoings replete, + With purest tinkles of delight-- +So I would have a something sweet + Ring in the song I sing to-night. + +As when a blotch of ugly guise + On some poor artist's naked floor +Becomes a picture in his eyes, + And he forgets that he is poor,-- +So I look out upon the night, + That ushers in the dawning year, +And in a vacant blur of light + I see these fantasies appear. + +I see a home whose windows gleam + Like facets of a mighty gem +That some poor king's distorted dream + Has fastened in his diadem. +And I behold a throng that reels + In revelry of dance and mirth, +With hearts of love beneath their heels, + And in their bosoms hearts of earth. + +O Luxury, as false and grand + As in the mystic tales of old, +When genii answered man's command, + And built of nothing halls of gold! +O Banquet, bright with pallid jets, + And tropic blooms, and vases caught +In palms of naked statuettes, + Ye can not color as ye ought! + +For, crouching in the storm without, + I see the figure of a child, +In little ragged roundabout, + Who stares with eyes that never smiled-- +And he, in fancy can but taste + The dainties of the kingly fare, +And pick the crumbs that go to waste + Where none have learned to kneel in prayer. + +Go, Pride, and throw your goblet down-- + The "merry greeting" best appears +On loving lips that never drown + Its worth but in the wine of tears; +Go, close your coffers like your hearts, + And shut your hearts against the poor, +Go, strut through all your pretty parts + But take the "Welcome" from your door. + + +LUTHER BENSON + +AFTER READING HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +POOR victim of that vulture curse +That hovers o'er the universe, +With ready talons quick to strike +In every human heart alike, +And cruel beak to stab and tear +In virtue's vitals everywhere,-- +You need no sympathy of mine +To aid you, for a strength divine +Encircles you, and lifts you clear +Above this earthly atmosphere. + +And yet I can but call you poor, +As, looking through the open door +Of your sad life, I only see +A broad landscape of misery, +And catch through mists of pitying tears +The ruins of your younger years, +I see a father's shielding arm +Thrown round you in a wild alarm-- +Struck down, and powerless to free +Or aid you in your agony. + +I see a happy home grow dark +And desolate--the latest spark +Of hope is passing in eclipse-- +The prayer upon a mother's lips +Has fallen with her latest breath +In ashes on the lips of death-- +I see a penitent who reels, +And writhes, and clasps his hands, and kneels, +And moans for mercy for the sake +Of that fond heart he dared to break. + +And lo! as when in Galilee +A voice above the troubled sea +Commanded "Peace; be still!" the flood +That rolled in tempest-waves of blood +Within you, fell in calm so sweet +It ripples round the Saviour's feet; +And all your noble nature thrilled +With brightest hope and faith, and filled +Your thirsty soul with joy and peace +And praise to Him who gave release. + + +"DREAM" + +Because her eyes were far too deep +And holy for a laugh to leap +Across the brink where sorrow tried +To drown within the amber tide; +Because the looks, whose ripples kissed +The trembling lids through tender mist, +Were dazzled with a radiant gleam-- +Because of this I called her "Dream." + +Because the roses growing wild +About her features when she smiled +Were ever dewed with tears that fell +With tenderness ineffable; +Because her lips might spill a kiss +That, dripping in a world like this, +Would tincture death's myrrh-bitter stream +To sweetness--so I called her "Dream." + +Because I could not understand +The magic touches of a hand +That seemed, beneath her strange control, +To smooth the plumage of the soul +And calm it, till, with folded wings, +It half forgot its flutterings, +And, nestled in her palm, did seem +To trill a song that called her "Dream." + +Because I saw her, in a sleep +As dark and desolate and deep +And fleeting as the taunting night +That flings a vision of delight +To some lorn martyr as he lies +In slumber ere the day he dies-- +Because she vanished like a gleam +Of glory, do I call her "Dream." + + +WHEN EVENING SHADOWS FALL + +When evening shadows fall, + She hangs her cares away +Like empty garments on the wall + That hides her from the day; +And while old memories throng, + And vanished voices call, +She lifts her grateful heart in song + When evening shadows fall. + +Her weary hands forget + The burdens of the day. +The weight of sorrow and regret + In music rolls away; +And from the day's dull tomb, + That holds her in its thrall, +Her soul springs up in lily bloom + When evening shadows fall. + +O weary heart and hand, + Go bravely to the strife-- +No victory is half so grand + As that which conquers life! +One day shall yet be thine-- + The day that waits for all +Whose prayerful eyes are things divine + When evening shadows fall. + + +YLLADMAR + +Her hair was, oh, so