THE DEATH OF THE HOST OF THE JOLLY SWAN
The pewter pots were shining on the shelves behind the bar,
Like the gold and silver lining of a sunset cloud afar,
And the pine log fire burned brightly with its blaze of light and heat,
Athwart the untrodden sawdust floor that looked so clean and neat.
A cheerful, ruddy glamor lighted up the tavern walls,
And, shooting through the open door, lit up the silent halls,
To where the old clock’s pendulum swung slowly to and fro,
With measured beat, that seemed to speak of the days of long ago.
Sick unto death—in the room above—lay the host of the Jolly Swan.
And far and near, his kinsmen had, to seek the doctors, gone,
For the jovial face and the merry laugh of the host of yesterday
Had all departed, leaving naught but the mould of the living clay.
Alone in his chamber he watched the sun slope down to his Western bower,
And a gentle smile stole o’er his face, as the old clock chimed the hour.
His thoughts were of the days gone by—as the host of the Jolly Swan,
He had raised his tankard high and drank to the health of the old friends gone.
There was good old Squire Thornleigh, with his great big raw-boned gray,
And the biggest hearted fellow that e’er waved the “Hark! Away!”
There was Jones, the hunting parson, with his jovial, ringing laugh,
Who could preach a right good sermon and an honest bumper quaff.
Then there was Billy Foster, who was only twenty-two,
When he broke his neck in the hunting field through the casting of a shoe.
And portly old Judge Horner, who in the room below,
Had smoked and drank full many a night in the days of long ago.
And as he thought, the window ope’d, and in slipped Huntsman Death,
Arrayed in scarlet, white-topped boots, with a fine rich malty breath.
“Ah! good old friend,” the huntsman cried, “since you have called me here,
Get down the pewter pots that we may drink a funeral bier—
For I have ridden hard today to reach the Swan this night,
And what I ask is nothing more than what is only right.”
With that, the host got out of bed and brought two pewters brimmed,
And while below he saw that all the tavern lights were trimmed.
His kinsman, riding up the road, with doctors from afar,
Reined up to watch the lights that burned so brightly in the bar;
While the jolly host with Death alone sat in the room above,
And drank the foaming liquor down, his first and only love.
Just then the sound of horses’ hoofs the sick man heard without,
And he and Death, in one glad breath, sent up a hunting shout—
“It’s bold Squire Thornleigh’s raw-boned gray, or Parson Jones’s bay—
I’m coming, Squire, Yoick’s tally-ho!” Death shouted, “Hark! Away!”
Yoick’s tally-ho fills loud the room as he springs up from bed,
And the bugle horn sounds merrily in the chamber of the dead;
Gay prancing steeds and huntsmen bold ride blithely by his side,
“Yoicks! tally-ho!” rang from his lips, and back he fell and died.
His kinsmen heard that hunting shout, that old familiar cry,
And in they rushed—too late—too late—to see the good man die.
Two empty tankards on the floor was all that they could see,
And how the host of the Jolly Swan died—is still a mystery.