Katydid's Poems

by Kate Slaughter McKinney

Sunshine and Shadow.

I passed a pretty cottage place,

A rose looked from the door

And smiled so sweetly in my face

I paused the house before.

The honeysuckle from the wall

Threw down a welcome tear,

The breeze came rushing through the hall

And whispered, “Tarry here,

“For all within is peace and love;”

So through the curtain’s lace

I glanced the reckless words to prove,

And saw a lover’s face

Bent close above two eyes of blue.

Why should I dim their day?

Across the pane the blind I drew,

And softly crept away.

I went again, one summer eve;

The rose blushed at the door

But smiled as sweetly to receive

Me as it did before;

The breeze came out as joyously,

And lingered at my side,

And murmured: “Tarry now and see

Our happy groom and bride.”

“O, no!” I said, “some other day

I’ll call the pair to see.”

But as I turned to go away

They both looked out at me.

O! what a light of hope and love

Their features then o’erspread;

And a shekinah from above

Seemed on the cottage shed.

Years crept away. When next I came

Before that open door,

A little child pronounced my name

That golden tresses wore.

“Will you come in?” she gladly cried,

And opened wide the gate.

“My little one,” I slow replied,

“The day is low and late.

“To-morrow when the sun is bright,

I’ll come and play with you;

Too chilly now, the falling night,

Too damp the evening dew.”

And so I did. I often trod

Along the side yard there;

And found that fresher grew the sod,

The sky more bright and fair.

I once had said that every rose

Held just a briar or two,

And every river as it flows

A dark wave with the blue;

But ’twas not thus I found it here,

The world that night I’d tell

That I had found a sky so clear

That rain drops never fell.

Thus musing on that sweet child’s face

That night I could not sleep,

A shadow seemed the light to chase

As storms the ocean sweep;

And when the stars forsook the sky

And birds their matins sang

I strolled again the cottage by

And loud the door-bell rang.

The rose had dropped its leaves and died,

I heard within a sob.

What did it mean? The winds replied

“Crape hangs upon the knob.”

Softly I raised the window’s lace—

The little child was dead—

I threw a flower across her face,

And from the cottage fled.

I never will go back again

Or push the blinds apart—

I sought a sunshine for my pen,

Found shadows for my heart.

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Only a Fern Leaf.
TO H. M.

ONLY a fern leaf, darling,

Yellow and dry with age,

Only a date recorded

Down at the ending page.

Only a breath from the mountain,

A song with the summer wed;

Only the voice of a fountain,

Only a dream that is dead.

Only a faded morning,

With a shadow falling through,

Only a hint of warning—

A cloud in the far off blue.

Only a word of parting

Under a starlit sky;

Only a tear that is starting,

A long and a last good bye.

Only a face of sorrow

Turned to a vanished year—

Only a fern leaf, darling,

Glued to the pages here.

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A Dream.
TO MY FATHER.

LISTEN, father, while I tell you of a dream I had last night;

For it was so sweet my childhood home was painted in my sight.

’Twas the same old frame house, father, hidden by the same old trees,

Apple, cherry, quince and locust, talking in the same old breeze.

On the walk I found the cowslip, stolen from “The Old Ravine,”

And the blue-bell, and the columbine—how near my heart they lean.

Roses, red as any furnace flame, about me seemed to grow.

Roses pink as maiden blushes, roses pure and white as snow.

All around the yard I wandered, oh! so long I can not tell,

Then I paused beneath the apple tree and drank from the old well.

Through my veins I felt the water coursing like a happy thought,

And a thousand recollections to my memory then it brought.

Recollections rushing to me swifter than an angel’s wing,

Recollections slipping from me as a pearl slips from a string.

Recollections that transfigured me into a little child,

And the halo shed around me was my father’s happy smile.

It was such a pretty picture Fancy held before my view,

I will turn the magic lantern so that you may see it, too.

It is springtime and the sugar trees have pitched their shady tent,

Tiny leaves like tiny parasols reach toward the firmament.

Restless swings a childish figure to and fro upon the gate,

Some one’s coming down the highway—’tis for him she there doth wait.

Ah! you recognize the picture, I can tell it by your smile;

You have recognized the sugar trees, and recognized your child.

Through the pasture now we’re strolling, looking down the avenue,

See you not another picture? Yes; the figures there are two.

Mother sits upon the portico her knitting in her hand,

And my brother talks beside her of that wild and Western land

Where he raced his Indian ponies and lassoed the buffaloes

Oh, it is a perfect wonderland!—this country that he knows.

But we will not interrupt them; for they do so happy seem—

So we turn aside and leave them wandering on as in a dream.

Then I led you up the hillside and we sat upon the “mound.”

Oh! there never was before or since so pretty a view spread ’round.

Just below, the tranquil water of the clear pond seemed to win

Every cloud that floated over, and the heavens lay within.

Then the meadow, where the clover bloomed, and where you stacked the hay,

Like a field within a picture book, before us there it lay;

Then beyond, the barn and orchard, and the valley that I love—

Oh! it all seemed like a painting let down by the Hand above.

But a thought came rushing to me of a fairy that you know;

For she lived there in the valley and her name it was Echo.

So I laughed and called unto her just as loud as I could call,

But the voice that she threw back to me was not a child’s at all.

No; it was a woman’s voice; I awoke then with a start,

And I found the king beside me that dethroned you in my heart.

Then a tear fell on the pillow, not a briny, bitter tear,

Why? you ask—because the dream was gone that I have copied here.

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Those Soft Airs She Played.
TO M. B. S.

THOSE soft airs she played—through my mem’ry they glide

Like a cloud-shadow crossing the plain;

The sun follows often, the wind at his side,

Then a whisper that never the roses denied,

And a sound like a light fall of rain.

Grander music she plays—music weird and sublime,

Thunder toned, like the sound of the sea,

That rolleth away like the surges of time;

But, to quicken my thoughts and to sweeten my rhyme,

She always played soft airs for me.

Faint whispers that blend with the deep forest’s sound,

From which a wild fawn would not flee,

And sweet as the brook that the summer has found,

When singing its song soft and glad underground,

And carrying its heart to the sea....

A movement then mingles like those that are heard

When the trees toss their shade to the eaves;

A pause and a tremble, as of a sweet word,

Or the dream-haunted wing of a night-hidden bird

That is shaking the dew from the leaves.

Then silence, that even a word would profane—

Silence, holding some thoughts heaven-born,

That only her fingers a moment can chain;

Up, up to the skies they have wandered again,

Like a prayer holy spoken at morn.

Those soft airs she played in the dim lighted room,

With her heart in the past far away—

Ah, what would I give if to-night, through the gloom,

Along with the budding and bursting of bloom,

They now past my window would stray.

Alas! vain the thought, and as vain sounds the sigh,

Long distance my wish has delayed;

But we sit in the twilight—my mem’ry and I—

And listen and linger, we scarcely know why,

Unless for those soft airs she played.

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