GIFT OF 
 MICHAEL REE^E 
 
 
AFTERWHILES 
 
Qgoo&sfig 
 JJames HEflifcomB (gife^ 
 
 NEGHBORLY POEMS 
 SKETCHES IN PROSE WITH 
 
 INTERLUDING VERSES 
 AFTERWHILES 
 PIPES O PAN AT ZEKES- 
 
 BURY. (Prose and Verse) 
 RHYMES OF CHILDHOOD 
 THE FLYING ISLANDS OF 
 
 THE NIGHT 
 GREEN FIELDS AND RUN 
 
 NING BROOKS 
 ARMAZINDY 
 A CHILD-WORLD 
 HOME-FOLKS 
 HIS PA S ROMANCE (Portrait 
 
 by Clay) _ _ _, 
 
 GREENFIELD EDITION 
 
 Sold only in sets. Eleven volumes 
 uniformly bound in sage-green 
 cloth, gilt top .............. $13.50 
 
 The same in half-calf ...... 27.50 
 
 OLD-FASHIONED ROSES 
 
 (English Edition) 
 THE GOLDEN YEAR 
 
 (English Edition) 
 POEMS HERE AT HOME 
 RUBAIYAT OF DOC SIFERS 
 THE BOOK OF JOYOUS 
 
 CHILDREN 
 RILEY CHILD-RHYMES 
 
 (Pictures by Vawter) 
 RILEY LOVE-LYRICS 
 
 (Pictures by Dyer) 
 RILEY FARM-RHYMES 
 
 (Pictures by Vawter) 
 AN OLD SWEETHEART OF 
 
 MINE (Pictures by Christy) 
 OUT TO OLD AUNT MARY S 
 
 (Pictures by Christy) 
 A DEFECTIVE SANTA GLAUS 
 
 (Forty Pictures by Relyea and 
 
 Vawter) 
 
* AFTERWHILES 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 I 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
:SE 
 
 COPTBIQHT 1887, 1898, 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
TO 
 
 MY MOTHER ELIZABETH 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 AFTERWHILES PAGB 
 
 Proem 3 
 
 HERE WEISER 7 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL CITY 10 
 
 LOCKERBIE STREET 13 
 
 DAS KRIST KINDEL 15 
 
 ANSELMO 20 
 
 A HOME-MADE FAIRY TALE 21 
 
 THE SOUTH WIND AND THE SUN 23 
 
 THE LOST Kiss 32 
 
 THE SPHINX 34 
 
 IP I KNEW WHAT POETS KNOW 35 
 
 IKE WALTON S PRAYER 37 
 
 A ROUGH SKETCH 40 
 
 OUR KIND OF A MAN 41 
 
 THE HARPER 43 
 
 OLD AUNT MARY S 44 
 
 ILLILEO 47 
 
 vii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE KING . . 49 
 
 A BRIDE 51 
 
 THE DEAD LOVER 52 
 
 * A SONG 53 
 
 WHEN BESSIE DIED 55 
 
 THE SHOWER 57 
 
 / A LIFE-LESSON 
 
 - A SCRAWL 59 
 
 AWAY 60 
 
 - WHO BIDES His TIME 62 
 
 FROM THE HEADBOARD OF A GRAVE IN PARAGUAY . . 64 
 
 LAUGHTER HOLDING BOTH His SIDES 65 
 
 -FAME 66 
 
 > THE EIPEST PEACH 71 
 
 A FRUIT-PIECE 72 
 
 > THEIR SWEET SORROW 74 
 
 JOHN MCKEEN 76 
 
 OUT OF NAZARETH 79 
 
 SEPTEMBER DARK 81 
 
 WE TO SIGH INSTEAD OF SING 83 
 
 THE BLOSSOMS ON THE TREES 85 
 
 LAST NIGHT AND THIS 87 
 
 viii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A DISCOURAGING MODEL 88 
 
 BACK FROM A Two- YEARS SENTENCE 89 
 
 THE WANDERING JEW 91 
 
 BECALMED 94 
 
 To SANTA GLAUS 96 
 
 WHERE THE CHILDREN USED TO PLAY 98 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF PAN 100 
 
 SONNETS 
 
 PAN 105 
 
 DUSK 106 
 
 JUNE o .... 107 
 
 SILENCE 108 
 
 SLEEP 109 
 
 HER HAIR 110 
 
 DEARTH Ill 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE FARM 112 
 
 THE SERENADE 113 
 
 ART AND LOVE , 114 
 
 LONGFELLOW 115 
 
 * INDIANA 116 
 
 TIME 117 
 
 GRANT AT BEST AUGUST 8, 1885 119 
 
 ix 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 IN DIALECT PAGE 
 
 * OLD-FASHIONED ROSES 127 
 
 GRIGGSBY S STATION 129 
 
 * KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE .132 
 
 WHEN THE HEARSE COMES BACK 138 
 
 A CANARY AT THE FARM 142 
 
 A LIZ-TOWN HUMORIST 144 
 
 KINGRY S MILL 146 
 
 JONEY 150 
 
 * LIKE His MOTHER USED TO MAKE 154 
 
 THE TRAIN-MISSER 156 
 
 GRANNY 158 
 
 OLD OCTOBER 160 
 
 JlM 162 
 
 *To ROBERT BURNS 165 
 
 A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 168 
 
 THE TOWN KARNTEEL 178 
 
 REGARDIN TERRY HUT 180 
 
 LEEDLE DUTCH BABY . 183 
 
 DOWN ON WRIGGLE CRICK 185 
 
 WHEN DE FOLKS is GONE 189 
 
 THE LITTLE TOWN o TAILHOLT 191 
 
 v % LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE 193 
 
 x 
 
AFTERWHILES 
 
PROEM 
 
 Where are they the Afterwhiles 
 Luring us the lengthening miles 
 Of our lives f Where is the dawn 
 With the dew across the lawn 
 Stroked with eager feet the far 
 Way the hills and valleys are? 
 Where the sun that smites the frown 
 Of the eastward-gazer down? 
 Where the rifted wreaths of mist 
 O er us, tinged with amethyst. 
 Round the mountain s steep defilesf 
 Where are all the afterwhilesf 
 
 Afterwhile and we will go 
 Thither, yon, and too and fro 
 From, the stifling city streets 
 To the country s cool retreats 
 From, the riot to the rest 
 Where hearts beat the placidest: 
 Afterwhile, and we will fall 
 Under breezy trees % and loll 
 
 3 
 
PROEM 
 
 In the shade, with thirsty sight 
 Drinking deep the blue delight 
 Of the skies that will beguile 
 Us as children afterwhile. 
 
 Afterwhile and one intends 
 To be gentler to his friends, 
 To walk with them, in the hush 
 Of still evenings, o" 1 er the plush 
 Of home-leading fields, and stand 
 Long at parting, hand in hand: 
 One, in time, will joy to take 
 New resolves for some one s sake, 
 $nd wear then the look that lies 
 Clear and pure in other eyes 
 He will soothe and reconcile 
 His own conscience afterwhile. 
 
 Afterwhile we have in view 
 Afar scene to journey to, 
 Where the old home is, and where 
 The old mother waits us there, 
 Peering, as the time grows late, 
 Down the old path to the gate. 
 How we ll click the latch that locks 
 In the pinks and hollyhocks, 
 
 4 
 
PROEM 
 
 And leap up the path once more 
 Where she waits us at the door! 
 How we ll greet the dear old smile, 
 And the warm tears afterwhile! 
 
 Ah> the endless afterwhiles! 
 Leagues on leagues, and miles on miles, 
 In the distance far withdrawn, 
 Stretching on, and on, and on, 
 Till the fancy is footsore 
 And faints in the dust before 
 The last milestone s granite face. 
 Hacked with: Here Beginneth Space. 
 O far glimmering worlds and wings, 
 Mystic smiles and beckonings, 
 Lead us through the shadowy aisles, 
 Out into the afterwhiles. 
 
HERR WEISER 
 
 HERR WEISER ! Threescore-years-and-ten, 
 A hale white rose of his countrymen, 
 Transplanted here in the Hoosier loam, 
 And blossomy as his German home 
 As blossomy and as pure and sweet 
 As the cool green glen of his calm retreat, 
 Far withdrawn from the noisy town 
 Where trade goes clamoring up and down, 
 Whose fret and fever, and stress and strife, 
 May not trouble his tranquil life ! 
 
 Breath of rest, what a balmy gust! 
 
 Quit of the city s heat and dust, 
 
 Jostling down by the winding road, 
 
 Through the orchard ways of his quaint abode. 
 
 Tether the horse, as we onward fare 
 
 Under the pear-trees trailing there, 
 
 7 
 
HERR WEISER 
 
 And thumping the wooden bridge at night 
 With lumps of ripeness and lush delight, 
 Till the stream, as it maunders on till dawn, 
 Is powdered and pelted and smiled upon. 
 
 Herr Weiser, with his wholesome face, 
 
 And the gentle blue of his eyes, and grace 
 
 Of unassuming honesty, 
 
 Be there to welcome you and me ! 
 
 And what though the toil of the farm be stopped 
 
 And the tireless plans of the place be dropped, 
 
 While the prayerful master s knees are set 
 
 In beds of pansy and mignonette 
 
 And lily and aster and columbine, 
 
 Offered in love, as yours and mine ? 
 
 What, but a blessing of kindly thought, 
 Sweet as the breath of forget-me-not! 
 What, but a spirit of lustrous love 
 White as the aster he bends above ! 
 What, but an odorous memory 
 Of the dear old man, made known to me 
 
 3 
 
HERR WEISER 
 
 In days demanding a help like his, 
 As sweet as the life of the lily is 
 As sweet as the soul of a babe, bloom-wise 
 Born of a lily in paradise. 
 
THE BEAUTIFUL CITY 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL CITY ! Forever 
 
 Its rapturous praises resound ; 
 We fain would behold it but never 
 
 A glimpse of its glory is found : 
 We slacken our lips at the tender 
 
 White breasts of our mothers to hear 
 Of its marvellous beauty and splendor ; 
 
 We see but the gleam of a tear ! 
 
 Yet never the story may tire us 
 
 First graven in symbols of stone 
 Rewritten on scrolls of papyrus 
 
 And parchment, and scattered and blown 
 By the winds of the tongues of all nations, 
 
 Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled 
 Down the rack of a hundred translations, 
 
 From the earliest lisp of the world. 
 10 
 
THE BEAUTIFUL CITY 
 
 We compass the earth and the ocean, 
 
 From the Orient s uttermost light, 
 To where the last ripple in motion 
 
 Lips hem of the skirt of the night, 
 But the Beautiful City evades us 
 
 No spire of it glints in the sun 
 No glad-bannered battlement shades us 
 
 When all our long journey is done. 
 
 Where lies it? We question and listen; 
 
 We lean from the mountain, or mast, 
 And see but dull earth, or the glisten 
 
 Of seas inconceivably vast: 
 The dust of the one blurs our vision, 
 
 The glare of the other our brain, 
 Nor city nor island Elysian 
 
 In all of the land or the main ! 
 
 We kneel in dim fanes where the thunders 
 
 Of organs tumultuous roll, 
 And the longing heart listens and wonders, 
 
 And the eyes look aloft from the soul : 
 
 n 
 
THE BEAUTIFUL CITY 
 
 But the chanson grows fainter and fainter, 
 Swoons wholly away and is dead ; 
 
 And our eyes only reach where the painter 
 Has dabbled a saint overhead. 
 
 The Beautiful City! O mortal, 
 
 Fare hopefully on in thy quest, 
 Pass down through the green grassy portal 
 
 That leads to the Valley of Rest ; 
 There first passed the One who, in pity 
 
 Of all thy great yearning, awaits 
 To point out The Beautiful City, 
 
 And loosen the trump at the gates. 
 
 12 
 
LOCKERBIE STREET 
 
 SUCH a dear little street it is, nestled away 
 
 From the noise of the city and heat of the day, 
 
 In cool shady coverts of whispering trees, 
 
 With their leaves lifted up to shake hands with the 
 
 breeze 
 
 Which in all its wide wanderings never may meet 
 With a resting-place fairer than Lockerbie street! 
 
 There is such a relief, from the clangor and din 
 Of the heart of the town, to go loitering in 
 Through the dim, narrow walks, with the sheltering 
 
 shade 
 
 Of the trees waving over the long promenade, 
 And littering lightly the ways of our feet 
 With the gold of the sunshine of Lockerbie street. 
 
 3 
 
LOCKERBIE STREET 
 
 And the nights that come down the dark pathways of 
 
 dusk, 
 
 With the stars in their tresses, and odors of musk 
 In their moon- woven raiments, bespangled with dews, 
 And looped up with lilies for lovers to use 
 In the songs that they sing to the tinkle and beat 
 Of their sweet serenadings through Lockerbie street. 
 
 O my Lockerbie street ! You are fair to be seen 
 Be it noon of the day, or the rare and serene 
 Afternoon of the night you are one to my heart, 
 And I love you above all the phrases of art, 
 For no language could frame and no lips could repeat 
 My rhyme-haunted raptures of Lockerbie street. 
 
 4 
 
DAS KRIST KINDEL 
 
 I HAD fed the fire and stirred it, till the sparkles in de 
 light 
 
 Snapped their saucy little fingers at the chill December 
 night ; 
 
 And in dressing-gown and slippers, I had tilted back 
 "my throne" 
 
 The old split-bottomed rocker and was musing all 
 alone. 
 
 I could hear the hungry Winter prowling round the 
 
 outer door, 
 And the tread of muffled footsteps on the white piazza. 
 
 floor; 
 But the sounds came to me only as the murmur of a 
 
 stream 
 
 That mingled with the current of a lazy-flowing dream. 
 
 15 
 
DAS KRIST KINDEL 
 
 Like a fragrant incense rising, curled the smoke of my 
 cigar, 
 
 With the lamplight gleaming through it like a mist- 
 enfolded star; 
 
 And as I gazed, the vapor like a curtain rolled away, 
 
 With a sound of bells that tinkled, and the clatter of a 
 sleigh. 
 
 And in a vision, painted like a picture in the air, 
 I saw the elfish figure of a man with frosty hair 
 A quaint old man that chuckled with a laugh as he ap 
 peared, 
 
 And with ruddy cheeks like embers in the ashes of his 
 beard. 
 
 He poised himself grotesquely, in an attitude of mirth, 
 On a damask-covered hassock that was sitting on the 
 
 hearth ; 
 
 And at a magic signal of his stubby little thumb, 
 I saw the fireplace changing to a bright proscenium. 
 
 16 
 
DAS KRIST KINDEL 
 
 And looking there, I marvelled as I saw a mimic stage 
 Alive with little actors of a very tender age ; 
 And some so very tiny that they tottered as they walked, 
 And lisped and purled and gurgled like the brooklets, 
 when they talked. 
 
 And their faces were like lilies, and their eyes like purest 
 
 dew, 
 And their tresses like the shadows that the shine is woven 
 
 through ; 
 
 And they each had little burdens, and a little tale to tell 
 Of fairy lore, and giants, and delights delectable. 
 
 And they mixed and intermingled, weaving melody with 
 
 jy> 
 
 Till the magic circle clustered round a blooming baby- 
 boy; 
 
 And they threw aside their treasures in an ecstasy of 
 glee, 
 
 And bent, with dazzled faces and with parted lips, to 
 
DAS KRIST KINDEL 
 
 Twas a wondrous little fellow, with a dainty double- 
 chin, 
 
 And chubby-cheeks, and dimples for the smiles to blos 
 som in ; 
 
 And he looked as ripe and rosy, on his bed of straw and 
 reeds, 
 
 As a mellow little pippin that had tumbled in the weeds. 
 
 And I saw the happy mother, and a group surrounding 
 
 her 
 That knelt with costly presents of frankincense and 
 
 myrrh; 
 And I thrilled with awe and wonder, as a murmur on 
 
 the air 
 Came drifting o er the hearing in a melody of prayer: 
 
 By the splendor in the heavens, and the hush upon the sea, 
 And the majesty of silence reigning over Galilee, 
 We feel Thy kingly presence, and we humbly bow the knee 
 And lift our hearts and voices in gratefulness to Thee. 
 
 Thy messenger has spoken, and our doubts have fled and gone 
 As the dark and spectral shadows of the night before the dawn; 
 And, in the kindly shelter of the light around us drawn, 
 We would nestle down forever in the breast we lean upon. 
 
 18 
 
DAS KRIST KINDEL 
 
 You have given us a shepherd You have given us a guide, 
 And the light of Heaven grew dimmer when You sent him from 
 
 Your side, 
 But he comes to lead Thy children where the gates will open 
 
 wide 
 To welcome his returning when his works are glorified. 
 
 By the splendor in the heavens, and the hush upon the sea, 
 And the majesty of silence reigning over Galilee, 
 We feel Thy kingly presence, and we humbly bow the knee 
 And lift our hearts and voices in gratefulness to Thee. 
 
