SIMON’S SONG
Arrayed in fine linen, we go to a ball,
Where we banquet with friends whom we joyously meet,
And we revel down wine and the savories all
Mid flowers and the music so lang’rously sweet;
But anon, while we linger the banqueting sours
In these bothersome bodies of ours.
Then in stupor we sleep while our spirits take flight
To places unknown in a wondering dream,
And we fall from a tower in a horrible fright,
Where we strangle and drown in a deep-rolling stream;
For our spirits may soar all alone to high towers,
But they fall with these bodies of ours.
We have faith and a hope and some charity, too,
We trust in our preacher, or elder, or pope,
And so far as we know, ’tis the best thing to do,
But the fall shakes our faith and we all but lose hope
When we think of the grave and the worm that devours
These bothersome bodies of ours.
Still, ’tis hard to stay drowned very long in a dream
When one is so restless in body and mind,
So we struggle and flounder from out of the stream
To awake in a cold, clammy sweat, and we find
That the trouble’s a banquet with music and flowers
In these bothersome bodies of ours.
He sang it as though it o’erflowed with his wit,
And the dancers were glad when he got through with it.
Even danger no longer could keep them from sleep,
Which was fitful to some, whilst to others ’twas deep,
But they left not the room where in circles they grouped,
Or they lounged in the chairs, as when sleeping they drooped.
They were tired, Oh! so tired, and with all so distressed,
They slept in discomfort, but tried to find rest,
When suddenly every one woke with a fear—
A storm was approaching, they felt it was near.
They heard the wind moaning among the tall trees,
Then louder and swift sprang the shrill eastern breeze,
Until the house shook from the force of its sway,
And they felt the trees bend as their shadows would play;
Then the rain began falling, though lightly at first,
Till directly it seemed like a sweeping cloud-burst;
When a flash of sharp lightning had blinded the room,
A terrific loud peal like a great cannon’s boom
Came thundering above them with crashing resound
That made the house quake on the acre of ground.
Then to every one came an alarm for their daring
And folly. In silence, with awe in their bearing,
They tiptoed to look out of window and door,
Then out in the darkness and in the down-pour
Of the rain to the edge of the water they wandered.
The river was rising! They shivered and pondered,
And they peered through the gloom for help that might come,
But it came not! it came not! They turned to the home
Through the darkness of night and the chill of the air,
They groped to the house in an utter despair.
A cry of distress from without reached their ears,
Then louder it grew, and with strange, haunting fears,
They trembled and listened to hear it again,
When above the loud roar and the storm and the rain,
Like a wail of the lost came the heart-rending cry.
Some fainted; some stood with a wide-staring eye
And ran from the room on a rescue to start,
Whilst others sprang up with a fast beating heart,
When the crying grew faint, like a nightmare it pass’d,
But it left with the dancers the shadow it cast.
The storm was abating, the rainfall had ceased,
The terrible roar for a time had decreased,
The dancers were thoughtful and quiet at last,
And hopeful, perhaps, that the worst had now passed,
When, horrors! Again came a cry of despair,
Then louder and longer it hung in the air;
“Oh, some one is drowning,” they screamed as they flew
Through the hall and the doorway—so sure it was true—
And there in the darkness, with no moon to see by,
They found the hound howling most piteously.
That ominous sound was to them the death token;
They returned to the house, and without a word spoken
(Their feelings too awed for a word or a tear),
To sit there in silence and tremble in fear,
Till some one spoke softly of Dan and his fate;
Then Malindy grew nervous—the strain was too great—
She rose to her feet with an uncertain totter,
And weaving around till the bachelor caught her,
“How awful!” she sighed, as she fell in a swoon,
“To hear a hound howling without any moon!”
There then was confusion—the table knocked over
And likewise the chairs—but the bachelor lover
Held fast to Malindy, as all lovers should;
Malindy lay quiet—but that’s understood—
The witling ran errands and acted real nice,
While Neoma was rubbing, and all gave advice,
Or all save the Cynic, who grinned ’round the place,
Till Malindy came to, when she hid her sweet face
In the bachelor’s arms, where they left her alone,
“Come away,” cried the Cynic, “at last she is won.”
There was no more dancing throughout the dark night,
So intently they longed for the coming of light,
For danger and darkness are frightfully mated
When danger approaches where darkness has waited.
