THE POEMS AND PROSE
SKETCHES OF
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

ARMAZINDY

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S
SONS NEW YORK 1917

Copyright, 1894, 1898, by
James Whitcomb Riley

⁂ The publication of this volume in the Homestead Edition of the works of James Whitcomb Riley is made possible by the courtesy of The Bowen-Merrill Company, of Indianapolis, the original publishers of Mr. Riley’s books.

TO
HENRY EITEL

CONTENTS

ARMAZINDY

ARMAZINDY

Armazindy;—fambily name

Ballenger,—you’ll find the same,

As her Daddy answered it,

In the old War-rickords yit,—

And, like him, she’s airnt the good

Will o’ all the neighborhood.—

Name ain’t down in History,—

But, i jucks! it ort to be!

Folks is got respec’ fer her—

Armazindy Ballenger!—

’Specially the ones ’at knows

Fac’s o’ how her story goes

From the start:—Her father blowed

Up—eternally furloughed—

When the old “Sultana” bu’st,

And sich men wuz needed wusst.—

Armazindy, ’bout fourteen-

Year-old then—and thin and lean

As a killdee,—but—my la!—

Blamedest nerve you ever saw!

The girl’s mother’d allus be’n

Sickly—wuz consumpted when

Word came ’bout her husband.—So

Folks perdicted she’d soon go—

(Kind o’ grief I understand,

Losin’ my companion,—and

Still a widower—and still

Hinted at, like neighbers will!)

So, app’inted, as folks said,

Ballenger a-bein’ dead,

Widder, ’peared-like, gradjully,

Jes grieved after him tel she

Died, nex’ Aprile wuz a year,—

And in Armazindy’s keer

Leavin’ the two twins, as well

As her pore old miz’able

Old-maid aunty ’at had be’n

Struck with palsy, and wuz then

Jes a he’pless charge on her—

Armazindy Ballenger.

Jevver watch a primrose ’bout

Minute ’fore it blossoms out—

Kindo’ loosen-like, and blow

Up its muscles, don’t you know,

And, all suddent, bu’st and bloom

Out life-size?—Well, I persume

’At’s the only measure I

Kin size Armazindy by!—

Jes a child, one minute,—nex’,

Woman-grown, in all respec’s

And intents and purposuz—

’At’s what Armazindy wuz!

Jes a child, I tell ye! Yit

She made things git up and git

Round that little farm o’ hern!—

Shouldered all the whole concern;—

Feed the stock, and milk the cows—

Run the farm and run the house!—

Only thing she didn’t do

Wuz to plough and harvest too—

But the house and childern took

Lots o’ keer—and had to look

After her old fittified

Grandaunt.—Lord! ye could’a’ cried,

Seein’ Armazindy smile,

’Peared-like, sweeter all the while!

And I’ve heerd her laugh and say:—

“Jes afore Pap marched away,

He says, ‘I depend on you,

Armazindy, come what may—

You must be a Soldier, too!’”

Neighbers, from the fust, ’ud come—

And she’d let ’em help her some,—

“Thanky, ma’am!” and “Thanky, sir!”

But no charity fer her!—

“She could raise the means to pay

Fer her farm-hands ever’ day

Sich wuz needed!”—And she could—

In cash-money jes as good

As farm-produc’s ever brung

Their perducer, old er young!

So folks humored her and smiled,

And at last wuz rickonciled

Fer to let her have her own

Way about it.—But a-goin’

Past to town, they’d stop and see

“Armazindy’s fambily,”

As they’d allus laugh and say,

And look sorry right away,

Thinkin’ of her Pap, and how

He’d indorse his “Soldier” now!

’Course she couldn’t never be

Much in young-folks’ company—

Plenty of in-vites to go,

But das’t leave the house, you know—

’Less’n Sund’ys sometimes, when

Some old Granny’d come and ’ten’

Things, while Armazindy has

Got away fer Church er “Class.”

Most the youngsters liked her—and

’Twuzn’t hard to understand,—

Fer, by time she wuz sixteen,

Purtier girl you never seen—

’Ceptin’ she lacked schoolin’, ner

Couldn’t rag out stylisher—

Like some neighber-girls, ner thumb

On their blame’ melodium,

Whilse their pore old mothers sloshed

Round the old back-porch and washed

Their clothes fer ’em—rubbed and scrubbed

Fer girls’d ort to jes be’n clubbed!

—And jes sich a girl wuz Jule

Reddinhouse.—She’d be’n to school

At New Thessaly, i gum!—

Fool before, but that he’pped some—

’Stablished-like more confidence

’At she never had no sense.

But she wuz a cunnin’, sly,

Meek and lowly sort o’ lie,

’At men-folks like me and you

B’lieves jes ’cause we ortn’t to.—

Jes as purty as a snake,

And as pizen—mercy sake!

Well, about them times it wuz,

Young Sol Stephens th’ashed fer us;

And we sent him over to

Armazindy’s place to do

Her work fer her.—And-sir! Well—

Mighty little else to tell,—

Sol he fell in love with her—

Armazindy Ballenger!

Bless ye!—’Ll, of all the love

’At I’ve ever yit knowed of,

That-air case o’ theirn beat all!

W’y, she worshipped him!—And Sol,

’Peared-like, could ’a’ kissed the sod

(Sayin’ is) where that girl trod!

Went to town, she did, and bought

Lot o’ things ’at neighbers thought

Mighty strange fer her to buy,—

Raal chintz dress-goods—and ’way high!—

Cut long in the skyrt,—also

Gaiter-pair o’ shoes, you know;

And lace collar;—yes, and fine

Stylish hat, with ivy-vine

And red ribbons, and these-’ere

Artificial flowers and queer

Little beads and spangles, and

Oysturch-feathers round the band!

Wore ’em, Sund’ys, fer a while—

Kindo’ went to Church in style,

Sol and Armazindy!—Tel

It was noised round purty well

They wuz promised.—And they wuz—

Sich news travels—well it does!—

Pity ’at that did!—Fer jes

That-air fac’ and nothin’ less

Must ’a’ putt it in the mind

O’ Jule Reddinhouse to find

Out some dratted way to hatch

Out some plan to break the match—

’Cause she done it!—How? they’s none

Knows adzac’ly what she done;

Some claims she writ letters to

Sol’s folks, up nigh Pleasant View

Somers—and described, you see,

“Armazindy’s fambily”—

Hintin’ “ef Sol married her,

He’d jes be pervidin’ fer

Them-air twins o’ hern, and old

Palsied aunt ’at couldn’t hold

Spoon to mouth, and layin’ near

Bedrid’ on to eighteen year’,

And still likely, ’pearantly,

To live out the century!”

Well—whatever plan Jule laid

Out to reach the p’int she made,

It wuz desper’t.—And she won,

Finully, by marryun

Sol herse’f—e-lopin’, too,

With him, like she had to do,—

’Cause her folks ’ud allus swore

“Jule should never marry pore!”

This-here part the story I

Allus haf to hurry by,—

Way ’at Armazindy jes

Drapped back in her linsey dress,

And grabbed holt her loom, and shet

Her jaws square.—And ef she fret

Any ’bout it—never ’peared

Sign ’at neighbers seed er heerd;—

Most folks liked her all the more—

I know I did—certain-shore!—

(’Course I’d knowed her Pap, and what

Stock she come of.—Yes, and thought,

And think yit, no man on earth

’S worth as much as that girl’s worth!)

As fer Jule and Sol, they had

Their sheer!—less o’ good than bad!—

Her folks let her go.—They said,

“Spite o’ them she’d made her bed

And must sleep in it!”—But she,

’Peared-like, didn’t sleep so free

As she ust to—ner so late,

Ner so fine, I’m here to state!—

Sol wuz pore, of course, and she

Wuzn’t ust to poverty—

Ner she didn’t ’pear to jes

’Filiate with lonesomeness,—

’Cause Sol he wuz off and out

With his th’asher nigh about

Half the time; er, season done,

He’d be off mi-anderun

Round the country, here and there,

Swoppin’ hosses. Well, that-air

Kind o’ livin’ didn’t suit

Jule a bit!—and then, to boot,

She had now the keer o’ two

Her own childern—and to do

Her own work and cookin’—yes,

And sometimes fer hands, I guess,

Well as fambily of her own.—

Cut her pride clean to the bone!

So how could the whole thing end?—

She set down, one night, and penned

A short note, like—’at she sewed

On the childern’s blanket—blowed

Out the candle—pulled the door

To close after her—and, shore-

Footed as a cat is, clumb

In a rigg there and left home,

With a man a-drivin’ who

“Loved her ever fond and true,”

As her note went on to say,

When Sol read the thing next day.

Raally didn’t ’pear to be

Extry waste o’ sympathy

Over Sol—pore feller!—Yit,

Sake o’ them-air little bit

O’ two orphants—as you might

Call ’em then, by law and right,—

Sol’s old friends wuz sorry, and

Tried to hold him out their hand

Same as allus: But he’d flinch—

Tel, jes ’peared-like, inch by inch,

He let all holts go; and so

Took to drinkin’, don’t you know,—

Tel, to make a long tale short,

He wuz fuller than he ort

To ’a’ be’n, at work one day

’Bout his th’asher, and give way,

Kindo’-like, and fell and ketched

In the beltin’.

... Rid and fetched

Armazindy to him.—He

Begged me to.—But time ’at she

Reached his side, he smiled and tried

To speak.—Couldn’t. So he died....

Hands all turned and left her there

And went somers else—somewhere.

Last, she called us back—in clear

Voice as man’ll ever hear—

Clear and stiddy, ’peared to me,

As her old Pap’s ust to be.—

Give us orders what to do

’Bout the body—he’pped us, too.

So it wuz, Sol Stephens passed

In Armazindy’s hands at last.

More’n that, she claimed ’at she

Had consent from him to be

Mother to his childern—now

’Thout no parents anyhow.

Yes-sir! and she’s got ’em, too,—

Folks saw nothin’ else ’ud do—

So they let her have her way—

Like she’s doin’ yit to-day!

Years now, I’ve be’n coaxin’ her—

Armazindy Ballenger—

To in-large her fambily

Jes one more by takin’ me—

Which I’m feared she never will,

Though I’m ’lectioneerin’ still.

THE OLD TRUNDLE-BED

O the old trundle-bed where I slept when a boy!

What canopied king might not covet the joy?

The glory and peace of that slumber of mine,

Like a long, gracious rest in the bosom divine:

The quaint, homely couch, hidden close from the light,

But daintily drawn from its hiding at night.

O a nest of delight, from the foot to the head,

Was the queer little, dear little, old trundle-bed!

O the old trundle-bed, where I wondering saw

The stars through the window, and listened with awe

To the sigh of the winds as they tremblingly crept

Through the trees where the robin so restlessly slept:

Where I heard the low, murmurous chirp of the wren,

And the katydid listlessly chirrup again,

Till my fancies grew faint and were drowsily led

Through the maze of the dreams of the old trundle-bed.

O the old trundle-bed! O the old trundle-bed!

With its plump little pillow, and old-fashioned spread;

Its snowy-white sheets, and the blankets above,

Smoothed down and tucked round with the touches of

love;

The voice of my mother to lull me to sleep

With the old fairy stories my memories keep

Still fresh as the lilies that bloom o’er the head

Once bowed o’er my own in the old trundle-bed.