 Then the vision, slowly failing, with the words of the 
 refrain, 
 
 Fell swooning in the moonlight through the frosty 
 window-pane ; 
 
 And I heard the clock proclaiming, like an eager sentinel 
 
 Who brings the world good tidings, "It is Christmas- 
 all is well 1" 
 
ANSELMO 
 
 YEARS did, I vainly seek the good Lord s grace, 
 
 Prayed, fasted, and did penance dire and dread; 
 Did kneel, with bleeding knees and rainy face, 
 
 And mouth the dust, with ashes on my head; 
 Yea, still with knotted scourge the flesh I flayed, 
 
 Rent fresh the wounds, and moaned and shrieked 
 
 insanely ; 
 And froth oozed with the pleadings that I made, 
 
 And yet I prayed on vainly, vainly, vainly ! 
 
 A time, from out of swoon I lifted eye, 
 
 To find a wretched outcast, gray and grim, 
 Bathing my brow, with many a pitying sigh, 
 
 And I did pray God s grace might rest on him. 
 Then, lo! a gentle voice fell on mine ears 
 
 "Thou shalt not sob in suppliance hereafter; 
 Take up thy prayers and wring them dry of tears, 
 
 And lift them, white and pure with love and 
 laughter!" 
 
 So is it now for all men else I pray ; 
 So is it I am blest and glad alway. 
 
 20 
 
A HOME-MADE FAIRY TALE 
 
 BUD, come here to your uncle a spell, 
 
 And I ll tell you something you mustn t tell 
 
 For it s a secret and shore- nuf true, 
 
 And maybe I oughtn t to tell it to you ! 
 
 But out in the garden, under the shade 
 
 Of the apple-trees, where we romped and played 
 
 Till the moon was up, and you thought I d gone 
 
 Fast asleep, That was all put on ! 
 
 For I was a-watchin something queer 
 
 Goin on there in the grass, my dear! 
 
 Way down deep in it, there I see 
 
 A little dude-Fairy who winked at me, 
 
 And snapped his fingers, and laughed as low 
 
 And fine as the whine of a mus-kee-to ! 
 
 I kept still watchin him closer and 
 
 I noticed a little guitar in his hand, 
 
 21 
 
A HOME-MADE FAIRY TALE 
 
 Which he leant ginst a little dead bee and laid 
 His cigarette down on a clean grass-blade, 
 And then climbed up on the shell of a snail 
 Carefully dusting his swallowtail 
 And pulling up, by a waxed web-thread, 
 This little guitar, you remember, I said ! 
 And there he trinkled and trilled a tune, 
 "My Love, so Fair, Tans in the Moon!" 
 Till, presently, out of the clover-top 
 He seemed to be singing to, came, k pop! 
 The purtiest, daintiest Fairy face 
 In all this world, or any place ! 
 Then the little ser nader waved his hand, 
 As much as to say, "We ll excuse you!" and 
 I heard, as I squinted my eyelids to, 
 A kiss like the drip of a drop of dew ! 
 
 22 
 
THE SOUTH WIND AND THE SUN 
 
 O THE South Wind and the Sun! 
 
 How each loved the other one 
 Full of fancy full of folly 
 
 Full of jollity and fun ! 
 
 How they romped and ran about, 
 
 Like two boys when school is out, 
 With glowing face, and lisping lip, 
 
 Low laugh, and lifted shout! 
 
 And the South Wind he was dressed 
 With a ribbon round his breast 
 
 That floated, flapped and fluttered 
 In a riotous unrest, 
 And a drapery of mist 
 From the shoulder and the wrist 
 
 Flowing backward with the motion 
 Of the waving hand he kissed. 
 2 3 
 
THE SOUTH WIND AND THE SUN 
 
 And the Sun had on a crown 
 
 Wrought of gilded thistle-down, 
 And a scarf of velvet vapor, 
 
 And a ravelled-rainbow gown ; 
 
 And his tinsel-tangled hair, 
 
 Tossed and lost upon the air, 
 Was glossier and flossier 
 
 Than any anywhere. 
 
 And the South Wind s eyes were two 
 
 Little dancing drops of dew, 
 As he puffed his cheeks, and pursed his lips, 
 
 And blew and blew and blew ! 
 
 And the Sun s like diamond-stone, 
 
 Brighter yet than ever known, 
 As he knit his brows and held his breath, 
 
 And shone and shone and shone ! 
 
 And this pair of merry fays 
 Wandered through the summer days ; 
 Arm-in-arm they went together 
 Over heights of morning haze 
 24 
 
THE SOUTH WIND AND THE SUN 
 
 Over slanting slopes of lawn 
 They went on and on and on, 
 Where the daisies looked like star-tracks 
 Trailing up and down the dawn. 
 
 And where er they found the top 
 
 Of a wheat-stalk droop and lop 
 They chucked it underneath the chin 
 
 And praised the lavish crop, 
 
 Till it lifted with the pride 
 
 Of the heads it grew beside, 
 And then the South Wind and the Sun 
 
 Went onward satisfied. 
 
 / 
 
 Over meadow-lands they tripped, 
 Where the dandelions dipped 
 
 In crimson foam of clover-bloom, 
 
 And dripped and dripped and dripped ; 
 And they clinched the bumble-stings, 
 Gauming honey on their wings, 
 
 And bundling them in lily-bells, 
 With maudlin murmurings. 
 
THE SOUTH WIND AND THE SUN 
 
 And the humming-bird that hung 
 
 Like a jewel up among 
 The tilted honeysuckle-horns, 
 
 They mesmerized, and swung 
 
 In the palpitating air, 
 
 Drowsed with odors strange and rare, 
 And, with whispered laughter, slipped away, 
 
 And left him hanging there. 
 
 And they braided blades of grass 
 Where the truant had to pass ; 
 
 And they wriggled through the rushes 
 And the reeds of the morass, 
 Where they danced, in rapture sweet, 
 O er the leaves that laid a street 
 
 Of undulant mosaic for 
 The touches of their feet. 
 
 By the brook with mossy brink 
 Where the cattle came to drink, 
 They trilled and piped and whistled 
 With the thrush and bobolink, 
 26 
 
THE SOUTH WIND AND THE SUN 
 
 Till the kine in listless pause, 
 Switched their tails in mute applause, 
 With lifted heads and dreamy eyes, 
 And bubble-dripping jaws. 
 X 
 
 And where the melons grew, 
 Streaked with yellow, green and blue, 
 
 These jolly sprites went wandering 
 Through spangled paths of dew ; 
 And the melons, here and there, 
 They made love to, everywhere, 
 
 Turning their pink souls to crimson 
 With caresses fond and fair. 
 
 X 
 
 Over orchard walls they went, 
 
 Where the fruited boughs were bent 
 Till they brushed the sward beneath them 
 
 Where the shine and shadow blent ; 
 
 And the great green pear they shook 
 
 Till the sallow hue forsook 
 Its features, and the gleam of gold 
 
 Laughed out in every look. 
 2 7 
 
THE SOUTH WIND AND .HE SUN 
 
 And they stroked the downy cheek 
 Of the peach, and smoothed it sleek, 
 
 And flushed it into splendor ; 
 And, with many an elfish freak, 
 Gave the russet s rust a wipe 
 Prankt the rambo with a stripe, 
 
 And the wine-sap blushed its reddest 
 As they spanked the pippins ripe. 
 
 Through the woven ambuscade 
 That the twining vines had made, 
 
 They found the grapes, in clusters, 
 Drinking up the shine and shade 
 Plumpt, like tiny skins of wine, 
 With a vintage so divine 
 
 That the tongue of fancy tingled 
 With the tang of muscadine. 
 
 And the golden-banded bees, 
 Droning o er the flowery leas, 
 They bridled, reigned, and rode 
 Across the fragrant breeze, 
 28 
 
THE S<CUTH WIND AND THE SUN 
 
 Till in hollow oak and elm 
 They had groomed and stabled them 
 In waxen stalls oozed with dews 
 Of rose and lily-stem. 
 
 Where the dusty highway leads, 
 High above the wayside weeds 
 
 They sowed the air with butterflies 
 Like blooming flower-seeds, 
 Till the dull grasshopper sprung 
 Half a man s height up, and hung 
 
 Tranced in the heat, with whirring wings, 
 And sung and sung and sung ! 
 s 
 
 And they loitered, hand in hand, 
 Where the snipe along the sand 
 
 Of the river ran to meet them 
 As the ripple meets the land, 
 Till the dragon-fly, in light 
 Gauzy armor, burnished bright, 
 
 Came tilting down the waters 
 In a wild, bewildered flight. 
 29 
 
THE SOUTH WIND AND THE SUN 
 
 And they heard the killdee s call, 
 
 And afar, the waterfall, 
 But the rustle of a falling leaf 
 
 They heard above it all ; 
 
 And the trailing willow crept 
 
 Deeper in the tide that swept 
 The leafy shallop to the shore, 
 
 And wept and wept and wept! 
 
 And the fairy vessel veered 
 
 From its moorings tacked and steered 
 For the centre of the current 
 
 Sailed away and disappeared: 
 
 And the burthen that it bore 
 
 From the long-enchanted shore 
 "Alas! the South Wind and the Sun!" 
 
 I murmur evermore. 
 
 For the South Wind and the Sun, 
 Each so loves the other one, 
 For all his jolly folly 
 And frivolity and fun, 
 
 30 
 
THE SOUTH WIND AND THE SUN 
 
 That our love for them they weigh 
 As their fickle fancies may, 
 And when at last we love them most, 
 They laugh and sail away. 
 
THE LOST KISS 
 
 I PUT by the half-written poem, 
 
 While the pen, idly trailed in my hand, 
 Writes on, "Had I words to complete it, 
 
 Who d read it, or who d understand?" 
 But the little bare feet on the stairway, 
 
 And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall, 
 And the eerie-low lisp on the silence, 
 
 Cry up to me over it all. 
 
 So I gather it up where was broken 
 
 The tear-faded thread of my theme, 
 Telling how, as one night I sat writing, 
 
 A fairy broke in on my dream, 
 A little inquisitive fairy 
 
 My own little girl, with the gold 
 Of the sun in her hair, and the dewy 
 
 Blue eyes of the fairies of old. 
 
 Twas the dear little girl that I scolded 
 "For was it a moment like this," 
 
 I said, "when she knew I was busy, 
 To come romping in for a kiss ? 
 32 
 
THE LOST KISS 
 
 Come rowdying up from her mother, 
 And clamoring there at my knee 
 
 For < One ittle kiss for my dolly, 
 And one ittle uzzer for me! " 
 
 God, pity the heart that repelled her, 
 
 And the cold hand that turned her away, 
 And take, from the lips that denied her, 
 
 This answerless prayer of to-day ! 
 Take, Lord, from my mem ry forever 
 
 That pitiful sob of despair, 
 And the patter and trip of the little bare feet, 
 
 And the one piercing cry on the stair ! 
 
 I put by the half-written poem, 
 
 While the pen, idly trailed in my hand, 
 Writes on, " Had I words to complete it ; 
 
 Who d read it, or who d understand?" 
 But the little bare feet on the stairway, 
 
 And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall, 
 And the eerie-low lisp on the silence, 
 
 Cry up to me over it all. 
 
THE SPHINX 
 
 I KNOW all about the Sphinx 
 I know even what she thinks, 
 Staring with her stony eyes 
 Up forever at the skies. 
 
 For last night I dreamed that she 
 Told me all the mystery 
 Why for aeons mute she sat : 
 She was just cut out for that ! 
 
 34- 
 
IF I KNEW WHAT POETS KNOW 
 
 IF I knew what poets know, 
 
 Would I write a rhyme 
 Of the buds that never blow 
 
 In the summer-time? 
 Would I sing of golden seeds 
 Springing up in ironweeds ? 
 And of raindrops turned to snow, 
 If I knew what poets know ? 
 
 Did I know what poets do, 
 
 Would I sing a song 
 Sadder than the pigeon s coo 
 
 When the days are long? 
 Where I found a heart in pain, 
 I would make it glad again ; 
 And the false should be the true, 
 Did I know what poets do. 
 35 
 
IP I KNEW WHAT POETS KNOW 
 
 If I knew what poets know, 
 
 I would find a theme 
 Sweeter than the placid flow 
 
 Of the fairest dream : 
 I would sing of love that lives 
 On the errors it forgives ; 
 And the world would better grow 
 If I knew what poets know. 
 
IKE WALTON S PRAYER 
 
 I CRAVE, dear Lord, 
 No boundless hoard 
 Of gold and gear, 
 Nor jewels fine, 
 Nor lands, nor kine, 
 Nor treasure-heaps of anything. 
 
 Let but a little hut be mine 
 Where at the hearthstone I may hear 
 
 The cricket sing, 
 And have the shine 
 Of one glad woman s eyes to make, 
 For my poor sake, 
 
 Our simple home a place divine ; 
 Just the wee cot the cricket s chirr 
 Love, and the smiling face of her. 
 
 I pray not for 
 Great riches, nor 
 
 37 
 
IKE WALTON S PRAYER 
 
 For vast estates and castle-halls, 
 Give me to hear the bare footfalls 
 Of children o er 
 An oaken floor 
 
 New-rinsed with sunshine, or bespread 
 With but the tiny coverlet 
 And pillow for the baby s head ; 
 And, pray Thou, may 
 The door stand open and the day 
 Send ever in a gentle breeze, 
 With fragrance from the locust-trees, 
 
 And drowsy moan of doves, and blur 
 Of robin-chirps, and drone of bees, 
 
 With after-hushes of the stir 
 Of intermingling sounds, and then 
 
 The goodwife and the smile of her 
 Filling the silences again 
 The cricket s call 
 
 And the wee cot, 
 Dear Lord of all, 
 Deny me not! 
 
IKE WALTON S PRAYER 
 
 I pray not that 
 Men tremble at 
 
 My power of place 
 
 And lordly sway, 
 I only pray for simple grace 
 To look my neighbor in the face 
 
 Full honestly from day to day 
 Yield me his horny palm to hold, 
 And I ll not pray 
 
 For gold; 
 
 The tanned face,^ garlanded with mirth, 
 It hath the kingliest smile on earth; 
 The swart brow, diamonded with sweat, 
 Hath never need of coronet. 
 And so I reach, 
 
 Dear Lord, to Thee, 
 And do beseech 
 
 Thou givest me 
 
 The wee cot, and the cricket s chirr, 
 Love, and the glad sweet face of her! 
 
 39 
 
A ROUGH SKETCH 
 
 I CAUGHT, for a second, across the crowd 
 
 Just for a second, and barely that 
 A face, pox-pitted and evil-browed, 
 
 Hid in the shade of a slouch-rim d hat 
 With small gray eyes, of a look as keen 
 As the long, sharp nose that grew between, 
 
 And I said: Tis a sketch of Nature s own, 
 
 Drawn i the dark o the moon, I swear, 
 On a tatter of Fate that the winds have blown 
 Hither and thither and everywhere 
 With its keen little sinister eyes of gray, 
 And nose like the beak of a bird of prey ! 
 
 40 
 
OUR KIND OF A MAN 
 
 THE kind of a man for you and me ! 
 
 He faces the world unflinchingly, 
 
 And smites, as long as the wrong resists, 
 
 With a knuckled faith and force like fists : 
 
 He lives the life he is preaching of, 
 
 And loves where most is the need of love ; 
 
 His voice is clear to the deaf man s ears, 
 
 And his face sublime through the blind man s tears ; 
 
 The light shines out where the clouds were dim, 
 
 And the widow s prayer goes up for him ; 
 
 The latch is clicked at the hovel door 
 
 And the sick man sees the sun once more, 
 
 And out o er the barren fields he sees 
 
 Springing blossoms and waving trees, 
 
 Feeling as only the dying may, 
 
 That God s own servant has come that way, 
 
 Smoothing the path as it still winds on 
 
 Through the golden gate where his loved have gone. 
 
 4 
 
OUR KIND OF A MAN 
 
 n 
 
 The kind of a man for me and you ! 
 
 However little of worth we do 
 
 He credits full, and abides in trust 
 
 That time will teach us how more is just. 
 
 He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds 
 
 Of querulous and uneasy minds, 
 
 And, sympathizing, he shares the pain 
 
 Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain ; 
 
 And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand, 
 
 We are surely coming to understand ! 
 
 He looks on sin with pitying eyes 
 
 E en as the Lord, since Paradise, 
 
 Else, should we read, Though our sins should glow 
 
 As scarlet, they shall be white as snow? 
 
 And, feeling still, with a grief half glad, 
 
 That the bad are as good as the good are bad, 
 
 He strikes straight out for the Right and he 
 
 Is the kind of a man for you and me ! 
 
THE HARPEP 
 
 LIKE a drift of faded blossoms 
 
 Caught in a slanting rain, 
 His fingers glimpsed down the strings of his harp 
 
 In a tremulous refrain : 
 
 Patter and tinkle, and drip and drip ! 
 
 Ah ! but the chords were rainy sweet ! 
 And I closed my eyes and I bit my lip, 
 
 As he played there in the street. 
 
 Patter, and drip, and tinkle ! 
 
 And there was the little bed 
 In the corner of the garret, 
 
 And the rafters overhead ! 
 
 And there was the little window 
 
 Tinkle, and drip, and drip ! 
 The rain above, and a mother s love, 
 
 And God s companionship ! 
 
 43 
 
OLD AUNT MARY S 
 
 WASN T it pleasant, O brother mine, 
 In those old days of the lost sunshine 
 Of youth when the Saturday s chores were through, 
 And the "Sunday s wood" in the kitchen, too, 
 And we went visiting, "me and you," 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary s? 
 