They heard the wild river loud laughing and jeering!
It mocked at their fears while it ever was nearing;
Then they huddled in groups, as do creatures when caged,
When they heard the mad monster that roared and raged—
He was coming, was coming, they knew by the sound,
He would sweep the house off of the acre of ground.
At daybreak the water was high in the barn.
They moved all the horses and cattle and corn
Near the house, and there likewise they stacked up the hay.
Thus the morning hours passed with forebodings away,
With many reproaches and bitter complaints,
That none came to rescue—and two or three faints.
If in darkness they’d longed for the coming of light,
(While regretting their folly, they’d thought of their plight),
Still the danger seemed greater that noon-day had brought,
As even that came with a new peril fraught.
For the river still rose and the horses and cattle
Stood in water to knees; ’twas in earnest a battle
For life, for the whole of the great bulk of hay
That the dancers had stacked had now floated away,
And the corn had all gone, leaving nothing to eat—
It was hard for the cattle to stand on their feet.
Some one cried, “O! look yonder—the barn is afloat!”
And sullen and black like a water-soaked boat,
They saw it sink low to its roof in the tide
Where the great hound had clambered in safety to ride.
They saw it sink low to its roof in the tide—
Where the great hound had climbed in safety to ride.
For the current was swift and the wagon had gone
That the dancers had come in as others had done
From the lot; now away swam a cow, then another—
The cattle and horses all went. “’Tis no bother
For horses and cattle to swim for the shore,”
The “Oracle” said, as he tore off a door;
And he would have jumped headlong with door in the flood,
But the men held him fast while the women all stood
There and screamed till a panicky feeling went ’round
To all that was left of the acre of ground.
They heard a shrill whistle, and help seemed at hand,
For around the great bend came the steamer Renand;
Their hearts filled with hope; to their eyes came the tear
That sprang from their joy as the steamer came near.
With frantic wild gestures, they signaled the boat;
She was coming their way, they with rapture could note.
Then another shrill whistle—a strange, startled scream.
She turned from her course and she fled down the stream
As though their loud yelling had filled her with fear—
Apast them she sped like a frightened white deer.
Ah! the tears of the sweet, pretty dancers would call
For a saint or dare-devil to rescue them all.
They could look to the hill to see daring men steer
With effort to reach them, and once they came near,
But were carried away by the rush of the tide.
And often again was it desperately tried
By many who valiantly fought with the wave,
And risked their own life, hoping others to save,
While ev’ry frail dancer stood near to the river,
Despairing at each unsuccessful endeavor.
The “Oracle” said, “Could I swim like Leander
Of Hellespont fame, I would take one and land her
On shore, then return for another, and so on,
Until every fair dancer around here was gone;
For having the courage and vigor and vim,
I wish in my heart that I knew how to swim.
But there’s no use to worry, or climb a steep hill
Till a person comes to it—you’ve heard of that—still
If I only could swim, I could quickly go through it,
Should the river still rise—I may anyway do it.”
Then he called on Peneus, he thought it was best,
As he’d often approached him when sorely distressed;
He was sure that Peneus would listen to him;
He would have him turn trouble, though hope was so dim,
To a travesty there on the acre of ground;
But the river god nowhere it seemed could be found,
(He may have been busy with some other care),
And they got no reply to the “Oracle’s” prayer;
Then the “Oracle” said he would try his own scheme;
So he stretched forth his hand and commanded the stream:
O, wayward stream!
Return and to thy channel keep,
Where thou hast droned in drowsy sleep
For full a century of years,
And have our love without our fears.
How have we loved thee, O, great stream!
And thou hast been to us a theme
As pleasing as the sweetest dream,
Why do you turn with sullen hate,
All swollen in your drunken sate?
Relent! Relent!
Abate the currents that have bent
Thy body so enormously.
O, backward to thy channel flow
And stay thy riot and its woe.
But the flood was too big for one man to assuage;
It continued to rise and to roar and to rage;
It had gotten a start, and it now seemed too late
For the great dancing master to check or abate.
He realized that he had been in the wrong
To neglect to attend to the flood for so long.
“At first I had seemed to enjoy it,” he said,
“But, like dancing, the fiddler will have to be paid;
Still, ’tis better,” said he, “not to let our hearts worry,
For the flood will subside when it gets o’er its flurry.”