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 overwell,

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 OLD SCHOOL-CHUM

He puts the poem by, to say

His eyes are not themselves to-day!

A sudden glamour o’er his sight—

A something vague, indefinite—

An oft-recurring blur that blinds

The printed meaning of the lines,

And leaves the mind all dusk and dim

In swimming darkness—strange to him!

It is not childishness, I guess,—

Yet something of the tenderness

That used to wet his lashes when

A boy seems troubling him again;—

The old emotion, sweet and wild,

That drove him truant when a child,

That he might hide the tears that fell

Above the lesson—“Little Nell.”

And so it is he puts aside

The poem he has vainly tried

To follow; and, as one who sighs

In failure, through a poor disguise

Of smiles, he dries his tears, to say

His eyes are not themselves to-day.

WRITIN’ BACK TO THE HOME-FOLKS

My dear old friends—It jes beats all,

The way you write a letter

So’s ever’ last line beats the first,

And ever’ next-un’s better!—

W’y, ever’ fool-thing you putt down

You make so interestin’,

A feller, readin’ of ’em all,

Can’t tell which is the best-un.

It’s all so comfortin’ and good,

’Pears-like I almost hear ye

And git more sociabler, you know,

And hitch my cheer up near ye

And jes smile on ye like the sun

Acrosst the whole per-rairies

In Aprile when the thaw’s begun

And country couples marries.

It’s all so good-old-fashioned like

To talk jes like we’re thinkin’,

Without no hidin’ back o’ fans

And giggle-un and winkin’,

Ner sizin’ how each other’s dressed—

Like some is allus doin’,—

“Is Marthy Ellen’s basque be’n turned

Er shore-enough a new-un!”—

Er “ef Steve’s city-friend hain’t jes

‘A leetle kindo’-sorto’”—

Er “wears them-air blame’ eye-glasses

Jes ’cause he hadn’t ort to?”—

And so straight on, dad-libitum,

Tel all of us feels, someway,

Jes like our “comp’ny” wuz the best

When we git up to come ’way!

That’s why I like old friends like you,—

Jes ’cause you’re so abidin’.—

Ef I wuz built to live “fer keeps,”

My principul residin’

Would be amongst the folks ’at kep’

Me allus thinkin’ of ’em,

And sorto’ eechin’ all the time

To tell ’em how I love ’em.—

Sich folks, you know, I jes love so

I wouldn’t live without ’em,

Er couldn’t even drap asleep

But what I dreamp’ about ’em,—

And ef we minded God, I guess

We’d all love one another

Jes like one famb’ly,—me and Pap

And Madaline and Mother.

THE BLIND GIRL

If I might see his face to-day!—

He is so happy now!—To hear

His laugh is like a roundelay—

So ringing-sweet and clear!

His step—I heard it long before

He bounded through the open door

To tell his marriage.—Ah! so kind—

So good he is!—And I—so blind!

But thus he always came to me—

Me, first of all, he used to bring

His sorrow to—his ecstasy—

His hopes and everything;

And if I joyed with him or wept,

It was not long the music slept,—

And if he sung, or if I played—

Or both,—we were the braver made.

I grew to know and understand

His every word at every call,—

The gate-latch hinted, and his hand

In mine confessed it all:

He need not speak one word to me—

He need not sigh—I need not see,—

But just the one touch of his palm,

And I would answer—song or psalm.

He wanted recognition—name—

He hungered so for higher things,—

The altitudes of power and fame,

And all that fortune brings:

Till, with his great heart fevered thus,

And aching as impetuous,

I almost wished sometimes that he

Were blind and patient made, like me.

But he has won!—I knew he would.—

Once in the mighty Eastern mart,

I knew his music only could

Be sung in every heart!

And when he proudly sent me this

From out the great metropolis,

I bent above the graven score

And, weeping, kissed it o’er and o’er.—

And yet not blither sing the birds

Than this glad melody,—the tune

As sweetly wedded with the words

As flowers with middle-June;

Had he not told me, I had known

It was composed of love alone—

His love for her.—And she can see

His happy face eternally!—

While I—O God, forgive, I pray!—

Forgive me that I did so long

To look upon his face to-day!—

I know the wish was wrong.—

Yea, I am thankful that my sight

Is shielded safe from such delight:—

I can pray better, with this blur

Of blindness—both for him and her.

WE DEFER THINGS

We say and we say and we say,

We promise, engage and declare,

Till a year from to-morrow is yesterday,

And yesterday is—Where?

THE MUSKINGUM VALLEY

The Muskingum Valley!—How longin’ the gaze

A feller throws back on its long summer days,

When the smiles of its blossoms and my smiles wuz one-

And-the-same, from the rise to the set o’ the sun:

Wher’ the hills sloped as soft as the dawn down to noon,

And the river run by like an old fiddle-tune,

And the hours glided past as the bubbles ’ud glide,

All so loaferin’-like, ’long the path o’ the tide.

In the Muskingum Valley—it ’peared-like the skies

Looked lovin’ on me as my own mother’s eyes,

While the laughin’-sad song of the stream seemed to be

Like a lullaby angels was wastin’ on me—

Tel, swimmin’ the air, like the gossamer’s thread,

’Twixt the blue underneath and the blue overhead,

My thoughts went astray in that so-to-speak realm

Wher’ Sleep bared her breast as a piller fer them.

In the Muskingum Valley, though far, far away,

I know that the winter is bleak there to-day—

No bloom ner perfume on the brambles er trees—

Wher’ the buds ust to bloom, now the icicles freeze.—

That the grass is all hid ’long the side of the road

Wher’ the deep snow has drifted and shifted and blowed—

And I feel in my life the same changes is there,—

The frost in my heart, and the snow in my hair.

But, Muskingum Valley! my memory sees

Not the white on the ground, but the green in the trees—

Not the froze’-over gorge, but the current, as clear

And warm as the drop that has jes trickled here;

Not the choked-up ravine, and the hills topped with snow,

But the grass and the blossoms I knowed long ago

When my little bare feet wundered down wher’ the stream

In the Muskingum Valley flowed on like a dream.

FOR THIS CHRISTMAS

Ye old-time stave that pealeth out

To Christmas revellers all,

At tavern-tap and wassail-bout,

And in ye banquet-hall.—

Whiles ye old burden rings again,

Add yet ye verse, as due:

“God bless you, merry gentlemen”—

And gentlewomen, too!

A POOR MAN’S WEALTH

A poor man? Yes, I must confess—

No wealth of gold do I possess;

No pastures fine, with grazing kine,

Nor fields of waving grain are mine;

No foot of fat or fallow land

Where rightfully my feet may stand

The while I claim it as my own—

By deed and title, mine alone.

Ah, poor indeed! perhaps you say—

But spare me your compassion, pray!—

When I ride not—with you—I walk

In Nature’s company, and talk

With one who will not slight or slur

The child forever dear to her—

And one who answers back, be sure,

With smile for smile, though I am poor.

And while communing thus, I count

An inner wealth of large amount,—

The wealth of honest purpose blent

With Penury’s environment,—

The wealth of owing naught to-day

But debts that I would gladly pay,

With wealth of thanks still unexpressed

With cumulative interest.—

A wealth of patience and content—

For all my ways improvident;

A faith still fondly exercised—

For all my plans unrealized;

A wealth of promises that still,

Howe’er I fail, I hope to fill;

A wealth of charity for those

Who pity me my ragged clothes.

A poor man? Yes, I must confess—

No wealth of gold do I possess;

No pastures fine, with grazing kine,

Nor fields of waving grain are mine;

But ah, my friend! I’ve wealth, no end!

For millionaires might condescend

To bend the knee and envy me

This opulence of poverty.

THE LITTLE RED RIBBON

The little red ribbon, the ring and the rose!

The summer-time comes, and the summer-time goes—

And never a blossom in all of the land

As white as the gleam of her beckoning hand!

The long winter months, and the glare of the snows;

The little red ribbon, the ring and the rose!

And never a glimmer of sun in the skies

As bright as the light of her glorious eyes!

Dreams only are true; but they fade and are gone—

For her face is not here when I waken at dawn;

The little red ribbon, the ring and the rose

Mine only; hers only the dream and repose.

I am weary of waiting, and weary of tears,

And my heart wearies, too, all these desolate years,

Moaning over the one only song that it knows,—

The little red ribbon, the ring and the rose!

“HOW DID YOU REST, LAST NIGHT?”

“How did you rest, last night?”—

I’ve heard my gran’pap say

Them words a thousand times—that’s right—

Jes them words thataway!

As punctchul-like as morning dast

To ever heave in sight

Gran’pap ’ud allus haf to ast—

“How did you rest, last night?”

Us young-uns used to grin,

At breakfast, on the sly,

And mock the wobble of his chin

And eyebrows helt so high

And kind: “How did you rest, last night?”

We’d mumble and let on

Our voices trimbled, and our sight

Wuz dim, and hearin’ gone.

...

Bad as I ust to be,

All I’m a-wantin’ is

As puore and ca’m a sleep fer me

And sweet a sleep as his!

And so I pray, on Jedgment Day

To wake, and with its light

See his face dawn, and hear him say—

“How did you rest, last night?”

A GOOD-BYE

“Good-bye, my friend!”

He takes her hand—

The pressures blend:

They understand

But vaguely why, with drooping eye,

Each moans—“Good-bye!—Good-bye!”

“Dear friend, good-bye!”

O she could smile

If she might cry

A little while!—

She says, “I ought to smile—but I—

Forgive me—There!—Good-bye!”

“‘Good-bye?’ Ah, no:

I hate,” says he,

“These ‘good-byes’ so!”

“And I,” says she,

“Detest them so—why, I should die

Were this a real ‘good-bye!’”

WHEN MAIMIE MARRIED

When Maimie married Charley Brown,

Joy took possession of the town;

The young folks swarmed in happy throngs—

They rang the bells—they carolled songs—

They carpeted the steps that led

Into the church where they were wed;

And up and down the altar-stair

They scattered roses everywhere;

When, in her orange-blossom crown,

Queen Maimie married Charley Brown.

So beautiful she was, it seemed

Men, looking on her, dreamed they dreamed;

And he, the holy man who took

Her hand in his, so thrilled and shook.

The gargoyles round the ceiling’s rim

Looked down and leered and grinned at him,

Until he half forgot his part

Of sanctity, and felt his heart

Beat worldward through his sacred gown—

When Maimie married Charley Brown.

The bridesmaids kissed her, left and right—

Fond mothers hugged her with delight—

Young men of twenty-seven were seen

To blush like lads of seventeen,

The while they held her hand to quote

Such sentiments as poets wrote.—

Yea, all the heads that Homage bends

Were bowed to her.—But O my friends,

My hopes went up—my heart went down—

When Maimie married—Charley Brown!

“THIS DEAR CHILD-HEARTED WOMAN THAT IS DEAD”

I

This woman, with the dear child-heart,

Ye mourn as dead, is—where and what?