 It all comes back so clear to-day ! 
 Though I am as bald as you are gray- 
 Out by the barn-lot, and down the lane, 
 We patter along in the dust again, 
 As light as the tips of the drops of the rain, 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary s ! 
 
 We cross the pasture, and through the wood 
 Where the old gray snag of the poplar stood, 
 Where the hammering "red-heads" hopped awry, 
 And the buzzard "raised" in the "clearing" sky 
 And lolled and circled, as we went by 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary s. 
 44 
 
OLD AUNT MARY S 
 
 And then in the dust of the road again ; 
 And the teams we met, and the countrymen; 
 And the long highway, with sunshine spread 
 As thick as butter on country bread, 
 Our cares behind, and our hearts ahead 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary s. 
 
 Why, I see her now in the open door, 
 Where the little gourds grew up the sides and o er 
 The clapboard roof ! And her face ah, me ! 
 Wasn t it good for a boy to see 
 And wasn t it good for a boy to be 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary s? 
 
 The jelly the jam and the marmalade, 
 And the cherry and quince "preserves" she made! 
 And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear, 
 With cinnamon in em, and all things rare I 
 And the more we ate was the more to spare, 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary s! 
 
 45 
 
OLD ATJNT MARY S 
 
 And the old spring-house in the cool green gloom 
 Of the willow-trees, and the cooler room 
 Where the swinging-shelves and the crocks were kept- 
 Where the cream in a golden languor slept 
 While the waters gurgled and laughed and wept 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary s. 
 
 And O my brother, so far away, 
 This is to tell you she waits to-day 
 To welcome us : Aunt Mary fell 
 Asleep this morning, whispering "Tell 
 The boys to come!" And all is well 
 Out to Old Aunt Mary s. 
 
TLLILEO 
 
 ILLILEO, the moonlight seemed lost across the vales 
 The stars but strewed the azure as an armor s scattered 
 
 scales ; 
 
 The airs of night were quiet as the breath of silken sails, 
 And all your words were sweeter than the notes of 
 
 nightingales. 
 
 Illileo Legardi, in the garden there alone, 
 
 With your figure carved of fervor, as the Psyche carved 
 of stone, 
 
 There came to me no murmur of the fountain s under 
 tone 
 
 So mystically, musically mellow as your own. 
 
 You whispered low, Illileo so low the leaves were 
 
 mute, 
 And the echoes faltered breathless in your voice s vain 
 
 pursuit ; 
 And there died the distant dalliance of the serenaded s 
 
 lute: 
 And I held you in my bosom as the husk may hold the 
 
 fruit. 
 
 47 
 
IL.LILEO 
 
 Illileo, I listened. I believed you. In my bliss, 
 What were all the worlds above me since I found you 
 
 thus in this? 
 Let them reeling reach to win me even Heaven I would 
 
 miss, 
 Grasping earthward ! I would cling here, though I 
 
 clung by just a kiss. 
 
 And blossoms should grow odorless and lilies all 
 
 aghast 
 And I said the stars should slacken in their paces 
 
 through the vast, 
 
 Ere yet my loyalty should fail enduring to the last. 
 So vowed I. It is written. It is changeless as the past. 
 
 Illileo Legardi, in the shade your palace throws 
 Like a cowl about the singer at your gilded porticos, 
 A moan goes with the music that may vex the high 
 
 repose 
 Of a heart that fades and crumbles as the crimson of a 
 
 rose. 
 
THE KING 
 
 THEY rode right out of the morning sun 
 
 A glimmering, glittering cavalcade 
 Of knights and ladies and every one 
 
 In princely sheen arrayed ; 
 And the king of them all, O he rode ahead, 
 With a helmet of gold, and a plume of red 
 That spurted about in the breeze and bled 
 In the bloom of the everglade. 
 
 And they rode high over the dewy lawn, 
 With brave, glad banners of every hue 
 That rolled in ripples, as they rode on 
 
 In splendor, two and two ; 
 And the tinkling links of the golden reins 
 Of the steeds they rode rang such refrains 
 As the castanets in a dream of Spain s 
 
 Intensest gold and blue. 
 
 And they rode and rode ; and the steeds they neighed 
 
 And pranced, and the sun on their glossy hides 
 Flickered and lightened and glanced and played 
 Like the moon on rippling tides ; 
 
 49 
 
THE KING 
 
 And their manes were silken, and thick and strong, 
 And their tails were flossy, and fetlock-long, 
 And jostled in time to the teeming throng, 
 And their knightly song besides. 
 
 Clank of scabbard and jingle of spur, 
 
 And the fluttering sash of the queen went wild 
 In the wind, and the proud king glanced at her 
 
 As one at a wilful child, 
 And as knight and lady away they flew, 
 And the banners flapped, and the falcon, too, 
 And the lances flashed and the bugle blew, 
 
 He kissed his hand and smiled. 
 
 And then, like a slanting sunlit shower, 
 
 The pageant glittered across the plain, 
 And the turf spun back, and the wildweed flower 
 
 Was only a crimson stain. 
 
 And a dreamer s eyes they are downward cast, 
 As he blends these words with the wailing blast: 
 1 It is the King of the Year rides past! " 
 
 And Autumn is here again. 
 
 5 
 
A BRIDE 
 
 "O I AM weary! " she sighed, as her billowy 
 
 Hair she unloosed in a torrent of gold 
 That rippled and fell o er a figure as willowy, 
 
 Graceful and fair as a goddess of old : 
 Over her jewels she flung herself drearily, 
 
 Crumpled the laces that snowed on her breast, 
 Crushed with her fingers the lily that wearily 
 
 Clung in her hair like a dove in its nest. 
 
 And naught but her shadowy form in the mirror 
 To kneel in dumb agony down and weep near her! 
 
 Weary ? of what ? Could we fathom the mystery ? 
 
 Lift up the lashes weighed down by her tears 
 And wash with their dews one white face from her history, 
 
 Set like a gem in the red rust of years ? 
 Nothing will rest her unless he who died of her 
 
 Strayed from his grave, and, in place of the groom, 
 Tipping her face, kneeling there by the side of her, 
 
 Drained the old kiss to the dregs of his doom. 
 
 And naught but that shadowy form in the mirrot 
 To kneel in dumb agony down and weep near her I 
 
 5 1 
 
THE DEAD LOVER 
 
 TIME is so long when a man is dead ! 
 
 Some one sews ; and the room is made 
 Very clean ; and the light is shed 
 
 Soft through the window-shade. 
 
 Yesterday I thought : "I know 
 
 Just how the bells will sound, and how 
 
 The friends will talk, and the sermon go, 
 And the hearse-horse bow and bow! " 
 
 This is to-day; and I have no thing 
 To think of nothing whatever to do 
 
 But to hear the throb of the pulse of a wins: 
 That wants to fly back to you. 
 
A SONG 
 
 THERE is ever a song somewhere, my dear ; 
 
 There is ever a something sings alway : 
 There s the song of the lark when the skies are clear, 
 
 And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray. 
 The sunshine showers across the grain, 
 
 And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree ; 
 And in and out, when the eaves dip rain, 
 
 The swallows are twittering ceaselessly. 
 
 There is ever a song somewhere, my dear, 
 
 Be the skies above or dark or fair, 
 There is ever a song that our hearts may hear 
 There is ever a song somewhere, my dear 
 
 There is ever a song somewhere ! 
 
 There is ever a song somewhere, my dear, 
 In the midnight black, or the mid-day blue : 
 
 The robin pipes when the sun is here, 
 
 And the cricket chirrups the whole night through. 
 
 53 
 
A SONG 
 
 The buds may blow, and the fruit may grow, 
 And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sear ; 
 
 But whether the sun, or the rain, or the snow, 
 There is ever a song somewhere, my dear. 
 
 There is ever a song somewhere, my dear, 
 
 Be the skies above or dark or fair, 
 There is eve** a song that our hearts may hear * 
 There is ever a song somewhere, my dear 
 There is ever a song somewhere ! 
 
 54 
 
WHEN BESSIE DIED 
 
 "If from your own the dimpled hands had slipped^ 
 
 And ne^er would nestle in your palm again; 
 If the white feet into the grave had tripped" 
 
 WHEN Bessie died 
 We braided the brown hair, and tied 
 It just as her own little hands 
 Had fastened back the silken strands 
 A thousand times the crimson bit 
 Of ribbon woven into it 
 That she had worn with childish pride 
 Smoothed down the dainty bow and cried- 
 When Bessie died. 
 
 When Bessie died 
 We drew the nursery blinds aside, 
 And, as the morning in the room 
 Burst like a primrose into bloom, 
 
 5S 
 
WHEN BESSIE DIED 
 
 Her pet canary s cage we hung 
 Where she might hear him when he sung 
 And yet not any note he tried, 
 Though she lay listening folded-eyed. 
 
 When Bessie died 
 
 We writhed in prayer unsatisfied : 
 
 We begged of God, and He did smile 
 
 In silence on us all the while ; 
 
 And we did see Him, through our tears, 
 
 Enfolding that fair form of hers, 
 
 She laughing back against His love 
 
 The kisses we had nothing of 
 
 And death to us He still denied, 
 
 When Bessie died 
 
 When Bessie died. 
 
THE SHOWER 
 
 THE landscape, like the awed face of a child, 
 Grew curiously blurred ; a hush of death 
 
 Fell on the fields, and in the darkened wild 
 The zephyr held its breath. 
 
 No wavering glamour-work of light and shade 
 Dappled the shivering surface of the brook; 
 
 The frightened ripples in their ambuscade 
 Of willows thrilled and shook. 
 
 The sullen day grew darker, and anon 
 Dim flashes of pent anger lit the sky ; 
 
 With rumbling wheels of wrath came rolling cn 
 The storm s artillery. 
 
 The cloud above put on its blackest frown, 
 And then, as with a vengeful cry of pain, 
 
 The lightning snatched it, ripped and flung it down 
 In ravelled shreds of rain : 
 
 While I, transfigured by some wondrous art, 
 Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod, 
 
 My empty soul brimmed over, and my heart 
 Drenched with the love of God. 
 57 
 
A LIFE-LESSON 
 
 THERE! little girl; don t cry! 
 
 They have broken your doll, I know; 
 And your tea-set blue, 
 And your play-house, too, 
 Are things of the long ago ; 
 
 But childish troubles will soon pass by.- 
 There! little girl ; don t cry! 
 
 There! little girl ; don t cry! 
 
 They have broken your slate, I know; 
 And the glad, wild ways 
 Of your school-girl days 
 Are things of the long ago ; 
 
 But life and love will soon come by. 
 There! little girl ; don t cry! 
 
 There! little girl ; don t cry! 
 
 They have broken your heart, I know ; 
 And the rainbow gleams 
 Of your youthful dreams 
 Are things of the long ago ; 
 
 But heaven holds all for which you sigh, 
 There! little girl ; don t cry! 
 
 5* 
 
A SCRAWL 
 
 I WANT to sing something but this is all 
 
 I try and I try, but the rhymes are dull 
 As though they were damp, and the echoes fall 
 Limp and unlovable. 
 
 Words will not say what I yearn to say 
 They will not walk as I want them to, 
 But they stumble and fall in the path of the way 
 Of my telling my love for you. 
 
 Simply take what the scrawl is worth 
 
 Knowing I love you as sun the sod 
 On the ripening side of the great round earth 
 That swings in the smile of God. 
 
 59 
 
AWAY 
 
 I CANNOT say ? and I will not say 
 That he is dead. -He is just away! 
 
 With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand^ 
 He has wandered into an unknown land, 
 
 And left us dreaming how very fair 
 It needs must be, since he lingers there. 
 
 And you O you, who the wildest yearn 
 For the old-time step and the glad return, 
 
 Think of him faring on, as dear 
 
 In the love of There as the love of Here ; 
 
 And loyal still, as he gave the blows 
 Of his warrior-strength to his country s foes. 
 60 
 
AWAY 
 
 Mild and gentle, as he was brave, 
 When the sweetest love of his life he gave 
 
 To simple things: Where the violets grew 
 Blue as the eyes they were likened to, 
 
 The touches of his hands have strayed 
 As reverently as his lips have prayed : 
 
 When the little brown thrush that harshly chirred 
 Was dear to him as the mocking-bird ; 
 
 And he pitied as much as a man in pain 
 A writhing honey-bee wet with rain. 
 
 Think of him still as the same, I say: 
 He is not dead he is just away ! 
 
 61 
 
WHO BIDES HIS TIME 
 
 WHO bides his time, and day by day 
 
 Faces defeat full patiently, 
 And lifts a mirthful roundelay, 
 
 However poor his fortunes be, 
 He will not fail in any qualm 
 
 Of poverty the paltry dime 
 It will grow golden in his palm, 
 Who bides his time. 
 
 Who bides his time he tastes the sweet 
 
 Of honey in the saltest tear ; 
 And though he fares with slowest feet, 
 Joy runs to meet him, drawing near; 
 The birds are heralds of his cause ; 
 And, like a never-ending rhyme, 
 The roadsides bloom in his applause, 
 Who bides his time. 
 62 
 
WHO BIDES HIS TIME 
 
 Who bides his time, and fevers not 
 In the hot race that none achieves, 
 
 Shall wear cool-wreathen laurel, wrought 
 With crimsom berries in the leaves ; 
 
 And he shall reign a goodly king, 
 And sway his hand o er every clime, 
 
 With peace writ on his signet-ring, 
 Who bides his time. 
 
FROM THE HEADBOARD OF A GRAVE IN 
 PARAGUAY 
 
 A TROTH, and a grief, and a blessing, 
 Disguised them and came this way, 
 
 And one was a promise, and one was a doubt, 
 And one was a rainy day. 
 
 And they met betimes with this maiden, 
 And the promise it spake and lied, 
 
 And the doubt it gibbered and hugged itself, 
 And the rainy day she died. 
 
LAUGHTER HOLDING BOTH HIS SIDES 
 
 AY, thou varlet ! Laugh away ! 
 All the world s a holiday! 
 Laugh away, and roar and shout 
 Till thy hoarse tongue lolleth out ! 
 Bloat thy cheeks, and bulge thine eyes 
 Unto bursting ; pelt thy thighs 
 With thy swollen palms, and roar 
 As thou never hast before ! 
 Lustier ! wilt thou ! peal on peal ! 
 Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel- 
 Wrestle with thy loins, and then 
 Wheeze thee whiles, and whoop again! 
 
FAME 
 
 ONCE, in a dream, I saw a man, 
 
 With haggard face and tangled hair, 
 And eyes that nursed as wild a care 
 
 As gaunt Starvation ever can ; 
 
 And in his hand he held a wand 
 
 Whose magic touch gave life and thought 
 Unto a form his fancy wrought 
 
 And robed with coloring so grand, 
 It seemed the reflex of some child 
 Of Heaven, fair and undefiled 
 A face of purity and love 
 To woo him into worlds above : 
 
 And as I gazed with dazzled eyes, 
 A gleaming smile lit up his lips 
 As his bright soul from its eclipse 
 
 Went flashing into Paradise. 
 66 
 
FAME 
 
 Then tardy Fame came through the door 
 And found a picture nothing more. 
 
 And onoe I saw a man, alone, 
 In abject poverty, with hand 
 Uplifted o er a block of stone 
 
 That took a shape at his command 
 And smiled upon him, fair and good 
 A perfect work of womanhood, 
 Save that the eyes might never weep, 
 Nor weary hands be crossed in sleep, 
 Nor hair that fell from crown to wrist, 
 Be brushed away, caressed and kissed. 
 And as in awe I gazed on her, 
 I saw the sculptor s chisel fall 
 I saw him sink, without a moan, 
 Sink lifeless at the feet of stone, 
 And lie there like a worshipper. 
 
 Fame crossed the threshold of the hall, 
 And found a statue that was all. 
 
FAME 
 
 III 
 
 And once I saw a man who drew 
 
 A gloom about him like a cloak, 
 And wandered aimlessly. The few 
 
 Who spoke of him at all, but spoke 
 Disparagingly of a mind 
 The Fates had faultily designed : 
 Too indolent for modern times 
 
 Too fanciful, and full of whims 
 For, talking to himself in rhymes, 
 
 And scrawling never-heard-of hymns, 
 The idle life to which he clung 
 Was worthless as the songs he sung! 
 I saw him, in my vision, filled 
 
 With rapture o er a spray of bloom 
 The wind threw in his lonely room ; 
 And of the sweet perfume it spilled 
 He drank to drunkenness, and flung 
 His long hair back, and laughed and sung 
 And clapped his hands as children do 
 At fairy tales they listen to, 
 
 68 
 
FAME 
 
 While from his flying quill there dripped 
 
 Such music on his manuscript 
 
 That he who listens to the words 
 
 May close his eyes and dream the birds 
 
 Are twittering on every hand 
 
 A language he can understand. 
 
 He journeyed on through life, unknown, 
 
 Without one friend to call his own ; 
 
 He tired. No kindly hand to press 
 
 The cooling touch of tenderness 
 
 Upon his burning brow, nor lift 
 
 To his parched lips God s freest gift > 
 
 No sympathetic sob or sigh 
 
 Of trembling lips no sorrowing eye 
 
 Looked out through tears to see him die. 
 