Some complained that he’d uselessly raised their hope high,
Then the “Oracle” said he would save them or die.
He proposed that he build them a raft out of logs,
And he worked for a while, but his fine dancing togs
Got bedraggled—he’d fallen asprawl in the flood,
Where he floundered around in the water and mud,
Till they grappled him out. Oh! it seemed such a shame!
He looked at his raiment, he spoke of his fame;
He declared he just knew he looked worse than the hound
That had gone with the barn from the acre of ground.
Then ev’ry one felt they had lost their last chance,
Whilst the “Oracle” stood like a man in a trance—
He had lost his fine book of dance-calls, with its verses,
Morose from his losses, in silence or curses,
He lamented the folly of building the raft,
For misfortune had struck with a swift, heavy shaft,
And his proud spirit broke when he saw that the flood
Had bespattered his coat with the yellow clay mud.
’Twas a humiliation, deserving compassion—
Most people lose heart when they go out of fashion.
So Simon, to comfort him, said, “Do not worry;
The flood will subside when it gets o’er its flurry.”
“And your rhymes,” said the wit, “They were mostly old rhymes;
They were fine, to be sure, but ’tis better at times
To write something new; on occasions like these
One should write on the spot of the thing that he sees.”
“For shame!” cried Neoma. She led him away
To help the poor “Oracle” scrub off the clay;
She rubbed him and scrubbed him and wheedled him ’round,
Till he said he was glad that he didn’t get drowned.
Now the house became flooded, and to the top floor
They were driven. In eddies the flood-waters tore
Around through the hall and the parlor below
Till it burst through the windows to vent its o’erflow.
The tuneful piano went waltzing around
With the tables for partners or what else it found,
Till, dizzy at times, it would bump on the wall,
When its vibrating strings gave a discordant brawl
As if in abandon it turned debauchée
To sicken their heart with its sad revelry.
They saw as they looked from the windows above
The bric-a-brac leaving, with emblems of love,
An album, the old family Bible, and all
Of Twilley’s fine pictures that hung on the wall.
They saw them pass out of the windows below,
Both single and double they filed in a row
Out into the world on the turbulent wave
To swim or to find there a watery grave;
And last came that motto, the “God Bless Our Home,”
Went floating away on the yellowish foam.
That grieved the poor Twilley. He didn’t care much
For pictures and albums or Bibles and such,
But that “God Bless Our Home” was the pride of his heart;
He always had thought it a piece of fine art;
He had spent a whole Sunday in placing the shells,
And had worked on it two or three days at odd spells—
Smash! “Great Heavens!” asked Simon, “What can that all be?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Twilley, “except a huge tree
That is raking its length ’gainst the house as it passes
To break a few more of the front window glasses.”
Day and night they had kept the tired vigil while waiting,
And hoping the waters would soon be abating;
But nearer and nearer the high waters rose
A space at a time as a risin’ flood grows;
And if they were hungry, they thought not of that;
If they wanted for sleep, still, they wide-awake sat.
They feared that some madness would seize them while there,
For they felt a great dreading of something so dire
That menaced and seemed like the haunting of fate,
And frowned with a visage as ugly as hate.
The threats of the weak brought alarm to the stronger,
For to some the suspense was unbearable longer,
And a murmur was heard of a way that was brief,
To end all in a plunge that would bring a relief;
From the tense agony and the painful delay
Of a hope against hope through the night and the day;
For although it is true, there is hope while there’s breath,
Still some rush to death while the end is but death,
As though anguish of thought finds its only surcease
To yield quickly to death and its certain release.
Lord, help us and save us; we ask for no crown,
But we do want the house till the flood shall go down.
For it seemed there were few who had thought from the first
That the flood would go on till it came to the worst:
The Cynic sat anxious, with face blanching white,
His tremors betraying the state of his fright;
The wit, who had jabbered his thin airy gibes,
Now turned him to whining in whimpering dribes;
And minus the old-time bravado he wore,
Was the “Oracle” nervously pacing the floor.
They were all much alike as they thought of their fate,
But they counseled each other to stay there and wait.
In the room where they danced on the evening before
The water was slushing above the hall door.
It had followed them there as they moved up above,
Persistently followed—they felt the house move!