dense a blur +Of darkness, midnight envied her; +And stars grew dimmer in the skies +To see the glory of her eyes; +And all the summer rain of light +That showered from the moon at night +Fell o'er her features as the gloom +Of twilight o'er a lily-bloom. + +The crimson fruitage of her lips +Was ripe and lush with sweeter wine +Than burgundy or muscadine +Or vintage that the burgher sips +In some old garden on the Rhine: +And I to taste of it could well +Believe my heart a crucible +Of molten love--and I could feel +The drunken soul within me reel +And rock and stagger till it fell. + +And do you wonder that I bowed +Before her splendor as a cloud +Of storm the golden-sandaled sun +Had set his conquering foot upon? +And did she will it, I could lie +In writhing rapture down and die +A death so full of precious pain +I'd waken up to die again. + + +A FANTASY + +A fantasy that came to me + As wild and wantonly designed +As ever any dream might be + Unraveled from a madman's mind,-- +A tangle-work of tissue, wrought + By cunning of the spider-brain, + And woven, in an hour of pain, +To trap the giddy flies of thought. + +I stood beneath a summer moon + All swollen to uncanny girth, +And hanging, like the sun at noon, + Above the center of the earth; + But with a sad and sallow light, + As it had sickened of the night +And fallen in a pallid swoon. +Around me I could hear the rush + Of sullen winds, and feel the whir +Of unseen wings apast me brush + Like phantoms round a sepulcher; +And, like a carpeting of plush,0 + A lawn unrolled beneath my feet, + Bespangled o'er with flowers as sweet + To look upon as those that nod + Within the garden-fields of God, + But odorless as those that blow + In ashes in the shades below. + +And on my hearing fell a storm + Of gusty music, sadder yet + Than every whimper of regret +That sobbing utterance could form, + And patched with scraps of sound that seemed + Torn out of tunes that demons dreamed, + And pitched to such a piercing key, + It stabbed the ear with agony; + And when at last it lulled and died, + I stood aghast and terrified. +I shuddered and I shut my eyes, + And still could see, and feel aware + Some mystic presence waited there; +And staring, with a dazed surprise, + I saw a creature so divine + That never subtle thought of mine + May reproduce to inner sight + So fair a vision of delight. + +A syllable of dew that drips +From out a lily's laughing lips +Could not be sweeter than the word +I listened to, yet never heard.-- +For, oh, the woman hiding there +Within the shadows of her hair, +Spake to me in an undertone +So delicate, my soul alone +But understood it as a moan +Of some weak melody of wind +A heavenward breeze had left behind. + +A tracery of trees, grotesque + Against the sky, behind her seen, +Like shapeless shapes of arabesque + Wrought in an Oriental screen; +And tall, austere and statuesque + She loomed before it--e'en as though + The spirit-hand of Angelo + Had chiseled her to life complete, + With chips of moonshine round her feet. +And I grew jealous of the dusk, + To see it softly touch her face, + As lover-like, with fond embrace, +It folded round her like a husk: +But when the glitter of her hand, + Like wasted glory, beckoned me, + My eyes grew blurred and dull and dim-- + My vision failed--I could not see-- +I could not stir--I could but stand, + Till, quivering in every limb, + I flung me prone, as though to swim + The tide of grass whose waves of green + Went rolling ocean-wide between + My helpless shipwrecked heart and her + Who claimed me for a worshiper. + +And writhing thus in my despair, + I heard a weird, unearthly sound, + That seemed to lift me from the ground +And hold me floating in the air. +I looked, and lo! I saw her bow + Above a harp within her hands; +A crown of blossoms bound her brow, + And on her harp were twisted strands +Of silken starlight, rippling o'er +With music never heard before +By mortal ears; and, at the strain, +I felt my Spirit snap its chain +And break away,--and I could see +It as it turned and fled from me +To greet its mistress, where she smiled +To see the phantom dancing wild +And wizard-like before the spell +Her mystic fingers knew so well. + + +A DREAM + +I dreamed I was a spider; +A big, fat, hungry spider; +A lusty, rusty spider + With a dozen palsied limbs; +With a dozen limbs that dangled +Where three wretched flies were tangled +And their buzzing wings were strangled + In the middle of their hymns. + +And I mocked them like a demon-- +A demoniacal demon +Who delights to be a demon + For the sake of sin alone; +And with fondly false embraces +Did I weave my mystic laces +Round their horror-stricken faces + Till I muffled every groan. + +And I smiled to see them weeping, +For to see an insect weeping, +Sadly, sorrowfully weeping, + Fattens every spider's mirth; +And to note a fly's heart quaking, +And with anguish ever aching +Till you see it slowly breaking + Is the sweetest thing on