 And Fame her greenest laurels brought 
 
 To crown a head that heeded not. 
 
 And this is Fame ! A thing, indeed, 
 That only comes when least the need: 
 The wisest minds of every age 
 The book of life from page to page 
 
FAME 
 
 Have searched in vain ; each lesson conned 
 
 Will promise it the page beyond 
 
 Until the last, when dusk of night 
 
 Falls over it, and reason s light 
 
 Is smothered by that unknown friend 
 
 Who signs his nom de glume. The End. 
 
THE RIPEST PEACH 
 
 THE ripest peach is highest on the tree 
 And so her love, beyond the reach of me, 
 Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes bow 
 Her heart down to me where I worship now! 
 
 She looms aloft where every eye may see 
 The ripest peach is highest on the tree. 
 Such fruitage as her love I know, alas ! 
 I may not reach here from the orchard grass. 
 
 I drink the sunshine showered past her lips 
 As roses drain the dewdrop as it drips. 
 The ripest peach is highest on the tree, 
 And so mine eyes gaze upward eagerly. 
 
 Why why do I not turn away in wrath 
 And pluck some heart here hanging in my path ? 
 Love s lower boughs bend with them but, ah me! 
 The ripest peach is highest on the tree ! 
 
A FRUIT-PIECE 
 
 THE afternoon of summer folds 
 Its warm arms round the marigolds, 
 
 And, with its gleaming fingers, pets 
 The watered pinks and violets 
 
 That from the casement vases spill, 
 Over the cottage window-sill, 
 
 Their fragrance down the garden walks 
 Where droop the dry-mouthed hollyhocks. 
 
 How vividly the sunshine scrawls 
 The grape-vine shadows on the walls ! 
 
 How like a truant swings the breeze 
 In high boughs of the apple-trees ! 
 
 The slender "free-stone" lifts aloof, 
 Full languidly above the roof, 
 
A FRUIT-PIECE 
 
 A hoard of fruitage, stamped with gold 
 And precious mintings manifold. 
 
 High up, through curled green leaves, a pear 
 Hangs hot with ripeness here and there. 
 
 Beneath the sagging trellisings, 
 In lush, lack-lustre clusterings, 
 
 Great torpid grapes, all fattened through 
 With moon and sunshine, shade and dew, 
 
 Until their swollen girths express 
 But forms of limp deliciousness 
 
 Drugged to an indolence divine 
 With heaven s own sacramental wine. 
 
THEIR SWEET SORROW 
 
 THEY meet to say farewell : Their way 
 
 Of saying this is hard to say. 
 
 He holds her hand an instant, wholly 
 Distressed and she unclasps it slowly. 
 
 He lends his gaze evasively 
 
 Over the printed page that she 
 
 Recurs to, with a new-moon shoulder 
 Glimpsed from the lace-mists that infold her. 
 
 The clock, beneath its crystal cup, 
 
 Discreetly clicks" Quick ! Act I Speak up! 
 
 A tension circles both her slender 
 
 Wrists and her raised eyes flash in splendor, 
 
 Even as he feels his dazzled own. 
 Then, blindingly, round either thrown, 
 They feel a stress of arms that ever 
 Strain tremblingly and "Never! IVever!" 
 74 
 
THEIR SWEET SORROW 
 
 Is whispered brokenly, with half 
 
 A sob, like a belated laugh, 
 
 While cloyingly their blurred kiss closes,- 
 Sweet as the dew s lip to the rose s. 
 
 75 
 
JOHN McKEEN 
 
 JOHN McKEEN, in his rusty dress, 
 
 His loosened collar, and swarthy throat, 
 His face unshaven, and none the less, 
 His hearty laugh and his wholesomeness, 
 And the wealth of a workman s vote! 
 
 Bring him, O Memory, here once more, 
 
 And tilt him back in his Windsor chair 
 By the kitchen stove, when the day is o er 
 And the light of the hearth is across the floor, 
 And the crickets everywhere ! 
 
 And let their voices be gladly blent 
 
 With a watery jingle of pans and spoons, 
 And a motherly chirrup of sweet content, 
 And neighborly gossip and merriment, 
 And old-time fiddle-tunes! 
 
JOHN M KEEN 
 
 Tick the clock with a wooden sound, 
 
 And fill the hearing with childish glee 
 Of rhyming riddle, or story found 
 In the Robinson Crusoe, leather-bound 
 Old book of the Used-to-be ! 
 
 John McKeen of the Past! Ah, John, 
 
 To have grown ambitious in worldly ways ! 
 
 To have rolled your shirt-sleeves down, to don 
 A broadcloth suit, and, forgetful, gone 
 Out on election days ! 
 
 John, ah, John! did it prove your worth 
 
 To yield you the office you still maintain? 
 
 To fill your pockets, but leave the dearth 
 
 Of all the happier things on earth 
 To the hunger of heart and brain ? 
 
 Under the dusk of your villa trees, 
 
 Edging the drives where your blooded span 
 
 Paw the pebbles and wait your ease, 
 
 Where are the children about your knees, 
 And the mirth, and the happy man? 
 77 
 
JOHN M KEEN 
 
 The blinds of your mansion are battened to ; 
 
 Your faded wife is a close recluse ; 
 And your " finished" daughters will doubtless do 
 Dutifully all that is willed of you, 
 
 And marry as you shall choose ! 
 
 But O for the old-home voices, blent 
 
 With the watery jingle of pans and spoons, 
 And the motherly chirrup of glad content, 
 And neighborly gossip and merriment, 
 And the old-time fiddle-tunes I 
 
OUT OF NAZARETH 
 
 4 HE shall sleep unscathed of thieves 
 Who loves Allah and believes." 
 Thus heard one who shared the tent, 
 In the far-off Orient, 
 Of the Bedouin ben Ahrzz 
 Nobler never loved the stars 
 Through the palm-leaves nigh the dim 
 Dawn his courser neighed to him ! 
 
 He said: " Let the sands be swarmed 
 
 With such thieves as I, and thou 
 Shalt at morning rise, unharmed, 
 
 Light as eyelash to the brow 
 Of thy camel, amber-eyed, 
 Ever munching either side, 
 Striding still, with nestled knees, 
 Through the midnight s oases. 
 79 
 
OUT OF NAZARETH 
 
 "Who can rob thee an thou hast 
 More than this that thou hast cast 
 At my feet this dust of gold ? 
 Simply this and that, all told ! 
 Hast thou not a treasure of 
 Such a thing as men call love? 
 
 " Can the dusky band I lead 
 Rob thee of thy daily need 
 Of a whiter soul, or steal 
 What thy lordly prayers reveal ? 
 Who could be enriched of thee 
 By such hoard of poverty 
 As thy niggard hand pretends 
 To dole me thy worst of friends ? 
 
 Therefore shouldst thou pause to bless 
 One indeed who blesses thee : 
 
 Robbing thee, I dispossess 
 But myself. Pray thou for me! " 
 
 He shall sleep unscathed of thieves 
 Who loves Allah and believes. 
 
 80 
 
SEPTEMBER DARK 
 
 i 
 
 THE air falls chill ; 
 The whippoorwill 
 Pipes lonesomely behind the hill : 
 The dusk grows dense, 
 The silence tense ; 
 And lo, the katydids commence. 
 
 ii 
 
 Through shadowy rifts 
 Of woodland, lifts 
 
 The low, slow moon, and upward drifts, 
 While left and right 
 The fireflies light 
 
 Swirls eddying in the skirts of Night. 
 81 
 
SEPTEMBER DARK 
 
 m 
 
 O Cloudland, gray 
 
 And level, lay 
 
 Thy mists across the face of Day ! 
 
 At foot and head, 
 
 Above the dead, 
 
 O Dews, weep on uncomforted ! 
 
WE TO SIGH INSTEAD OF SING 
 
 " RAIN and rain ! and rain and rain! " 
 
 Yesterday we muttered 
 Grimly as the grim refrain 
 
 That the thunders uttered : 
 All the heavens under cloud 
 
 All the sunshine sleeping ; 
 All the grasses limply bowed 
 
 With their weight of weeping. 
 
 Sigh and sigh ! and sigh and sigh ! 
 
 Never end of sighing ; 
 Rain and rain for our reply 
 
 Hopes half drowned and dying; 
 Peering through the window-pane, 
 
 Naught but endless raining 
 Endless sighing, and, as vain, 
 
 Endlessly complaining. 
 
 83 
 
WE TO SIGH INSTEAD OP SING 
 
 Shine and shine ! and shine and shine ! 
 
 Ah! to-day the splendor! 
 All this glory yours and mine 
 
 God! but God is tender! 
 We to sigh instead of sing, 
 
 Testerday, in sorrow, 
 While the Lord was fashioning 
 
 This for our To-morrow ! 
 
THE BLOSSOMS ON THE TREES 
 
 BLOSSOMS crimson, white, or blue, 
 
 Purple, pink, and every hue, 
 From sunny skies, to tintings drowned 
 
 In dusky drops of dew, 
 I praise you all, wherever found, 
 
 And love you through and through; 
 But, Blossoms On The Trees, 
 With your breath upon the breeze, 
 There s nothing all the world around 
 
 As half as sweet as you ! 
 
 Could the rhymer only wring 
 
 All the sweetness to the lees 
 Of all the kisses clustering 
 
 In juicy Used-to-bes, 
 To dip his rhymes therein and sing 
 
 The blossoms on the trees, 
 "O Blossoms on the Trees," 
 
 He would twitter, trill, and coo, 
 
 85 
 
THE BLOSSOMS ON THE TREES 
 
 "However sweet, such songs as these 
 
 Are not as sweet as you : 
 For you are blooming melodies 
 The eyes may listen to!" 
 
 86 
 
LAST NIGHTAND THIS 
 
 LAST night how deep the darkness was ! 
 And well I knew its depths, because 
 I waded it from shore to shore, 
 Thinking to reach the light no more. 
 
 She would not even touch my hand. 
 The winds rose and the cedars fanned 
 The moon out, and the stars fled back 
 In heaven and hid and all was black ! 
 
 But ah ! To-night a summons came, 
 Signed with a tear-drop for a name, 
 For as I wondering kissed it, lo, 
 A line beneath it told me so. 
 
 And now the moon hangs over me 
 A disk of dazzling brilliancy, 
 And every star-tip stabs my sight 
 With splintered glitterings of light I 
 
A DISCOURAGING MODEL 
 
 JUST the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing, 
 With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly s wing, 
 Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air, 
 And a knot of red roses sown in under there 
 Where the shadows are lost in her hair. 
 
 Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground 
 Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound; 
 And the gleam of a smile, O as fair and as faint 
 And as sweet as the masters of old used to paint 
 Round the l ? ps of their favorite saint ! 
 
 And that lace at her throat and the fluttering hands 
 Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands, 
 The flakes of their touches first fluttering at 
 The bow then the roses the hair and then that 
 Little tilt of the Gainsborough hat. 
 
 Ah, what artist on earth with a model like this, 
 Holding not on his palette the tint of a kiss, 
 Nor a pigment to hint of the hue of her hair 
 Nor the gold of her smile O what artist could dare 
 To expect a result half so fair? 
 88 
 
BACK FROM A TWO- YEARS SENTENCE 
 
 BACK from a two-years sentence ! 
 
 And though it had been ten, 
 You think, I were scarred no deeper 
 
 In the eyes of my fellow-men. 
 "My fellow-men" ? sounds like a satire, 
 
 You think and I so allow, 
 Here in my home since childhood, 
 
 Yet more than a stranger now ! 
 
 Pardon! Not wholly a stranger, 
 
 For I have a wife and child : 
 That woman has wept for two long years, 
 
 And yet last night she smiled ! 
 Smiled, as I leapt from the platform 
 
 Of the midnight train, and then 
 All that I knew was that smile of hers, 
 
 And our babe in my arms again! 
 
 89 
 
BACK FROM A TWO-YEARS* SENTENCE 
 
 Back from a two-years sentence 
 
 But I ve thought the whole thing through,- 
 A hint of it came when the bars swung back 
 
 And I looked straight up in the blue 
 Of the blessed skies with my hat off! 
 
 O-ho ! I ve a wife and child : 
 That woman has wept for two long years, 
 
 And yet last night she smiled ! 
 
THE WANDERING JEW 
 
 THE stars are falling, and the sky 
 Is like a field of faded flowers ; 
 The winds on weary wings go by ; 
 
 The moon hides, and the tempest lowers ; 
 And still through every clime and age 
 I wander on a pilgrimage 
 That all men know an idle quest, 
 For that the goal I seek is REST ! 
 
 I hear the voice of summer streams, 
 
 And, following, I find the brink 
 Of cooling springs, with childish dreams 
 Returning as I bend to drink 
 
 But suddenly, with startled eyes, 
 My face looks on its grim disguise 
 Of long gray beard ; and so, distressed, 
 I hasten on, nor taste of rest. 
 9 
 
THE WANDERING JEW 
 
 I come upon a merry group 
 
 Of children in the dusky wood, 
 Who answer back the owlet s whoop, 
 That laughs as it had understood ; 
 
 And I would pause a little space, 
 But that each happy blossom-face 
 Is like to one His hands have blessed 
 Who sent me forth in search of rest. 
 
 Sometimes I fain would stay my feet 
 In shady lanes, where huddled kine 
 Couch in the grasses cool and sweet, 
 And lift their patient eyes to mine ; 
 But I, for thoughts that ever then 
 Go back to Bethlehem again, 
 Must needs fare on my weary quest, 
 And weep for very need of rest. 
 
 Is there no end ? I plead in vain : 
 Lost worlds nor living answer me. 
 
 Since Pontius Pilate s awful reign 
 Have I not passed eternity? 
 
 92 
 
THE WANDERING JEW 
 
 Have I not drunk the fetid breath 
 
 Of every fevered phase of death, 
 
 And come unscathed through every pest 
 
 And scourge and plague that promised rest ? 
 
 Have I not seen the stars go out 
 
 That shed their light o er Galilee, 
 And mighty kingdoms tossed about 
 And crumbled clod-like in the sea ? 
 Dead ashes of dead ages blow 
 And cover me like drifting snow, 
 And time laughs on as twere a jest 
 That I have any need of rest. 
 
 93 
 
BECALMED 
 
 WOULD that the winds might only blow 
 
 As they blew in the golden long ago ! 
 
 Laden with odors of Orient isles 
 
 Where ever and ever the sunshine smiles, 
 
 And the bright sands blend with the shady trees, 
 
 And the lotus blooms in the midst of these. 
 
 Warm winds won from the midland vales 
 To where the tress of the Siren trails 
 O er the flossy tip of the mountain phlox 
 And the bare limbs twined in the crested rocks, 
 High above as the sea-gulls flap 
 Their lopping wings at the thunder-clap. 
 94 
 
BECALMED 
 III 
 
 Ah ! that the winds might rise and blow 
 The great surge up from the port below, 
 Bloating the sad, lank, silken sails 
 Of the Argo out with the swift, sweet gales 
 That blew from Colchis when Jason had 
 His love s full will and his heart was glad 
 When Medea s voice was soft and low. 
 Ah! that the winds might rise and blow! 
 
 95 
 
TO SANTA GLAUS 
 
 MOST tangible of all the gods that be, 
 O Santa Claus our own since Infancy! 
 As first we scampered to thee now, as then, 
 Take us as children to thy heart again. 
 
 Be wholly good to us, just as of old: 
 As a pleased father, let thine arms infold 
 Us, homed within the haven of thy love, 
 And all the cheer and wholesomeness thereof. 
 
 Thou lone reality, when O so long 
 Life s unrealities have wrought us wrong: 
 Ambition hath allured us, fame likewise, 
 And all that promised honor in men s eyes. 
 
 Throughout the world s evasions, wiles, and shifts, 
 Thou only bidest stable as thy gifts: 
 A grateful king re-ruleth from thy lap, 
 Crowned with a little tinselled soldier-cap : 
 
TO SANTA CLAUS 
 
 A mighty general a nation s pride 
 Thou givest again a rocking-horse to ride, 
 And wildly glad he groweth as the grim 
 Old jurist with the drum thou givest him : 
 
 The sculptor s chisel, at thy mirth s command, 
 
 Is as a whistle in his boyish hand ; 
 
 The painter s model fadeth utterly, 
 
 And there thou standest, and he painteth thee 
 
 Most like a winter pippin, sound and fine 
 And tingling-red that ripe old face of thine, 
 Set in thy frosty beard of cheek and chin 
 As midst the snows the thaws of spring set in. 
 
 Ho ! Santa Claus our own since Infancy 
 Most tangible of all the gods that be ! 
 As first we scampered to thee now, as then, 
 Take us as children to thy heart again. 
 
 97 
 
WHERE THE CHILDREN USED TO PLAY 
 
 THE old farm-home is Mother s yet and mine, 
 
 And filled it is with plenty and to spare, 
 But we are lonely here in life s decline, 
 
 Though fortune smiles around us everywhere : 
 
 We look across the gold 
 
 Of the harvests, as of old 
 The corn, the fragrant clover, and the hay; 
 
 But most we turn our gaze, 
 
 As with eyes of other days, 
 To the orchard where the children used to play. 
 