With faith as artless as her Art,

I question not,—

But dare divine, and feel, and know

Her blessedness—as hath been writ

In allegory.—Even so

I fashion it:—

II

A stately figure, rapt and awed

In her new guise of Angelhood,

Still lingered, wistful—knowing God

Was very good.—

Her thought’s fine whisper filled the pause;

And, listening, the Master smiled,

And lo! the stately angel was

—A little child.

TO A POET-CRITIC

Yes,—the bee sings—I confess it—

Sweet as honey—Heaven bless it!—

Yit he’d be a sweeter singer

Ef he didn’t have no stinger.

AN OLD-TIMER

Here where the wayward stream

Is restful as a dream,

And where the banks o’erlook

A pool from out whose deeps

My pleased face upward peeps,

I cast my hook.

Silence and sunshine blent!—

A Sabbath-like content

Of wood and wave;—a free-

Hand landscape grandly wrought

Of Summer’s brightest thought

And mastery.—

For here form, light and shade,

And color—all are laid

With skill so rarely fine,

The eye may even see

The ripple tremblingly

Lip at the line.

I mark the dragon-fly

Flit waveringly by

In ever-veering flight,

Till, in a hush profound,

I see him eddy round

The “cork,” and—’light!

Ho! with the boy’s faith then

Brimming my heart again,

And knowing, soon or late,

The “nibble” yet shall roll

Its thrills along the pole,

I—breathless—wait.

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,

Renown’d 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 untrammelled 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.

UP AND DOWN OLD BRANDYWINE

Up and down old Brandywine,

In the days ’at’s past and gone—

With a dad-burn hook-and-line

And a saplin’-pole—i swawn!

I’ve had more fun, to the square

Inch, than ever anywhere!

Heaven to come can’t discount mine,

Up and down old Brandywine!

Hain’t no sense in wishin’—yit

Wisht to goodness I could jes

“Gee” the blame’ world round and git

Back to that old happiness!—

Kindo’ drive back in the shade

“The old Covered Bridge” there laid

’Crosst the crick, and sorto’ soak

My soul over, hub and spoke!

Honest, now!—it hain’t no dream

’At I’m wantin’,—but the fac’s

As they wuz; the same old stream,

And the same old times, i jacks!—

Gimme back my bare feet—and

Stonebruise too!—And scratched and tanned!—

And let hottest dog-days shine

Up and down old Brandywine!

In and on betwixt the trees

’Long the banks, pour down yer noon,

Kindo’ curdled with the breeze

And the yallerhammer’s tune;

And the smokin’, chokin’ dust

O’ the turnpike at its wusst—

Saturd’ys, say, when it seems

Road’s jes jammed with country teams!

Whilse the old town, fur away

’Crosst the hazy pastur’-land,

Dozed-like in the heat o’ day

Peaceful’ as a hired hand.

Jolt the gravel th’ough the floor

O’ the ole bridge!—grind and roar

With yer blame’ percession-line—

Up and down old Brandywine!

Souse me and my new straw hat

Off the foot-log!—what I care?—

Fist shoved in the crown o’ that—

Like the old Clown ust to wear.—

Wouldn’t swop it fer a’ old

Gin-u-wine raal crown o’ gold!—

Keep yer King ef you’ll gim me

Jes the boy I ust to be!

Spill my fishin’-worms! er steal

My best “goggle-eye!”—but you

Can’t lay hands on joys I feel

Nibblin’ like they ust to do!

So, in memory, to-day

Same old ripple lips away

At my “cork” and saggin’ line,

Up and down old Brandywine!

There the logs is, round the hill,

Where “Old Irvin” ust to lift

Out sunfish from daylight till

Dewfall—’fore he’d leave “The Drift”

And give us a chance—and then

Kindo’ fish back home again,

Ketchin’ ’em jes left and right

Where we hadn’t got “a bite”!

Er, ’way windin’ out and in,—

Old path th’ough the iurnweeds

And dog-fennel to yer chin—

Then come suddent, th’ough the reeds

And cattails, smack into where

Them-air woods-hogs ust to scare

Us clean ’crosst the County-line,

Up and down old Brandywine!

But the dim roar o’ the dam

It ’ud coax us furder still

To’rds the old race, slow and ca’m,

Slidin’ on to Huston’s mill—

Where, I ’spect, “the Freeport crowd”

Never warmed to us er ’lowed

We wuz quite so overly

Welcome as we aimed to be.

Still it ’peared-like ever’thing—

Fur away from home as there—

Had more relish-like, i jing!—

Fish in stream, er bird in air!

O them rich old bottom-lands,

Past where Cowden’s School-house stands!

Wortermelons!—master-mine!

Up and down old Brandywine!

And sich pop-paws!—Lumps o’ raw

Gold and green,—jes oozy th’ough

With ripe yallar—like you’ve saw

Custard-pie with no crust to:

And jes gorges o’ wild plums

Till a feller’d suck his thumbs

Clean up to his elbows! My!—

Me some more er lem me die!

Up and down old Brandywine!...

Stripe me with pokeberry-juice!—

Flick me with a pizen-vine

And yell “Yip!” and lem me loose!

—Old now as I then wuz young,

’F I could sing as I have sung,

Song ’ud shorely ring dee-vine

Up and down old Brandywine!

THREE SINGING FRIENDS

I
LEE O. HARRIS

Schoolmaster and Songmaster! Memory

Enshrines thee with an equal love, for thy

Duality of gifts,—thy pure and high

Endowments—Learning rare, and Poesy.

These were as mutual handmaids, serving thee,

Throughout all seasons of the years gone by,

With all enduring joys ’twixt earth and sky—

In turn shared nobly with thy friends and me.

Thus is it that thy clear song, ringing on,

Is endless inspiration, fresh and free

As the old Mays at verge of June sunshine;

And musical as then, at dewy dawn,

The robin hailed us, and all twinklingly

Our one path wandered under wood and vine.

II
BENJAMIN S. PARKER

Thy rapt song makes of Earth a realm of light

And shadow mystical as some dreamland

Arched with unfathomed azure—vast and grand

With splendor of the morn; or dazzling bright

With orient noon; or strewn with stars of night

Thick as the daisies blown in grasses fanned

By odorous midsummer breezes and

Showered over by all bird-songs exquisite.

This is thy voiced beatific art—

To make melodious all things below,

Calling through them, from far, diviner space,

Thy clearer hail to us.—The faltering heart

Thou cheerest; and thy fellow-mortal so

Fares onward under Heaven with lifted face.

III
JAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS

Bard of our Western world!—its prairies wide,

With edging woods, lost creeks and hidden ways;

Its isolated farms, with roundelays

Of orchard warblers heard on every side;

Its cross-road school-house, wherein still abide

Thy fondest memories,—since there thy gaze

First fell on classic verse; and thou, in praise

Of that, didst find thine own song glorified.

So singing, smite the strings and counterchange

The lucently melodious drippings of

Thy happy harp, from airs of “Tempe Vale,”

To chirp and trill of lowliest flight and range,

In praise of our To-day and home and love—

Thou meadow-lark no less than nightingale.

A NOON LULL

’Possum in de ’tater-patch;

Chicken-hawk a-hangin’

Stiddy ’bove de stable-lot,

An’ cyarpet-loom a-bangin’!

Hi! Mr. Hoppergrass, chawin’ yo’ terbacker,

Flick ye wid er buggy-whirp yer spit er little blacker!

Niggah in de roas’in’-yeers,

Whiskers in de shuckin’;

Weasel croppin’ mighty shy,

But ole hen a-cluckin’!

—What’s got de matter er de mule-colt now?

Drapt in de turnip-hole, chasin’ f’um de cow!

A WINDY DAY

The dawn was a dawn of splendor,

And the blue of the morning skies

Was as placid and deep and tender

As the blue of a baby’s eyes;

The sunshine flooded the mountain,

And flashed over land and sea

Like the spray of a glittering fountain.—

But the wind—the wind—Ah me!

Like a weird invisible spirit,

It swooped in its airy flight;

And the earth, as the stress drew near it,

Quailed as in mute affright;

The grass in the green fields quivered—

The waves of the smitten brook

Chillily shuddered and shivered,

And the reeds bowed down and shook.

Like a sorrowful miserere

It sobbed, and it blew and blew,

Till the leaves on the trees looked weary,

And my prayers were weary, too;

And then, like the sunshine’s glimmer

That failed in the awful strain,

All the hope of my eyes grew dimmer

In a spatter of spiteful rain.

MY HENRY

He’s jes a great, big, awk’ard, hulkin’

Feller,—humped, and sorto’ sulkin’-

Like, and ruther still-appearin’—

Kind-as-ef he wuzn’t keerin’

Whether school helt out er not—

That’s my Henry, to a dot!

Allus kindo’ liked him—whether

Childern, er growed-up together!

Fifteen year’ ago and better,

’Fore he ever knowed a letter,

Run acrosst the little fool

In my Primer-class at school.

When the Teacher wuzn’t lookin’,

He’d be th’owin’ wads; er crookin’

Pins; er sprinklin’ pepper, more’n

Likely, on the stove; er borin’

Gimlet-holes up thue his desk—

Nothin’ that boy wouldn’t resk!

But, somehow, as I was goin’

On to say, he seemed so knowin’,

Other ways, and cute and cunnin’—

Allus wuz a notion runnin’

Thue my giddy, fool-head he

Jes had be’n cut out fer me!

Don’t go much on prophesyin’,

But last night whilse I wuz fryin’

Supper, with that man a-pitchin’

Little Marthy round the kitchen,

Think-says-I, “Them baby’s eyes

Is my Henry’s, jes p’cise!”

THE SONG I NEVER SING

As when in dreams we sometimes hear

A melody so faint and fine

And musically sweet and clear,

It flavors all the atmosphere

With harmony divine,—

So, often in my waking dreams,

I hear a melody that seems

Like fairy voices whispering

To me the song I never sing.

Sometimes when brooding o’er the years

My lavish youth has thrown away—

When all the glowing past appears

But as a mirage that my tears

Have crumbled to decay,—

I thrill to find the ache and pain

Of my remorse is stilled again,

As, forward bent and listening,

I hear the song I never sing.

A murmuring of rhythmic words,

Adrift on tunes whose currents flow

Melodious with the trill of birds,

And far-off lowing of the herds

In lands of long ago;

And every sound the truant loves

Comes to me like the coo of doves

When first in blooming fields of Spring

I heard the song I never sing.

The echoes of old voices, wound

In limpid streams of laughter where

The river Time runs bubble-crowned,

And giddy eddies ripple round

The lilies growing there;

Where roses, bending o’er the brink,

Drain their own kisses as they drink,

And ivies climb and twine and cling

About the song I never sing.

An ocean-surge of sound that falls

As though a tide of heavenly art

Had tempested the gleaming halls

And crested o’er the golden walls

In showers on my heart....

Thus—thus, with open arms and eyes

Uplifted toward the alien skies,

Forgetting every earthly thing,

I hear the song I never sing.

O nameless lay, sing clear and strong,

Pour down thy melody divine

Till purifying floods of song

Have washed away the stains of wrong

That dim this soul of mine!

O woo me near and nearer thee,

Till my glad lips may catch the key,

And, with a voice unwavering,

Join in the song I never sing.

TO EDGAR WILSON NYE

O “William,”—in thy blithe companionship

What liberty is mine—what sweet release

From clamorous strife, and yet what boisterous peace!