Their hearts then stood still, and the “Oracle” said,
“Let us pray;” so the dancers knelt down while he prayed,
As only a helpless, dependent one can.
He ended his prayer in the way he began—
“Lord help us and save us! We asked for no crown,
But we do want the house till the flood should go down.”
His praying seemed awkward to some, it is true,
But the most of them thought that perhaps it would do,
For the house was still standing when prayer was through,
Still, they heard the house creaking—’twas leaning some, too—
Then a yellow wave came with a swell, and it made
The house groan as it turned half around, but it stayed
For a moment to get its true bearings just right,
Then it plunged till the top floor alone was in sight,
And swiftly it sped as it whirled down the stream,
Sans captain or pilot, sans rudder or steam.
And once the house tilted when bumping ground
Till very far listed, but righted around;
Then the smashing of timbers that made their hearts ache,
And the strained and warped floors that seemed ready to break
Made them shudder and fly when the waters would swirl
As ever and ever they sped in a whirl,
And the world seemed unsteady with nothing to stay
While the hills flew in circles a distance away,
And they all but gave up to the fate that had frowned
As they went with the house from the acre of ground.
They were dumb. Not a soul but had ceased to complain;
They felt they were doomed, and to struggle was vain.
Some covered their faces and muffled their ears;
Some trembled and shook as with palsy from fears.
Like children they clung to each other and waited
In terror and silence, as if they were fated,
Or looked at each other wild-eyed and in wonder,
And hurdling together were thrown asunder
By the surging and swirling of onrushing water,
And were pent up and helpless as lambs for the slaughter.
Then the dark moment passed and a hope came again;
It came like the smile of the sun through the rain,
For the current had turned and toward the south veering,
They could see, with a joy, that the hills they were nearing;
And the house was now slowing as onward it bore,
While people came running to meet them on shore,
As nearer and nearer the house-boat had veered,
Where were all of the town folks who heard and had feared
They were lost, and among them the care-worn mothers,
The anxious old fathers and sisters and brothers.
Then out from the shore came the same dinky “John”
That the trusting old fiddler had rode away on,
And strange though it seemed, there was Dan in the boat
That had weathered the storms and was still there afloat.
Then the cheers of the dancers rang out to the shore,
And ev’ry eye swam with the tears that it bore.
The “Oracle” suddenly came to life, too,
As often ’tis found where there’s hope people do;
He shouted and waved with the wildest delight,
When the recognized forms of his friends came in sight.
He cried, “Oh, we’ve all had a lark of a time!
We’ve been up to Twilley’s to dance to my rhyme,
And water-bound there since we left the old town,
We have danced day and night, and the most the way down;
We grew tired of the place, and we thought we’d come home.
All the dancers are with us—they wanted to come.
As the stream was rough swimming and too deep to wade,
We concluded to come on the trip the house made.
How’s the folks at Dinwiddie? There’s no use to worry,
The flood will subside when it gets o’er its flurry.”
Though the moments had seemed to the dancers so frightened,
Like so many hours, yet their hearts were so lightened
With hope, that they took the bed-slats and rowed on
With a strange, nervous strength that seemed hardly their own,
After all of the trials through which they had gone,
And the dauntless bass-fiddler rowed swiftly the “John,”
To help them to land near the dancers’ own town,
Where some cried, and some danced with the crowds that came down,
And many gave thanks with a quivering lip—
They were safe! They were safe! from the perilous trip.
There the house that the dancers had come in was moored,
Where the tale of its marvelous venture still lured
The thousands long after the flood had declined,
Till piece-meal from vandals and weather combined,
It fell to decay, or was carried away.
’Twas a favorite pastime on any fine day
For the thoughtless to waltz through the house with a song
And leaving to carry a relic along,
Until nothing was left of the house that withstood
The perils that came with the eighty-four flood.
The tall trees are standing, still standing alone,
Where they whisper each other the nights they have known,
And if they seem lonely without the old house,
Yet the birds in the evenings go there to carouse.
There they chatter and sing in their merriest lay,
And, like dancers, choose partners in much the same way;
And the boatmen will tell how they sometimes have heard
There the singing of songs—not the notes of a bird—
As though festive, gay spirits still hovered around,
Late, late in the night on the acre of ground.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.