 O front our lifers full measure 
 And rich hoard of worldly treasure 
 
 We often turn our weary eyes away, 
 And hand in hand we wandet 
 Down the old path winding yonder 
 
 To the orchard where the children used to play. 
 
WHERE THE CHILDREN USED TO PLAY 
 
 Our sloping pasture-lands are rilled with herds ; 
 The barn and granary-bins are bulging o er; 
 The grove s a paradise of singing birds 
 The woodland brook leaps laughing by the door ; 
 Yet lonely, lonely still, 
 Let us prosper as we will, 
 Our old hearts seem so empty everyway 
 We can only through a mist 
 See the faces we have kissed 
 In the orchard where the children used to play. 
 
 Ofrom our life s full measure 
 And rich hoard of worldly treasure 
 
 We often turn our weary eyes away^ 
 And hand in hand we wander 
 Down the old path winding yonder 
 
 To the orchard where the children used to play. 
 
 99 
 
A GLIMPSE OF PAN 
 
 I CAUGHT but a glimpse of him. Summer was here. 
 
 And I strayed from the town and its dust and heal, 
 And walked in a wood, while the noon was near, 
 Where the shadows were cool, and the atmosphere 
 
 Was misty with fragrances stirred by my feet 
 From surges of blossoms that billowed sheer 
 
 Of the grasses, green and sweet. 
 
 And I peered through a vista of leaning trees, 
 Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept 
 
 To the face of a river, that answered these 
 
 With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze, 
 Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept 
 
 And kissed them, with quavering ecstasies, 
 And wistfully laughed and wept. 
 
 100 
 
A GLIMPSE OF PAN 
 
 And there, like a dream in a swoon, I swear 
 I saw Pan lying, his limbs in the dew 
 
 And the shade, and his face in the dazzle and glare 
 
 Of the glad sunshine ; while everywhere, 
 Over, across, and around him blew 
 
 Filmy dragon-flies hither and there, 
 
 And little white butterflies, two and two, 
 In eddies of odorous air. 
 
 101 
 
SONNETS 
 
PAN 
 
 THIS Pan is but an idle god, I guess, 
 
 Since all the fair midsummer of my dreams 
 He loiters listlessly by woody streams, 
 
 Soaking the lush glooms up with laziness ; 
 
 Or drowsing while the maiden-winds caress 
 
 Him prankishly, and powder him with gleams 
 Of sifted sunshine. And he ever seems 
 
 Drugged with a joy unutterable unless 
 
 His low pipes whistle hints oi it far out 
 
 Across the ripples to the dragon-fly 
 
 That, like a wind-born blossom blown about, 
 
 Drops quiveringly down, as though to die 
 Then lifts and wavers on, as if in doubt 
 Whether to fan his wings or fly without. 
 
 I0 5 
 
DUSK 
 
 THE frightened herds of clouds across the sky 
 
 Trample the sunshine down, and chase the day 
 Into the dusky forest-lands of gray 
 
 And sombre twilight. Far, and faint, and high, 
 
 The wild goose trails his harrow, with a cry 
 Sad as the wail of some poor castaway 
 Who sees a vessel drifting far astray 
 
 Of his last hope, and lays him down to die. 
 
 The children, riotous from school, grow bold 
 
 And quarrel with the wind whose angry gust 
 
 Plucks off the summer-hat, and flaps the fold 
 
 Of many a crimson cloak, and twirls the dusi 
 
 In spiral shapes grotesque, and dims the gold 
 Of gleaming tresses with the blur of rust 
 
 106 
 
JUNE 
 
 QUEENLY month of indolent repose ! 
 
 I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume, 
 As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom 
 
 1 nestle like a drowsy child and doze 
 
 The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws 
 The shifting shuttle of the Summer s loom 
 And weaves a damask-work of gleam and gloom 
 Before thy listless feet. The lily blows 
 A bugle-call of fragrance o er the glade; 
 
 And, wheeling into ranks, with plume and spear, 
 Thy harvest-armies gather on parade ; 
 
 While, faint and far away, yet pure and clear, 
 A voice calls out of alien lands of shade : 
 
 AH hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year! 
 
 107 
 
SILENCE 
 
 THOUSANDS of thousands of hushed years ago, 
 Out on the edge of Chaos, all alone 
 
 I stood on peaks of vapor, high upthrown 
 Above a sea that knew nor ebb nor flow, 
 Nor any motion won of winds that blow, 
 
 Nor any sound of watery wail or moan, 
 
 Nor lisp of wave, nor wandering undertone 
 Of any tide lost in the night below. 
 So still it was, I mind me, as I laid 
 
 My thirsty ear against mine own faint sigh 
 To drink of that, I sipped it, half afraid 
 
 Twas but the ghost of a dead voice spilled by 
 The one starved star that tottered through the shade 
 
 And came tiptoeing toward me down the sky. 
 
 loS 
 
SLEEP 
 
 THOU drowsy god, whose blurred eyes, half awink, 
 Muse on me, drifting out upon thy dreams, 
 I lave my soul as in enchanted streams 
 
 Where revelling satyrs pipe along the brink, 
 
 And, tipsy with the melody they drink, 
 
 Uplift their dangling hooves, and down the beams 
 Of sunshine dance like motes. Thy languor seems 
 
 An ocean-depth of love wherein I sink 
 
 Like some fond Argonaut, right willingly, 
 
 Because of wooing eyes upturned to mine, 
 And siren-arms that coil their sorcery 
 
 About my neck, with kisses so divine, 
 The heavens reel above me, and the sea 
 Swallows and licks its wet lips over me. 
 
 109 
 
HER HAIR 
 
 THE beauty of her hair bewilders me 
 Pouring adown the brow, its cloven tide 
 Swirling about the ears on either side 
 
 And storming round the neck tumultuously: 
 
 Or like the lights of old antiquity 
 
 Through mullioned windows, in cathedrals wide 
 Spilled moltenly o er figures deified 
 
 In chastest marble, nude of drapery. 
 
 And so I love it. Either unconfined ; 
 Or plaited in close braidings manifold ; 
 
 Or smoothly drawn ; or indolently twined 
 
 In careless knots whose coilings come unrolled 
 
 At any lightest kiss ; or by the wind 
 
 Whipped out in flossy ravellings of gold. 
 
 1 10 
 
DEARTH 
 
 I HOLD your trembling hand to-nightand yet 
 I may not know what wealth of bliss is mine, 
 My heart is such a curious design 
 
 Of trust and jealousy! Your eyes are wet 
 
 So must I think they jewel some regret, 
 
 And lo, the loving arms that round me twine 
 Cling only as the tendrils of a vine 
 Whose fruit has long been gathered : I forget, 
 While crimson clusters of your kisses press 
 Their wine out on my lips, my royal fair 
 Of rapture, since blind fancy needs must guess 
 
 They once poured out their sweetness otherwhere, 
 With fuller flavoring of happiness 
 
 Than e en your broken sobs may now declare. 
 
 Ill 
 
A VOICE FROM THE FARM 
 
 IT is my dream to have you here with me, 
 Out of the heated city s dust and din 
 Here where the colts have room to gambol in, 
 And kine to graze, in clover to the knee. 
 I want to see your wan face happily 
 
 Lit with the wholesome smiles that have not been 
 In use since the old games you used to win 
 When we pitched horseshoes : And I want to be 
 At utter loaf with you in this dim land 
 
 Of grove and meadow, while the crickets make 
 
 Our own talk tedious, and the bat wields 
 His bulky flight, as we cease converse and 
 In a dusk like velvet smoothly take 
 
 Our way toward home across the dewy fields. 
 
 112 
 
THE SERENADE 
 
 THE midnight is not more bewildering 
 
 To her drowsed eyes, than, to her ears, the sound 
 Of dim, sweet singing voices, interwound 
 
 With purl of flute and subtle twang of string, 
 
 Strained through the lattice, where the roses cling 
 And, with their fragrance, waft the notes around 
 Her haunted senses. Thirsting beyond bound 
 
 Of her slow-yielding dreams, the lilt and swing 
 Of the mysterious delirious tune, 
 
 She drains like some strange opiate, with awed eyes 
 Upraised against her casement, where, aswoon, 
 
 The stars fail from her sight, and up the skies 
 Of alien azure rolls the full round moon 
 Like some vast bubble blown of summer noon. 
 
ART AND LOVE 
 
 HE faced his canvas (as a seer whose ken 
 Pierces the crust of this existence through) 
 And smiled beyond on that his genius knew 
 
 Ere mated with his being. Conscious then 
 
 Of his high theme alone, he smiled again 
 Straight back upon himself in many a hue 
 And tint, and light and shade, which slowly grew 
 
 Enfeatured of a fair girl s face, as when 
 
 First time she smiles for love s sake with no fear. 
 
 So wrought he, witless that behind him leant 
 A woman, with old features, dim and sear, 
 And glamoured eyes that felt the brimming tear, 
 
 And with a voice, like some sad instrument, 
 
 That sighing said, "I m dead there ; love me here ! 
 
LONGFELLOW 
 
 THE winds have talked with him confidingly ; 
 The trees have whispered to him ; and the night 
 Hath held him gently as a mother might, 
 
 And taught him all sad tones of melody : 
 
 The mountains have bowed to him ; and the sea, 
 In clamorous waves, and murmurs exquisite, 
 Hath told him all her sorrow and delight 
 
 Her legends fair her darkest mystery. 
 
 His verse blooms like a flower, night and day; 
 
 Bees cluster round his rhymes ; and twitterings 
 Of lark and swallow, in an endless May, 
 
 Are mingling with the tender songs he sings. 
 Nor shall he cease to sing -in every lay 
 Of Nature s voice he sings and will alway. 
 
INDIANA 
 
 OUR Land our Home ! the common home indeed 
 Of soil-born children and adopted ones 
 The stately daughters and the stalwart sons 
 
 Of Industry: All greeting and godspeed! 
 
 O home to proudly live for, and, if need 
 Bej proudly die for, with the roar of guns 
 Blent with our latest prayer.- So died men once. . 
 
 Lo, Peace ! ... As we look on the land THEY 
 Its harvests all in ocean-overflow 
 
 Poured round autumnal coasts in billowy gold- 
 Its corn and wine and balm&d fruits and flow rs/-*- 
 We know the exaltation that they know 
 Who now, steadfast inheritors, behold 
 The Land Elysian, marvelling "This is ours!" 
 
 ri6 
 
TIME 
 
 THE ticking ticking ticking of the clock ! 
 
 That vexed me so last night! " For though Time 
 
 keeps 
 Such drowsy watch," I moaned, "he never sleeps, 
 
 But only nods above the world to mock 
 
 Its restless occupant, then rudely rock 
 It as the cradle of a babe that weeps! " 
 I seemed to see the seconds piled in heaps 
 
 Like sand about me ; and at every shock 
 
 O the bell, the pil&d sands were swirled away 
 
 As by a desert-storm that swept the earth 
 Stark as a granary floor, whereon the gray 
 
 And mist-bedrizzled moon amidst the dearth 
 Came crawling, like a sickly child, to lay 
 Its pale face next mine own and weep for day. 
 117 
 
TIME 
 
 Wait for the morning! Ah! we wait indeed 
 For daylight, we who toss about through stress 
 Of vacant-armed desires and emptiness 
 
 Of all the warm, warm touches that we need, 
 
 And the warm kisses upon which we feed 
 Our famished lips in fancy ! May God bless 
 The starved lips of us with but one caress 
 
 Warm as the yearning blood our poor hearts bleed! 
 
 . . . A wild prayer! bite thy pillow, praying so 
 Toss this side, and whirl that, and moan for dawn ; 
 
 Let the clock s seconds dribble out their woe, 
 
 And Time be drained of sorrow ! Long ago 
 We heard the crowing cock, with answer drawn 
 As hoarsely sad at throat as sobs. . . . Pray on ! 
 
 118 
 
GRANT 
 
 AT REST AUGUST 8, 1885 
 
 119 
 
Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a 
 wide forest^ and held no path but as wild adventure 
 led him. . . . And he returned and came again to 
 his horse, and took off his saddle and his bridle, 
 and let him pasture; and unlaced his helm, and 
 ungirdled his sword, and laid him down to sleep 
 upon his shield before the cross. AGE; OF CHIVALRY. 
 
 I2O 
 
GRANT 
 
 WHAT shall we say of the soldier, Grant, 
 
 His sword put by and his great soul free ? 
 How shall we cheer him now or chant 
 
 His requiem befittingly? 
 The fields of his conquest now are seen 
 
 Ranged no more with his arm&d men 
 But the rank and file of the gold and green 
 
 Of the waving grain is there again. 
 
 Though his valiant life is a nation s pride, 
 
 And his death heroic and half divine, 
 And our grief as great as the world is wide, 
 
 There breaks in speech but a single line : 
 We loved him living, revere him dead ! 
 
 A silence then on our lips is laid: 
 We can say no thing that has not been said, 
 
 Nor pray one prayer that has not been prayed, 
 
 But a spirit within us speaks: and lo, 
 We lean and listen to wondrous words 
 
 That have a sound as of winds that blow, 
 And the voice of waters and low of herds ; 
 
 121 
 
GRANT 
 
 And we hear, as the song flows on serene, 
 The neigh of horses, and then the beat 
 
 Of hooves that skurry o er pastures green, 
 And the patter and pad of a boy s bare feet. 
 
 A brave lad, wearing a manly brow, 
 
 Knit as with problems of grave dispute, 
 And a face, like the bloom of the orchard bough, 
 
 Pink and pallid, but resolute ; 
 And flushed it grows as the clover-bloom, 
 
 And fresh it gleams as the morning dew, 
 As he reins his steed where the quick quails boom 
 
 Up from the grasses he races through. 
 
 And ho! as he rides what dreams are his? 
 
 And what have the breezes to suggest? 
 Do they whisper to him of shells that whiz 
 
 O er fields made ruddy with wrongs redressed? 
 Does the hawk above him an Eagle float? 
 
 Does he thrill and his boyish heart beat high, 
 Hearing the ribbon about his throat 
 
 Flap as a Flag as the winds go by? 
 
 122 
 
GRANT 
 
 And does he dream of the Warrior s fame 
 This Western boy in his rustic dress ? 
 
 For, in miniature, this is the man that came 
 Riding out of the Wilderness ! 
 
 The selfsame figure the knitted brow 
 The eyes full steady the lips full mute 
 
 And the face, like the bloom of the orchard bough, 
 Pink and pallid, but resolute. 
 
 Ay, this is the man, with features grim 
 
 And stoical as the Sphinx s own, 
 That heard the harsh guns calling him, 
 
 As musical as the bugle blown, 
 When the sweet spring heavens were clouded o er 
 
 With a tempest, glowering and wild, 
 And our country s flag bowed down before 
 
 Its bursting wrath as a stricken child. 
 
 Thus, ready mounted and booted and spurred, 
 He loosed his bridle and dashed away! 
 
 Like a roll of drums were his hoof-beats heard, 
 Like the shriek of the fife his charger s neigh! 
 123 
 
GRANT 
 
 And over his shoulder and backward blown, 
 We heard his voice, and we saw the sod 
 
 Reel, as our wild steeds chased his own 
 As though hurled on by the hand of God ! 
 
 And still, in fancy, we see him ride 
 
 In the blood-red front of a hundred frays, 
 His face set stolid, but glorified 
 
 As a knight s of the old Arthurian days: 
 And victor ever as courtly, too, 
 
 Gently lifting the vanquished foe, 
 And staying him with a hand as true 
 
 As dealt the deadly avenging blow. 
 
 So, brighter than all of the cluster of stars 
 
 Of the flag enshrouding his form to-day, 
 His face shines forth from the grime of wars 
 
 With a glory that shall not pass away : 
 He rests at last: he has borne his part 
 
 Of salutes and salvos and cheers on cheers 
 But O the sobs of his country s heart, 
 
 And the driving rain of a nation s tears ! 
 124 
 
IN DIALECT 
 
OLD-FASHIONED ROSES 
 
 THE T ain t no style about em, 
 
 A ad they re sorto pale and faded, 
 Yit the doorway here, without em, 
 Would be lonesomer, and shaded 
 With a good eal blacker shadder 
 
 Than the morning-glories makes, 
 And the sunshine would look sadder 
 Fer their good old-fashion sakes. 
 
 I like em cause they kindo - 
 
 Sorto make a feller like em! 
 And I tell you, when I find a 
 
 Bunch out whur the sun kin strike em, 
 It allus sets me thinkin 
 
 O the ones at used to grow 
 And peek in thro the chinkin 
 O the cabin, don t you know! 
 
 .27 
 
OLD-FASHIONED ROSES 
 
 And then I think o mother, 
 
 And how she ust to love em 
 When they wuzn t any other, 
 
 Less she found em up above em! 
 And her eyes, afore she shut em, 
 
 Whispered with a smile and said 
 
 We must pick a bunch and putt em 
 
 In her hand when she wuz dead. 
 
 But, as I wuz a-sayin , 
 
 They ain t no style about em 
 Very gaudy er displayin , 
 
 But I wouldn t be without em, 
 Cause I m happier in these posies, 
 
 And the hollyhawks and sich, 
 Than the hummin -bird at noses 
 In the roses of the rich. 
 