Ho! ho! it is thy fancy’s finger-tip

That dints the dimple now, and kinks the lip

That scarce may sing, in all this glad increase

Of merriment! So, pray-thee, do not cease

To cheer me thus;—for, underneath the quip

Of thy droll sorcery, the wrangling fret

Of all distress is stilled—no syllable

Of sorrow vexeth me—no tear-drops wet

My teeming lids save those that leap to tell

Thee thou’st a guest that overweepeth, yet

Only because thou jokest overwell.

LITTLE DAVID

The mother of the little boy that sleeps

Has blest assurance, even as she weeps:

She knows her little boy has now no pain—

No further ache, in body, heart or brain;

All sorrow is lulled for him—all distress

Passed into utter peace and restfulness.—

All health that heretofore has been denied—

All happiness, all hope, and all beside

Of childish longing, now he clasps and keeps

In voiceless joy—the little boy that sleeps.

OUT OF THE HITHERWHERE

Out of the hitherwhere into the yon—

The land that the Lord’s love rests upon;

Where one may rely on the friends he meets,

And the smiles that greet him along the streets:

Where the mother that left you years ago

Will lift the hands that were folded so,

And put them about you, with all the love

And tenderness you are dreaming of.

Out of the hitherwhere into the yon—

Where all of the friends of your youth have gone,—

Where the old schoolmate that laughed with you,

Will laugh again as he used to do,

Running to meet you, with such a face

As lights like a moon the wondrous place

Where God is living, and glad to live,

Since He is the Master and may forgive.

Out of the hitherwhere into the yon!—

Stay the hopes we are leaning on—

You, Divine, with Your merciful eyes

Looking down from the far-away skies,—

Smile upon us, and reach and take

Our worn souls Home for the old home’s sake.—

And so Amen,—for our all seems gone

Out of the hitherwhere into the yon.

RABBIT IN THE CROSS-TIES

Rabbit in the cross-ties.—

Punch him out—quick!

Git a twister on him

With a long prong stick.

Watch him on the south side—

Watch him on the—Hi!—

There he goes! Sic him, Tige!

Yi! Yi!! Yi!!!

SERENADE—TO NORA

The moonlight is failin’—

The sad stars are palin’—

The black wings av night are a-dhroopin’ an’ trailin’;

The wind’s miserere

Sounds lonesome an’ dreary;

The katydid’s dumb an’ the nightingale’s weary.

Troth, Nora! I’m wadin’

The grass an’ paradin’

The dews at your dure, wid my swate serenadin’,

Alone and forsaken,

Whilst you’re never wakin’

To tell me you’re wid me an’ I am mistaken!

Don’t think that my singin’

It’s wrong to be flingin’

Forninst av the dreams that the Angels are bringin’;

For if your pure spirit

Might waken and hear it,

You’d never be draamin’ the Saints could come near it!

Then lave off your slaapin’—

The pulse av me’s laapin’

To have the two eyes av yez down on me paapin’.

Och, Nora! It’s hopin’

Your windy ye’ll open

And light up the night where the heart av me’s gropin’.

THE LITTLE WHITE HEARSE

As the little white hearse went glimmering by—

The man on the coal-cart jerked his lines,

And smutted the lid of either eye,

And turned and stared at the business signs;

And the street-car driver stopped and beat

His hands on his shoulders, and gazed up-street

Till his eye on the long track reached the sky—

As the little white hearse went glimmering by.

As the little white hearse went glimmering by—

A stranger petted a ragged child

In the crowded walks, and she knew not why,

But he gave her a coin for the way she smiled;

And a boot-black thrilled with a pleasure strange,

As a customer put back his change

With a kindly hand and a grateful sigh,

As the little white hearse went glimmering by.

As the little white hearse went glimmering by—

A man looked out of a window dim,

And his cheeks were wet and his heart was dry,

For a dead child even were dear to him!

And he thought of his empty life, and said:—

“Loveless alive, and loveless dead—

Nor wife nor child in earth or sky!”

As the little white hearse went glimmering by.

WHAT REDRESS

I pray you, do not use this thing

For vengeance; but if questioning

What wound, when dealt your humankind,

Goes deepest,—surely he will find

Who wrongs you, loving him no less—

There’s nothing hurts like tenderness.

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?

WHEN LIDE MARRIED HIM

When Lide married him—w’y, she had to jes dee-fy

The whole popilation!—But she never bat’ an eye!

Her parents begged, and threatened—she must give him up—that he

Wuz jes “a common drunkard!”—And he wuz, appearantly.—

Swore they’d chase him off the place

Ef he ever showed his face—

Long after she’d eloped with him and married him fer shore!—

When Lide married him, it wuz “Katy, bar the door!”

When Lide married him—Well! she had to go and be

A hired girl in town somewheres—while he tromped round to see

What he could git that he could do,—you might say, jes sawed wood

From door to door!—that’s what he done—’cause that wuz best he could!

And the strangest thing, i jing!

Wuz, he didn’t drink a thing,—

But jes got down to bizness, like he someway wanted to,

When Lide married him, like they warned her not to do!

When Lide married him—er, ruther, had be’n married

A little up’ards of a year—some feller come and carried

That hired girl away with him—a ruther stylish feller

In a bran-new green spring-wagon, with the wheels striped red and yeller:

And he whispered, as they driv

To’rds the country, “Now we’ll live!”—

And somepin’ else she laughed to hear, though both her eyes wuz dim,

’Bout “trustin’ Love and Heav’n above, sence Lide married him!”

MY BRIDE THAT IS TO BE

O Soul of mine, look out and see

My bride, my bride that is to be!—

Reach out with mad, impatient hands,

And draw aside futurity

As one might draw a veil aside—

And so unveil her where she stands

Madonna-like and glorified—

The queen of undiscovered lands

Of love, to where she beckons me—

My bride, my bride that is to be.

The shadow of a willow-tree

That wavers on a garden-wall

In summer-time may never fall

In attitude as gracefully

As my fair bride that is to be;—

Nor ever Autumn’s leaves of brown

As lightly flutter to the lawn

As fall her fairy-feet upon

The path of love she loiters down.—

O’er drops of dew she walks, and yet

Not one may stain her sandal wet—

Ay, she might dance upon the way

Nor crush a single drop to spray,

So airy-like she seems to me,—

My bride, my bride that is to be.

I know not if her eyes are light

As summer skies or dark as night,—

I only know that they are dim

With mystery: In vain I peer

To make their hidden meaning clear.

While o’er their surface, like a tear

That ripples to the silken brim,

A look of longing seems to swim

All worn and weary-like to me;

And then, as suddenly, my sight

Is blinded with a smile so bright,

Through folded lids I still may see

My bride, my bride that is to be.

Her face is like a night of June

Upon whose brow the crescent-moon

Hangs pendent in a diadem

Of stars, with envy lighting them.—

And, like a wild cascade, her hair

Floods neck and shoulder, arm and wrist,

Till only through a gleaming mist

I seem to see a Siren there,

With lips of love and melody

And open arms and heaving breast

Wherein I fling myself to rest,

The while my heart cries hopelessly

For my fair bride that is to be.

...

Nay, foolish heart and blinded eyes!

My bride hath need of no disguise.—

But, rather, let her come to me

In such a form as bent above

My pillow when, in infancy,

I knew not anything but love.—

O let her come from out the lands

Of Womanhood—not fairy isles,—

And let her come with Woman’s hands

And Woman’s eyes of tears and smiles,—

With Woman’s hopefulness and grace

Of patience lighting up her face:

And let her diadem be wrought

Of kindly deed and prayerful thought,

That ever over all distress

May beam the light of cheerfulness.—

And let her feet be brave to fare

The labyrinths of doubt and care,

That, following, my own may find

The path to Heaven God designed.—

O let her come like this to me—

My bride—my bride that is to be.

“RINGWORM FRANK”

Jest Frank Reed’s his real name—though

Boys all calls him “Ringworm Frank,”

’Cause he allus runs round so.—

No man can’t tell where to bank

Frank’ll be,

Next you see

Er hear of him!—Drat his melts!—

That man’s allus somers else!

We’re old pards.—But Frank he jest

Can’t stay still!—Wuz prosper’n’ here,

But lit out on furder West

Somers on a ranch, last year:

Never heard

Nary a word

How he liked it, tel to-day,

Got this card, reads thisaway:—

“Dad-burn climate out here makes

Me homesick all Winter long,

And when Springtime comes, it takes

Two pee-wees to sing one song,—

One sings ‘pee,’

And the other one ‘wee!’

Stay right where you air, old pard,—

Wisht I wuz this postal card!”

AN EMPTY GLOVE

I

An empty glove—long withering in the grasp

Of Time’s cold palm. I lift it to my lips,—

And lo, once more I thrill beneath its clasp,

In fancy, as with odorous finger-tips

It reaches from the years that used to be

And proffers back love, life and all, to me.

II

Ah! beautiful she was beyond belief:

Her face was fair and lustrous as the moon’s;

Her eyes—too large for small delight or grief,—

The smiles of them were Laughter’s afternoons;

Their tears were April showers, and their love—

All sweetest speech swoons ere it speaks thereof.

III

White-fruited cocoa shown against the shell

Were not so white as was her brow below

The cloven tresses of the hair that fell

Across her neck and shoulders of nude snow;

Her cheeks—chaste pallor, with a crimson stain—

Her mouth was like a red rose rinsed with rain.

IV

And this was she my fancy held as good—

As fair and lovable—in every wise

As peerless in pure worth of womanhood

As was her wondrous beauty in men’s eyes.—

Yet, all alone, I kiss this empty glove—

The poor husk of the hand I loved—and love.

OUR OWN

They walk here with us, hand-in-hand;

We gossip, knee-by-knee;

They tell us all that they have planned—

Of all their joys to be,—

And, laughing, leave us: And, to-day,

All desolate we cry

Across wide waves of voiceless graves—

Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!

MAKE-BELIEVE AND CHILD-PLAY

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 black-snakes 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 sceptre, too, and a signet-ring,

As vassals and serfs declare:

And a voice, god wot, that is equalled 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!

“TWIGGS AND TUDENS”

If my old school-chum and room-mate John Skinner is alive to-day—and no doubt he is alive, and quite so, being, when last heard from, the very alert and effective Train Dispatcher at Butler, Indiana,—he will not have forgotten a certain night in early June (the 8th) of 1870, in “Old Number ’Leven” of the Dunbar House, Greenfield, when he and I sat the long night through, getting ready a famous issue of our old school-paper, “The Criterion.” And he will remember, too, the queer old man who occupied, but that one night, the room just opposite our own, Number 13. For reasons wholly aside from any superstitious dread connected with the numerals, 13 was not a desirable room; its locality was alien to all accommodations, and its comforts, like its furnishings, were extremely meagre. In fact, it was the room usually assigned to the tramp-printer, who, in those days, was an institution; or again, it was the local habitation of the oft-recurring transient customer who was too incapacitated to select a room himself when he retired—or rather, when he was personally retired by “the hostler,” as the gentlemanly night-clerk of that era was habitually designated.