earth. + +I experienced a pleasure, +Such a highly-flavored pleasure, +Such intoxicating pleasure, + That I drank of it like wine; +And my mortal soul engages +That no spider on the pages +Of the history of ages + Felt a rapture more divine. + +I careened around and capered-- +Madly, mystically capered-- +For three days and nights I capered + Round my web in wild delight; +Till with fierce ambition burning, +And an inward thirst and yearning +I hastened my returning + With a fiendish appetite. + +And I found my victims dying, +"Ha!" they whispered, "we are dying!" +Faintly whispered, "we are dying, + And our earthly course is run." +And the scene was so impressing +That I breathed a special blessing, +As I killed them with caressing + And devoured them one by one. + + +DREAMER, SAY + +Dreamer, say, will you dream for me + A wild sweet dream of a foreign land, +Whose border sips of a foaming sea + With lips of coral and silver sand; +Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps, + Or lave themselves in the tearful mist +The great wild wave of the breaker weeps + O'er crags of opal and amethyst? + +Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream + Of tropic shades in the lands of shine, +Where the lily leans o'er an amber stream + That flows like a rill of wasted wine,-- +Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green, + Parry the shafts of the Indian sun +Whose splintering vengeance falls between + The reeds below where the waters run? + +Dreamer, say, will you dream of love + That lives in a land of sweet perfume, +Where the stars drip down from the skies above + In molten spatters of bud and bloom? +Where never the weary eyes are wet, + And never a sob in the balmy air, +And only the laugh of the paroquet + Breaks the sleep of the silence there? + + +BRYANT + +The harp has fallen from the master's hand; +Mute is the music, voiceless are the strings, + Save such faint discord as the wild wind flings +In sad aeolian murmurs through the land. +The tide of melody, whose billows grand + Flowed o'er the world in clearest utterings, + Now, in receding current, sobs and sings +That song we never wholly understand. +* * O, eyes where glorious prophecies belong, + And gracious reverence to humbly bow, +And kingly spirit, proud, and pure, and strong; + O, pallid minstrel with the laureled brow, +And lips so long attuned to sacred song, + How sweet must be the Heavenly anthem now! + + +BABYHOOD + +Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger! + Let's toddle home again, for we have gone astray; +Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger + Back to the lotus-lands of the far-away! + +Turn back the leaves of life.--Don't read the story.-- + Let's find the pictures, and fancy all the rest; +We can fill the written pages with a brighter glory + Than old Time, the story-teller, at his very best. + +Turn to the brook where the honeysuckle tipping + O'er its vase of perfume spills it on the breeze, +And the bee and humming-bird in ecstacy are sipping + From the fairy flagons of the blooming locust-trees. + +Turn to the lane where we used to "teeter-totter," + Printing little foot-palms in the mellow mold-- +Laughing at the lazy cattle wading in the water + Where the ripples dimple round the buttercups of gold; + +Where the dusky turtle lies basking on the gravel + Of the sunny sand-bar in the middle tide, +And the ghostly dragon-fly pauses in his travel + To rest like a blossom where the water-lily died. + +Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger! + Let's toddle home again, for we have gone astray; +Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger + Back to the lotus-lands of the far-away! + + +LIBERTY + +NEW CASTLE, JULY 4, 1878 + +For a hundred years the pulse of time + Has throbbed for Liberty; +For a hundred years the grand old clime + Columbia has been free; + For a hundred years our country's love, + The Stars and Stripes, has waved above. + +Away far out on the gulf of years-- + Misty and faint and white +Through the fogs of wrong--a sail appears, + And the Mayflower heaves in sight, + And drifts again, with its little flock + Of a hundred souls, on Plymouth Rock. + +Do you see them there--as long, long since-- + Through the lens of History; +Do you see them there as their chieftain prints + In the snow his bended knee, + And lifts his voice through the wintry blast + In thanks for a peaceful home at last? + +Though the skies are dark and the coast is bleak, + And the storm is wild and fierce, +Its frozen flake on the upturned cheek + Of the Pilgrim melts in tears, + And the dawn that springs from the darkness there + Is the morning light of an answered prayer. + +The morning light of the day of Peace + That gladdens the aching eyes, +And gives to the soul that sweet release + That the present verifies,-- + Nor a snow so deep, nor a wind so chill + To quench the flame of a freeman's will! + +II + +Days of toil when the bleeding hand + Of the pioneer grew numb, +When the untilled tracts of the barren land + Where the weary ones had come + Could offer nought from a fruitful soil + To stay the strength of the stranger's toil. + +Days of pain, when the heart beat low, + And the empty hours went by +Pitiless, with the wail of woe + And the moan of Hunger's cry-- + When the trembling hands upraised in prayer + Had only the strength to hold them there. + +Days when the voice of hope had fled-- + Days when the eyes grown weak +Were folded to, and the tears they shed + Were frost on a frozen cheek-- + When the storm bent down from the skies and gave + A shroud of snow for the Pilgrim's grave. + +Days at last when the smiling sun + Glanced down from a summer sky, +And a music rang where the rivers run, + And the waves went laughing by; + And the rose peeped over the mossy bank + While the wild deer stood in the stream and drank. + +And the birds sang out so loud and good, + In a symphony so clear +And pure and sweet that the woodman stood + With his ax upraised to hear, + And to shape the words of the tongue unknown + Into a language all his own-- + + + 1 + +'Sing! every bird, to-day! + Sing for the sky so clear, + And the gracious breath of the atmosphere +Shall waft our cares away. +Sing! sing! for the sunshine free; +Sing through the land from sea to sea; +Lift each voice in the highest key + And sing for Liberty!' + + + 2 + +'Sing for the arms that fling + Their fetters in the dust + And lift their hands in higher trust +Unto the one Great King; +Sing for the patriot heart and hand; +Sing for the country they have planned; +Sing that the world may understand + This is Freedom's land!' + + + 3 + +'Sing in the tones of prayer, + Sing till the soaring soul + Shall float above the world's control +In freedom everywhere! +Sing for the good that is to be, +Sing for the eyes that are to see +The land where man at last is free, + O sing for liberty!' + +III + +A holy quiet reigned, save where the hand +Of labor sent a murmur through the land, +And happy voices in a harmony +Taught every lisping breeze a melody. +A nest of cabins, where the smoke upcurled +A breathing incense to the other world. +A land of languor from the sun of noon, +That fainted slowly to the pallid moon, +Till stars, thick-scattered in the garden-land +Of Heaven by the great Jehovah's hand, +Had blossomed into light to look upon +The dusky warrior with his arrow drawn, +As skulking from the covert of the night +With serpent cunning and a fiend's delight, +With murderous spirit, and a yell of hate +The voice of Hell might tremble to translate: +When the fond mother's tender lullaby +Went quavering in shrieks all suddenly, +And baby-lips were dabbled with the stain +Of crimson at the bosom of the slain, +And peaceful homes and fortunes ruined--lost +In smoldering embers of the holocaust. +Yet on and on, through years of gloom and strife, +Our country struggled into stronger life; +Till colonies, like footprints in the sand, +Marked Freedom's pathway winding through the land-- +And not the footprints to be swept away +Before the storm we hatched in Boston Bay,-- +But footprints where the path of war begun +That led to Bunker Hill and Lexington,-- +For he who "dared to lead where others dared +To follow" found the promise there declared +Of Liberty, in blood of Freedom's host +Baptized to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! + +Oh, there were times when every patriot breast +Was riotous with sentiments expressed +In tones that swelled in volume till the sound +Of lusty war itself was well-nigh drowned. +Oh, those were times when happy eyes with tears +Brimmed o'er as all the misty doubts and fears +Were washed away, and Hope with gracious mien, +Reigned from her throne again a sovereign queen. +Until at last, upon a day like this +When flowers were blushing at the summer's kiss, +And when the sky was cloudless as the face +Of some sweet infant in its angel grace,-- +There came a sound of music, thrown afloat +Upon the balmy air--a clanging note +Reiterated from the brazen throat +Of Independence Bell: A sound so sweet, +The clamoring throngs of people in the streets +Were stilled as at the solemn voice of prayer, +And heads were bowed, and lips were moving there +That made no sound--until the spell had passed, +And then, as when all sudden comes the blast +Of some tornado, came the cheer on cheer +Of every eager voice, while far and near +The echoing bells upon the atmosphere +Set glorious rumors floating, till the ear +Of every listening patriot tingled clear, +And thrilled with joy and jubilee to hear. + + I + +'Stir all your echoes up, + O Independence Bell, +And pour from your inverted cup + The song we love so well. + +'Lift high your happy voice, + And swing your iron tongue +Till syllables of praise rejoice + That never yet were sung. + +'Ring in the gleaming dawn + Of Freedom--Toll the knell +Of Tyranny, and then ring on, + O Independence Bell.