 128 
 
GRIGGSBY S STATION 
 
 PAP S got his patent-right, and rich as all creation ; 
 
 But where s the peace and comfort that we all had 
 
 before? 
 Le s go a-visitin back to Griggsby s Station 
 
 Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore ! 
 
 The likes of us a-livin here! It s jest a mortal pity 
 To see us in this great big house, with cyarpets on 
 
 the stairs, 
 And the pump right in the kitchen ! And the city ! city ! 
 
 city! 
 And nothin but the city all around us ever wheres ! 
 
 Climb clean above the roof and look from the steeple, 
 
 And never see a robin, nor a beech or ellum tree ! 
 And right here in ear-shot of at least a thousan* people, 
 And none that neighbors with us or we want to go 
 and see! 
 
 129 
 
GRIGGSBY S STATION 
 
 Le s go a-visitin back to Griggsby s Station 
 
 Back where the latch-string s a-hangin from the door, 
 
 And ever neighbor round the place is dear as a relation 
 Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore ! 
 
 I want to see the Wiggenses, the whole kit-and-bilin% 
 A-drivin up from Shallor Ford to stay the Sunday 
 
 through ; 
 And I want to see em hitchin* at their son-in-law s and 
 
 pilin 
 Out there at Lizy Ellen s like they ust to do! 
 
 I want to see the piece-quilts the Jones girls is makin ; 
 And I want to pester Laury bout their freckled hired 
 
 hand, 
 And joke her bout the widower she come purt* nigh 
 
 a-takin , 
 
 Till her Pap got his pension lowed in time to save 
 his land. 
 
 Le s go a-visitin back to Griggsby s Station 
 Back where they s nothin aggervatin any more, 
 
 Shet away safe in the woods around the old location-* 
 Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore ! 
 130 
 
GRIGGSBY S STATION 
 
 I want to see Marindy and he p her with her sewin , 
 And hear her talk so lovin of her man that s dead 
 
 and gone, 
 And stand up with Emanuel to show me how he s 
 
 growin , 
 And smile as I have saw her fore she putt her 
 
 And I want to see the Samples, on the old lower eighty, 
 Where John, our oldest boy, he was tuk and burried 
 for 
 
 His own sake and Katy s, and I want to cry with Katy 
 As she reads all his letters over, writ from The War. 
 
 What s in all this grand life and high situation, 
 And nary pink nor hollyhawk a-bloomin at the 
 door ? 
 
 Le s go a-visitin back to Griggsby s Station 
 Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore! 
 
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE 
 
 TELL you what I like the best 
 Long about knee-deep in June, 
 
 Bout the time strawberries melts 
 On the vine, some afternoon 
 Like to jes git out and rest, 
 
 And not work at nothin else ! 
 
 Orchard s where I d ruther be 
 Needn t fence it in fer me ! 
 
 Jes the whole sky overhead, 
 And the whole airth underneath 
 Sorto so s a man kin breathe 
 
 Like he ort, and kindo has 
 Elbow-room to keerlessly 
 
 Sprawl out len thways on the grass 
 132 
 
OF THE ^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 .Q. OF 
 
 ^i/FORH^ 
 
 KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE ^ g *s==f^ 
 
 Where the shadders thick and soft 
 As the kivvers on the bed 
 Mother fixes in the loft 
 Allus, when they s company! 
 
 in 
 
 Jes* a-sorto lazin there 
 S lazy, at you peek and peer 
 
 Through the wavin leaves above. 
 
 Like a feller ats in love 
 And don t know it, ner. don t keer! 
 Ever thing you hear and see 
 
 Got some sort o interest 
 
 Maybe find a bluebird s nest 
 Tucked up there conveenently 
 Fer the boy at s ap to be 
 Up some other apple-tree ! 
 Watch the swallers skootin past 
 Bout as peert as you could ast ; 
 Er the Bob-white raise and whiz 
 Where some other s whistle is. 
 
 133 
 
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE 
 IV 
 
 Ketch a shadder down below, 
 And look up to find the crow 
 Er a hawk, away up there, 
 Pearantly froze in the air! 
 
 Hear the old hen squawk, and squat 
 
 Over ever chick she s got, 
 Suddent-like ! and she knows where 
 
 That-air hawk is, well as you! 
 
 You jes bet yer life she do I 
 Eyes a-glitterin like glass, 
 Waitin till he makes a pass ! 
 
 Pee-wees* singin , to express 
 
 My opinion, s second class, 
 Yit you ll hear em more er less; 
 Sapsucks gittin down to biz, 
 Weedin out the lonesomeness ; 
 Mr. Bluejay, full o sass, 
 
 In them base-ball clothes o* his, 
 
 34 
 
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE 
 
 Sportin round the orchard jes 
 Like he owned the premises ! 
 
 Sun out in the fields kin sizz, 
 But flat on yer back, I guess, 
 
 In the shade s where glory is! 
 That s jes what I d like to do 
 Stiddy fer a year er two ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Plague! ef they ain t somepin in 
 Work at kindo goes ag in 
 My convictions! long about 
 Here in June especially ! 
 Under some old apple-tree, 
 
 Jes a-restin through and through, 
 I could git along without 
 
 Nothin else at all to do 
 Only jes a-wishin you 
 Wuz a-gittin there like me, 
 And June was eternity ! 
 
 35 
 
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE 
 VII 
 
 Lay out there and try to see 
 Jes how lazy you kin be ! 
 
 Tumble round and souse yer head 
 In the clover-bloom, er pull 
 
 Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes 
 And peek through it at the skies, 
 Thinkin of old chums at s dead, 
 
 Maybe, smilin back at you 
 In betwixt the beautiful 
 
 Clouds o gold and white and blue ! 
 Month a man kin railly love 
 June, you know, I m talkin of! 
 
 VIII 
 
 March ain t never nothin new! 
 Aprile s altogether too 
 
 Brash f er me ! and May I jes* 
 
 Bominate its promises, 
 Little hints o sunshine and 
 Green around the timber-land 
 
KNEE-DEEP IN JUNE 
 
 A few blossoms, and a few 
 Chip-birds, and a sprout er two, 
 Drap asleep, and it turns in 
 Fore daylight and snows ag in! 
 But when June comes Clear my th oat 
 
 With wild honey! Rench my hair 
 In the dew ! and hold my coat ! 
 
 Whoop out loud! and th ow my hit!- 
 
 June wants me, and I m to spare! 
 
 Spread them shadders anywhere, 
 
 I ll git down and waller there, 
 And obleeged to you at that ! 
 
 37 
 
WHEN THE HEARSE COMES BACK 
 
 A THING at s bout as tryin as a healthy man kin meet 
 Is some poor feller s funeral a-joggin long the street: 
 The slow hearse and the hosses slow enough, to say 
 
 the least, 
 
 Fer to even tax the patience of the gentleman deceased! 
 The low scrunch of the gravel and the slow grind of 
 
 the wheels, 
 
 The slow, slow go of ev ry woe at ev rybody feels! 
 So I ruther like the contrast when I hear the whip-lash 
 
 crack 
 A quickstep fer the hosses, 
 
 When the 
 
 Hearse 
 
 Comes 
 
 Back! 
 
 Meet it goin to rds the cimet ry, you ll want to drap 
 
 yer eyes 
 But ef the plumes don t fetch you, it ll ketch you o*h- 
 
 erwise 
 
 138 
 
WHEN THE HEARSE COMES BACK 
 
 You ll haf to see the caskit, though you d ort to look 
 
 away 
 
 And conomize and save yer sighs fer any other day! 
 Yer sympathizin won t wake up the sleeper from his 
 
 rest 
 Yer tears won t thaw them hands o his at s froze acrost 
 
 his breast ! 
 And this is why when airth and sky s a gittin blurred 
 
 and black 
 I like the flash and hurry 
 
 When the 
 
 Hearse 
 
 Comes 
 
 Back! 
 
 It s not cause I don t predate it ain t no time fer jokes, 
 Ner cause I got no common human feelin fer the 
 
 folks ; 
 
 I ve went to funerals myse f , and tuk on some, perhaps 
 Fer my heart s bout as mal able as any other chap s, 
 I ve buried father, mother But I ll haf to jes git you 
 To " excuse me," as the feller says. The p int I m 
 
 drivin to 
 
 39 
 
WHEN THE HEARSE COMES BACK 
 
 Is, simply, when we re plum broke down and all knocked 
 
 out o whack, 
 
 It he ps to shape us up, like, 
 When the 
 
 Hearse 
 
 Comes 
 
 Back! 
 
 The idy! wadin round here over shoe-mouth deep in 
 
 woe, 
 When they s a graded pike o joy and sunshine, don t 
 
 you know! 
 When evening strikes the pastur , cows ll pull out fer 
 
 the bars, 
 And skittish-like from out the night ll prance the happy 
 
 stars. 
 And so when my time comes to die, and I ve got ary 
 
 friend 
 At wants expressed my last request I ll, mebby, rick- 
 
 ommend 
 
 140 
 
WHEN THE HEARSE COMES BACK 
 
 To drive slow, ef they haf to, goin long the oufard 
 
 track, 
 
 But I ll smile and say, "You speed J em 
 When the 
 
 Hearse 
 
 Comes 
 
 Back!" 
 
 *4 
 
A CANARY AT THE FARM 
 
 FOLKS has be n to town, and Sahry 
 Fetched er home a pet canary, 
 And of all the blame , contrary, 
 
 Aggervatin things alive! 
 I love music that s I love it 
 When it s free and plenty of it; 
 But I kindo git above it, 
 
 At a dollar-eighty-five ! 
 
 Reason s plain as I m a-sayin% 
 Jes the idy, now, o layin 
 Out yer money, and a-payin 
 
 Fer a wilier-cage and bird, 
 When the medder-larks is wingin* 
 Round you, and the woods is ringin 
 With the beautifullest singin 
 
 That a mortal ever heard ! 
 142 
 
A CANARY AT THE FARM 
 
 Sahry s sot, tho . So I tell her 
 
 He s a purty little feller, 
 
 With his wings o creamy-yeller, 
 
 And his eyes keen as a cat; 
 And the twitter o the critter 
 Pears to absolutely glitter! 
 Guess I ll haf to go and git her 
 
 A high-priceter cage n that! 
 
A LIZ-TOWN HUMORIST 
 
 SETTIN round the stove, last night, 
 Down at Wess s store, was me 
 And Mart Strimples, Tunk, and White t 
 And Doc Bills, and two er three 
 Fellers o the Mudsock tribe 
 No use tryin to describe ! 
 And says Doc, he says, says he, 
 "Talkin bout good things to eat, 
 Ripe mushmillon s hard to beat! " 
 
 I chawed on. And Mart he lowed 
 
 Wortermillon beat the mush. 
 "Red," he says, " and juicy Hush! 
 
 I ll jes leave it to the crowd! " 
 
 Then a Mudsock chap, says he, 
 " Punkin s good enough fer me 
 
 Punkin pies, I mean," he says, 
 " Them beats millons! What say, Wess?" 
 144 
 
A LIZ-TOWN HUMORIST 
 
 I chawed on. And Wess says, " Well, 
 
 You jes fetch that wife of mine 
 
 All yer wortermillon-rzVz^, 
 
 And she ll bile it down a spell 
 
 In with sorghum, I suppose, 
 
 And what else, Lord only knows! 
 
 But I m here to tell all hands 
 
 Them p serves meets my demands! " 
 
 I chawed on. And White he says, 
 " Well, I ll jes stand in with Wess- 
 
 I m no hog! " And Tunk says, " I 
 
 Guess I ll pastur out on pie 
 
 With the Mudsock boys! " says he; 
 11 Now what s yourn? " he says to me: 
 
 I chawed on fer quite a spell 
 
 Then I speaks up, slow and dry, 
 "Jes tobacker! " I-says-I. 
 
 And you d ort o heerd em yell! 
 
 45 
 
KINGRY S MILL 
 
 ON old Brandywine about 
 Where White s Lots is now laid out, 
 And the old crick narries down 
 To the ditch that splits the town, 
 Kingry s Mill stood. Hardly see 
 Where the old dam ust to be ; 
 Shallor, long, dry trought o grass 
 Where the old race ust to pass ! 
 
 That s be n forty years ago 
 
 Forty years o frost and snow 
 
 Forty years o shade and shine 
 
 Sence them boyhood-days o mine ! 
 
 All the old landmarks o town 
 
 Changed about, er rotted down ! 
 
 Where s the Tanyard ? Where s the Still ? 
 
 Tell me where s old Kingry s Mill? 
 
 Don t seem furder back, to me, 
 I ll be dogg d ! than yisterd y, 
 Since us fellers, in bare feet 
 And straw hats, went through the wheat, 
 146 
 
KINGRY S MILL, 
 
 Cuttin crost the shortest shoot 
 Fer that-air old ellum root 
 Jest above the mill-dam where 
 The blame* cars now crosses there ! 
 
 Through the willers down the crick 
 We could see the old mill stick 
 Its red gable up, as if 
 It jest knowed we d stol d the skiff! 
 See the winders in the sun 
 Blink like they wuz wonderun* 
 What the miller ort to do 
 With sich boys as me and you ! 
 
 But old Kingry ! who could fear 
 That old chap, with all his cheer? 
 Leanin at the window-sill, 
 Er the half-door o the mill, 
 Swoppin lies, and pokin* fun, 
 J N jigglin like his hoppers done 
 Laughin grists o gold and red 
 Right out o the wagon-bed ! 
 
 I 47 
 
KINGRY S MILL 
 
 What did he keer where we went? 
 Jest keep out o devilment, 
 And don t fool around the belts, 
 Bolts, ner burrs, ner nothin else 
 Bout the blame machinery, 
 And that s all I ast! " says-ee. 
 Then we d climb the stairs, and play 
 In the bran-bins half the day! 
 
 Rickollect the dusty wall, 
 And the spider-webs, and all! 
 Rickollect the trimblin spout 
 Where the meal come josslin out- 
 Stand and comb yer fingers through 
 The fool-truck an hour er two 
 Felt so sorto* warm-like and 
 Soothin to a feller s hand! 
 
 Climb, high up above the stream, 
 And " coon" out the wobbly beam 
 And peek down from out the lof 
 Where the weather-boards was off 
 
 148 
 
KINGRY S MILL, 
 
 Gee-mun-nee I w y, it takes grit 
 Even jest to think of it ! 
 Lookin way down there below 
 On the worter roarin so ! 
 
 Rickollect the flume, and wheel, 
 And the worter slosh and reel 
 And jest ravel out in froth 
 Flossier n satin cloth ! 
 Rickollect them paddles jest 
 Knock the bubbles galley-west, 
 And plunge under, and come up, 
 Drippin like a worter-pup ! 
 
 And, to see them old things gone 
 That I onc t was bettin on, 
 In rale p int o fact, I feel 
 Kindo like that worter- wheel, 
 Sorto drippy-like and wet 
 Round the eyes but paddlin yet, 
 And, in mem ry, loafin still 
 Down around old Kingry s Mill ! 
 
 149 
 
JONEY 
 
 HAD a hare-lip Joney had : 
 
 Spiled his looks, and Joney knowed it: 
 Fellers tried to bore him, bad 
 But ef ever he got mad, 
 
 He kep still and never showed it. 
 Druther have his mouth all pouted 
 
 And split up, and like it wuz, 
 Than the ones at laughed about it. 
 
 Purty is as purty does ! 
 
 Had to listen ruther clos t 
 
 Fore you knowed what he wuz givin* 
 You ; and yet, without no boast, 
 Joney he wuz jest the most 
 
 Entertainin talker livin ! 
 Take the Scriptur s and run through em, 
 
 Might say, like a auctioneer, 
 And ud argy and review em 
 
 At wuz beautiful to hear! 
 
JONEY 
 
 Hare-lip and inpediment, 
 
 Both wuz bad, and both ag in him 
 But the old folks where he went, 
 Feared like, knowin his intent, 
 
 Scused his mouth fer what wuz in him. 
 And the childern all loved Joney 
 
 And he loved em back, you bet! 
 Putt their arms around him on y 
 
 None had ever kissed him yet! 
 
 In young company, someway, 
 
 Boys ud grin at one another 
 On the sly ; and girls ud lay 
 Low, with nothin much to say, 
 
 Er leave Joney with their mother. 
 Many and many a time he s fetched em 
 
 Candy by the paper sack, 
 And turned right around and ketched em 
 
 Makin mouths behind his back! 
 
JONKY 
 
 S prised, sometimes, the slurs he took. - 
 
 Chap said onc t his mouth looked sorter 
 Like a fish s mouth ud look 
 When he d be n jerked off the hook 
 
 And plunked back into the worter. 
 Same durn feller it s su prisin , 
 
 But it s facts at stood and cherred 
 From the bank that big babtizin 
 
 Pike-bridge accident occurred !- 
 
 Cherred for Joney while he give 
 
 Life to little childern drowndin I 
 Which wuz fittenest to live 
 Him at cherred, er him at div 
 
 And saved thirteen lives ? . . . They found one 
 Body, three days later, floated 
 
 Down the by-o, eight mile* south, 
 All so colored-up and bloated 
 
 On y knowed him by his mouth 1 
 
JONEY 
 
 Had a hare-lip Joney had 
 Folks at filed apast all knowed it. 
 