As both Skinner and myself—between fitful terms of school—had respectively served as “printer’s devil” in the two rival newspaper offices of the town, it was natural for us to find a ready interest in anything pertaining to the newspaper business; and so it was, perhaps, that we had been selected, by our own approval and that of our fellow-students of The Graded Schools, to fill the rather exalted office of editing “The Criterion.” Certain it is that the rather abrupt rise from the lowly duties of the “roller” to the editorial management of a paper of our own (even if issued in handwriting) we accepted as a natural right; and, vested in our new power of office, we were largely “shaping the whisper of the throne” about our way.

And upon this particular evening it was, as John and I had fairly squared ourselves for the work of the night, that we heard the clatter and shuffle of feet on the side-stairs, and, an instant later, the hostler establishing some poor unfortunate in 13, just across the hall.

“Listen!” said John, as we heard an old man’s voice through the open transom of our door,—“listen at that!”

It was an utterance peculiarly refined, in language as well as intonation. A low, mild, rather apologetic voice, gently assuring the hostler that “everything was very snug and comfortable indeed—so far as the compartment was concerned—but would not the attendant kindly supply a better light, together with pen-and-ink—and just a sheet or two of paper,—if he would be so very good as to find a pardon for so very troublesome a guest.”

“Hain’t no writin’-paper,” said the hostler, briefly,—“and the big lamps is all in use. These fellers here in ’Leven might let you have some paper and—Hain’t you got a lead-pencil?”

“Oh, no matter!” came the impatient yet kindly answer of the old voice—“no matter at all, my good fellow!—Good night—good night!”

We waited till the sullen, clumpy footsteps down the hall and stair had died away.

Then Skinner, with a handful of foolscap, opened our door; and, with an indorsing smile from me, crossed the hall and tapped at 13—was admitted—entered, and very quietly closed the door behind him, evidently that I might not be disturbed.

I wrote on in silence for quite a time. It was, in fact, a full half-hour before John had returned,—and with a face and eye absolutely blazing with delight.

“An old printer,” whispered John, answering my look,—“and we’re in luck:—He’s a genius, ’y God! and an Englishman, and knows Dickens personally—used to write races with him, and’s got a manuscript of his in his ‘portmanteau,’ as he calls an old oil-cloth knapsack with one lung clean gone. Excuse this extra light.—Old man’s lamp’s like a sore eye, and he’s going to touch up the Dickens sketch for us! Hear?—For us—for ‘The Criterion.’ Says he can’t sleep—he’s in distress—has a presentiment—some dear friend is dying—or dead now—and he must write—write!”

This is, in briefest outline, the curious history of the subjoined sketch, especially curious for the reason that the following morning’s cablegram announced that the great novelist, Charles Dickens, had been stricken suddenly and seriously the night previous. On the day of this announcement—even as “The Criterion” was being read to perfunctorily interested visitors of The Greenfield Graded Schools—came the further announcement of Mr. Dickens’s death. The old printer’s manuscript, here reproduced, is, as originally, captioned—

TWIGGS AND TUDENS

“Now who’d want a more cosier little home than me and Tude’s got here?” asked Mr. Twiggs, as his twinkling eyes swept caressingly around the cheery little room in which he, alone, stood one chill December evening as the great St. Paul’s was drawling six.

“This ain’t no princely hall with all its gorgeous paraphanaly, as the play-bills says; but it’s what I calls a’ ‘interior,’ which for meller comfort and cheerful surroundin’s ain’t to be ekalled by no other ‘flat’ on the boundless, never-endin’ stage of this existence!” And as the exuberant Mr. Twiggs rendered this observation, he felt called upon to smile and bow most graciously to an invisible audience, whose wild approval he in turn interpreted by an enthusiastic clapping of his hands and the cry of “Ongcore!” in a dozen different keys—this strange acclamation being made the more grotesque by a great green parrot perched upon the mantel, which, in a voice less musical than penetrating, chimed in with “Hooray for Twiggs and Tudens!” a very great number of times.

“Tude’s a queer girl,” said Mr. Twiggs, subsiding into a reflective calm, broken only by the puffing of his pipe, and the occasional articulation of a thought, as it loitered through his mind. “Tude’s a queer girl!—a werry queer girl!” repeated Mr. Twiggs, pausing again, with a long whiff at his pipe, and marking the graceful swoop the smoke made as it dipped and disappeared up the wide, black-throated chimney; and then, as though dropping into confidence with the great fat kettle on the coals, that steamed and bubbled with some inner paroxysm, he added, “And queer and nothink short, is the lines for Tude, eh?

“Now s’posin’,” he continued, leaning forward and speaking in a tone whose careful intonation might have suggested a more than ordinary depth of wisdom and sagacity,—“s’posin’ a pore chap like me, as ain’t no property only this-’ere ‘little crooked house,’ as Tude calls it, and some o’ the properties I ’andles at the Drury—as I was a-sayin’,—s’posin’ now a’ old rough chap like me was jest to tell her all about herself, and who she is and all, and not no kith or kin o’ mine, let alone a daughter, as she thinks—What do you reckon now ’ud be the upshot, eh?” And as Mr. Twiggs propounded this mysterious query he jabbed the poker prankishly in the short-ribs of the grate, at which the pot, as though humoring a joke it failed to comprehend wholly, set up a chuckling of such asthmatic violence that its smothered cachinnations tilted its copper lid till Mr. Twiggs was obliged to dash a cup of water in its face.

“And Tude’s a-comin’ of a’ age, too,” continued Mr. Twiggs, “when a more tenderer pertecter than a father, so to speak, wouldn’t be out o’ keepin’ with the nat’ral order o’ things, seein’ as how she’s sorto’ startin’ for herself-like now. And it’s a question in my mind, if it ain’t my bounden duty as her father—or ruther, who has been a father to her all her life—to kindo’ tell her jest how things is, and all—and how I am, and everythink,—and how I feel as though I ort’o stand by her, as I allus have, and allus have had her welfare in view, and kindo’ feel as how I allus—ort’o kindo’—ort’o kindo’”—and here Mr. Twiggs’s voice fell into silence so abruptly that the drowsy parrot started from its trance-like quiet and cried “Ortokindo! Ortokindo!” with such a strength of seeming mockery that it was brushed violently to the floor by the angry hand of Mr. Twiggs and went backing awkwardly beneath the table.

“Blow me,” said Mr. Twiggs, “if the knowin’ impidence of that-’ere bird ain’t astonishin’!” And then, after a serious controversy with the draught of his pipe, he went on with his deliberations.

“Lor! it were jest scrumptious to see Tude in ‘The Iron Chest’ last night! Now, I ain’t no actur myself,—I’ve been on, of course, a thousand times as ‘fillin’,’ ‘sogers’ and ‘peasants’ and the like, where I never had no lines, on’y in the ‘choruses’; but if I don’t know nothin’ but ‘All hail!—All hail!’ I’ve had the experience of bein’ under the baleful hinfluence of the hoppery-glass, and I’m free to say it air a ticklish position and no mistake. But Tude! w’y, bless you, she warn’t the first bit flustered, was she? ’Peared-like she jest felt perfectly at home-like—like her mother afore her! And I’m dashed if I didn’t feel the cold chills a-creepin’ and a-crawlin’ when she was a-singin’ ‘Down by the river there grows a green willer and a-weepin’ all night with the bank for her piller’; and when she come to the part about wantin’ to be buried there ’while the winds was a-blowin’ close by the stream where her tears was a-flowin’, and over her corpse to keep the green willers growin’,’ I’m d—d if I didn’t blubber right out!” And as the highly sympathetic Mr. Twiggs delivered this acknowledgment, he stroked the inner corners of his eyes, and rubbed his thumb and finger on his trousers.

“It were a tryin’ thing, though,” he went on, his mellow features settling into a look not at all in keeping with his shiny complexion—“it were a tryin’ thing, and it air a tryin’ thing to see them lovely arms o’ hern a-twinin’ so lovin’-like around that-’ere Stanley’s neck and a-kissin’ of him—as she’s obleeged to do, of course—as the ‘properties’ of the play demands; but I’m blowed if she wouldn’t do it quite so nat’ral-like I’d feel easier. Blow me!” he broke off savagely, starting up and flinging his pipe in the ashes, “I’m about a-comin’ to the conclusion I ain’t got no more courage’n a blasted school-boy! Here I am old enough to be her father—mighty nigh it—and yet I’m actually afeard to speak up and tell her jest how things is, and all, and how I feel like I—like I—ort’o—ort’o—”

“Ortokindo! Ortokindo!” shrieked the parrot, clinging in a reversed position to the under-round of a chair.—“Ortokindo! Ortokindo! Tude’s come home!—Tude’s come home!” And as though in happy proof of this latter assertion, the gentle Mr. Twiggs found his chubby neck encircled by a pair of rosy arms, and felt upon his cheek the sudden pressure of a pair of lips that thrilled his old heart to the core. And then the noisy bird dropped from its perch and marched pompously from its place of concealment, trailing its rusty wings and shrieking, “Tude’s come home!” at the top of its brazen voice.

“Shet up!” screamed Mr. Twiggs, with a pretended gust of rage, kicking lamely at the feathered oracle; “I’ll ‘Tude’s-come-home’ ye! W’y, a feller can’t hear his ears for your infernal squawkin’!” And then, turning toward the serious eyes that peered rebukingly into his own, his voice fell gentle as a woman’s: “Well, there, Tudens, I beg parding; I do indeed. Don’t look at me thataway. I know I’m a great, rough, good-for—”But a warm, swift kiss cut short the utterance; and as the girl drew back, still holding the bright old face between her tender palms, he said simply, “You’re a queer girl, Tudens; a queer girl.”

“Ha! am I?” said the girl, in quite evident heroics and quotation, starting back with a theatrical flourish and falling into a fantastic attitude.—“‘Troth, I am sorry for it; me poor father’s heart is bursting with gratichude, and he would fain ease it by pouring out his thanks to his benefactor.’”

“Werry good! Werry good, indeed!” said Mr. Twiggs, gazing wistfully upon the graceful figure of the girl. “You’re a-growin’ more wonderful’ clever in your ‘presence’ every day, Tude. You don’t think o’ nothink else but your actin’, do ye, now?” And, as Mr. Twiggs concluded his observations, a something very like a sigh came faltering from his lips.

“Why, listen there! Ah-ha!” laughed Tude, clapping her hands and dancing gayly around his chair.—“Why, you old melancholy Dane, you! are you actually sighing?” Then, dropping into a tragic air of deep contrition, she continued: “‘But, believe me, I would not question you, but to console you, Wilford. I would scorn to pry into any one’s grief, much more yours, Wilford, to satisfy a busy curiosity.’”

“Oh, don’t, Tude; don’t rehearse like that at me!—I can’t a-bear it.” And the serious Mr. Twiggs held out his hand as though warding off a blow. At this appeal the girl’s demeanor changed to one of tenderest solicitude.

“Why, Pop’m,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder, “I did not mean to vex you—forgive me. I was only trying to be happy, as I ought, although my own heart is this very minute heavy—very heavy—very.—No, no; I don’t mean that—but, Father, Father, I have not been dutiful.”