-- + +'Ring on, and drown the moan, + Above the patriot slain, +Till sorrow's voice shall catch the tone + And join the glad refrain. + +'Ring out the wounds of wrong + And rankle in the breast; +Your music like a slumber-song + Will lull revenge to rest. + +'Ring out from Occident + To Orient, and peal +From continent to continent + The mighty joy you feel. + +'Ring! Independence Bell! + Ring on till worlds to be +Shall listen to the tale you tell + Of love and Liberty!' + +IV + +O Liberty--the dearest word +A bleeding country ever heard,-- +We lay our hopes upon thy shrine +And offer up our lives for thine. +You gave us many happy years +Of peace and plenty ere the tears +A mourning country wept were dried +Above the graves of those who died +Upon thy threshold. And again +When newer wars were bred, and men +Went marching in the cannon's breath +And died for thee and loved the death, +While, high above them, gleaming bright, +The dear old flag remained in sight, +And lighted up their dying eyes +With smiles that brightened paradise. +O Liberty, it is thy power +To gladden us in every hour +Of gloom, and lead us by thy hand +As little children through a land +Of bud and blossom; while the days +Are filled with sunshine, and thy praise +Is warbled in the roundelays +Of joyous birds, and in the song +Of waters, murmuring along +The paths of peace, whose flowery fringe +Has roses finding deeper tinge +Of crimson, looking on themselves +Reflected--leaning from the shelves +Of cliff and crag and mossy mound +Of emerald splendor shadow-drowned.-- +We hail thy presence, as you come +With bugle blast and rolling drum, +And booming guns and shouts of glee +Commingled in a symphony +That thrills the worlds that throng to see +The glory of thy pageantry. +0And with thy praise, we breathe a prayer +That God who leaves you in our care +May favor us from this day on +With thy dear presence--till the dawn +Of Heaven, breaking on thy face, +Lights up thy first abiding place. + + +TOM VAN ARDEN + +Tom Van Arden, my old friend, + Our warm fellowship is one +Far too old to comprehend + Where its bond was first begun: + Mirage-like before my gaze + Gleams a land of other days, + Where two truant boys, astray, + Dream their lazy lives away. + +There's a vision, in the guise + Of Midsummer, where the Past +Like a weary beggar lies + In the shadow Time has cast; + And as blends the bloom of trees + With the drowsy hum of bees, + Fragrant thoughts and murmurs blend, + Tom Van Arden, my old friend. + +Tom Van Arden, my old friend, + All the pleasures we have known +Thrill me now as I extend + This old hand and grasp your own-- + Feeling, in the rude caress, + All affection's tenderness; + Feeling, though the touch be rough, + Our old souls are soft enough. + +So we'll make a mellow hour: + Fill your pipe, and taste the wine-- +Warp your face, if it be sour, + I can spare a smile from mine; + If it sharpen up your wit, + Let me feel the edge of it-- + I have eager ears to lend, + Tom Van Arden, my old friend. + +Tom Van Arden, my old friend, + Are we "lucky dogs," indeed? +Are we all that we pretend + In the jolly life we lead?-- + Bachelors, we must confess, + Boast of "single blessedness" + To the world, but not alone-- + Man's best sorrow is his own! + +And the saddest truth is this,-- + Life to us has never proved +What we tasted in the kiss + Of the women we have loved: + Vainly we congratulate + Our escape from such a fate + As their lying lips could send, + Tom Van Arden, my old friend! + +Tom Van Arden, my old friend, + Hearts, like fruit upon the stem, +Ripen sweetest, I contend, + As the frost falls over them: + Your regard for me to-day + Makes November taste of May, + And through every vein of rhyme + Pours the blood of summer-time. + +When our souls are cramped with youth + Happiness seems far away +In the future, while, in truth, + + We look back on it to-day + Through our tears, nor dare to boast,-- + "Better to have loved and lost!" + Broken hearts are hard to mend, + Tom Van Arden, my old friend. + +Tom Van Arden, my old friend, + I grow prosy, and you tire; +Fill the glasses while I bend + To prod up the failing fire. . . . + You are restless:--I presume + There's a dampness in the room.-- + Much of warmth our nature begs, + With rheumatics in our legs! . . . + +Humph! the legs we used to fling + Limber-jointed in the dance, +When we heard the fiddle ring + Up the curtain of Romance, + And in crowded public halls + Played with hearts like jugglers' balls.-- + FEATS OF MOUNTEBANKS, DEPEND!-- + Tom Van Arden, my old friend. + +Tom Van Arden, my old friend, + Pardon, then, this theme of mine: +While the firelight leaps to lend + Higher color to the wine,-- + I propose a health to those + Who have HOMES, and home's repose, + Wife- and child-love without end! + . . . Tom Van Arden, my old friend. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext: Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley +Volume 1 + |