 Them at ust to smile looked sad, 
 
 But ef he thought good er bad, 
 He kep still and never showed it. 
 
 Druther have that mouth, all pouted 
 And split up, and like it wuz, 
 
 Than the ones at laughed about it. 
 Purty is as purty does ! 
 
 53 
 
LIKE HIS MOTHER USED TO MAKE 
 "Uncle Jake s Place," St. Jo, Mo., 1874. 
 
 "I WAS born in Indiany," says a stranger, lank and 
 
 slim, 
 
 As us fellers in the restarunt was kindo guyin him, 
 And Uncle Jake was slidin him another punkin pie 
 And a* extry cup o coffee, with a twinkle in his eye, 
 "I was born in Indiany more n forty year ago 
 And I hain t be n back in twenty and I m workin 
 
 back ards slow; 
 
 But I ve et in ever restarunt twixt here and Santy Fee, 
 And I want to state this coffee tastes like gittin home, 
 
 to me! 
 
 "Pour us out another, Daddy," says the feller, warrnin 
 
 up, 
 
 A-speakin crost a saucerful, as Uncle tuk his cup, 
 "When I seed yer sign out yander," he went on, to 
 
 Uncle Jake, 
 " Come in and git some coffee like yer other used to 
 
 make* 
 
 154 
 
LIKE HIS MOTHER USED TO MAKE 
 
 I thought of my old mother, and the Posey County 
 
 farm, 
 
 And me a little kid ag in, a-hangin in her arm, 
 As she set the pot a-bilin , broke the eggs and poured 
 
 em in" 
 And the feller kindo halted, with a trimble in his chin : 
 
 And Uncle Jake he fetched the feller s coffee back, and 
 
 stood 
 
 As solemn, fer a minute, as a* undertaker would; 
 Then he sorto turned and tiptoed to rds the kitchen 
 
 door and nex , 
 Here comes his old wife out with him, a-rubbin of her 
 
 specs 
 And she rushes fer the stranger, and she hollers out, 
 
 "It s him! 
 Thank God we ve met him comin ! Don t you know 
 
 yer mother, Jim?" 
 And the feller, as he grabbed her, says, "You bet I 
 
 hain t forgot 
 But," wipin of his eyes, says he, "yer coffee s mighty 
 
 hot!" 
 
 155 
 
THE TRAIN-MISSER 
 
 At Union Station 
 
 LL where in the world my eyes has bin 
 Ef I hain t missed that train ag in ! 
 Chuff ! and whistle ! and toot ! and ring ! 
 But blast and blister the dasted train ! 
 How it does it I can t explain! 
 Git here thirty-five minutes before 
 The durn thing s due! and, drat the thing! 
 It ll manage to git past shore! 
 
 The more I travel around, the more 
 I got no sense ! To stand right here 
 And let it beat me ! LI ding my melts ! 
 I got no gumption, ner nothin else ! 
 Ticket Agent s a dad-burned bore ! 
 Sell you a ticket s all they keer! 
 Ticket Agents ort to all be 
 
THE TRAIN-MISSER 
 
 Prosecuted and that s jes what ! 
 How d I know which train s fer me? 
 And how d I know which train was not? 
 Goern and comin and gone astray, 
 And backin and switchin ever -which-way! 
 
 Ef I could jes sneak round behind 
 Myse f, where I could git full swing, 
 I d lift my coat, and kick, by jing! 
 Till I jes got jerked up and fined ! 
 Fer here I stood, as a durn fool s apt 
 To, and let that train jes chuff and choo 
 Right apast me and mouth jes gapped 
 Like a blamed old sandwitch warped in two! 
 
 57 
 
GRANNY 
 
 GRANNY S come to our house, 
 
 And ho ! my lawzy-daisy ! 
 All the childern round the place 
 
 Is ist a-runnin crazy ! 
 Fetched a cake fer little Jake, 
 
 And fetched a pie fer Nanny, 
 And fetched a pear fer all the pack 
 
 That runs to kiss their Granny ! 
 
 Lucy Ellen s in her lap, 
 
 And Wade and Silas Walker 
 Both s a ridin on her foot, 
 
 And Polios on the rocker; 
 And Marthy s twins, from Aunt Marinn s, 
 
 And little Orphant Annie, 
 All s a-eatin gingerbread 
 
 And giggle-un at Granny! 
 
 Tells us all the fairy tales 
 
 Ever thought er wundered 
 And bundance o other stories 
 
 Bet she knows a hunderd ! 
 
 158 
 
GRANNY 
 
 Bob s the one fer " Whittington," 
 And " Golden Locks" fer Fanny! 
 
 Hear em laugh and clap their hands, 
 Listenin at Granny ! 
 
 Jack the Giant-Killer" s good; 
 
 And "Bean-Stalk" s another! 
 So s the one of <Cinderell " 
 
 And her old godmother; 
 That-un s best of all the rest 
 
 Bestest one of any, 
 Where the mices scampers home 
 
 Like we runs to Granny ! 
 
 Granny s come to our house, 
 
 Ho ! my lawzy-daisy ! 
 All the childern round the place 
 
 Is ist a runnin crazy ! 
 Fetched a cake fer little Jake, 
 
 And fetched a pie fer Nanny, 
 And fetched a pear fer all the pack 
 
 That runs to kiss their Granny ! 
 
 59 
 
OLD OCTOBER 
 
 OLD October s purt nigh gone, 
 And the frosts is comin on 
 Little heavier every day 
 Like our hearts is thataway ! 
 Leaves is changin overhead 
 Back from green to gray and red, 
 Brown and yeller, with their stems 
 Loosenin on the oaks and e ms; 
 And the balance of the trees 
 Gittin balder every breeze 
 Like the heads we re scratchin on! 
 Old October s purt nigh gone. 
 
 I love Old October so, 
 I can t bear to see her go 
 Seems to me like losin some 
 Old-home relative er chum 
 Pears like sorto settin by 
 Some old friend at sigh by sigh 
 1 60 
 
OLD OCTOBER 
 
 Was a-passin out o sight 
 Into everlastin night ! 
 Hickernuts a feller hears 
 Rattlin down is more like tears 
 Drappin on the leaves below 
 I love Old October so ! 
 
 Can t tell what it is about 
 Old October knocks me out! 
 I sleep well enough at night 
 And the blamedest appetite 
 Ever mortal man possessed,- 
 Last thing et, it tastes the best ! 
 Warnuts, butternuts, pawpaws, 
 lies and limbers up my jaws 
 Fer raal service, sich as new 
 Pork, spareribs, and sausage, too.- 
 Yit, fer all, they s somepin bout 
 Old October knocks me out 1 
 
 161 
 
JIM 
 
 HE was jes a plain, ever -day, all-round kind of a jour., 
 
 Consumpted-lookin but la ! 
 
 The jokeiest, wittiest, story-tellin , song-singin , laugh- 
 in est, jolliest 
 Feller you ever saw ! 
 Worked at jes coarse work, but you kin bet he was fine 
 
 enough in his talk, 
 And his feelin s too! 
 Lordy ! ef he was on y back on his bench ag in to-day, 
 
 a- carry in on 
 Like he ust to do ! 
 
 Any shopmate ll tell you there never was, on top o dirt, 
 
 A better feller n Jim ! 
 You want a favor, and couldn t git it anywheres else 
 
 You could git it o him ! 
 Most free-heartedest man thataway in the world, I guess ! 
 
 Give up ever nickel he s worth 
 
 And, ef you d a-wanted it, and named it to him, and it 
 was his, 
 
 He d a-give you the earth ! 
 162 
 
JIM 
 
 Allus a reachin out, Jim was, and a-he ppin* some 
 
 Pore feller onto his feet 
 He d a-never a-keered how hungry he was hisse f, 
 
 So s the feller got somepin to eat! 
 Didn t make no differ nce at all to him how he was dressed, 
 
 He ust to say to me, 
 
 "You togg out a tramp purty comfortable in winter 
 time, a-huntin a job, 
 
 And he ll git along! " says he. 
 
 Jim didn t have, ner never could git ahead, so overly much 
 
 O this world s goods at a time. 
 
 Fore now I ve saw him, more n onc t, lend a dollar, and 
 haf to, more n likely, 
 
 Turn round and borry a dime ! 
 
 Mebby laugh and joke about it hisse f fer a while then 
 jerk his coat, 
 
 And kindo square his chin, 
 Tie on his apern, and squat hisse f on his old shoe-bench, 
 
 And go to peggin ag in! 
 
 163 
 
JIM 
 
 Patientest feller, too, I reckon, at ever jes natchurly 
 
 Coughed hisse f to death! 
 
 Long enough after his voice was lost he d laugh in a 
 whisper and say 
 
 He could git ever thing but his breath 
 "Ton fellers," he d sorto twinkle his eyes and say, 
 
 "Is a-pilin onto me 
 
 A mighty big debt fer that-air little weak-chested ghost 
 o mine to pack 
 
 Through all Eternity! " 
 
 Now there was a man at jes peared-like, to me, 
 
 At ortn t a-never a-died ! 
 "But death hain t a-showin no favors," the old boss 
 
 said 
 
 "On y to Jim!" and cried: 
 And Wigger, who puts up the best sewed-work in the 
 
 shop 
 
 Er the whole blame neighborhood, 
 He says, " When God made Jim, I bet you He didn t do 
 
 anything else that day 
 But jes set around and feel good! " 
 
 164 
 
TO ROBERT BURNS 
 
 SWEET Singer that I loe the maist 
 
 O ony, sin wi eager haste 
 
 I smacket bairn-lips ower the taste 
 
 O hinnied sang, 
 I hail thee, though a blessed ghaist 
 
 In Heaven lang! 
 
 For, weel I ken, nae cantie phrase, 
 Nor courtly airs, nor lairdly ways, 
 Could gar me freer blame, or praise, 
 
 Or proffer hand, 
 Where "Rantin Robbie and his lays 
 
 Thegither stand. 
 
 And sae these hamely lines I send, 
 Wi jinglin words at ilka end, 
 In echo o the sangs that wend 
 
 Frae thee to me 
 Like simmer-brooks, wi mony a bend 
 
 O wimplin glee. 
 
 65 
 
TO ROBERT BURNS 
 
 In fancy, as, wi dewy een, 
 
 I part the clouds aboon the scene 
 
 Where thou wast born, and peer atween, 
 
 I see nae spot 
 In a the Hielands half sae green 
 
 And unforgot! 
 
 I see nae stoned castle-hall, 
 
 Wi banners flauntin ower the wall 
 
 And serf and page in ready call, 
 
 Sae grand to me 
 As ane puir cotter s hut, wi* all 
 
 Its poverty. 
 
 There where the simple daisy grew 
 Sae bonnie sweet, and modest, too, 
 Thy liltin filled its wee head fV 
 
 Q sic a grace, 
 It aye is weepin tears o* dew 
 
 Wi droopit face. 
 
 Frae where the heather bluebells fling 
 Their sangs o fragrance to the Spring^ 
 To where the lavrock soars to sing, 
 166 
 
TO ROBERT BURNS 
 
 Still lives thy strain, 
 For a* the birds are twittering 
 Sangs like thine ain. 
 
 And aye, by light o sun or moon, 
 By banks o Ayr, or Bonnie Doon, 
 The waters lilt nae tender tune 
 
 But sweeter seems 
 Because they poured their limpid rune 
 
 Through a thy dreams. 
 
 Wi brimmin lip, and laughin* ee, 
 Thou shookest even Grief wi glee, 
 Yet had nae niggart sympathy 
 
 Where Sorrow bowed, 
 But gavest a j thy tears as free 
 
 As a thy gowd. 
 
 And sae it is we loe thy name 
 To see bleeze up wi sic a flame, 
 That a pretentious stars o fame 
 
 Maun blink asklent, 
 To see how simple worth may shame 
 
 Their brightest glent. 
 
 167 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 THE HIRED MAN TALKS 
 
 THERE S old man Willards ; an his wife ; 
 An* Marg et S repty s sister; an* 
 There s me an I m the hired man ; 
 
 An* Tomps McClure, you bet yer life ! 
 
 Well, now, old Willards hain t so bad, 
 
 Considerin the chance he s had. 
 
 Of course, he s rich, an sleeps an eats 
 
 Whenever he s a mind to : Takes 
 An leans back in the Amen-seats 
 
 An* thanks the Lord fer all he makes. 
 That s purty much all folks has got 
 Ag inst the old man, like as not I 
 168 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 But there s his woman jes the turn 
 Of them- air two wild girls o hern 
 
 Marg et an S repty allus in 
 Fer any cuttin -up concern 
 
 Church festibals, and foolishin 
 Round Christmas-trees, an* New Year s sprees- 
 Set up to watch the Old Year go 
 An New Year come sich things as these ; 
 
 An* turkey-dinners, don t you know! 
 S repty s younger, an more gay, 
 
 An purtier, an finer dressed 
 Than Marg et is but, lawzy-day ! 
 
 She hain t the independentest ! 
 "Take care!" old Willards used to say, 
 "Take care! Let Marg et have her way, 
 An S repty, you go off an play 
 On your melodeum!" But, best 
 
 Of all, comes Tomps ! An I ll be bound, 
 Ef he hain t jes the beatin est 
 
 Young chap in all the country round 1 
 
 169 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 Ef you knowed Tomps you d like him, shore! 
 They hain t no man on top o ground 
 Walks into my affections more ! 
 An all the Settlement ll say 
 That Tomps was liked jes thatawa^ 
 By ever body, till he tuk 
 
 A shine to S repty Willards. Then 
 You d ort o see the old man buck 
 An h ist hisse f, an paw the dirt, 
 
 An hint that "common workin -men 
 That didn t want their feelin s hurt 
 
 Ud better hunt fer { comp ny where 
 The folks was pore an didn t care ! "- 
 The pine-blank facts is, the old man, 
 Last Christmas was a year ago, 
 
 Found out some presents Tomps had got 
 Fer S repty, an hit made him hot- 
 Set down an tuk his pen in hand 
 An writ to Tomps an told him so 
 On legal cap, in white an black, 
 An give him ies to understand 
 
 170 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 "No Christmas-gifts o * lily-white 
 
 An* bear s- ile could fix matters right," 
 
 An wropped em up an sent em back! 
 Well, S repty cried an snuffled round 
 
 Consid able. But Marg et she 
 Toed out another sock, an* wound 
 
 Her knifrin up, an* drawed the tea, 
 An then set on the supper-things, 
 An went up in the loft an dressed 
 An through it all you d never guessed 
 
 What she was up to! An* she brings 
 Her best hat with her an her shawl, 
 An gloves, an* redicule, an all, 
 An injirubbers, an comes down 
 An tells em she s a-goin to town 
 
 To he p the Christmas goin s-on 
 Her Church got up. An go she does 
 The best hosswoman ever was ! 
 "An what ll WE do while you re gone?" 
 The old man says, a-tryin to be 
 Agreeable. "Oh! you?" says she, 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 "Tbu kin jaw S repty, like you did, 
 An slander Tomps! " An off she rid! 
 
 Now, this is all Fm goin to tell 
 Of this-here story that is, I 
 
 Have done my very level best 
 
 As fur as this, an here I "dwell," 
 
 As auctioneers says, winkin sly: 
 
 Hit s old man Willards tells the rest. 
 
 ii 
 
 THE OLD MAN TALKS 
 
 Adzackly jes one year ago, 
 
 This New Year s day, Tomps comes to me-* 
 In my own house, an whilse the folks 
 Was gittin dinner, an he pokes 
 His nose right in, an says, says he: 
 I got yer notean read it slow! 
 
 You don t like me, ner I don t j>/0," 
 He says, "we re even there, you know! 
 But you ve said, furder, that no gal 
 Of yourn kin marry me, er shall, 
 172 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 An I d best shet off coming too! " 
 An* then he says, " Well, them s YOUR views;- 
 But, havin talked with S repty, toe 
 Have both agreed to disagree 
 With your peculiar notions some ; 
 An , that s the reason, I refuse 
 
 To quit a-comin here, but come- 
 Not fer to threat, ner raise no skeer 
 An spile yer turkey-dinner here, 
 But, jes fer S repty s sake, to sheer 
 Yer New Year s. Shall I take a cheer? " 
 
 Well, blame-don! ef I ever see 
 
 Sich impidence ! I couldn t say 
 Not nary word ! But Mother she 
 
 Sot out a cheer fer Tomps, an* they 
 Shuk hands an turnt their back on me. 
 Then I riz mad as mad could be! 
 
 But Marg et says, "Now, Pap! you set 
 
 Right where you re settin ! Don t you fret! 
 An , Tomps -you warm yer feet! " says she, 
 
 73 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 "An throw yer mitts an comfert on 
 The bed there! Where is S repty gone?- 
 The cabbage is a-scortchin ! Ma, 
 Stop cryin there an stir the slaw! " 
 
 Well! what was Mother cryin fer? 
 I half riz up but Marg et s chin 
 Hit squared an I set down ag in 
 
 I allus was afeard o her, 
 
 I was, by jucks ! So there I set, 
 
 Betwixt a sinkin -chill an sweat, 
 
 An scuffled with my wrath, an shet 
 
 My teeth to mighty tight, you bet! 
 An yit, fer all that I could do, 
 
 I eeched to jes git up an whet 
 The carvin -knife a rasp er two 
 On Tomps s ribs an* so would you ! 
 