“W’y, yes, you have,” broke in Mr. Twiggs, smothering the heavy exclamation in his handkerchief. “You ain’t been ondutiful, nor nothink else. You’re jest all and everythink that heart could wish. It’s all my own fault, Tudens; it’s all my fault. You see, I git to thinkin’ sometimes like I was a-goin’ to lose you; and now that you are a-comin’ on in years, and gittin’ such a fine start, and all, and position and everythink.—Yes-sir! position, ’cause everybody likes you, Tudens. You know that; and I’m that proud of you and all, and that selfish, that it’s onpossible I could ever, ever give you up;—never, never, ever give you up!” And Mr. Twiggs again stifled his voice in his handkerchief and blew his nose with prolonged violence.

It may have been the melancholy ticking of the clock, as it grated on the silence following, it may have been the gathering darkness of the room, or the plaintive sighing of the rising wind without, that caused the girl to shudder as she stooped to kiss the kind old face bent forward in the shadows, and turned with feigned gayety to the simple task of arranging supper. But when, a few minutes later, she announced that Twiggs and Tudens’s tea was waiting, the two smilingly sat down, Mr. Twiggs remarking that if he only knew a blessing, he’d ask it upon that occasion most certainly.

“—For on’y look at these-’ere ’am and eggs,” he said, admiringly: “I’d like to know if the Queen herself could cook ’em to a nicer turn, or serve ’em up more tantaliz’in’er to the palate. And this-’ere soup,—or whatever it is, is rich as gravy; and these boughten rolls ain’t a bad thing either, split in two and toasted as you do ’em, air they, Tude?” And as Mr. Twiggs glanced inquiringly at his companion, he found her staring vacantly at her plate. “I was jest a-sayin’, Tudens—” he went on, pretending to blow his tea and glancing cautiously across his saucer.

“Yes, Pop’m, I heard you;—we really ought to have a blessing, by all means.”

Mr. Twiggs put down his tea without tasting it. “Tudens,” he said, after a long pause, in which he carefully buttered a piece of toast for the second time,—“Tudens, I’m ’most afeard you didn’t grasp that last remark of mine: I was a-sayin’—”

“Well—” said Tudens, attentively.

“I was a-sayin’,” said Mr. Twiggs, averting his face and staring stoically at his toast—“I was a-sayin’ that you was a-gittin’ now to be quite a young woman.”

“Oh, so you were,” said Tudens, with charming naïveté.

“Well,” said Mr. Twiggs, repentantly, but with a humorous twinkle, “if I wasn’t a-sayin’ of it, I was a-thinkin’ it.”—And then, running along hurriedly, “And I’ve been a-thinkin’ it for days and days—ever sence you left the ‘balley’ and went in ‘chambermaids,’ and last in leadin’ rôles. Maybe you ain’t noticed it, but I’ve had my eyes on you from the ‘flies’ and the ‘wings’; and jest betwixt us, Tudens, and not for me as ort to know better, and does know better, to go a-flatterin’, at my time o’—or to go a-flatterin’ anybody, as I said, after you’re a-gittin’ to be a young woman—and what’s more, a werry ’andsome young woman!”

“Why, Pop’m!” exclaimed Tudens, blushing.

“Yes, you are, Tudens, and I mean it, every word of it; and as I was a-goin’ on to say, I’ve been a-watchin’ of you, and a-layin’ off a long time jest to tell you summat that will make your eyes open wider ’an that! What I mean,” said Mr. Twiggs, coughing vehemently and pushing his chair back from the table—“what I mean is, you’ll soon be old enough to be a-settin’ up for yourself-like, and a-marry’—W’y, Tudens, what ails you?” The girl had risen to her feet, and, with a face dead white and lips all tremulous, stood clinging to her chair for support. “What ails you, Tudens?” repeated Mr. Twiggs, rising to his feet and gazing on her with a curious expression of alarm and tenderness.

“Nothing serious, dear Pop’m,” said Tudens, with a flighty little laugh,—“only it just flashed on me all at once that I’d clean forgotten poor ‘Dick’s’ supper.” And as she turned abruptly to the parrot, cooing and clucking to him playfully,—up, up from some hitherto undreamed-of depth within the yearning heart of Mr. Twiggs mutely welled the old utterance, “Tude’s a queer girl!”

“Whatever made you think of such a thing, Father?” called Tudens, gayly; and then, without waiting for an answer, went on cooing to the parrot,—“Hey, old dicky-bird! do you think Tudens is a handsome young woman? and do you think Tudens is old enough to marry, eh?” This query delivered, she broke into a fit of merriment which so wrought upon the susceptibilities of the bird that he was heard repeatedly to declare and affirm, in most positive and unequivocal terms, that Tude had actually come home.

“Yes—sir, Tudens!” broke in Mr. Twiggs at last, lighting a fresh churchwarden and settling into his old position at the grate; “have your laugh out over it now, but it’s a werry serious fact, for all that.”

“I know it, Father,” said the girl, recovering her gravity, turning her large eyes lovingly upon him and speaking very tenderly. “I know it—oh, I know it; and many, many times when I have thought of it, and then again of your old kindly faith; all the warm wealth of your love; and our old home here, and all the happiness it ever held for me and you alike—oh, I have tried hard—indeed, indeed I have—to put all other thought away and live for you alone! But, Pop’m! dear old Pop’m—”And even as the great strong breast made shelter for her own, the woman’s heart within her flowed away in mists of gracious tears.

“Couldn’t live without old Pop’m, could her?” half cried and laughed the happy Mr. Twiggs, tangling his clumsy fingers in the long dark hair that fell across his arm, and bending till his glad face touched her own.—“Couldn’t live without old Pop’m?”

“Never! never!” sobbed the girl, lifting her brimming eyes and gazing in the kind old face. “Oh, may I always live with you, Pop’m? Always?—Forever?—”

“—And a day!” said Mr. Twiggs, emphatically.

“Even after I’m—” and she hid her face again.

“Even after—what, Tudens?”

“After I’m—after I’m—married?” murmured Tudens, with a longing pressure.

“Nothink short!” said Mr. Twiggs;—“perwidin’,” he added, releasing one hand and smoothing back his scanty hair—“perwidin’, of course, that your man is a’ honest, straitforrerd feller, as ain’t no lordly notions nor nothink o’ that sort.”

“Nor rich?”

“Well, I ain’t so p’ticklar about his bein’ pore, adzackly.—Say a feller as works for his livin’, and knows how to ’usband his earnin’s thrifty-like, and allus ’as a hextry crown or two laid up against a rainy day—and a good perwider, of course,” said Mr. Twiggs, with a comfortable glance around the room.—“’Ll blow me if I didn’t see a face there a-peerin’ in the winder!”

“Oh, no, you didn’t,” said the girl, without raising her head. “Go on—‘and a good provider—’”

“—A good perwider,” continued Mr. Twiggs; “and a feller, of course, as has a’ eye out for the substantials of this life, and ain’t afeard o’ work—that’s the idear! that’s the idear!” said Mr. Twiggs, by way of sweeping conclusion.

“And that’s all old Pop’m asks, after all?” queried the girl, with her radiant face wistful as his own.

“W’y, certainly!” said Mr. Twiggs, with heartiness. “Ain’t that all and everythink to make home happy?”—catching her face between his great brown hands and kissing her triumphantly.

“Hooray for Twiggs-and Twiggs-and Twiggs-and—” cootered the drowsy bird, disjointedly.

The girl had risen.—“And you’ll forgive me for marrying such a man?”

“Won’t I?” said Mr. Twiggs, with a rapturous twinkle.

As he spoke, she flung her arms about his neck and pressed her lips close, close against his cheek, her own glad face now fronting the little window.... She heard the clicking of the latch, the opening of the door, and the step of the intruder ere she loosed her hold.

“God bless you, Pop’m, and forgive me!—This is my husband.”

The newcomer, Mr. Stanley, reached and grasped the hand of Mr. Twiggs, eagerly, fervidly, albeit the face he looked on then will haunt him to the hour of his death.—Yet haply, some day, when the Master takes the selfsame hand within his own and whispers, “Tude’s come home,” the old smile will return.

DOLORES

Lithe-armed, and with satin-soft shoulders

As white as the cream-crested wave;

With a gaze dazing every beholder’s,

She holds every gazer a slave:

Her hair, a fair haze, is outfloated

And flared in the air like a flame;

Bare-breasted, bare-browed and bare-throated—

Too smooth for the soothliest name.

She wiles you with wine, and wrings for you

Ripe juices of citron and grape;

She lifts up her lute and sings for you

Till the soul of you seeks no escape;

And you revel and reel with mad laughter,

And fall at her feet, at her beck,

And the scar of her sandal thereafter

You wear like a gyve round your neck.

WHEN I DO MOCK

When I do mock the blackness of the night

With my despair—outweep the very dews

And wash my wan cheeks stark of all delight,

Denying every counsel of dear use

In mine embittered state; with infinite

Perversity, mine eyes drink in no sight

Of pleasance that nor moon nor stars refuse

In silver largess and gold twinklings bright;—

I question me what mannered brain is mine

That it doth trick me of the very food

It panteth for—the very meat and wine

That yet should plump my starved soul with good

And comfortable plethora of ease,

That I might drowse away such rhymes as these.

MY MARY

My Mary, O my Mary!

The simmer skies are blue:

The dawnin’ brings the dazzle,

An’ the gloamin’ brings the dew,—

The mirk o’ nicht the glory

O’ the moon, an’ kindles, too,

The stars that shift aboon the lift.—

But naething brings me you!

Where is it, O my Mary,

Ye are biding a’ the while?

I ha’ wended by your window—

I ha’ waited by the stile,

An’ up an’ down the river

I ha’ won for mony a mile,

Yet never found, adrift or drown’d,

Your lang-belated smile.

Is it forgot, my Mary,

How glad we used to be?—

The simmer-time when bonny bloomed

The auld trysting-tree,—

How there I carved the name for you,

An’ you the name for me;

An’ the gloamin’ kenned it only

When we kissed sae tenderly.

Speek ance to me, my Mary!—

But whisper in my ear

As light as ony sleeper’s breath,

An’ a’ my soul will hear;

My heart shall stap its beating,

An’ the soughing atmosphere

Be hushed the while I leaning smile

An’ listen to you, dear!

My Mary, O my Mary!

The blossoms bring the bees;

The sunshine brings the blossoms,

An’ the leaves on a’ the trees;

The simmer brings the sunshine

An’ the fragrance o’ the breeze,—

But O wi’out you, Mary,

I care naething for these!

We were sae happy, Mary!

O think how ance we said—

Wad ane o’ us gae fickle,

Or are o’ us lie dead,—

To feel anither’s kisses

We wad feign the auld instead,

An’ ken the ither’s footsteps

In the green grass owerhead.

My Mary, O my Mary!

Are ye dochter o’ the air,

That ye vanish aye before me

As I follow everywhere?—

Or is it ye are only

But a mortal, wan wi’ care,

Sin’ I search through a’ the kirkyird

An’ I dinna find ye there?

EROS

The storm of love has burst at last

Full on me: All the world, before,

Was like an alien, unknown shore

Along whose verge I laughing passed.—

But now—I laugh not any more,—

Bowed with a silence vast in weight

As that which falls on one who stands

For the first time on ocean sands,

Seeing and feeling all the great

Awe of the waves as they wash the lands

And billow and wallow and undulate.

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 marvellously 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 matchless 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 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-bye’

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 tasselled 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 worshipper,—

For lo! she spake a tongue,” moaned he,

“Unknown to me;—unknown to me

As mine to her—as mine to her.”

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.

TO A JILTED SWAIN

Get thee back neglected friends;

And repay, as each one lends,

Tithes of shallow-sounding glee

Or keen-ringing raillery:

Get thee from lone vigils; be

But in jocund company,

Where is laughter and acclaim

Boisterous above the name.—

Get where sulking husbands sip

Ale-house cheer, with pipe at lip;

And where Mol the barmaid saith

Curst is she that marrieth.

THE VOICES

Down in the night I hear them:

The Voices—unknown—unguessed,—

That whisper, and lisp, and murmur,

And will not let me rest.—

Voices that seem to question,

In unknown words, of me,

Of fabulous ventures, and hopes and dreams

Of this and the World to be.

Voices of mirth and music,

As in sumptuous homes; and sounds

Of mourning, as of gathering friends

In country burial-grounds.

Cadence of maiden voices—

Their lovers’ blent with these;

And of little children singing,

As under orchard trees.

And often, up from the chaos

Of my deepest dreams, I hear

Sounds of their phantom laughter

Filling the atmosphere:

They call to me from the darkness;

They cry to me from the gloom,

Till I start sometimes from my pillow

And peer through the haunted room;

When the face of the moon at the window

Wears a pallor like my own,

And seems to be listening with me

To the low, mysterious tone,—

The low, mysterious clamor

Of voices that seem to be

Striving in vain to whisper

Of secret things to me;—

Of a something dread to be warned of;

Of a rapture yet withheld;

Or hints of the marvellous beauty

Of songs unsyllabled.

But ever and ever the meaning

Falters and fails and dies,

And only the silence quavers

With the sorrow of my sighs.

And I answer:—O Voices, ye may not

Make me to understand

Till my own voice, mingling with you,

Laughs in the Shadow-land.

A BAREFOOT BOY

A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play—

For May is here once more, and so is he,—

His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,

And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:

Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array

Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me

Of woody pathways winding endlessly

Along the creek, where even yesterday

He plunged his shrinking body—gasped and shook—

Yet called the water “warm,” with never lack

Of joy. And so, half enviously I look

Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,—

His toe stubbed—ay, his big toe-nail knocked back

Like unto the clasp of an old pocket-book.

THE YOUTHFUL PATRIOT

O what did the little boy do

’At nobody wanted him to?

Didn’t do nothin’ but romp an’ run,

An’ whoop an’ holler an’ bang his gun

An’ bu’st fire-crackers, an’ ist have fun—

An’ ’at’s all the little boy done!

PONCHUS PILUT

Ponchus Pilut ust to be

Ist a Slave, an’ now he’s free.

Slaves wuz on’y ist before

The War wuz—an’ ain’t no more.

He works on our place fer us,—

An’ comes here—sometimes he does.

He shocks corn an’ shucks it.—An’

He makes hominy “by han’!”—

Wunst he bringed us some, one trip,

Tied up in a piller-slip:

Pa says, when Ma cooked it, “My!

This-here’s gooder’n you buy!”

Ponchus pats fer me an’ sings;

An’ he says funny things!

Ponchus calls a dish a “deesh”—

Yes, an’ he calls fishes “feesh”!

When Ma want him eat wiv us

He says, “’Skuse me—’deed you mus’!—

Ponchus know’ good manners, Miss.—

He ain’ eat wher’ White-folks is!”

’Lindy takes his dinner out

Wher’ he’s workin’—roun’ about.—

Wunst he et his dinner spread

In our ole wheelborry-bed.

Ponchus Pilut says “’at’s not

His right name,—an’ done fergot

What his sho’-’nuff name is now—

An’ don’ matter none nohow!”

Yes, an’ Ponchus he’ps Pa, too,

When our butcherin’s to do,

An’ scalds hogs—an’ says, “Take care

’Bout it, er you’ll set the hair!”

Yes, an’ out in our back-yard

He he’ps ’Lindy rendur lard;

An’, wite in the fire there, he

Roast’ a pigtail wunst fer me.—

An’ ist nen th’ole tavurn-bell

Rung, down-town, an’ he says, “Well!—

Hear dat! Lan’ o’ Caanan, Son,

Ain’t dat bell say ‘Pigtail done!’

—‘Pigtail done!

Go call Son!—

Tell dat

Chile dat

Pigtail done!’”

A TWINTORETTE

Ho! my little maiden

With the glossy tresses,

Come thou and dance with me

A measure all divine;

Let my breast be laden

With but thy caresses—

Come thou and glancingly

Mate thy face with mine.

Thou shalt trill a rondel,

While my lips are purling

Some dainty twitterings

Sweeter than the birds’;

And, with arms that fondle

Each as we go twirling,

We will kiss, with titterings,

Lisps and loving words.

SLUMBER-SONG

Sleep, little one! The Twilight folds her gloom

Full tenderly about the drowsy Day,

And all his tinselled hours of light and bloom

Like toys are laid away.

Sleep! sleep! The noon-sky’s airy cloud of white

Has deepened wide o’er all the azure plain;

And, trailing through the leaves, the skirts of Night

Are wet with dews as rain.

But rest thou sweetly, smiling in thy dreams,

With round fists tossed like roses o’er thy head,

And thy tranc’d lips and eyelids kissed with gleams

Of rapture perfected.

THE CIRCUS PARADE

The Circus!—The Circus!—The throb of the drums,

And the blare of the horns, as the Band-wagon comes;

The clash and the clang of the cymbals that beat,

As the glittering pageant winds down the long street!

In the Circus parade there is glory clean down

From the first spangled horse to the mule of the Clown,

With the gleam and the glint and the glamour and glare

Of the days of enchantment all glimmering there!

And there are the banners of silvery fold

Caressing the winds with their fringes of gold,

And their high-lifted standards, with spear-tips aglow,

And the helmeted knights that go riding below.

There’s the Chariot, wrought of some marvellous shell

The Sea gave to Neptune, first washing it well

With its fabulous waters of gold, till it gleams

Like the galleon rare of an Argonaut’s dreams.

And the Elephant, too, (with his undulant stride

That rocks the high throne of a king in his pride,)

That in jungles of India shook from his flanks

The tigers that leapt from the Jujubee-banks.

Here’s the long, ever-changing, mysterious line

Of the Cages, with hints of their glories divine

From the barred little windows, cut high in the rear,

Where the close-hidden animals’ noses appear.

Here’s the Pyramid-car, with its splendor and flash,

And the Goddess on high, in a hot-scarlet sash

And a pen-wiper skirt!—O the rarest of sights

Is this “Queen of the Air” in cerulean tights!

Then the far-away clash of the cymbals, and then

The swoon of the tune ere it wakens again

With the capering tones of the gallant cornet

That go dancing away in a mad minuet.

The Circus!—The Circus!—The throb of the drums,

And the blare of the horns, as the Band-wagon comes;

The clash and the clang of the cymbals that beat,

As the glittering pageant winds down the long street.

FOLKS AT LONESOMEVILLE

Pore-folks lives at Lonesomeville—

Lawzy! but they’re pore!

Houses with no winders in,

And hardly any door:

Chimbly all tore down, and no

Smoke in that at all—

Ist a stovepipe through a hole

In the kitchen-wall!

Pump ’at’s got no handle on;

And no woodshed—And, wooh!—

Mighty cold there, choppin’ wood,

Like pore-folks has to do!—

Winter-time, and snow and sleet

Ist fairly fit to kill!—

Hope to goodness Santy Claus

Goes to Lonesomeville!

THE THREE JOLLY HUNTERS

O there were three jolly hunters;

And a-hunting they did go,

With a spaniel-dog, and a pointer-dog,

And a setter-dog also.

Looky there!

And they hunted and they hal-looed;

And the first thing they did find

Was a dingling-dangling hornet’s-nest

A-swinging in the wind.

Looky there!

And the first one said—“What is it?”

Said the next, “We’ll punch and see”:

And the next one said, a mile from there,

“I wish we’d let it be!”

Looky there!

And they hunted and they hal-looed;

And the next thing they did raise

Was a bobbin’ bunny cottontail

That vanished from their gaze.

Looky there!

One said it was a hot base-ball,

Zipped through the brambly thatch,

But the others said ’twas a note by post,

Or a telegraph-dispatch.

Looky there!

So they hunted and they hal-looed;

And the next thing they did sight

Was a great big bulldog chasing them,

And a farmer, hollerin’ “Skite!”

Looky there!

And the first one said, “Hi-jinktum!”

And the next, “Hi-jinktum-jee!”

And the last one said, “Them very words

Had just occurred to me!”

Looky there!

THE LITTLE DOG-WOGGY

A Little Dog-Woggy

Once walked round the World:

So he shut up his house; and, forgetting

His two puppy-children

Locked in there, he curled

Up his tail in pink bombazine netting,

And set out

To walk round

The World.

He walked to Chicago,

And heard of the Fair—

Walked on to New York, where he never,—

In fact, he discovered

That many folks there

Thought less of Chicago than ever,

As he musing-

Ly walked round

The World.

He walked on to Boston,

And round Bunker Hill,

Bow-wowed, but no citizen heerd him—

Till he ordered his baggage

And called for his bill,

And then, bless their souls! how they cheered him,

As he gladly

Walked on round

The World.

He walked and walked on

For a year and a day—

Dropped down at his own door and panted,

Till a teamster came driving

Along the highway

And told him that house there was ha’nted

By the two starve-

Dest pups in

The World.

CHARMS

I
FOR CORNS AND THINGS

Prune your corn in the gray of the morn

With a blade that’s shaved the dead,

And barefoot go and hide it so

The rain will rust it red:

Dip your foot in the dew and put

A print of it on the floor,

And stew the fat of a brindle cat,

And say this o’er and o’er:—

Corny! morny! blady! dead!

Gory! sory! rusty! red!

Footsy! putsy! floory! stew!

Fatsy! catsy!

Mew!

Mew!

Come grease my corn

In the gray of the morn!

Mew! Mew! Mew!

II
TO REMOVE FRECKLES—SCOTCH ONES

Gae the mirkest night an’ stan’

’Twixt twa graves, ane either han’;

Wi’ the right han’ fumblin’ ken

Wha the deid mon’s name’s ance be’n,—

Wi’ the ither han’ sae read

Wha’s neist neebor o’ the deid;

An it be or wife or lass,

Smoor tha twa han’s i’ the grass,

Weshin’ either wi’ the ither,

Then tha faice wi’ baith thegither;

Syne ye’ll seeket at cockcraw—

Ilka freeckle’s gang awa!

A FEW OF THE BIRD-FAMILY

The Old Bob-white, and Chipbird;

The Flicker, and Chewink,

And little hopty-skip bird

Along the river-brink.

The Blackbird, and Snowbird,

The Chicken-hawk, and Crane;

The glossy old black Crow-bird,

And Buzzard down the lane.

The Yellowbird, and Redbird,

The Tomtit, and the Cat;

The Thrush, and that Redhead-bird

The rests all pickin’ at!

The Jay-bird, and the Bluebird,

The Sapsuck, and the Wren—

The Cockadoodle-doo-bird,

And our old Settin’-hen!

THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND

Where do you go when you go to sleep,

Little Boy! Little Boy! where?

’Way—’way in where’s Little Bo-Peep,

And Little Boy Blue, and the Cows and Sheep

A-wandering ’way in there—in there—

A-wandering ’way in there!

And what do you see when lost in dreams,

Little Boy, ’way in there?

Firefly-glimmers and glow-worm gleams,

And silvery, low, slow-sliding streams,

And mermaids, smiling out—’way in where

They’re a-hiding—’way in there!

Where do you go when the Fairies call,

Little Boy! Little Boy! where?

Wade through the dews of the grasses tall,

Hearing the weir and the waterfall

And the Wee Folk—’way in there—in there—

And the Kelpies—’way in there!

And what do you do when you wake at dawn,

Little Boy! Little Boy! what?

Hug my Mommy and kiss her on

Her smiling eyelids, sweet and wan,

And tell her everything I’ve forgot,

A-wandering ’way in there—in there—

Through the blind-world ’way in there!

THE TRESTLE AND THE BUCK-SAW

The Trestle and the Buck-Saw

Went out a-walking once,

And staid away and staid away

For days and weeks and months:

And when they got back home again,

Of all that had occurred,

The neighbors said the gossips said

They never said a word.

THE KING OF OO-RINKTUM-JING

Dainty Baby Austin!

Your Daddy’s gone to Boston

To see the King

Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing

And the whale he rode acrost on!

Boston Town’s a city:

But O it’s such a pity!—

They’ll greet the King

Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing

With never a nursery ditty!

But me and you and Mother

Can stay with Baby-brother,

And sing of the King

Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing

And laugh at one another!

So what cares Baby Austin

If Daddy has gone to Boston

To see the King

Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing

And the whale he rode acrost on?

THE TOY PENNY-DOG

Ma put my Penny-Dog

Safe on the shelf,

An’ left no one home but him,

Me an’ myself;

So I clumbed a big chair

I pushed to the wall—

But the Toy Penny-Dog

Ain’t there at all!

I went back to Dolly—

An’ she ’uz gone too,

An’ little Switch ’uz layin’ there;—

An’ Ma says “Boo!”—

An’ there she wuz a-peepin’

Through the front-room door:

An’ I ain’t goin’ to be a bad

Little girl no more!

JARGON-JINGLE

Tawdery!—faddery! Feathers and fuss!

Mummery!—flummery! wusser and wuss!

All o’ Humanity—Vanity Fair!—

Heaven for nothin’, and—nobody there!

THE GREAT EXPLORER

He sailed o’er the weltery watery miles

For a tabular year-and-a-day,

To the kindless, kinkable Cannibal Isles

He sailed and he sailed away!

He captured a loon in a wild lagoon,

And a yak that weeps and smiles,

And a bustard-bird, and a blue baboon,

In the kindless Cannibal Isles

And wilds

Of the kinkable Cannibal Isles.

He swiped in bats with his butterfly-net,

In the kinkable Cannibal Isles,

And got short-waisted and over-het

In the haunts of the crocodiles;

And nine or ten little Pygmy Men

Of the quaintest shapes and styles

He shipped back home to his old Aunt Jenn,

From the kindless Cannibal Isles

And wilds

Of the kinkable Cannibal Isles.

THE SCHOOL-BOY’S FAVORITE

“Over the river and through the wood

Now Grandmother’s cap I spy:

Hurrah for the fun!—Is the pudding done?

Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!”

School Reader.

Fer any boy ’at’s little as me,

Er any little girl,

That-un’s the goodest poetry-piece

In any book in the worl’!

An’ ef grown-peoples wuz little ag’in

I bet they’d say so, too,

Ef they’d go see their ole Gran’ma,

Like our Pa lets us do!

Over the river an’ through the wood

Now Gran’mother’s cap I spy:

Hurrah fer the fun!—Is the puddin’ done?—

Hurrah fer the punkin-pie!

An’ ’ll tell you why ’at’s the goodest piece:—

’Cause it’s ist like we go

To our Gran’ma’s, a-visitun there,

When our Pa he says so;

An’ Ma she fixes my little cape-coat

An’ little fuzz-cap; an’ Pa

He tucks me away—an’ yells “Hoo-ray!”—

An’ whacks Ole Gray, an’ drives the sleigh

Fastest you ever saw!

Over the river an’ through the wood

Now Gran’mother’s cap I spy:

Hurrah fer the fun!—Is the puddin’ done?—

Hurrah fer the punkin-pie!

An’ Pa ist snuggles me ’tween his knees—

An’ I he’p hold the lines,

An’ peek out over the buffalo-robe;—

An’ the wind ist blows!—an’ the snow ist snows!—

An’ the sun ist shines! an’ shines!—

An’ th’ ole horse tosses his head an’ coughs

The frost back in our face.—

An’ I ruther go to my Gran’ma’s

Than any other place!

Over the river an’ through the wood

Now Gran’mother’s cap I spy:

Hurrah fer the fun!—Is the puddin’ done?—

Hurrah fer the punkin-pie!

An’ all the peoples they is in town

Watches us whizzin’ past

To go a-visitun our Gran’ma’s,

Like we all went there last;—

But they can’t go, like ist our folks

An’ Johnny an’ Lotty, an’ three

Er four neighber-childerns, an’ Rober-ut Volney,

An’ Charley an’ Maggy an’ me!

Over the river an’ through the wood

Now Gran’mother’s cap I spy:

Hurrah fer the fun!—Is the puddin’ done?—

Hurrah fer the punkin-pie!

ALBUMANIA

Some certain misty yet tenable signs

Of the oracular Raggedy Man,

Happily found in these fugitive lines

Culled from the album of ’Lizabuth Ann.

FRIENDSHIP

O Friendship, when I muse on you,

As thoughtful minds, O Friendship, do,

I muse, O Friendship, o’er and o’er,

O Friendship—as I said before.

LIFE

“What is Life?” If the Dead might say,

’Spect they’d answer, under breath,

Sorry-like yet a-laughin’:—A

Poor pale yesterday of Death!

LIFE’S HAPPIEST HOURS

Best, I guess,

Was the old “Recess.”—

’Way back there’s where I’d love to be—

Shet of each lesson and hateful rule,

When the whole round World was as sweet to me

As the big ripe apple I brung to School.

MARION-COUNTY MAN HOMESICK ABROAD

I, who had hobnobbed with the shades of kings,

And canvassed grasses from old masters’ graves,

And in cathedrals stood and looked at things

In niches, crypts and naves;—

My heavy heart was sagging with its woe,

Nor Hope to prop it up, nor Promise, nor

One woman’s hands—and O I wanted so

To be felt sorry for!

BIRDY! BIRDY!

The Redbreast loves the blooming bough—

The Bluebird loves it same as he;—

And as they sit and sing there now,

So do I sing to thee—

Only, dear heart, unlike the birds,

I do not climb a tree

To sing—

I do not climb a tree.

When o’er this page, in happy years to come,

Thou jokest on these lines and on my name,

Doubt not my love and say, “Though he lies dumb,

He’s lying, just the same!”

THE LITTLE MOCK-MAN

The Little Mock-man on the Stairs—

He mocks the lady’s horse ’at rares

At bi-sickles an’ things,—

He mocks the mens ’at rides ’em, too;

An’ mocks the Movers, drivin’ through.

An’ hollers, “Here’s the way you do

With them-air hitchin’-strings!”

“Ho! ho!” he’ll say,

Ole Settlers’ Day,

When they’re all jogglin’ by,—

“You look like this,”

He’ll say, an’ twis’

His mouth an’ squint his eye

An’ ’tend-like he wuz beat the bass

Drum at both ends—an’ toots an’ blares

Ole dinner-horn an’ puffs his face—

The Little Mock-man on the Stairs!

The Little Mock-man on the Stairs

Mocks all the peoples all he cares

’At passes up an’ down!

He mocks the chickens round the door,

An’ mocks the girl ’at scrubs the floor,

An’ mocks the rich, an’ mocks the pore,

An’ ever’thing in town!

“Ho! ho!” says he,

To you er me;

An’ ef we turns an’ looks,

He’s all cross-eyed

An’ mouth all wide

Like Giunts is, in books.—

“Ho! ho!” he yells, “look here at me,”

An’ rolls his fat eyes roun’ an’ glares,—

“You look like this!” he says, says he—

The Little Mock-man on the Stairs!

The Little Mock—

The Little Mock—

The Little Mock-man on the Stairs,

He mocks the music-box an’ clock,

An’ roller-sofy an’ the chairs;

He mocks his Pa, an’ specs he wears;

He mocks the man ’at picks the pears

An’ plums an’ peaches on the shares;

He mocks the monkeys an’ the bears

On picture-bills, an’ rips an’ tears

’Em down,—an’ mocks ist all he cares,

An’ ever’body ever’wheres!

SUMMER-TIME AND WINTER-TIME

In the golden noon-shine,

Or in the pink of dawn;

In the silver moonshine,

Or when the moon is gone;

Open eyes, or drowsy lids,

’Wake or ’most asleep,

I can hear the katydids,—

“Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!”

Only in the winter-time

Do they ever stop,

In the chip-and-splinter-time,

When the backlogs pop,—

Then it is, the kettle-lids,

While the sparkles leap,

Lisp like the katydids,—

“Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!”

HOME-MADE RIDDLES—ALL BUT THE ANSWERS

I

No one ever saw it

Till I dug it from the ground;

I found it when I lost it,

And lost it when I found:

I washed it, and dressed it,

And buried it once more—

Dug it up, and loved it then

Better than before.

I was paid for finding it—

I don’t know why or how,—

But I lost, found, and kept it,

And haven’t got it now.

II

Sometimes it’s all alone—

Sometimes in a crowd;

It says a thousand bright things,

But never talks aloud.

Everybody loves it,

And likes to have it call,

But if you shouldn’t happen to,

It wouldn’t care at all.

First you see or hear of it,

It’s a-singing,—then

You may look and listen,

But it never sings again.

THE LOVELY CHILD

Lilies are both pure and fair,

Growing ’midst the roses there—

Roses, too, both red and pink,

Are quite beautiful, I think.

But of all bright blossoms—best—

Purest—fairest—loveliest,—

Could there be a sweeter thing

Than a primrose, blossoming?

THE YELLOWBIRD

Hey! my little Yellowbird,

What you doing there?

Like a flashing sun-ray,

Flitting everywhere:

Dangling down the tall weeds

And the hollyhocks,

And the lordly sunflowers

Along the garden-walks.

Ho! my gallant Golden-bill,

Pecking ’mongst the weeds,

You must have for breakfast

Golden flower-seeds:

Won’t you tell a little fellow

What you have for tea?—

’Spect a peck o’ yellow, mellow

Pippin on the tree.

ENVOY

When but a little boy, it seemed

My dearest rapture ran

In fancy ever, when I dreamed

I was a man—a man!

Now—sad perversity!—my theme

Of rarest, purest joy

Is when, in fancy blest, I dream

I am a little boy.