 Fer he had riz an faced around, 
 
 An stood there, smilin , as they brung 
 
 The turkey in, all stuffed an* browned 
 Too sweet fer nose er tooth er tongue ! 
 
 74 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 With sniffs o sage, an pVaps a dash 
 Of old burnt brandy, steamin -hot, 
 Mixed kindo in with apple-mash 
 An mince-meat, an the Lord knows what! 
 Nobody was a-talkin then, 
 To filiate any awk ardness 
 No noise o any kind but jes 
 The rattle o the dishes when 
 They d fetch em in an set em down, 
 An fix an change em round an round, 
 Like women does till Mother says, 
 " Vittels is ready; Abner, call 
 
 Down S repty she s up-stairs, I guess." 
 And Marg et she says, " Ef you bawl 
 Like that, she ll not come down at all! 
 Besides, we needn t wait till she 
 Gits down ! Here, Tomps, set down by me, 
 
 An Pap: say grace!" . . . Well, there I was!- 
 What could I do ! I drapped my head 
 Behind my fists an groaned, an said: 
 44 Indulgent Parent! in Thy cause 
 We bow the head an bend the knee, 
 
 75 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 An break the bread, an pour the wine, 
 Feelin " (The stair-door suddently 
 Went bang! an S repty flounced by me) 
 11 Feelin ," I says, " this feast is Thine 
 
 This New Year s feast" an rap-rap-rap! 
 Went Marg et s case-knife on her plate 
 An next, I heerd a sasser drap, 
 
 Then I looked up, an , strange to state, 
 There S repty set in Tomps s lap 
 
 An huggin* him, as shore as fate! 
 An Mother kissin him k-slap ! 
 An Marg et she chips in to drap 
 
 The ruther peert remark to me : 
 "That grace o yourn," she says, "won t gee 
 This hain t no New Tear s feast, " says she, 
 "This is a INFAIR-Dinner. Pap!" 
 
 An so it was ! be n married fer 
 
 Purt nigh a week! Twas Marg et planned 
 The whole thing fer em, through an 
 
 through. 
 I m rickonciled ; an , understand, 
 
 176 
 
A NEW YEAR S TIME AT WILLARDS S 
 
 T take things jes as they occur, 
 
 Ef Marg et liked Tomps, Tomps ud do! 
 But I-says-I, a-holt his hand, 
 "I m glad you didn t marry HER 
 Cause Marg et s my guardeen yes-sir! 
 
 An S repty s good enough fer you! " 
 
 177 
 
THE TOWN KARNTEEL 
 
 THE town Karnteel! It s who ll reveal 
 
 Its praises jushtifiable ? 
 For who can sing av anything 
 
 So lovely and reliable ? 
 Whin Summer, Spring, or Winter lies 
 
 From Malin s Head to Tipperary, 
 There s no such town for interprise 
 
 Bechuxt Youghal and Londonderry ! 
 
 There s not Us likes in Ireland 
 
 For twic t the week, be-gorries! 
 They re playing jigs upon the band, 
 Andjoomping there in sacks and and 
 
 And racing, wid wheelborries! 
 
 Karnteel it s there, like any fair, 
 
 The purty gurrls is plinty, sure I 
 And, man-alive ! at forty-five 
 The legs av me air twinty, sure ! 
 178 
 
THE TOWN KARNTEEL 
 
 I lave me cares, and hoein , too, 
 
 Behint me, as is sinsible, 
 And it s Karnteel I m goin to, 
 
 To cilebrate in principle ! 
 
 For there s the town av all the land! 
 
 And twic t the week, be-gorries! 
 They re playing jigs upon the band, 
 Andjoomping there in sacks and and-~* 
 
 And racing , wid wheelborries! 
 
 And whilst I feel for owld Karnteel 
 
 That I ve no phrases glorious, 
 It stands above the need av love 
 
 That boasts in voice uproarious ! 
 Lave that for Cork, and Dublin, too, 
 
 And Armagh and Killarney, thin, 
 And Karnteel won t be troublin you 
 
 Wid any jilous blarney, thin ! 
 
 For there s the town av all the land 
 Where twic t the week, be-gorries! 
 They re playing jigs upon the band, 
 Andjoomping there in sacks and and 
 And racing, wid wheelborries! 
 179 
 
REGARDIN TERRY HUT 
 
 SENCE I tuk holt o Gibbses Churn 
 
 And be n a-handlin the concern, 
 
 I ve travelled round the grand old State 
 
 Of Indiany, lots, o late ! 
 
 I ve canvassed Crawferdsville and sweat 
 
 Around the town o Layfayette ; 
 
 I ve saw a many a County-seat 
 
 I ust to think was hard to beat: 
 
 At constant dreenage and expense 
 
 I ve worked Greencastle and Vincennes-^ 
 
 Drapped out o Putnam into Clay, 
 
 Owen, and on down thataway 
 
 Plum into Knox, on the back-track 
 
 Fer home ag in and glad I m back! 
 
 I ve saw these towns, as I say but 
 
 They s none at beats old Terry Hut! 
 
 It s more n likely you ll insist 
 I claim this cause I m prejudist, 
 Bein born d here in ole Vygo 
 In sight o Terry Hut ; but no, 
 180 
 
REGARDIN TERRY HUT 
 
 Yer clean dead wrong! and I maintain 
 
 They s nary drap in ary vein 
 
 O mine but what s as free as air 
 
 To jest take issue with you there ! 
 
 Cause, boy and man, fer forty year, 
 
 I ve argied against livin here, 
 
 And jawed around and traded lies 
 
 About our lack o* enterprise, 
 
 And tuk and turned in and agreed 
 
 All other towns was in the lead, 
 
 When drat my melts! they couldn t cut 
 
 No shine a-tall with Terry Hut ! 
 
 Take, even, statesmanship, and wit, 
 And ginerel git-up-and-git, 
 Old Terry Hut is sound clean through ! 
 Turn old Dick Thompson loose, er Dan 
 Vbrehees and where s they any man 
 Kin even hold a candle to 
 Their eloquence? And where s as clean 
 A fi-nan-seer as Rile McKeen 
 Er puorer, in his daily walk, 
 In railroad er in racin stock 
 181 
 
REGARDIN* TERRY HUT 
 
 And there s Gene Debs a man at stands 
 
 And jest holds out in his two hands 
 
 As warm a heart as ever beat 
 
 Betwixt here and the Jedgement Seat ! 
 
 All these is reasons why I putt 
 
 Sich bulk o faith in Terry Hut. 
 
 So I ve come back, with eyes at sees 
 My faults, at last, to make my peace 
 With this old place, and truthful swear 
 Like Gineral Tom Nelson does, 
 
 4 They hain t no city anywhere 
 On God s green earth lays over us! " 
 Our city government is grand 
 
 " Ner is they better farmin -land 
 Sun-kissed " as Tom goes on and says 
 
 11 Er dower d with sich advantages! " 
 And I ve come back, with welcome tread, 
 From journeyin s vain, as I have said, 
 To settle down in ca m content, 
 And cuss the towns where I have went, 
 And brag on ourn, and boast and strut 
 Around the streets o Terry Hut! 
 182 
 
LEEDLE DUTCH BABY 
 
 LEEDLE Dutch baby haff come ter town ! 
 Jabber und jump till der day gone down 
 Jabber und sphlutter und sphlit hees jaws 
 Vot a Dutch baby dees Londsmon vas ! 
 I dink dose mout vas leedle too vide 
 Ober he laugh fon dot altso-side ! 
 Haff got blenty off deemple und vrown ? 
 Hey ! leedle Dutchman come ter town ! 
 
 Leedle Dutch baby, I dink me proud 
 Ober your fader can schquall dot loud 
 Ven he vas leedle Dutch baby like you 
 Und yoost don t gare, like he alvays do! 
 Guess ven dey vean him on beer, you bet 
 Dot s der because dot he aind veaned yet! 
 Vot you said off he dringk you down ? 
 Hey ! leedle Dutchman come ter town ! 
 
 183 
 
LEEDLE DUTCH BABY 
 
 Leedle Dutch baby, yoost schquall avay 
 Schquall f on preakf ast till gisterday ! 
 Better you all time gry und shout 
 Dan shmile me vonce fon der coffin out! 
 Vot I gare off you keek my nose 
 Downside-up mit your heels und toes 
 Downside, oder der oopside-down ? 
 Hey ! leedle Dutchman come ter town ! 
 
 184 
 
DOWN ON WRIGGLE CRICK 
 
 Best time to kill a hog s -when he s fat " OLD SAW, 
 
 MOSTLY, folks is law-abidin 
 
 Down on Wriggle Crick, 
 Seem they s no Squire residin* 
 
 In our bailywick ; 
 No grand juries, no suppeenies, 
 
 Ner no vested rights to pick 
 Out yer man, jerk up and jail ef 
 
 He s outragin Wriggle Crick! 
 
 Wriggle Crick hain t got no lawin , 
 
 Ner no suits to beat ; 
 Ner no court-house gee-and-hawin 
 
 Like a County-seat; 
 Hain t no waitin round fer verdicks, 
 
 Ner non-gittin witness-fees ; 
 Ner no thiefs at gits "new hearin s," 
 
 By some lawyer slick as grease 1 
 
DOWN ON WRIGGLE CRICK 
 
 Wriggle Cricks s leadin spirit 
 
 Is old Johnts Culwell, 
 Keeps post-office, and right ne it 
 
 Owns what s called "The G <aid Hotel" 
 (Warehouse now) buys wheat and ships it; 
 
 Gits out ties, and trades in st 
 And knows all the high-toned * .^miers 
 
 Twixt South Bend and Mis) iwauk . 
 
 Last year comes along a feller 
 
 Sharper an a lance 
 Stovepipe-hat and silk umbreller, 
 
 And a boughten all-wool pants, 
 Tinkerin of clocks and watches; 
 
 Says a trial s all he wants 
 And rents out the tavern-office 
 
 Next to Uncle Johnts. 
 
 1. He tacked up his k dentials, 
 And got down to biz. 
 Captured Johnts by cuttin stenchils 
 Fer them old wheat-sacks o his. 
 
 iS6 
 
. DOWN ON WRIGGLE CRICK 
 
 Fh.ed his clock, in the post-office- 
 Painted fer him, clean and slick, 
 C ost his safe, in gold-leaf letters, 
 J. Cul wells s Wriggle Crick." 
 
 / y kindo* job you keered to 
 
 lesk him with, and bring, 
 K M lix fer you jest appeared to 
 
 1*111*1 his hand to anything! 
 Rin^o, er earbobs, er umbrellers 
 
 Glue a cheer er chany doll, 
 W y, of all the beatin fellers, 
 
 rle jest beat em all ! 
 
 Made his friends, but wouldn t stop there,- 
 
 One mistake he learnt, 
 That was, sleepin in his shop there. 
 
 And one Sund y night it burnt! 
 Come in one o jest a-sweepin 
 
 All the whole town high and dry 
 And that feller, when they waked him, 
 
 Suffocatin , mighty nigh! 
 
 ,8 7 
 
DOWN ON WRIGGLE CRICK 
 
 Johnts he drug him from the buildin , 
 
 He pless Beared to be, 
 And the women and the childern 
 
 Drenchin him with sympathy! 
 But I noticed Johnts helt on him 
 
 With a extry lovin grip, 
 And the men-folks gethered round him 
 
 In most warmest pardnership ! 
 
 That s the whole mess, grease-and-dopin* 
 
 Johnt s safe was saved, 
 But the lock was found sprung open, 
 
 And the inside caved. 
 Was no trial ner no jury 
 
 Ner no jedge ner court-house-click. 
 Circumstances alters cases 
 
 Down on Wriggle Crick I 
 
 i8S 
 
WHEN DE FOLKS IS GONE 
 
 WHAT dat scratchin at de kitchin do ? 
 
 Done heah n dat fob an hour er mo* ! 
 
 Tell you, Mr. Niggah, das sho s yo bo n, 
 
 Hit s mighty lonesome waitin when de folks is gone ! 
 
 Blame my trap! how de wind do blow! 
 An dis is das de night fob de witches, sho ! 
 Dey s trouble gon to waste when de old slut whine, 
 An* you heah de cat a-spittin when de moon don t 
 shine I 
 
 Chune my fiddle, an* de bridge go "bang!" 
 An I lef er right back whah she allus hang, 
 An de tribble snap short an de apern split 
 When dey no mortal man wah a-tetchin hit! 
 
 Dah! Now, what? How de ole j ice cracks! 
 Spec dis house, ef hit tell plain fac s, 
 Ud talk about de ha nts wid dey long tails on 
 What das n t on y come when de folks is gone ! 
 
 189 
 
WHEN DE FOLKS IS GONE 
 
 What I tuk an done ef a sho -nuff ghos 
 Pop right up by de ole bed-pos ? 
 What dat shinin fru de front do crack? . . 
 God bress de Lo d! hit s de folks got back! 
 
 190 
 
THE LITTLE TOWN O TAILHOLT 
 
 You kin boast about yer cities, and their stiddy growth 
 and size, 
 
 And brag about yer County-seats, and business enter 
 prise, 
 
 And railroads, and factories, and all sich foolery 
 
 But the little Town o Tailholt is big enough fer me ! 
 
 You kin harp about yer churches, with their steeples in 
 
 the clouds, 
 And gas about yer graded streets, and blow about yer 
 
 crowds ; 
 You kin talk about yer "Waters," and all you ve got 
 
 to see 
 But the little Town o Tailholt is show enough fer me ! 
 
 They hain t no style in our town hit s little-like and 
 
 small 
 They hain t no u churches" nuther, jes the meetin - 
 
 house is all; 
 
 191 
 
THE LITTLE TOWN O* TAILHOLT 
 
 They s no sidewalks, to speak of but the highway s 
 
 allus free, 
 And the little Town o Tailholt is wide enough fer me ! 
 
 Some find it discommodin -like, Pm willin to admit, 
 To hev but one post-office, and a womern keepin hit, 
 And the drug-store, and shoe-shop, and grocery, all 
 
 three 
 But the little Town o Tailholt is handy nough fer me! 
 
 You kin smile and turn yer nose up, and joke and hev 
 
 yer fun, 
 And laugh and holler " Tail-holts is better holts n 
 
 none!" 
 Ef the city suits you better, w y, hit s where you d ort o 
 
 be- 
 But the little Town o Tailholt s good enough fer me ! 
 
 193 
 
LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE 
 
 LITTLE Orphant Annie s come to our house to stay, 
 An wash the cups an saucers up, an brush the crumbs 
 
 away, 
 An shoo the chickens off the porch, an* dust the hearth, 
 
 an sweep, 
 An make the fire, an* bake the bread, an earn her board- 
 
 an -keep ; 
 
 An all us other childern, when the supper things is done, 
 We set around the kitchen fire an has the mostest fun 
 A-list nin to the witch-tales at Annie tells about, 
 An the Gobble-uns at gits you 
 Ef you 
 Don t 
 
 Watch 
 Out! 
 93 
 
LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE 
 
 Onc t they was a little boy wouldn t say his prayers, 
 An* when he went to bed at night, away up stairs, 
 His Mammy heerd him holler, an* his Daddy heerd him 
 
 bawl, 
 An* when they turn t the kivvers down, he wasn t there 
 
 at all ! 
 An they seeked him in the rafter-room, an* cubby-hole, 
 
 an* press, 
 An seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an* ever wheres, I 
 
 guess ; 
 
 But all they ever found was thist his pants an* rounda 
 bout: 
 
 An the Gobble-uns 11 git you 
 Ef you 
 Don t 
 
 Watch 
 Out! 
 
 An one time a little girl ud allus laugh and grin, 
 An make fun of ever one, an all her blood an kin ; 
 
 194 
 
LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE 
 
 An* onc t, when they was company/ an* ole folks 
 
 was there, 
 She mocked em an* shocked em, an said she didn t 
 
 care! 
 An thist as she kicked her heels, an turn t to run an* 
 
 hide, 
 They was two great big Black Things a-standin by her 
 
 side, 
 An they snatched her through the ceilin fore she 
 
 knowed what she s about! 
 An the Gobble-uns 11 git you 
 Ef you 
 Don t 
 
 Watch 
 Out! 
 
 An little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue, 
 An the lamp-wick sputters, an* the wind goes woo-oo! 
 An you hear the crickets quit, an the moon is gray, 
 An the lightnin -bugs in dew is all squenched away, 
 
 195 
 
LITTLE ORPHANT ANNTB 
 
 You better mind yer parents, an* yer teachers fond an 1 
 
 dear, 
 An churish them at loves you, an* dry the orphant s 
 
 tear, 
 
 An* he p the pore an* needy ones at clusters all about. 
 Er the Gobble-uns 11 git you 
 Ef you 
 Don t 
 
 Watch 
 Out! 
 
 196 
 
AN ,N.T,AL 
 
 W1LL EE ASSESSED 
 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE 
 
 FO URTH 
 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 JAW 241933 
 
 MAY 1 1948 
 
 
 MAR 131935 
 
 JVJV, 
 
 *5 * 
 
 LD 21-50IH-8, -32 
 
(L 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY