ALLS THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ELLEN P. ALLERTON'S WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED WITH MEMORIAL SKETCH BY EVA RYAN. ILLUSTRATED. PRESS OF THE HARRINGTON PRINTING CO HIAWATHA, KANSAS. COPYRIGHTED, 1894, BY EVA KYAN, To COL. E. A. CALKINS, THE FRIEND AND ADMIRER OF MRS. ALLERTON AND HER POEMS, WHO HAS so KINDLY AIDED BY ADVICE AND SUGGESTIONS IN ITS PREPARATION THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED. 761017 CONTENTS. A Atinabelle 4 A Sweet Woman 34 An Autumn Picture 64 A Housekeeper's Question 65 A Storm on the Frontier 77 At the Falls 81 A Wayside Tree 114 A Song- of Peace 115 A Kansas Prairie and Its People 116 Acceptance 117 A Lesson for the New Year 118 A Morning- Call 147 A Message 157 At the Garden Gate 158 A Little Lcmg-er 161 A Home Out West 165 A Dirg-e 171 Agazzis 181 An Evening' Monologue 182 A Country Home 185 ABrideofaDay 188 A Dream 189 A Race for Life 200 A Dedicatory Hymn 227 A Summer Night 238 After the Wedding- 248 B Becalmed 98 Bubbles 120 Beyond the River , 133 Blackbirds 140 Beautiful Things 166 Birthday Greeting- 176 C Choice 40 Coming Honie.... > 63 Confidence 121 Carrier's Address 127 Carrier's Address (MDLXXV) 150 Crazy Nell 178 CONTENTS. D Died of Want 85 Dick and I ^ Down Stream 93 Dreams 96 Deep Waters 102 Don't You Tell 139 Down Below, 140 Discontent 167 Departed 173 Days We Remember 190 Day by Day .232 E Every Day Work 201 F Farmer Jones on Inflation 47 Foreboding' 67 Fou rscore 152 Fame 153 Found Not Too Late 186 Friends That I Used to Know ..194 Farmer John 202 Farmer Jones on Corn 246 G Good Nig-ht 24 Good Luck- A Christmas Ballad 32 God Knows 76 Grandmother 109 Gentle Spring- 168 G reen leaf 242 H Hig-h and Low 112 Harvest-Home 133 Hours of Pain 142 Harvest 143 Hazard 146 How Two Knights Rode to London 224 Haunted 245 I In Memoriam 52 Is Marriage a Failure? 98 Indian Summer 110 Indiana 148 In the Caboose 177 If I Were You ..210 CONTENTS. K Kansas, the Prairie Queen 37 Keep Your Temper 56 Knitting 239 L Little Things 57 Love 60 Leave me alone 67 Laura 99 Love 112 Love and Hate 148 Labor 204 M My Ambition 1 My Darling- 34 My Wild Rose 59 Moods of March 68 My Mother's Wheel 86 My Hickory Tree 89 Magic Stones 95 Morning- View of Lake Michigan 135 My Stalk of Corn 1% Machine Poetry 199 Mrs. HattieTyng Griswold 216 N November Rain 122 N ight and Sleep 174 No Such Thing As Love 195 O OutWest 42 Only One 55 Our Friendship 90 Over Niagara 91 October Days 97 Over the Hil 1 124 One Hour 136 Our Chart 213 On the Farm 229 Old Letters 241 Only a Woman 244 Old Flames 247 P Poetic Pies 54 Peace After War 207 Pity Her '.. .. 231 Probably Not 23S COXTKNTS. R Rescue the Perishing 71 S Summer S3 Smile* ... 55 Seeing the Editors HI Shadows 123 Spring 226 Struggle September 234 Spinning Tow 23* T The Mortgage- A Christmas Tale 21 The Stepmother 25 The Fields of Corn 27 To Mary 2H The Tower of Silence 30 Tin- Summer's Tale Is Told 30 The Renter's Exodus 4<> The Man for the Hour <>2 Two Farewells 69 The Thread of Gray 7O The Snow Blockade 74 To the Memory of a Young- Friend ..78 The Old Soldier 80 Taught bv a Bird 83 Tar-and-Feather Reform 8* The Whip-po-wil 101 The Sod House on the Prairie 103 The First Breath of Spring 105 Ths Wayside Trough 106 The Talking Fiend 108 The First Bird 125 Trailing Clouds 137 The Trail of Forty-Nine 144 The Fate of a Genius 153 The Night Light 150 Tl'e Old Butternut Tree 162 The Pity of It 1(>3 The Sleeping Village 169 The Old Stone Quarry 172 Trouble ." 183 Then and Now 184 The Old Farmhouse I'2 The Nation's Patient 198 The Wild Rose 2M5 To Mrs. C. H. Phillips 2n<> Tragedy and Farce 20X The Last Hour of the Year 211 Thanksgiving Night 212 To Mr. and Mrs. John Young 214 Two Christmas Guests 216 The Last Hour 21S The Storm 221 The Farther Shore 250 To Emma, On Her Wedding Day 251 U Unbelief 15<> W \VallsofCorn 2 Why 138 Wants 44 Weighing the World 1H9 Westward 46 Who Knows 23) Will He Come To-Night? 104 When Days Grow Dark. 223 Woman's Work 109 Wooing." 252 IN MEMORIAM, Mrs. Ellen P. Allerton was born in 1835 near Centerville, New York. Being the only girl in the family, and having seven older brothers, she early became the "queen of the household." When about fifteen years of age she attended school at an academy in Hamilton, New York. At the end of two years she returned to Center ville where she was a successful teacher in the district school. It was about this time she began writing poetry. In the summer of 1862, while on a visit to Wisconsin, she met A. B. Allerton, and they were married the following fall, and settled on a farm. The Wisconsin home of Mrs. Allerton was a modern farm cottage near Lake Mills, a village in the central southern portion of the state, away from the railroads and from the noise and bustle of busy life. Some of the earliest settlers had lo cated in the neighborhood. Mr. Allerton' s farm was on the west slope of the Rock River valley, with hills rising still farther to the westward. It was historic ground. The inarches, retreats, and pursuits of the Black Hawk war had left their lines across the country. A few miles away was P'ort Atkinson, now a thriving little railroad town. Passing the door of the farm house was a broad country road which Mrs. Allerton once described IN MF-:. Mr> HI AM. in its summer aspect as "a ribbon of gray with a border of green.'' At a short distance the road crossed a clear babbling brook which flowed under a rustic bridge, away through a grove of oaks, down beside the meadows and wheat fields, bi secting other roads toward the Rock River, of which it is a tributary. There was an orchard protected by a belt of willows. Some rods away was a spring, the oveiflow of which formed a rill leading to the creek. Across the road on the side of the hill to _the westward was the abandoned stone quarry described in one of her most charm ing and characteristic poems. This delightful home in which Mrs. Allerton led her qniet life for several years, she has de scribed in the following poem: A nook among the hills, .lit tie faring Whose fertile acres yield us daily bread: A homely, low browed dwelling, snug and warm. With wide blue country skies hung overhead. No costly splendor here, no guilder! glow, No deai- Ixmght pictures hang upon the walls; Rut bright and happy faces come and go. And through the windows God's sweet sunshine falls. We are not rich in heaps of hoarded gold: We are not poor, for we can keep at bay The poor man's haunting spectres, want and cold, < 'an keep from owing debts we cannot pay. We hear the great world surging like a sea, But the loud roar of winds and waves at war. IX MEMOKIAM. Subdued by distance, comes melodiously, A soft and gentle murmur, faint and far. We see the small go up, the great come down, And bless the peaceful safety of our lot, The broken scepter and the toppling crown, And crash of falling thrones, these shake us not. We have some weary toil to struggle through, Some trials, that we bravely strive to meet; We have our sorrows, as all mortals do; We have our joys, too. pure, and calm, and sweet. Is such a life too even in its flow? Too silent, calm, too barren of event? Its very joys to still? I do not know: I think he conquers all, who wins content. "The Old Stone Quarry" describes a rude scene in nature, which she adorned with the col oring that only a poet's fancy can supply. There are but few lessons in poetry and philosophy more instructive or pathetic than that which she drew from the piles of rough rocks, which remained at the place where enterprise and industry had failed to gather a harvest of profit. These lines are beautiful both in rythm and poetic thought: " There are human souls that seem to me Like this unwrought stone for all you see Is a shapeless quarry of what might be, Lying idle and overgrown With tangled weeds, like this beautiful stone Possible work left all undone, Possible victories left unwon." Glimpses of description and illusions to her IN MEMORIAM. Wisconsin home life appear constantly in her po ems. "The Hickory Tree," the subject of one of her poems, stood in front of the door beside the pathway leading to the gate. It was a monster in height and in the spread of its branches. She portrays it as " tall and royal, and grand to see." It was so indeed. It stood alone, a monarch of its kind. She associated it with her friendships, in these lines: " And here with friends on summer <-\es. We sit in the sunsets mellow glow Sit till the night winds loss the leaves. And the moonbeams sift to the sward below." The whip-po-wiPs music described as floating on the air "when the twilight drops its curtain down " was the identical bird that sang its mo notonous notes in an adjacent thicket, as she and her friends sat at her door, or she sat there alone in fellowship with her own romantic fancies. The description of "The Sleeping Village" relates to Lake Mills, and in perusing its lines one cannot but wonder how she would have described a great city asleep, as in contrast with its noisy daytime. The " Morning View of Lake Michigan " was written after one of her visits to Milwaukee. The attentive reader will detect' in her other poems hints and remembrances which relate to her old home and its surroundings, and the dear IN MEMORIAM. delights of which she bore in her mind as souve nirs to her grave. The house, the landscape around, the murmuring brook, the clear spring, the winding country road, its " border of green," the hillsides, the fruit-laden trees, the rural path, associated always in her mind with reflections on human life and its vicissitudes, with friends whose communion she had enjoyed in their midst, and with which their images were inseparably blended. "Beautiful Things" has especially received recognition throughout the United States, and is unsurpassed by any American author. It had been reprinted in all the principal newspapers be fore she left Wisconsin, and its classical beauty recognized by its insertion in an American An thology, Admirable, suggestive, full of native philoso phy, inspired by genius as these poems are, they are surpassed in vigor, in wealth of imagery and ripened thought by her Kansas poems. She had passed middle life when she came to Kansas. But her poetic mind was late in bearing its best fruits. She advanced in poetic growth as she advanced in years. The poems written under the new skies of the farther west, under new influences, with the inspiration of new phases which nature presented, studying a different line of tradition, with, perhaps, a more extended circle of admiring IN MEMORIAM. and appreciative friends, are her best titles to fame. "Walls of Corn " and "The Trail of For ty-Nine " are the finest productions of her genius. "Walls of Corn" was written in 1884. A short distance from her home was a belt of timber which was her favorite resort, more, probably, be cause it reminded her of Wisconsin surroundings. In the spring the field across the road was plant ed in corn. Often in the evening she watched this field of corn from the door, and heard the broad blades as they rustled and clashed like sol diers' weapons when in close conflict, and admired it all. Little did she think this field of corn would hide her from that dearer spot, that "wood ed dell" that lay at the foot of the "billowy swell " and that " All the world would be narrowed down To walls of corn, when sear and brown." But thus it came to pass, and as the cornfield ob structed her vision, that beautiful poem, which gave her more fame than any other, was written. Mrs. Allerton was loved and appreciated not alone for the productions of her pen, but for her social qualities, and for the active and ready interest taken in benevolent and charitable enter prises. Indeed charity was her crowning virtue. Not the charity that makes "swift feet" to re lieve material want, but that broader charity that IN MEMORIAM. hides defects and covers imperfections. This trait was shown conspicuously in her generous treat ment of the literary efforts of those who might be called her rivals. She saw and freely acknowl edged their merit, pointing out their beauties, and ignoring or touching lightly their blemishes. The lowest was not beneath her kindly notice, and the highest did not awe her soul into blind wor ship. Her modest, unobtrusive nature, and acute sensitiveness would always have kept her in the background but for her large heart, her broad sympathies, and her fertile intellect. Her poems were but the reflex of herself. Their purity of thought and diction was but the outflow of such a heart. Her enthusiastic defense of right was but the harmony of her soul, and her castigation of wrong, the protestation of her nature. There is, perhaps, not so much variety of style in her writ ings as in those who write only by virtue of intel lectual force by brain power as Byron wrote. She seldom indulged in sarcasm. It was only when the wrong could not be reached by argu ment, when reason thrown against it fell flat like a bullet from "A Man-of-War. " and dynamite only was available, then her projectiles of sarcasm struck home. The bitter irony and sarcasm in the little poem "Tar and Feather Reform," xvi IX MEMORIAM. showed her indignation at the wrongs perpetrat ed under the hypocritical pretense of outraged virtue (a crime infinitely greater than the sin it sought to punish,) how in her heart she detested "cant hypocracy," and the clamorous throngs that cry "Stone her! Stone her!" and then cower and shrink away when the search light is thrown upon them. Uncharitable vengeance, and un christian revenge, were not in her creed. She had no children of her own, but her mother heart won the love of those placed under her care. No one could be in her home long without discovering the marked respect and lov ing regard they had for her. She was wifely, wo manly and motherly, what more need be said? She has laid aside the work of wife, friend and writer, leaving us the serene satisfaction that it was well and conscientiously done. Such a wo man and her life is a cheering stimulus to all fel low life. Her memory will ever remain a warm and radiant token to those who knew her best. Mrs. Hattie Peeler pays a beautiful tribute to her memory in the following lines: "September reigns o'er hills and plains A radiant smiling queen, With beauteous face and regal grace. And robe of gold and green; The .sunflowers gay bedeck IUT way. And in the breezes nod. Like plumed knights with ia>sHs bright. The yellow golden rod. IN MEMORIAM. The wild bird's song is blytlie and long As here and there they roam. Gay butterfly sails idly by Nor recks of storms to come. The fruit trees hold a wealth of gold, Plum, apple, peach and pear; A mellow haze tills all the days, A calm and tranquil air. On fertile plain, where sun and rain Their equal parts have borne, Stand side by side, in stately pride, Tall ranks of ripening corn. Golden and green, the colors are seen, Shading downward to amber pale, As the ''Walls of Corn" in the sun of morn Fling their banners green. There is a voice at morn from "Walls of Corn,'' Telling of comfort, of plenty, of cheer, Of toil never spurned, of wealth fairly earned, In the harvest which draweth so near: And again soft and low, comes a sound sad and slow Like a sob to mine ears is borne, Or the breath of a sigh as the wind passes by O'er the tall golden ranks of the corn. It tells of a lute that is silent, or mute, Of a singer whose earth songs are o'er; Of a sweet kindly life, free from envy or strife, Of a parting to meet here no more: Of hearts sad and lone since the loved one lias gone. Of a grave where they linger to mourn. Of a life work complete, of a rest calm and sweet For the singer who sang of the corn. The bright sunlight falls on stately green walls And they change into amber and gold, But the song, it is done, the singer is gone, And her story on earth has been told. Beyond the borders of time, in that beautiful clime Where none sicken, or sorrow, or mourn, 'Mid a glorified band in that bright summer land Dwells the singer that sang of the corn." IX MKMORIAM. 1 I k ii Palmer Allerton. Died August 31, 1893. There's the sound of a sob in the "Walls of Corn, Whose banners toss on the breeze of morn," And a threnoby throbs through the fields to-day, For the voice of their singer h;i- pasx-d away. Vet fields are fair though heart- an- !>aiv. And death has gathered a harvest there. **** She toiled and sang and "heaven's dome Smiled softly over her prairie home." While the "Walls of Corn" through the summer days Shut out the world from her wistful gaze. And she sang of those walls that hid from view The dearest spot that her vision knew, A.nd, later, of walls that shut away Her dimming eyes from the light of day And then, in the dark, sang on and on Of hope, and rest, and the coming dawn. ****** < 'i i-ping and ripening stands the corn "With banners flung to the breeze of morn," While the sunflowers nod and the golden rod (MT a home of Kansas sod. ALBERT BIOELOW PA IM;. IN MEMORIAM. A Tribute to Mrs. Ellen P. Allerton. O! sweet are the songs of the muses, Like breath from the roses in June, To the soul that aspires and uses With a heart that's awake and in tune. For the beauty of earth has no sweetness The soul may not gather and own; And the worth of true hearts have more greatness Than power encircling a throne. Thy life was fair truth's best adorning, Thy smile like the roses in June Gathering sweetness and joy with the morning And spreading them far with the noon. Thy heart was a blossom of sunlight With the spirit to conquer and rise And brighten the azure of midnight With stars that are noblest and wise. Thy poems are sweet and enchanti ng As music that floats o'er the sea From isles where bright sunbeams are slanting Their gold over hill top and tree. Their worth to true womanhood bringing A wreath from the garlands of time Where Fame thy sweet praises are singing In anthems of beauty sublime. For all life is a poem of glory Neither reason or senses can grasp Till we read every verse in the story And the hand of the author we clasp. And thy songs were like Sapho's of olden, With visions of soul-land that shine Till the harp of the earthly was golden From the hand of the Author Divine. GEORGK W. WARDER. IN MEMORIAM. To the Memory of Ellen P. Allerton. Before the gates of morning A singer, sweet and strong, Poured out in measured cadence A tender, soulful song And many weary toilers 'Mid labor's clash and clanir. Took heart, and hope, and courage; From th" message which sang; A message full of promise Of better things to come, The promise of a morning Where hate, and greed, and rum, Shall have no place or standing, Shall have no right to be Betwixt the gates of morning On the purple sundown sea. Not they alone who labor In the sunny fields or marl, But they whose brains are wedded To busy hand and heart, Have heard the singer's message, Have heard her songs divine, Have felt her inspiration, And bow them at her shrine. H. W. ROBY. MY AMBITION. HAVE my own ambition it is not To mount on eagle wings and soar away I'.t.'yond the palings of the common lot, Scorning the griefs and joys of every day: I would be human toiling, like the rest With tender human heart-beats in my breast. Not on cold, lonely heights, above the ken Of common mortals would I build my fame, But in the kindly hearts of living men, There, if permitted, would I write my name: Who builds above the clouds must dwell alone; I count good fellowship above a throne. And so, beside my door I sit and sing My simple strains now sad, now light and gay. Happy, if this or that but wake one string. Whose low, sweet echoes give me back the lay And happier still, if girded by my song, Some strained and tempted soul stands firm and strong. Humanity is much the same; if I Can give my neighbors' pent-up thought a tongue. And can give voice to his unspoken cry Of bitter pain, when my own heart is wrung, Then we two meet upon a common land, And henceforth stand together, hand in hand. I send my thought its kindred thought to greet, Out to the far frontier, through crowded town. Friendship is precious, sympathy is sweet; So these be mine, I ask no laurel-crown. vSuch my ambition, which I here unfold, So it be granted mine is wealth untold. WALLS OF CORN AXD OTHER fOE.MS. Walls of Corn. SMILING and beautiful, heaven's dome, Bends softly over our prairie home, But the wide, wide lands that stretched away. Before my eyes in the days of May, The rolling prairies billowy swell, Breezes uplands and the timbered dell, Stately mansion and hut forlorn, All are hidden by walls of corn. All wide the world is narrowed down, To walls of corn, now sear and brown. What do they hold these walls of corn, Whose banners toss on the breeze of morn? He who questions may soon be told, A great state's wealth these walls enfold. No sentinels guard these walls of corn, Never a sound the of warder's horn. Yet the pillars are hung with gleaming gold, Left all unbarred, though thieves are bold, Clothes and food for the toiling poor, Wealth to heap at the rich man's door; Meat for the healthy, and balm for him Who moans and tosses in chamber dim; Shoes for the barefooted, pearls to twine, In the scented tresses of ladies fine; Things of use for the lowly cot, Where (bless the corn) want Cometh not; No sentinels guard these walls of corn, Never is sounded the warders horn. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Luxuries rare for the mansion grand, Gifts of a rich and fertile land; All these things, and so many more, It would till a book to name them o'er, Are hid and held in these walls of corn, Whose banners toss on the breeze of morn. Where do they stand, these walls of corn, Whose banners toss on the breeze of morn? Open the alas, conned by rule, In the olden days of the district school. Point to the rich and bounteous land, That yields such fruits to the toiler's hand. "Treeless desert " they called.it then, Haunted by beasts and forsook by men. Little they knew what wealth untold, Lay hid where the desolate prairies rolled. Who would have dared, with brush or pen As this land is now, to paint it then? And how would the wise ones have laughed in scorn, Had prophets foretold these walls of corn, Whose banners toss on the breeze of morn? WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. AXXABELLE. A Poem of the Heart. LOOK there, my friend, through yonder clump of tree-.. You see yon lofty, weather-beaten wall? You hear the hum of wheels, the broken fall Of pent-up waters borne along the breeze? That is the old brown mill. Its walls have stood While children's children have grown old and gray. While ruthless axes have hewn down tin 1 wood, And yonder town lias grown, rood after rood. The mill has stood there as it stands today. You wonder why I point it out to you? Well, listen. You shall hear a simple tale- Simple in homaly truth which cannot fail To wake your tencbrpity; which must sue Sue your -you have a heart? to charity. Only a story of a child's mistake: Of blindness lifted when too late to see; Of woman's waking when too late to wake: Of man's st rong passion hardly kept in check, And the strange ending if things end at all 1 >ometimes fancy they do not, but break and break In ceaseless ripples, such as crimp the lake When in its depths one lets a pebble fall. Come up the stream a little way, and look Behind those drooping elms. You see A low, white cottage by the roaring brook, With tangled garden, to its weeds forsook, And broken panes, where rains beat dismally. Almost within the shadow of the mill. O'erhung and sheltered by yon craggy hill, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The cottage stands. And here, at eventide, After a glorious, golden day of June, Just as the sunset paled and rose the moon, John Dent, the miller, brought his girlish bride. Across the valley had a marriage bell Pealed joyfully at morn. A child had stood (She was but little more) young Annabelle And uttered vows which only womanhood, Full-grown and earnest, knowing well itself, Should dare to utter. It was not for pelf No scheming child of sordid need was she, Her fresh young heart all meanness was above; And when young John had wooed her tenderly And gently as the south wind woos the sea, She gave him what, in truth, she thought was love. Had she but lived and died and never known, As many women do: had she not learned What else she had to give what slow flres burned, Smouldered and hid, fed by themselves alone; Had no hand stirred them to a quenchless blaze, All had gone well no, loveless is not well But had not gone so ill. Sad. sad to tell How woke into a wail the silent tone; How evil stole into her quiet days; How throbbed her heart strings like a tolling bell. For years her life was calm. Sweetly she went Calm household ways, and kept the hearthstone bright. Light was her heart at noon, serene at night, In simple kindliness was well content. Yet oft she wondered why the tenderness That closely clasped her in its folding arm, Could wake no passion-throb of happiness, Why loving words, so earnest and so warm, Should have so little potency to charm. Chided herself, and blamed her girlish heart WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Because it gave so little so much less Than what was given her so kept apart, And would not leap and thrill at love's caress. And when her flrst-born laughed upon her knee. And looked up with its father's eyes Into her own, with innocent surprise, She wondered why a baby's careless glee, Its clasping lingers and its aimless kiss, Should wake within her heart such throbbing bliss. Where all before had been so calm and still. Yet more she blamed herself resolved to be A loving wife henceforth but then, ah me! She had to learn that love comes not at will, But grows if grown at all spontaneously; Its clasping tendrills oft refuse to twine, Nor unto careful pressure flows its wine. Thus ran the days: at morn her household toil, Then needlework or books, both new and old; And whatsoever poets sang or told, Found in her hungry heart a fertile soil: The mighty master's strains were household words, So often had she conned them o'er and o'er And humbler poets' songs and lays of birds, Blended their music round her cottage door. She trained her flowers, sang her cradle song, And taught her babe to lisp its father's name First of all words: and softly went and came, Arid neither talked nor thought of "woman's wrongs." In afternoons of sunny summer day-.. Along the path that runs beside the hill Now overgrown with weeds to yonder mill She turned her feet: and where the sunlight plays There in the doorway through those giant trees, The child beside her, and the toying breeze Lifting the ringlets of her dusky hair, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. She sat, the while her husband plied his toil, Oft noting, as he passed, the picture fair Of child and mother often pausing there To touch her brow, or lift a ringlet's coil. So passed the days. The brook went down the glen After its labor, singing on its way, Like task-bound school-boy just let out to play; The great trees rustled there were many then As summer winds, flapping their lazy wings, Came down among them from the breezy hill; The vale was fresh and green with growing things, And peace, such peace as only duty brings, Sat there within the doorway of the mill. Meanwhile the child-wife grew to womanhood, Unfolding with her life but half complete, Although she knew it not her willing feet. And hands as willing, doing naught but good. And was she beautiful? 'Tis woman-like To ask the question. Yes; yet none could tell Wherein her beauty lay. I could not strike Her picture, had I all the thousand dyes That paint the air. Black were her eyes This I remember with softly gleaming lights Trembling within their depths, as in a well You catch the gleam of stars on summer nights. You grow impatient, and you wonder why I do not tell my story, and have done. I pray your patience 'tis so sad a one, I linger at its borders tremblingly. But here it is: On one ill-fated morn, A senseless form was laid beneath her roof, Bleeding and bruised, with garments smeared and torn, And clotted hair, all red with ghastly gore. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. "Here, Annabelle," said John, and said no more; lie knew her tender heart it was enough. Asking no questions, with her gentle hatuU She washed the blood from the pale, swollen face, And from the matted hair, and sought apace To win him back to life. The loosened bands Tightened at last; the silent, pulseless wheel Of life turned slowly round: he opened his eyes Blue eyes they were and looked with blank surprise On the kind faces bent beside the bed: Asked where he was, and how he came to feel So bruised and battered and what ailed his head? " We picked you up," said John, " by yonder cliff A broken limb, bruised head if that is all. I saw your horse take fright, and shy and fall, Wrenching a sapling from its rocky bed. She fell beneath you so did save your life, We hope and trust the noble beast is dead." "Poor Xan!" the stranger sighed, "I loved her well; The graceful creature was my truest friend; And I could weep that thus should be her end. What frighted her I'm sure I cannot tell; She never once her foothold lost before, And we have traversed half a continent. I do remember that shs shied no more. Poor Nan! Ah well! I ought to be content, And bless the fates that brought ms to your door." The surgeon came and set the broken limb, And Annabelle looked on with pitying eye The while her tender tears fell silently; And thought him brave admired the courage griru That bore the wrench and strain unflinchingly. He never winced; the weakness of a groan Parted not once the pallor of his lip-. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. So still he lay, but for clenched finger-tips, You might have thought him senseless as a stone. A woman's pity is a dangerous thing Most when its softness is all mixed and blent With woman's admiration. Such content It hath of passion and of tenderness, Which from its tearful dew luxuriant spring, That she who feels needs double guardedness O'er her heart's citadel; and none the less When in that heart lie mines of untold wealth Unwrought by human hand. Its great largess Unlocked, unguarded, yields to subtle stealth. For weeks the stranger lay, fevered and ill, Tossing at times in wild delirium, At others, lying faint, and pale, and dumb, In limp exhaustion, without speech or will. Oft in his fevered ravings he would talk Of distant scenes a spry-washed seaside home; Of his young sisters then he seemed to walk By forest streams, or mountain passes clomb; He raved of the Sierras; tossed a rock Over the crags toward the Western Sea, Marked its reboundings with a ghastly glee, And laughed at each reverberating shock. At last the rires burned out. Life seemed to stand Poised on a balance. Breathless days he lay, With his pale brow by chill, damp breezes fanned From off another shore. Within the shadows dim That fringe the skirts of that uncertain land From whence no traveler o'er the misty rim Comes with returning feet, day after day He lingered at the borders, as if Death, Putting his hot sword back into its sheath- Having won fairly scorned to take his prey. 10 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Meanwhile young Annabelle, watching his lightest sigh, With sleepless eyes above his pillow hung; And when the folded portals backward swung, And the ebbed tides came faintly flowing in, She bowed her stately head, and silently So glad was she that Life at last should win- Wept tears of joy such tears are soonest dry! Then came the days, so slow and yet so swift, Of convalescence days when vanquished pain Flees back among the shadows when again The prostrate forces slowly, feebly lift, Like the bowed spears of tempest-beaten grain. When Robert Lome, with puzzled, pleased surprise, Did ttrst discover what a lovely nurse He had, marked what I've told you in my verse Her dusky ringlets and her starry eyes: And then he wondered, thought, and wondered still, What freak of fortune, what mistake of fate, Had planted such a regal flower as that Within the shadow of a dusty mill. Such thoughts were dangerous like her pity. Time Wore on, and as he chafed and restless grew, Impatient of his weakness 'tis his due To say he had been patient in his pain She brought her books, and tried to soothe the chime Of flowing measures and of tender rhyme; And read to him, in cadence clear and sweet, That seemed to him, in its low rythmic beat, Like the soft footfalls of the summer rain. They talked together, and he wondered more, How had she gathered in that quiet vale, Where pompous Learning had ne'er swept its trail, Of wit and wisdom such a wondrous store? He drew her on, and sounded hidden wells, That into sparkling streamlets bubbled o'er, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. As pure, sweet springs that never flowed before Start at a touch along the basky dells. Her inner life its strange, sweet mysteries Lay all unrolled before his eager eyes; So frankly talked she to her own surprise And oft her laugh rang out like tinkling bells. Swift were those days, without a thought of wrong Days that on swift and gilded pinions sped Ere Conscience had tolled out her stern alarm, And pointed to the rocks that loomed ahead. Would that no others came into my song! You see what baleful shadow, dire and dim, Hovered about the sick-room; stole apace Into the unbarred door, and held the place? It came to this he loved her, she loved him. There came an hour when but a little thing A thoughtless act, and innocent, because It held no guilty thought of broken laws Revealed it to them both. He was asleep At least, she thought he was the fanning wing Of a stray breeze tossing the chestnut hair That lay about his brow; and Annabelle Rising to leave the room, just stooped her there, Softly put back the clusters, and then well, She laid her cheek upon it. Then the bell Of warning sounded but it rang too late. She felt a thrill that never once before Had stirred her heart that never, nevermore Must stir it thus again. Alas, the fate That had withheld such sweetness till too late! Then knew he that she loved him raised his arms, And would have clasped her, but she turned, While all her face with painful blushes burned, And left him with a thousand vague alarms \2 WALLS OF CORN AN'D OTHER POEMS. T<> -sing the heart, which, at that mute caiv Had. for onejmoment, leaped with happiness. Thenceforth her manner changed. She silent grew, And often met with an averted eye His questioning look: and well and faithfully Strove with her foe, determined to subdue. Meanwhile the man grew strong. His hurts were well, And the soft tints of health began to come Across the sunken pallor of his cheek. He took slow walks still further cure to seek Adown the brook, and through the grassy dell, And soon began to talk of going home. "'Tis a long journey," said the miller, "wait Awhile; be not in haste to go, I pray. You had best tarry and submit to fate," Laughed he, ''till you have strength to shut the gate (He just had left it wide) you've not to-day." Poor man! he little knew what meaning fell From out his careless banter, on the ears Of guest and wife. No truant, tell-tale tears Sprang to her eyes; she kept her bosom's strife On its own battle-field, and marshalled well Her gathered forces, even while a knell, Struck on her heartstrings, sent its hollow toll In sobbing shudders through her inmost soul. There lay her dead a scathed and blighted life. " If go you must," said honest Jghn, "Good bye, The mill awaits me with its silent wheels: The summer morn with quiet footstep steals Quickly away, and so, perforce, must I." "Farewell," said Robert Lome, "My thanks accept For all your kindness. I shall hold it well, With grateful care, among my treasures kept." "Small thanks to me," said John, "the praise is due WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. To yonder tireless nurse who tended you; With her I leave you talk to Annabelle.' So briskly toward the mill he walked away, Humming a tune in careless, happy tone, Leaving the two, and so they stood alone. What could they do? and what could either say? Only good bye? Had they but said no more, Love might have died a silent, smothered death, Like smouldering embers where there stirs no breath. But words are flame; once given vent and space, The fiery tide fast overleaps its shore, And seldom ebbs again into its place. One silent moment save the throbbing beat With which two hearts kept time and then he came And stood beside her, trembling. "I can tame," Slid he, "the wild mustang, though strong and fleet, But cannot tame my heart. Turn not away, That sad, pale face. Hear me this once, I pray, For I must spsak or die, though years too late. John Dent spoke truly, though he little knew How what he said was doubly, direly true; I have not strength enough to shut the gate." I know you love me nay, hide not your fBce. Drop not your eye 'tis veiled e'en now with tears. Let me look deep into its starry glow Once more it is the last, last time you know! I knew you loved me, when, with tender grace, You stooped and touched me witn your cheek. The years, Many or few, that slowly come and go, One thing they cannot take with them. I shall keep, Hidden with my lone heart's deepest deep, The memory of one moment's happiness, When thrilled my whole soul to that soft caress." "'You should not say' such things to me!" she said. Entreaty and reproach were in her look; 14 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Her face was deadly pale, her whole frame shook. " You see my weakness, which I seek to tread With all my gathered strength beneath my feet; The task is hard enough why will you add Strength to my enemy, and steal my own': 1 Leave me, I pray, and let me tight alone The weary battle I am sick and sad." "Poor little one!" he said. "I pity you From my heart's core but do myself as well. How it shall fare with me I cannot tell; But you will be to every duty true, And go your daily ways like some sweet saint : With feet that never falter, though you faint. You, but a weak woman, will a foe subdue That conquers me I cannot be like you." " 'Tis only to endure," she said. "The pain Will soon be over. We must take The sequence of our folly. Those that make, As we have made, shipwreck of happiness, Must fare without it. Life is not so long What signifies a heartache more or less? A few wild throbs that wrench the breast and brain, Then if we conquer cometh the calm of peace, Next, that of death, and then all struggles cease." "'Tis a sad end that only comes with death! I think the saddest thing that mortals know Is such a love, that only endeth so. O Annabelle!-down to my latest breath Must I endure this wrong the perfect mate After long years of waiting found too late? Matches, they say, are made in Heaven above, Where hearts are wed. If marriage is but love, All other marriage, then, must spurious be, And you, before high Heaven, belong to me!" WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. "Forbear!"' the woman cried, '"Twas hard before; 'Tis cruel that you add such agony, Heaping it high upon my misery. O cease, and leave me I can bear no more!" "I go, but once, just once your heart shall throb, Where it should always throb, close up to mine." He clasped her close, and while sob after sob Shook her from head to foot, on brow and neck, On tear-wet cheek, and pale and quivering lip, Pressed passionate kisses. Little did lie reck In that mad moment of the bitter drip So sure to follow that one drop of wine! You blame such madness? so do I, but then Poor human nature, wrenched and passion-tossed, At best intent too often goes astray. We little know how much own, so crossed, Could bear whether the strength, which in our day Of sunny peace seems so secure, could stand Amid the sweeping storm, and hold at bay The rush of whirlwinds, tempest-driven rain, And the forked lightning, with its flery hand. We know not, until tried, I say again, What we can bear we -all have need to pray. At last he whispered hoarsely, "Fare thee well. Earth holds no parting half so sad as this. Would it had been but death! no tolling bell Did ever utter forth such wretchedness! You will find peace such peace as waits to bless Enduring patience; but, oh Annabelle! Sometimes when, in your saintly purity, At the still evening hour you kneel to pray, Remember and ask pity, too, for me." He loosed hj,s arms, then turned and rushed away. She stood and watched him from the open door Once stretched her hands ('twas well he did not see) K, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. As it' to call him back cried. \\<,<- j> m,-: I never. never sh.ill Ivhold liim more!" Then she caught up her boy. and held him [tressed. While she wept wildly, to her aching l>rea>t. ******** A year had flown on slow and quiet wing Al)ove the vine-wreathed cottage by the mill: Again the wild rose all along the hill Hung out its lavish blossoms. All the ground Was spread with summer's richness: on the wing The wild bird sang and still the wheels went round. It was a fragrant morning; every breath of air Was laden with the breezy scants of pine. From out the open casement a low tune Came softly floating, like a tender prayer The wife was singing at her daily care. Just shadowed was her brow with pensive thought, Yet was it calm and smooth and purely fair 'Twas plain had come to her the peace she sought. But how fared Robert Dome? Not quite so well, With restless foot that never ceased to roam. He wandered widely, and no chosen home Found anywhere. The ocean's heaving swell Best suited him; and mountain heights Swept by wild tempests; stormy nights. When shook and jarred the everlasting hills Beneath the tread of thunders, when the glare Of the red lightnings lit the midnight air, And sweeping torrents tore the mountain side These chimed with his dark mood. But peaceful val< And silent rivers with their gentle glide, And sleeping lakes, flecked with snowy sails Of floating ship-: the calm of eventide- All scenes of quiet in his feverish soul But stirred the demon of unrest. The bowl Of fierce excitement, with a rest less t hirst. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Deeply he quaffed, yet still, as at the first. He thirsted. At last, heart sick and sore, When utter weariness had done its worst, lie turned his face toward his native shore. "Once more," he thought, "to look upon her face Unseen by her. I will not break the calm Which she, mayhap, hath found. Her tender palm She need not lift to warn me from the place. Hut once to watch her in her gentle grace, Twining, perchance, the roses at her door. It shall be only once I'll dare no more." And so it chanced, that breezy morn of June, Crouching within the copse that crowned the hill, He listened to the low and pensive tune That floated through the casement. Waiting still, He saw not, though he heard her. Finally She come within the doorway raised her hand To shade her eyes, and, with a startled look, . The same bright curls that decked the baby boy And fair eighteen, with merry, teasing kis-.. -. Toys with my hair, and laughs in girlish joy. They say that I have been a faithful mother, They say that I have done my duty well. And yet I know which they do not the failures, The staggering weakness that no tongue can tell! Adown the backward years so many errors Start up to view before my searching eyes! I know that I have not been always tender, Always unselfish, nor yet always wise. But one has stood, a tower of strength beside me- He for whose sake I took my work to do. When for an hour I have failed and faltered, His arm upbore, his love sustained me through. And now, e'en knowing, as 1 know the failures, The war with self, the faith oft faint and dim: Could all these years be blotted were I standing I 'nfettered, free, still would I dare for him. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The Fields of Corn. The harvest ends, and the song of the reaper Dies away to its closing strain. Skies of the midsummer, hotter and deeper. Bend over shorn fields and shocks of grain. Fierce is the breath of the July weather; Tropic heats on the wind are borne: The grass and the clover are dying together: Yet brave and green stands the fields of corn. Brave and green, and with banners streaming. Wooing the breezes at hottest noon; Wider flung when the world is dreaming. Spreading broadly beneath the moon. The days are cloudless, the air aquiver, Palpatant, pulsing with waves of heat; Crispy the aspen leaves quake and shiver. The cracked earth scorches unwary feet. The brown thrush, silent, flits through the hedges, Mute in their covert* the wood-birds hide: Farther the creek shrinks back from its edges, The springs cease flowing, the wells are dried. Still, while the grass and clover are dying. With strong roots deep in the prairie's breast. Plumed and tassled with banners flying, The tall corn tosses eacli lordly crest. Enter the field, a forest hangs over; Seen from above, 'tis a dark green sea. Gleaming with lights where the sun, like a lover, Showers his kisses so fierce and so free. Lo, through the cornfields a miracle passes. Vainly attempted by magic of old. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER 1'oi.MS Sunlight and salts and invisible Basses Here are transmitted to l>ars of gold. Triumph of alchemy: daily and nightly Wrought on tlie silence before our e.\ >. Miracle, yet do we note it lightly: Wonders familiar w.ike no surpris:'. Sole dependence of many a toiler, Watching the night, noon and morn skies, Fearing, trembling, lest the drouth, the spoiler, Scar with hot fingers the fields of corn. Si.ill, as yet, while the clover is While the buds fall dead e'er the flowers are burn. With life intact, and witli banners Hying, Green and beautiful stands the corn. To Mary. >iy heart is back in the past, to-night, As 1 sit in the twilight dim and pale; The wide, brown prairie is vanished quite. And another land steals on my sight, With wooded hill-top and sheltered vale. Down in the hollow a village lies. With its peaceful dwellings white and brown; And I see, as 1 scan it with loving eyes- Save here and there some slight surprise- But little change in the dear old town. Yet some dear faces 1 see not there- Faces of friends that I used to know- Some that were dark and some that were fair. I miss them sore, and I question where Are those that I loved, long, long ago. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Up on a hillside, near the town, In a silent city, with portals low, Under creeping grasses, now sear and brown. Under soft, gray mosses, that long have grown, Here lie some that I used to know. And you O, friend, whom I loved so well, Whom still I have loved, through all these years! Your heart has bled, while a sorrowful knell Slowly throbbed from the old church bell, You have shed in loneliness bitter tears. And how fare you now? Is life still sweet? When the sun set did the stars arise? Are the paths made smooth for your willing feet? Are you strong the allotted task to meet? Has the smile returned to your lips and eyes? Would I could see you, and clasp your hand, And look in your face as I used to do! But swollen rivers, mighty and grand, And many and many a league of land, Between us lie, while I question you. 30 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHKR 1'OF.MS. The Tower of Silence. High on the cool, green summit of a hill That crowns a footspur of the Western Ghauts. There stands a lonely tower. A grove of palms Clusters about its foot, and far below The warm waves lap the gorgeous tropic shore Of rich Bombay. Strong, close-clamped iron bars. Netted and intersected, crown its top, And deep and dark beneath there sleeps a well. This strange, weird thing this high ;m. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Have ended the dread work the birds began, When the slow-working fingers of decay Have crumbled up the bleached and naked bones, There is the well below; and, piece by piece, They drop into its bosom, dark and deep; This is the secret of the Silent Tower: Ajalee was a Parsee bride, beloved And beautiful. Her husband clung to her With passionate devotionyet she died. So had he loved her that the awful thought Of giving up the form his arms had clasped To the fierce talons of the screaming birds Seemed horrible to him. So, when he laid His lovely sleeper on the Silent Tower With a last kiss, love formed its skillful plan. He built about her a close netted screen, At which the hungry claws might tear in vain; Then left her to the moon and midnight stars; To the soft washings of the tropic rain; The mountain winds, and the sweet, sacred sun. 32 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Good Luck. A Christmas Ballad. " What! marry my daughter 't you. sir V A clerk, with only your pay ? Your cheek is something amazing! Enough. I've no more to say." " One moment your daughter loves me. I am strong, and willing to work. Wealth may be won, and honor And I'm not the one to shirk." The banker rose up in anger " No more of this folly, I say! Be gone! but another word, sir, And you lose your place to-day." The vault of the bank at midnight . At midnight dark and cold; The cashier hastily filling A grip with the bags of gold. A deep voice close beside him " Throw up your hands or die !" He turned, faced a pistol's muzzle, And a stern, commanding eye. Frighted, pallid, and nerveless, No strength to resist had he, . While his limbs were bound and fettered As firmly as firm could be. The news flew through the city Men said, " 'Twas a brave night's work A man had grown suddenly famous Young Oscar, the banker's clerk. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Walking the streets at midnight, Restless with love's despair, He had seen the sly thief enter Had followed, and caught him there. ******* In the banker's sumptuous dwelling The Christmas feast was spread. Beside the host stood Oscar, The taller by half a head. The banker turned, and, taking The young man's trembling hand, Through the great rooms he led him Through doors by arches spanned To where his dark eyed daughter By her white-haired mother stood; And smiled as the lovers' faces Flushed red with warm young blood. Then said he to young Oscar, As he joined their throbbing hands, " Choice is the gift I give you, Yet my debt uncancelled stands. " Therefore, besides my daughter, I give you a post of trust, The cashier's place left vacant Is yours it is but just." A silence deep had fallen O'er all that brilliant throng, But now the hush was broken By cheers both loud and long. Astonished at the honors Thus showered on his head, Stood Oscar, modest, blushing, " 'Twas just good luck," he said. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. " My Darling." " My darling," sweetest name that ever fell, Laden with tenderness from human lips, No other can so stir the heart's deep well, So send the warm blood to the flnger-tips. Love's deepest speech is short, its words are few; When most there is to say, oft least is said. A clasp, a silent look that thrills one through, A kiss, " my darling " thus two hearts are wed. " My darling " spoken oft with tender tears Under the soft hush of a summer night, Forgotten oft, alas! in after years When beauty dims and rosy cheeks grow white. But sometimes love grows brighter for its wear. Like unmixed gold gaining a deeper glow For the slow friction of life's toil and care, I know that God, who made us, meant it so. " My darling "when the locks are thin and gray, And when life's sun hangs low is well-nigh set, And youth, with all its dreams, is far away, Then blest are they who hear and say it yet. A Sweet Woman. I know her well, a thing that few can say So far within the shade her quiet life, So softly flow its tides from day to day, So gently do its hidden fountains play. And she she is a mother and a wife. What is she like ? Ah, that I do not know. I scarce can tell the color of her eyes, So changeful are the lights that come and go- WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 35 Now a quick sparkle, now a thoughtful glow- But always tender sweetness in them lies. Beautiful? why, yes, if beauty is a thing That one can feel and lean one's heart upon; Beauty of form and hue not now I sing. Her beauty is that which soon takes wing, And leaves but ugliness when youth is gone. Her hands are lovely, yet they are not white, Nor even small. Their beauty each one sees Who feels their ministrations deft and light. I think they are the fairest in the night, Cooling some hot brow, soothing pain to ease. She is a queen; and yet no jewelled crown Enfolds the soft bands of her shining hair. Love is her coronet. Hands hard and brown, And tiny baby fingers, clasp it down. Methinks that is the holiest crown to wear. Silent her work, and all unknown to fame. Of loud, for sounding praise she never dreams. The world's great trumpeter's know not her name. Her steady light is no wide-flaring flame; 'Tis but a fireside lamp, that softly gleams. I do not know I think her way is best. Her husband trusts her, and her children rise With sweetly smiling lips, and call her blest. She does her duty, leaves to God the rest. She is not great, but, surely she is wise. 36 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The Summer's Tale Is Told. The twilight ends; the last faint crimson stain Has faded from the west; the deep blue sky, Deeper and darker grows, and once again God's lamps are lighted in the dome on high. Above yon distant swell, where trailing clouds Hung low and black at noon, Now, round and red, from out their torn white shrouds. Steps forth the harvest moon. Thus she came forth last night, thus will she come The next night and the next. Oh, magic time ! The full moon wanes not at the harvest home, And night's grand poem flows in even rhyme. Silent the thresher stands, where hills of gold, Heaped high on earth's shorn breast, Loom in the moonlight. Summer's tale is told; The sickle lies in rest. The night has wondrous voices. At my door I sit and listen to its many tones. The wind comes through the trees with muffled roar, And round the moonlit gables sadly moans. The raccoon scouts among the stricken corn With disappointed cry; A dismal owl sends out his note forlorn; One whippowil sings nigh. And there is other music. All the grass Is peopled with a crowd of tiny things; We see them not, yet crush them as we pass. These sing all night, and clap their puny wings; Beneath my very feet calls clear and strong A cricket, slyly hid, While at my elbow well I know his song- Rattles a katydid. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Poor, puny things! your gala nears its end. A subtle change steals over vale and hill; There comes a hint of autumn in the wind That moans about the roof; the nights are chill; Short and yet shorter grows each passing day: The year is waxing old. The frost waits in the north, not far away The summer's tale is told. Kansas, the Prairie Queen. In the heart of the country we love so well, Two mighty oceans midway between, On grassy plain and on billowy swell, Sits in her beauty the Prairie Queen. She hears not the song of the solemn sea, Nor the roar of cataracts mountain-born: No lofty peaks, rock-ribbed has she, With white hoods piercing the clouds of morn. No white sails glide over lakes asleep; She boasts no placers of golden sands. Her ships are the " schooners" that westward creep, And her richest mines are her fertile lands. For aught she lacketh this Prairie Queen- Aught of mountain, or lake or sea, There are wide, wine plains and billows green Room for uncounted hosts has she. Her soil is deep and her winds blow free; There are belts of timber and quiet creeks: And rivers at brow, at breast, and knee, Fed by the snows on western peaks. God made the land, and man makes the State. As the hand of the Maker has made her fair, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. So honest labor has made her great. And wrought the rob -s she was barn to w.-ar. There was once a time not so long ago When all this land was a grassy sea, Shook by the tramp of the buffalo. Trod on by savagas flerca and free. Another time. On the winds was born A cry for help when the settlers stood Battling for freedom when, rent and torn, She was christened with fire and biptized in blood. Flame, and rope, and bullet, and knife Did their work, while the world locked on: But the fair young State came out of the strife Fanrun. gloriom for Freedom woa. There were heroes then; and we see to-day What a rich growth sprang where their blood was sown Why slavery trembled for these were they Who drove the wedge that toppled her throne. Dark days and stern! remembered still By pleasant fireside, by peaceful stream. As one remembers with shuddering thrill The horror and fright of some evil dream. With " Bleeding Kansas" how fares it now? Her cup of plenty, her smile serene, She sits at peace with untroubled brow. She is rich, she is great, she is crowned a Queen! Her prairies are decked with peaceful homes, Nestled, like dove-cotes, in clumps of green; Fair cities rise with their spires and domes, And reaches of railway streched between. The cattle by thousands that dot her plains, The stacks, like tents, on her bosom borne; WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The grain sacks, heaped on the loaded wains; Her stately forests of ripening corn; Her quarries, where palaces, towers and spires Wait but the hands and the skill to form; The masses of coal, which feed the tires That/ drives her engines and keeps her warm: All these are wealth; yet a greater wealth She holds in her children her boys and girls Their faces bright with the tints of health, With their laughing eyes and their tossing curls. The country boy with the bare, brown feet, Tripping to school with his books and slate, May climb some day to the highest seat In some great crisis may save the state. Little he thinks, at his books or play, While the warm blood mantles his "'cheek of tan," Of the work of the years that stretch away; Yet the careless boy is the coming man. And the little girl, with her dimples sweet, Her red lips fresh as the morning dew, Her silvery laugh, and her dancing feet, Is the coming woman, tender and true. The boy, the girl, in their childish grace Conning their school tasks, day by day These are they who shall take our place, When we are at rest and laid away. We are proud of Kansas, the beautiful Queen, And proud are we of her rields of corn; But a nobler pride than these, I ween, Is our pride in her children, Kansas born.' 43 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Choice. Fair and sweet is the face of a child. Where sin his left no trace; Lovely the brow uncovered by care, And the fresh lips' smiling grace; Sweet as the dawn are the clear young eyes. Where trouble has found no place. Yet 'tis a world of trouble and care, Where the child has entered in; A world of toil and of eager strife, Where only the brave may win; A world where the wicked watch for prey; A world that is durk with sin. O children, innocent ones! Life is not what it seems To you at play on its border land, Or smiling in rosy dreams 'Tis no soft vale, where the lotus rocks On bosoms of silent streams. Life is a battle and all must tight, . Who would sing the victor's song; Life is a race and the goal is far If happen that life be long- Yet is the race not all to the swift, And the battle is not to the strong. Who, then, shall win in the rac3, in the fight: He who is steady and true; Who gives the best of his heart and soul To the good that he finds to do; By naught dismayed and by naught seduced Constant his whole life through. Steadfastly treading the old, old way That the faithful have trod before; WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Patiently scaling the same rough step.-;, Bearing the cross you bore; Ever with face set toward the gates That gleam on the shining shore. Steadfastly battle without And steadfastly foes within For never human hearts, but feel Some taint of its origin Triumphant now. now weeping sore, And crying, "forgive my sin." Soldier is he with no bannered pride, Nor in gorgeous trappings dressed, No boom of cannon, no trumpet blast, Xo tossing plumed crest Are heard or seen or the field of strife That lies in his throbbing breast. Such is he, and such is the life Of many a striving one Hunted, buffeted, snare beset; Wounded, yet pressing on; Little he knows of peace or rest, Till the war is over and done. Ever for model the perfect Christ Though he but half attain; Perfect never, yet, scanned beside A life of need and gain, A selfish pleasure, of slothful ease, How grand his toil and pain; You are young, and careless, and gay Standing where two roads meet Choose, ere the evil days draw nigh, Whither shall land your feet! Time has wings, and the years sweep on And life is but frail and fleet. 42 U ALLS OF CORN* AND OTHER POKMS. Choose! Will you take for guide or friend The teacher of Gall i lee- Loving, forgiving, denying self, Bidding the Tempter flee; Treading the billows when passion is high. As Jesus trod on the sea? Can you? and will you? oh, but try. Falling, yet try again. On the wreck of to-day's defeat. Build for to-morrow's gain, Effort is noble; Striving still. Ye shall not strive in vain. Out West. " Westward ho!'' comes ringing from the throat of " The Pioneer ''- A paper run by the railroads out on the great frontier. Wanted, a mighty army to settle the rolling flat, That lies, like a garden of Eden, along the beautiful Platte. Wanted, women and children, bearded and stalwart men, From stern New England hillside, from rugged and rocky glen: From steeps of the Alleghanies, where bleak winds fiercely blow, And down whose slopes of hard-pan roll storms of sleet and snow. Wanted to settle the prairies! and still the call is heard Irish, Norwegian, German but Yankee blood preferred. Wanted and who would linger on patches stony and steep. When a wide realm lies before him, with soil both rich and deep'.- Good Pioneer, Sir Railroad, all that you say is true. And wondrous fair the picture that you are holding up to view; WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. But is it straight and honest, and is it fair and right, That only the good is shown us, and the bad left out of sight? 'Tis true, a careless mention of the " hopper " here is made, As something rare and seldom, like tire, or Indian raid; But naught of the summer droughts, and not the faintest breatli Concerning the western '"blizzard," that awful blast of death. No record how the fanner, amid the rush and roar, All blinded and bewildered, sinks down beside his door; Sinks freezing at his threshold with unavailing moan For the voices of the tempest outspeak his dying groan If the half we are to credit of the shuddering settler's tale, Of the tempest swift and sudden, of the icy, blinding veil, Then, to a western blizzard, with its rush and its deadly sting, A storm of the Alleghanies is the flap of a pigeon's wing. A spectre stalks the prairies, a spectre gaunt and grim, Scattering woe and famine, and waste of cheek and limb. There is freezing, there is starving, while rings the cheery call. Wanted five hundred thousand ! "Do they think us id iots all y WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Wants. " Man wants but little here below. Nor wants that little long." A gentle, genial bard was he Who put that in his song. It should have been some Anchorite. Who, bound his flesh to slaughter, Employed his days in counting beads. And lived on roots and water. He must have had, it seems to me. A most contented mind, And must have known but little of That genus called mankind. Who little wants, nor wants that long, Is only half a human. Man's wants are many, and, I own, 'Tis much the same with woman. For instance I and I suppose That 1 am like the rest Have many wants that stir and fret In my unquiet breast. So many minus quantities Come into my equation, To name them all would go beyond The scope of numeration. I want my daily bread and that Includes a bill of fare That, for its comprehensiveness, Would make our poet stare. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 45 Not all the fruits of every clime Were I content with having; Not all the cooks of all the world Could satisfy my craving. I want the strongest kinds of meats To flll my larder lean; I want the words of all the wise That are or aye have been. And then I want the power to choose From out the vast collation; I want to know, where now I toss In doubt and speculation. I want, beside, such solid fare, All tender household words, I want the lays of poets and The songs of summer birds. And then I want my friends a few Who know me well, yet love me, And who, should swift disaster come, Would not be sure to shove me. I want both will and strength to rise Above all hurtful things; I want to be an angel but I was not born with wings. I want but it occurs to me That space and type are finite. Should I go on, the printer would " Respectfully decline " it. 46 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Westward. When eastern snows are melting and the south wind softly blows, The old hives swarm, and westward the Star of Empire goes. " Westward ho!" is ever the watchword of the spring: As sure as birds fly northward, is this a settled thing. 'Tis heard again in autumn, when crops are gathered in When the corn is in the barn and the wheat is in the bin. Westward, and ever westward, the long, white wagons creep, Through towns and open country, and forests dark and deep. Westward women and children, bearded and stalwart men From stern New England hillside, from wild and rocky glen; From steeps of the Alleghanies, where bleak winds fiercely blow; And down whose crags of granite roll storms of sleet and snow. Westward from o'er the ocean a crowd comes pressing on, Russian, Norwegian, German all bloods under the sun Here meet and mingle kindly. As all the world doth know, When other lands are full, hither rolls the overflow. Westward, and ever westward, the peaceful army comes Workmen for better wages, the homeless seeking homes; Young men- life all before them, with all that life endears And old men, faint and weary, with the bootless toil of years. Still they come, and still we greet them with the clasp of friendly hand; Still they flood and swell our cities, still they spread across the land; Westward, westward led or followed by the headlight's ghostly gleam, While lonely wilds are startled by the engine's eerie scream. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. On bare, wide slopes the dug-out yields shelter safe and sure, And from its fireside altar floats incense sweet and pure. Beside the lowly door sits the grandsire old and gray, While round him, tanned and merry, the barefoot children play. The sod, upturned, wooes surely the sunshine and the rain; Anon the swells are golden with seas of waving grain. Where all was bare and barren, thick stand the clustered sheaves; Where all was bare and treeless, winds whisper through the leaves. Towns spring as by enchantment along the great frontier; Where the owl dwelt silent, solemn, with the prairie dog last year, Now stands the store and school house, and church with steeple white, In a city reared by magic, like the gourd that grew in a night. Farmer Jones On Inflation. So the law is passed. I suppose it's no use to talk, And I'm not a public man I travel a private walk. But, all the same, I should like to say my say, Although my way of speaking is a homely way. Slowly I follow my plow, and think and think, And it seems to me there's somewhere a missing link. I read the papers and speeches that come to hand, But something looks dark; I cannot quite understand. Softly the lawyers talked on the capitol floor, (Flow tender-hearted they were!) of the suffering poor. Money! to pay the workingmen, starving for bread! Money! to save the dying and bury the dead! WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POBMS. To the farmer was promised a new a,nd a dawning day; Fair prices for produce, where now he but gives away: More he should get for his wheat, his corn and rye, But nothing they said of things he would have to buy. If wheat goes up, but little's the good to me, If up with a jerk goes sugar, and coffee and tea: I have to pay more for a reaper, a horse, or a hand, And, if I am homeless, more for a house and land. " Inflation is sparkling wine," some one has said. " If it starts up the pulse and blood of sluggish trade," But wine is a mocker; we dream we are rich and great; Then comes the drunken panic; then why, we re-inflate. Inflation is gas! and up and away, to the tune Of forty-four millions, soars Uncle Sam's balloon. But a storm is ahead; the dark skies scowl and frown, And, stripped and riddled, the thing has got to come down. Such are my thoughts, as I toil for my daily bread, And follow the clean-cut furrow with steady tread. I am not skilled in the hidden tricks of the law, But I've learned to trace a current by the course of a straw. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The Renter's Exodus. It was near the end of winter and mild as mild could be, When a renter started westward with wife and children three, Going forth to seek a homestead on the prairies bare and lone For the poor man hungered sorely for a place to call his own. The wind blew soft and balmy, the day was bright and fair; The spring was stealing northward and her breath was in the air. Like starting on a picnic so high their spirits rose Seemed that journey's fair beginning could they have seen its close ! Slow crept the wagon westward. A week of pleasant days, Then came one dark gray morning. A strangely brooding haze Hung o'er the lonely country, its curtain vague and dim, And hid the palid sunlight and hid the prairie's rim. "Best stay in cover stranger, I'm sure you're welcome quite." Tims spoke the kind old farmer where they had spent the night. "That gray film over yonder, that queer look iu the sky I know the signs: then tarry, and let the storm go by." With thanks for proffered kindness, they still must needs be gone. 'Twas "not so bad a morning, when all was said and done. Alas for rash impatience; it can not brook to wait, But shuts its eyes all blindly and rushes on its fate. 50 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POKMS. Slow crept the wagon westward: and still that filmy veil Hung o'er the red-brown prairie, so ghastly, dim and pale. A sound like rushing pinions a moment, and no more- Then came the freezing norther, with savage shriek and roar. Cold blew the wind, and colder, like bits of sharpened stone, The fine snow pierced their garments and chilled them to the bone. Out on the lonely prairie, that seemed of life bereft Alack! and O! alack for the shelter they had left. The early twilight fell and night was closing fast, When through the swirling tempest they spied a light at last. The children tried to shout with their numb and stiffened lips, And clapped their little hands with the freezing finger tips. 'Twas the dwelling snug and warm of a farmer well-to-do. "Can we stop here for the night, and till the storm is through'?" In the doorway stood the speaker, a vision wild arid weird, With white frost on his eyebrows, and ice hung on his beard. As he spoke he glancad within at the warm and lamplit room, At the young and comely woman, at the children in their bloom, Never doubting of the answer, full trusting more the shame To him, the stony hearted, from whom the answer came. "I don't keep tavern, stranger, and spare room have we none; You'll find a place, I reckon, some three miles further on." WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 51 No other word was spoken; the poor man turned away With pale lips tense and set, and with face of ashen gray. No time was there for parley, and no use had there been; He saw no ray of pity in the gaze so cold and keen. He rushed back to the wagon; said, "three miles yet to go!" He had found that human hearts could be colder than the snow. The children huddled closer, the shivering mother pressed Beneath her shawl the youngest still closer to her breast. One sad, resentful look towards the warm and glowing light, And the man whipped up his horses, so they passed into the night. Through the storm and drift and darkness did the swaying wagon reel, While the farmer asked a blessing on the smoking evening meal . Later, he read his bible (the cruel hypocrit!) And prayed for preservation from the dangers of the night. ****** On hard drifts, pure and sparkling, the sun shone calmly down, When a chilling, startling item was wired from town to town, ''A family found frozen." Then, later, itwas told How a farmer had refused them a shelter from the cold. The farmer now how fares he? Mayhap he prospers still, With corn heaped in his cribs, and with money in his till: But I wonder if his pulses do always calmly beet, And if his food is pleasant, and if his sleep is sweet. 52 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. In Memorial!). Fast falls the night. The bleak December wind In fitful gusts sweeps o'er a lowly bed Made but to-day. A true heart and a kind Lies still and pulseless, she, our friend, is dead. A few hours since, I stood, with tear-wet eyes, And looked upon her, placid in her sleep, Longing to whisper to her, loving-wise, But silence wrapped her, I could only weep. I loved her well, and never let her know, Xor sought her side to soothe the pain she bore, By word or touch, or aught that friend could do. Now 'tis too late and oh! it grieves me sore. friend, had I but known that on thy brow Death had its signet set, and marked his own! But bitter tears are unavailing now, In vain regret. O friend, had I but known! We speak of what she was. how tender, true, How loving, loyal, to her friends, how dear, Tell to each other her sweet story through, In voices low alas! she cannot hear. The night grows darker; still the cold winds moan, For me repeating but one sad refrain, 1 seem to hear, in every mournful tone Only the bitter wail" In vain, in vain." WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Summer, The trailing skirts of the summer Have swept away to the south A blast came down from the northland And kissed her on the mouth. She fled from the kiss that chilled her, From the touch of a frosty hand; But the work of her busy fingers Is strewn all over the land. Wrought she well in the sunshine. And wrought she well in the rain; For the corn hangs thick and heavy, And the garners are filled with grain. Busy was she in the orchards The rich fruit swings o'erhead, While the low boughs, overladen, Lie prone on the paths we tread. Peaches with coats of velvet; Apples in satin fine: Purple grapes by the river, Where the great coils twist and twine. For these do we bless the summer, So fervid, and strong, and sweet; Autumn but touches and ripens As he follows her flying feet. Then sing, oh! sing her praises, Ye singers with throats in tune; While the fruit and corn hang heavy, All under the harvest moon. 54 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 4i Poetic Pies." From the oven hot and steaming, With the ruby bubbles gleaming, As they boil up through the craters in little puffs and sighs, There's resistless invitation To the palate's delectation In the odor and the look of those " poetic " cherry pies. Oh, their juice than wine is richer! It is poured from out the pitcher Where is stored the luscious nectar distilled at summer's prime. Show these pies to Doctor Tanner, He would forthwith strike his banner And put off the fasting racket to a more convenient time. At the long day's slow expiring, At the still hour of retiring, Would you woo such .sle^p :is orn;tli with dr^am; of luri.l . dye? Then eat a " heavenly doughnut," Looped up in a double bow-knot, A slice of bread "angelic,'' and a piece of cherry pie. But if, instead of dreaming. Your brain with thought is teeming, And you wish to mike a strike in the paragraphic line, Then avoid the heavenly doughnut, Looped up in a double bow-knot, And likewise the pie poetic, O dear Del Valentine! WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 55 Smiles. Some monstrous moralist lays down this rule Among the maxims: "Always wear a smile. He must have learned it in some Jesuit school, Where deepest wisdom is but deepest guile. Who would obey must set himself the task A hateful one to always wear a mask. Your constant smiler is a hypocrite, 'Tis evil that must hide, not hone>l y. He whose expression always wears a bit, A very prince in wickedness may be. A man may smile and be a villain still; " And he who always .smiles, be sure he will. A smile is lovely when, through lip and eye, The sunny sweetness of a soul shines out, Like a quick glimpse of glory; 'tis a lie When inner darkness it but wraps about. Night rules us all at times; shall we, the while, Hide our sad midnight with a morning smile? Our faces are our windows. Is it meet That one should always keep his curtains down? When smiles are but the draping of deceit, Better, far better, were an honest frown. By semblance falsely sweet sin hides its art Only from men God looketh on the heart. Only One. Only one heart to beat with mine- That heart to be loving, and warm, and true, Shedding its tenderness, rich as wine Pressed from grapes of the Rhenish vine, Yet delicate, pure, as morning dew. 56 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Only one arm to lean upon, As I thread the gorges, or mount' the steeps To steady me when the heights are won, To pillow my head when the day is done, And over my eyes the darkness creeps. Only one love, told o'er and o'er That love to be quenchless a deathless rtamc- Yet, like the ocean that laps the shore In a thousand forms and ten thousand more, To be ever changing, yet ever the same! Only one love do I smile or weep, Do I float with the current, or bravely swim Against wind and tide still let me keep, While the years drift by in their onward sweep, But this, when life and its hopes grow dim. One other love! To its breadth is this As a rift in a cloud to the boundless blue A> a passionate, transient throb of bliss To infinite billows of happiness To boundless s<-;is as a drop of dew! Keep Your Temper. It never did, and never will, Put things in better fashion, Though rough the road, and steep the hill, To fly into a passion. And never yet did fume or frefe Mend any broken bubble; The direst evil, bravely met, Is but a conquered trouble. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Our trials did we only know Are often what we make them; And mole-hills into mountains grow, Just by the way we take them. Who keeps his temper, calm and cool, Will find his wits in season; But rage is weak, a foaming fool, With neither strength nor reason. And if a thing be hard to bear When nerve and brain are steady, If fiery passions rave and tear, It finds us mained already. Who yields to anger conquered lies A captive none can pity; Who rules his spirit, greater is Than he who takes a city. A hero he, though drums are mute, And no gay banners flaunted; He treads his passions under foot, And meets the world undaunted. Oh, then, to bravely do our best, Howe'er the winds are blowing; And meekly leave to God the rest, Is wisdom worth the knowing! Little Things. We call him strong who stands unmoved Calm as some tempest-beaten rock When some great trouble hurls its shock; We say of him, his strength is proved: But, when the spent storm folds its wings, How bears he then Life's little things'? 5.x WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. About his brow we twine our wreath Who seeks the battle's thickest smoke, Braves flashing gun and sabre-stroke, And scoffs at danger, laughs at death: We praise him till the whole land rings: But is he brave in little things? We call him great who does some deed That echo bears from shore to shore, Does that, and then does nothing more: Yet would this work earn richer meed, When brought before the King of kings, Were he but great in little things. We closely guard our castle-gates When great temptations loudly knock, Draw every bolt, clinch every lock, And sternly fold our bars and gates: Yet some small door wide open swings At the sly touch of little things! I can forgive 'tis worth my while The treacherous blow, the cruel thrust; Can bless my foe, as Christians must, While Patience smiles her royal smile: Yet quick resentment fiercely slings Its shots of ire at little things. And I can tread beneath my feet The hills of Passion's heaving sea, When wind-tossed waves roll stormily: Yet scarce resist the siren sweet That at my heart's door softly sings "Forget, forget Life's little things." But what is Life? Drops make the sea; And petty cares and small events, Small causes and small consequents, Make up the sum for you and me: Then, O for strength to meet the stings That arm the points of little things 1 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 59 My Wild Rose. I had a garden, which I kept With busy hands and tender care; And once, while carelessly I slept, Fanned softly by the drowsy air, A wild rose to my garden crept, And blossomed there. O, sweet surprise. It seemed to me, Some fair hand, my heart to bless, Had brought it there, from wood or lee. It came unsought 'twas loved no less;- I stooped and touched it tenderly, With soft caress. I grew to love it passing well; While strange exotics, rich and rare, With heart of gold and crimson bell, Paid grudgingly for constant care, My wild rose, as in a woodland dell, Bloomed fresh and fair. I watered not, I did not prune. I tied it not with cord or thong; Yet, morn by morn and noon by noon, Through days of summer, hot and long, And underneath the midnight moon, From branches strong Hung clustered blossoms sweet and red; And day by day and week by week, I trod the path which toward it lead. Whate'er my mood, I did not speak, But close against bowed my head And pressed my cheek. 60 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. I think of it with sudden thrill. Now wide lands lie, deep water flows, Smiles many a vale, looms many a hill Between me and the garden-close; Yet fondly I remember still My sweet wild rose. Love. Fret not if fateful bar Cause Love's delay, Nor if some baleful star Cross love alway. Love crossed is better far Than Love's decay. Love hidden in the breast Is hoarded gold; By brooding thought caressed. It ne'er grows old. Love satisfied, at rest, Oft waxes eold. We pity those who part To meet no more; We sorrow for the smart, The aching sore; The joined, yet twain of heart, Need pity more. Two sit at table, where Love once said grace; A bond yet holds them there, Still face to face; Love, jostled out by Care, Has fled the place. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. There live whose wedding day Was wreathed in gold: Who saw time stretch away With joys untold: Their lives creep on to-day, Gray, sad, and cold. Love, set in daily groove, Drops its highest mission. The lives of thousands prove This hard condition: The sorest test of Love Is Love's fruition. O thou who through long years Hast dwelt alone, Whose love, enshrined in tears, Holds secret throne, This thought its comfort bears: 'Tis still thine own. Ye wedded who remain, (But ye are few) Through all life's toil and pain, Warm, tender, true, Earth holds, on hill or plain, Xone blest like you. 62 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POKMS. The Man for the Hour. Where shall we seek him? Where well-leagued corruption Welds its dark compacts in some secret ring; Where hungry traitors feed upon disruption; Where Falsehood brews his schemes, and Gold is King? Not there! The man we want scorns clique and cabal; On thievish trickery looks sternly down; Hating a lie, dupe of no specious fable, Truth is his breastplate, honor is his crown. He loves his country, serves her for affection; Her loaves and fishes enter not his plan; Firm as a rock, he meets the tides of faction; Tool of no clique, he fears no party-ban. He loves his country; so, when tempests lower, And the ship tosses on a heaving sea; His be the watch, his be the gloomy hour, For none shall keep the post so well as he. Trust not the hireling when disasters thicken; He only cares to cut his loaf of bread. And coolly sits him down his pay to reckon, While growling thunders menace overhead. If great his wisdom, greater still the evil: A clear, cool head, a gift men's hearts to ruin; A giant's strength, all bartered to the devil, Is a great sale, with much, alas! thrown in. "No man but has his price!" said Charles the Second, 'Twas thus the Royal scoffer sneered his sneer; But then, no doubt, 'twas by himself he reckoned; He had his price or several that is clear. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 03 Some men have not. Truth is not dead, nor honor. Let them come forward, boldly take the front, Hurl their indignant scorn at bribe and donor, And take, as patriots should, the battle's brunt. The man we want is brave, is wise, is witty, With strength to push Corruption to the wall; Must have for high-bred thieves no breast of pity; And must himself be honest first of all. Coming Home. Home to my mother's door. Push back the lock, She will not open it no use to knock. A weight is on my breast; oh! never yet Daughter at mother's door such welcome met! No kiss upon my lips; no word, no sound, No loving arms reach out to cla^p me round, I cross the threshold to a solemn room, Peopled with shadows, silent as the tomb. The heavy air is chill no tire, no light: Only pale sunshine, streaming thin and white Through the bare panes upon the naked floor. I shrink and shiver do not shut the door! Tread lightly on the creaking boards, speak low; Start not the hollow echoes; well I know They sleep in every corner. Do not call, Lest they should answer loudly, one and all. Her voice is still. 'Twas here I heard it last Here by the door. The tears fell thick and fast From both our eyes; to-day the drops run o'er From only mine; and she she weeps no more. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. , This was her bed-room; it was here, you say. She laid in silence all that summer day. With roses (how she loved them!) at her head, Wreathed on the wall and strewn upon her bed. Now she lies yonder, and a sombre pall The dead leaves weave above her as they fall; The rains that beat, the autumn Winds that blow, Are making ready heavy shrouds of snow. Whatever covers her, she still sleeps well; But oh! these silent rooms! lean not tell Why their cold emptiness should move me so; I can not bear it longer let us go. An Autumn Picture, The mill turns by the waterfall; The loaded wagons go and come; All day I hear the teamster's call, All day I hear the thresher's hum: And many a shout and many a laugh Come breaking through the clouds of chaff. The brook glides toward the sleeping lake, Now bubbling over shining stones Now under clumps of brush and brake, Hushing its brawls to murmuring tones, And now it takes its winding path Through meadows green with aftermath. The frosty twilight early falls, But household flres burn warm and red. The cold nriy creep without the walls, And growing things be stark and dead No matter, so the hearth be bright When household faces meet at night. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 65 A Housekeeper's Question. While autumn tints fleck yonder wood, And lazy winds are sleeping, I feel a speculative mood Come slowly o'er me creeping. A strong desire within me stirs, To see some questions settled, On which the great philosophers Have long and fiercely battled. Calm reason now shall have its say, (Dear me; my bread is burning: Arid I am wanted right away, To see about that churning.) I sit me down again to think, Commencing at creation. I fain would follow, link by link, The long stretch of graduation. But that's the trouble where to find The first stitch of beginning. The tangled thread who can unwind To where commenced the spinning? What laid first that primordial egg? From whence came life unending? (Do, some one, answer this, I beg, While I do up my mending.) Philosophy, that swayed and bent, Through many a revolution, Xow, calmly settled, spreads its tent, And rests at Evolution. But Doubt stands gravely at the door And puts its puzzling queries. This question asks (and many more): What did commence the series? 66 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Did something out of nothing grow? (That soup is boiling over! On soup depends the peace of home I'll just take off the cov r er.) Things are; and on this world, we know, Dwells quite a population; But how came mice and men to grow I give up that equation. Some other problems stagger me. Yon graceless scamp is growing To just what he was born to be; His father set him going; How far is he to blame if Fate Has botched his constitution? (There comes a beggar at the gate, And wants my contribution.) Still other things I want to know; Why evil tongues are longest, Why deeds of darkness prosper so; Why wicked men are strongest. And why must life, e'en with the best, Be but a constant battle, With secret foes that never rest Until the last death rattle? Why are the good so sore beset? Why is man born a sinner? ( But there's a nearer question yet: What shall I get for dinner?) WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Foreboding. I will not look for storms when skies are glowing, With hues of summer sunsets painted o'er; When all my tides of life are softly flowing, I will not listen for the breaker's roar. I will not search the future for its sorrows, Nor peer ahead for lions in the- way, I will not weep o'er possible to-morrows Sufficient is the evil of to-day. Leave Me Alone. Leave me alone. I would not see thee more. The storm is hushed, the agony is o'er. I would not feel again The passion and the pain. Do not again come knocking at my door. Leave me alone. Put not into my hand A broken cup, though bound with golden band, Lest I with thirsty lip Once more its passions sip. Still let it lie, all shattered on the sand. Leave me alone. I followed, long ago, Joy to its tomb, with tolling marches slow. Wake not my buried slain, Only to die again. Leave me to peace 'tis all I hope to know. Leave me alone. I may not quite forget The buried love, whose sweetness thrills me yet; But let the willow wave; Rake not a grass-grown grave: Break not the turf, for fresh-rung tears to wet. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Moods of March. Wild is the dance abroad to-night, As the drifts whirl to and fro: Loud is the voice of the raging storm; As the fierce gusts come and go; Black are the panes where the black night leans Like a homeless ghost in the snow. Black are the panes where the black night leans Within, it is warm and light. The flre purrs low and the kettle sings, And the lamps shine soft and bright. Little care we for the wind and cold, And little care we for the night. What is that cry, out-voicing the storm, That sounds on the drifted plain? What is that throbbing, thunderous roar? It is only the midnight train, Screaming and thundering through the night, Like a monster mad with pain, Silent as sleep is the wintry m >rn; All spotless the snowdrifts lie: Pillars of smoke from household flres Mount straight to the cold, blue sky. Yonder a "freight" creeps heavy, and slow, Where the night train thundered by. Wild was the night, and cold the morn; It is noon, and the warm wind blows; The eaves run streams, and under our feet Is the slush of the melting snow. Birds are singing, the air is like May, And the wild geese north-ward go. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Poets, writing your odes to spring Your poems of stanzas ten- Haste to finish, for moods of March Are changeful as moods of men. I tried it once, but the wind veered north, And the ink froze on my pen. Two Farewells. I have bidden two of my neighbors A long farewell to-day. Both were going on a journey, And both were going to stay. One, with eyes that were misty, Like skies all heavy with rain, Said, "In the years that are coming, We may somewhere meet again." She was bound for Dakotah: And watching the wagons go White-covered, heavily laden, Clogged with the early snow. I thought of the bleak, cold prairies, Of the toil for many a day, With the storms of wild November Howling along the way. The other lay cold and silent; Said naught, nor clasped my hand; And we were friends ah, speechless Men go to the silent land! Mute, and pale, and speechless This wild October day, He passed down into the shadows Into the shadows gray. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. And he has finished his journey; The pain and the toil are o'er; Nobly he wrought his life-work, Bravely his burdens bore. To-night the winds are raving; The snow falls over his head; Yet he turns not on his pillow, Stirs not in his lowly bed. So gone are two of my neighbors; Empty their places stand. One has gone to Dakotah, And one to the silent land. The Thread of Gray. I have woven a braid, with patient toil. 'Tis the work of many a day, There are colors bright, but through them all Runs a thread of sober gray. Blue and golden and green and red I have blended as best I may; But through them all, and binding them all Runs the thread of sober gray. The blue and the gold twine out and in, Like rainbow tints astray; Then brilliant strands of green and red But always the thread of gray. And I think how like to an earnest life, With its pleasures by the way, While through them all runs a steady aim, Like a thread of sober gray. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. There are lights and laughter and feast and song, For labor must have its play But over and under and through them all Euns the thread of sober gray. The mirth shall fail and the lights grow dim, And the song shall die away; But the worker's crown shall be his who keeps To his thread of sober gray. Alas for him who into his braid Weaves only the colors gay! And alas for the close of the human life, That loses its thread of gray! Rescue the Perishing. (Read before a session of the Temple of Honor, in Jefferson County, Wisconsin.) Who hath the trembling hand, And eyes that are rheumy and red? Who, amid darkness that knows no morn, Mourns over hopes that are dead? And who goes staggering by With weak and tottering feet, With rags on his back and cheeks aflame, And hot lips foul with words of shame The scoff of the pitiless street? And who sits, sad and pale, Beside her desolate hearth A wailing babe on her patient knee, Sick and sad from its birth? While the heavy hours drag by, Of what does this watcher think? Why harks she so as steps go past? And why, when one step comes at last, Does she start, and shiver, and shrink? WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. And one conies tottering in, With reeking and poisoned breath, She well may fear, for she knows the work Of the flery cup of death. More than my pen can paint, This sorrowful woman knows Of want, of woes like mountains piled, Of oaths, and curses, and ravings wild, And the weight of heavy blows. Reared in a delicate home, She remembers a happy time, When days were leaves of a pleasant book All written in dainty rhyme. She remembers peaceful nights, That were blessed with radiant dreams; And rosy moms, and fleecy skies, And the tender light in a mother's eyes- How long ago it seems. She remembers one day of joy, When she stood, a whits-robad bride, By the side of one who was more to her Than all the great world's pride. She stands beside him now, Pale with a mortal fear. Her pinched, wan cheeks grow whiter yet, Her great wild eyes are fixed and set On his face so marred and blear. It has come that awful scourge, Whose terrors none can speak And the lips that cursed as he crossed the door Now utter shriek on shriek. He sees all fearful things! A serpent crawls at his feet; The dark panes glow with fierce green eyes, And in yon dusky corner lies A corpse in winding-sheet. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 73 He feels on his shrinking cheek The napping of goblin wings, And over his flesh the slimy touch Of horrible creeping things. He writhes in the grip of fiends. That drag him down to hell. Can naught redeem from a hell like this? Could an angel's hand or an angel's kiss? Hark to the tale I tell. There came to that dread abode As come to many another Men of a tried and faithful band, Who look upon man as a brother Who look on man as a brother However low he may sink; Who stretch forth pitying hands to save The fallen from his self-dug grave, Though he stand at the very brink. They came with soothing tones, With fuel, and food, and care; And strong, brave words of cheerful hope, For the drunkard's dire despair. They bore him up in their arms, They lifted him out of the pit- Arid now, in a home of calm content, Where cheerful labor and rest are blent, Do peace and plenty sit. The wife's wan cheek grows red, And her smile is fair to see; And a rosy boy, with golden hair, Climbs to his father's knee. Brothers! such work as this Deserves a laurel crown ! For the solemn joy such deeds must bring, The loftiest genius, the proudest king, Might well on his knees go down. 74 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Oh. fathers with drunken sons! Oh. sons with drunken siiv^: Would that the bitter tears ye shed Might quench these hellish fliv-: Oh, people, grand and strong! Arise in your kingly might. Put from your midst the accursed thing: And the dove of peace, with brooding wing, Shall on your homes alight. The Snow Blockade. Blocked is our castle, sudden siege We did not count on. All our doors Are barricaded: loudly roars The savage wind, and tries its wedge- Its wedge of ice, with sharpened edge Seeking to pierce some open crack. But, storm our fortress as you may, And heap the snow with fingers black, Ye demons, 'tis but idle play. Gather your forces, tierce and strong; We toss you back defiant song. You cannot enter here nor yet Can we get out. You've got us there! No human things to-night would dare To pass the bounds the storm has set, And yet, beleagured as we are, This lamp-lit room serene and still, Seems like some green and peaceful Me. Set in a wild and heaving sea. Strong are our bolts; our oak-wood fire Beats back the cold. The night is dire With the black storm, but what care we, Fenced in our calm security;' WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 75 Two days and nights: the storm is done. T,he wearied winds have sunk to rest, Spent with their strife. Earth's frozen breast Lies heaped with hills beneath the dawn, The demons of the blast are gone Their work remains. The rising sun Pours forth its light pale, cold and chill Across a waste all dead and still. No moving thing, no tinkling bells Forewarn of coming steed and sleigh. No sign of life, save smoke that swells From chimney-tops then floats away Still gripes the cold, with grasp so chill, We shiver, hug the fire and say, "No mortal can break roads to-day.'' The cars are blocked as well as we, No distant roar of passing train Comes to our ears across the plain. Silence unbroken! Can it be That all the world has gone to sleep? No news and shut in four square walls! We wonder how the fight goes on In yonder legislative halls. And what they do at Washington. We wonder what new taxes, steep, It is decreed that we must pay, Who earn their bread from day to day. At length the seige is raised, Past rural palace, past the hovel, The way is cleared. His name be praised' Who made that blessed thing a shroud' Here comes the mail a basket full, Now we shall know what wires they pull; What party rebels bolt the track, Who smiles with hope, whose brow is black. 76 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Ah, here is what we hoped to see; Reform has risen, pure and strong, And tossed her weight upon the scales Where Right was weighed against the wrong And lo, another victory! Send out, send out exultant song Across Wisconsin's hills and vale. Sing out the sordid Regency; Sing out Back Pay and Press Gag Law; Sing in the pure hurah, hurah. God Knows. God only knows what fate the coming morrow Holds in its close shut hand What wave of joy, what whelming tide of sorrow, May flood my heart's dry land. But whether laughter, with its bounding billow, Rolls up in joyous swell, Or sorrow darkly flows beneath the willow, I still will say, 'tis well. And I will strew my seed upon the waters, The sweet soil lies below, Whether with smiles or tears it little matters, So it may spring and grow. I know my hand may never reap its sowing; And yet some other may. And I may never even see it growing So short is my little day! Still must I sow. Though I may go forth weeping, I cannot, dare not stay. God grant a harvest! though I may be sleeping Under the shadows gray. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 77 I know not but the ruthless frosts may wither, The worms may eat my rose; There may not be one flower or sheaf to gather. Blindly I wait Grod knows. A Storm on the Frontier. Hark to the storm. It is a fearful night; A night of piercing cold and whirling snow, And drifts that loom like ghosts in sheeted white, Heaped by the tempest in its mad delight, But, fiercely as the ice winds may blow, Sweep as they may across these open lands, Low is our cabin and so safely stands. Come, leave your work, and sit beside the flre, The storm may roar and beat the frosted pane, And at the bolted door may tug and strain; Safe is our shelter though the strife be dire, And warm as if but dropped the summer rain, The' lamp burns brightly, and this quiet room Seems like a heaven if such a thing could be Besieged by tempests, wrapped in midnight gloom, Encompassed by a wild and heaving sea, While round us howl the demons of the night, How passing sweet this calm, and warmth, and light. What ails you, Love? Why is your cheek so white? How start and shiver what is it you feel? Sure we are safe, and naught can harm us here. You have a groan? Why, that but goes to show What tricks a woman's pity loves to play Upon her fears. He calm, I pray. 'Twas but a wilder gust, and you should know, No living thing would venture out to-night. 78 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. A winter morn. The fierce, wild night is gone; The mad winds, overspent, have sunk to rest: Their work remains. The prairie's frozen breast Lies heaped with hills beneath the splendid dawn. Come out and look, it is a goodly sight These spotless ranges sparkling in the sun; The still, white world created into night. The paths are blocked. A pity 'tis to soil These spotless drifts; yet, what the night wind rears Must man destroy at morn. The spade must Spoil our Alpine scenery but, oh! what's here? A something harder than the wind-packed snow Resists the blade. 'Tis mine to shudder now, And shrink and shiver with a sickening fear. A still white face the fresh piled drift below, A frozen form wrapped in a shroud of white Flung round it by the black hands of night. The dead, white face, the form, too well I know, Had I but heeded what you said last night! You heard a cry through all the gusty roar; I laughed and said 'twas but the wind, arid so Here lies my neighbor, frozen at my door. To the Memory of a Young Friend. Sing a song with sorrow laden, Sing a requiem sad and slow, For the pure and gentle maiden Lying with her head so low. Loving was she, sweet and mild, Half a woman, half a child. Hands so helpful, past the telling. Ah, how soon your work is done! Feet so light, so fleet, so willing, Ah, how soon your race is run! WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 79 Bright her morning rose, and yet Ere its prime her sun is set. In the great world's swelling surges Ceaseless strife of loss and gain Drowned are sorrow's mournful dirges, Sobs of anguish, cries of pain. Why for her such tears should flow, Only we who loved her know. Keen the wind that sweeps the prairie; Keener yet the bitter breath Blown from off the borders dreary Of the silent realm of Death. And we shiver shrink with dread, As we cover up our dead. Hard is parting hard to sever Ties that bleed at every strand; And the gap shall close, ah, never, In that broken household band . . Yet, while we perforce must weep, Sleep, O maiden! sweetly sleep. O'er the. snows, descending lightly, Softly fold their ermine screen; Choicest flowers shall blossom brightly; Grasses wave their banners green, Summer breezes, stealing nigh, These shall breathe thy lullaby. Tender is our common mother, Shielding from the storm and strife, While Hope whispers of another, And a brighter, better life. Even amid our blinding tears, Faith serene consoles and cheers. 80 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The Old Soldier. (A Birthday Tribute Inscribed to General M. Brayman. The stress of the day is over, And calm is the evening time; Behind are the heights that manhood Has scaled in its pride and prime. At noon was the smoke of battle Its tumult, its crash and roar; But the boom and the musket's rattle The veteran hears no more. In the peace of the quiet evening, The warfare over and done Is the old soldier dreaming Of victories nobly won. Dreams he of fierce, wild charge, The screaming of shot and shell. The roll of drums and the shouting? It may be but who can tell? Feels he the cold come creeping With the sun so low in the west? Nay! though his locks are frosted The heart is warm in his breast. Soft is the glow of the sunset, And it touches him tenderly; Bright was the day that is setting, And long may the twilight be. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 81 At the Falls. In this deep solitude, amid the roar Of falling waters, and soft folds of spray, I sit upon the green and sedgy shore Sit silent, while the river rolls away. What heed I here the hollow masquerade That men call life? It surely heeds riot me; I am not missed from the gay cavalcade None whisper, " This was her place, where is she ? " Little I reck! The page upon my knee Talks honestly, and yon white waterfall Pours a deep voice of truth unceasingly, While the gay world is but a masquer's ball. Seeing the Editors. I went to see the Editors, in great Milwaukee town, And some were old, with hoary hair, some young, with locks of brown, But, old or young, or tall or short, when all was said and done, They seemed a goodly set of men as e'er the sun shone on. They had come from north and south, they had come from east and west, Down from the northern pine lands, up from the prairie's breast, Men of the Leading Journals, men of the Local Sheet, Came flocking in together, and I watched them meet and greet. 82 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. At this I greatly wondered; I saw each meet the other, With a smile and a clasping hand, as if he were his brother. Fair words and kindly cheer were the order of the day: The pipe of p9ace went round, and the sword was laid away. "Are the^e friends or enemies'?" I questioned silently: I recalled the odious names they have called each otherby, 'Idiot," '-knave," and "sorehead" all these, and many more, They have used to pelt each other is their rancor spent and o'er? They talked of their position, of the duty of the press; How opponents should be treated with honest friendli ness. A fair and lovely theory! the practice seems to be To call each man a rascal, who don't agree with me. What do they mean, I wonder, by the "freedom of the press?" Is it this, that each man is free to vent his "cussedness?" Free to ban and blacken whoever may chance to be On the other side of the fence?- O glorious liberty! But here they were these warriors who haveoft eachother flayed, Talking in tones fraternal as they drank their lemonade; And I wondered if the time, so long foretold, had come, The day of peace and brotherhood the great Millennium. I have read the papers since, and I see my hope was vain; For the hatchet that was buried, they have dug it up again: The sword has left its scabbard, the spiked guns roar away. Arid he who was a "sorehead," is a "sorehead"' to-day. Each man is at his desk; he has grasped the wires again, And is pulling for his party, with all his might and main Opponents thresh each other, who shook hands the other day: And I qu3Stion, do they mean one-half oi what they say? WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Taught by a Bird. An April day: the cold wind blew, The dark clouds lowered, the thick snow flew, And where the springing grasses lay green, Ragged patches of white were seen. Snow everywhere! I gazed with a sigh, As the big flakes fell from the gloomy sky; Loading the limbs of the budding trees, Filling the hollows about their knees. Had winter come back the vanquished king And rudely throttled the maiden, spring? Rut lo! from amid the storm I heard The sweet, glad song of a tiny bird. On a tufted twig, its feet in the snow, Swung by the cold wind to and fro, It sat and sang that wee brown bird Putting to shame my petulant word. The darkness lifted, the storm was done; Through the broken cloud-rifts shone the sun; A breath came up from the south, and the snow Melted away in genial glow. Spring reigned again; and again I heard The joyous song of that dear brown bird. With quickened pulses, and heart aglow, I caught the refrain, " I told you so." Ah. little bird, had I faith like you, When life and the world are dark to view! When lowering skies are above me bent, Could I feel your trust and your sweet content! 84 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. You sang, your tender feet in the snow, Swung by the cold wind to and fro. Your faith was sure, and now I repeat Over and over the lesson so sweet. Tar-and-Feathcr Reform. Pour the tar on, pour it thick; Bring the feathers, make them stick On her temples smooth and fair, In the meshes of her hair; There, now, shameless courtesen, Charm your lovers if you can. But the lovers where are they? Silently they slink away. Boys must sow wild oats, you know; Scold them well and let them go. Boys are boys; to err is human Tar and feathers for the woman. Woman? She is but a child. Well, no matter; drive her wild. Young and fair? So much the worse. Brand her deeper, let the curse On her young head weighing down, Crush her, force her on the town. She is fallen, that's enough, Give her, henceforth, kick and cuff. While we work and pray and weep For the heathen o'er the deep, We are saints of purity We are Christians don't you see? WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 85 When we women have our way. When it comes that glorious day When we sit in honor great, Piloting the ship of state, All shall then, as well as we, Practice this our theory: Never right a sinking boat, When a woman is afloat: If her record holds a flaw, Do not throw her e'en a straw; Kick her roughly, push her down: Hold her under, let her drown! Died of Want. Tread lightly on the creaking floors; Speak softly so; With careful fingers ope and shut the doors; Calk up that crack through which the night rain pours: These rafters low Bend o'er a traveler to unseen shores, Where all must go. A scanty bed, a drear, unfurnished room; Dire noxious air, Where pent-up Fever breathes its hot simoon, And poverty has piled its brush and broom, Till all is bare: A pale, pinched face amid the midnight gloom, And damp, white hair, 'Tis the last chapter of a story old One period more, To finish all, and the sad tale is told. Too late comes Charity, with generous gold And pity sore; Too long since Famine and Disease and Cold Entered the door. 86 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. A glimmer of gray diiwn through sleet and rain. That beat and beat Witb icy hands upon the dingy pane. Within, a solemn hush. Fold smooth and plain The winding sheet. But see! the poor lips wear a smile again, Serene and sweet. Softly, good driver! scour not quite so fast The stony pave. You know not how your flnal lot is cast; Some dire disaster, some unlooked-for blast Or whelming wave, May land you, like this poor old man. at last, In pauper's grave. Replace the sod. He sleeps on pillow low, Like other dead. His deep and pulseless rest no dreams shall know- No shivering pangs, though freezing winds shall blow Across his bed. But, softly fall, O rain, and winter snow, Above his head. My Mother's Wheel. Broken, dismantled! would that it were minei I would not keep it in that dusty nook, Where tangled cobwebs cross and intertwine, And old, grim spiders from their corners look. From distaff, band, and polished rim, are hung The dusty meshes. Black the spindle is, Crooke'd, and rusty a dead, silent tongue, Tl-^.t r-rc? ir^o v.*H"" ! r op rrrrio -tl'f>ro it lio". WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 87 Ah, dear to me is the forsaken thing! I gaze upon it and my eyes grow dim; For I can see my mother, hear her sing, As winds the shining thread, and whirls the rim. So sweet she sang her youngest on her knee Now a low warble, now some grand old hymn, Sublime, exultant, full of victory, Triumphant as the songs of seraphim. Sweet toiler! through her life of crowded care, While grief came oft, and pain, and weariness, Still swelled the anthem, still was breathed the prayer, Till death came clasping with its cold caress. She sings no more; beside the chimney wide No more she spins. Years come and go: Above her grave on the lone hillside, The snow drifts lie, the summer grasses grow. Dick and I. I had a lover once 'twas long ago I must have been some eiglit or nine, or so, And he perhaps was ten. He had blue eyes, And hair like cotton-weed, that floats and flies. Or better, like like a hand of bleachen flax, He was not handsome but. I'm telling "fax,' 1 And must be acurate. A "poets lie" May always be aesthetic reason why The poet paints from out his own invention; While I I've only facts to mention. I loved him, if all else were homely prose, There's poetry in that. A bright red rose Creeps through a cranny in a naked wall, And blossoms there: it is a rose for all. 88 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. My rose bloomed early and its growth was quick Much like a mushroom's. Ah, white-headed Dick! If this should meet your eye. you will remember One rainy day 'twas in the gray November. A monstrous kettle hanging from the crane, With steam clouds rolling up to meet the rain; A great old fireplace, with open maw: Two children sucking cider through a straw; Such was the tableau; as the night closed in, The firelight with the darknass fought to win, Pushing the shadows back against the walls. Where bacon hung, dried apples, coats and shawls. The night grew darker. Still the autumn rain Beat with its wet on the window pane; Hut we two liked it well. We put together Our two small heads, and sagely on the weather Exchanged congratulations. No moonlight. The steady rain sure, Dick must stay all night. We had it settled, and we went to play. 'Blindfold," "I spy," and even "Pull away," Came on in turn, The evening was near spent, And nought had troubled our complete content, But psrfect happiness we grasp it, fold it, Thinking it ours, alas! we never hold it For any length of time. It slips and quivers, And something hits and knocks it into shivers. And this is what hit ours this the shock That fell upon our peace at nine o'clock. Fate lifted up its hand so hard and grim, And struck this blow: Dick's mother sent for him! He cried, and so did I. Ah well, It is a simple story that I tell, And you may laugh, perchance yet it is real, And serves to show the griefs that children feel, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 89 Which grown folks do not count on. I have seen Since then some sorrow, some pangs sharp and keen; Have even dreamed I stood at Heaven's door, And saw it shut on me forever more. Yet that one night, so gloomy and so wet, With rain and tears, I've not forgotten yet. My Hickory Tree. Towering close at my cottage door, Tall and royal, and grand to see. With broad arms reaching the greensward o'er O, a mighty King is my hickory tree! Changing its guise with the changing scene, As the wheels of the year are onward rolled; Clad all the summer in deepest green. Now resplendent in robes of gold. Here gather the earliest birds of spring, When the earth awakes from its frozen rest The tiny bluebird with sapphire wing, The robin sweet with its glowing breast. When vines are green at the window frame, The brown thrush sings and the dove coos low, And the oriole comes like a flash of flame, And hangs its nest from the outmost bow. On the velvet grass, in the grateful shade, The workmen lie as they rest at noon, Cheered by the bird songs overhead, Lulled by the honey bee's drowsy tune. And here, with friends, on summer eves, We sit in the sunset's mellow glow Sit till the night winds toss the leaves, And moonbeams sift to the sward below. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. O happy scenes! But now no more We seek the shade; the wind blows cold; The frost comes creeping about the door; The dead flowers rot on the sodden mold. Splendid yet is my hickory tree, As the gorgeous leaves come fluttering down Like flakes of gold: but soon I shall see Only sightless heaps, all sere and brown. Shook by the winds that go hurrying by, Down to the turf the ripe nuts fall; And the boughs shall soon stretch toward the sky, Stripped of their nuts and leaves and all. When deep drifts lie on the frozen farms, The naked giant, in scornful glee, Shall toss in the storm his strong, bare arms O, a mighty King is my hickory tree ! Our Friendship. They say true friendship changeth not, But grows and grows; Through chance, and time, and treacherous plot, Through change of scene and change of lot, Still changeless shows. If this be true, sure here is seen Some great mistake! The friend of years no friend hath been, Else naught on earth could come between, The bond to break. Ami, then, false? I meant no lie; Yet nevermore With friendship on my lip, can I, As oft aforetime, seek thine eye, Or cross thv door! WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Dost marvel why? 'Tis quickly told. Here at thy feet I fling away our friendship old, Because henceforth our two hearts hold A tie more sweet! I love thee! therefore can we be No longer friends. Thou takest what I offer thee Thy whole heart's sweetness givest me. So friendship ends. Over Niagara. Harken, friends, while I tell you I will be as brief as I may- Flow, while the drums were beating, And the great guns boomed away, A pair of blithe young lovers Kept Independence Day. I was passing the bridge up yonder, That crosses the creek, you know, Near where it enters the river, That flows with a mighty flow Toward where the cataract thunders, Only three miles below. I heard sweet peals of laughter Ring over the river wide, And looked where a boat went tossing Out toward the rapid tide, And saw the prow was headed Toward the American side. I watched the boy that was rowing, And the sjirl tint sat in the stern. >2 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. And I saw that the two were lovers It took but a glance to learn They were taking their trip of pleasure- Would they ever, ever return? I saw that he rowed but badly, And my heart sank at the sight; It is only the skillful oarsman, With a touch both firm and light, That here rows across the ri ver And ever returns at night. I watched the frail craft tossing, In a tremor of dead suspense: And I held my breath in terror That swept over every sense, As I saw the boat was heading Outside of the " river fence." They have passed it now! In the rapids. Where never a boat crossed o'er, They were swinging nearer and nearer The cataract's thundering roar. They will never come back to the Queen's land, Nor reach the American shore! There are flecks of foam on the water; There are white-caps on the tide; And swifter, and even swifter Down to their doom they glide. Not thus in the joyful morning Did the youth think to wed his bride! I hear the girl shriek wildly, As she points to the rocks before: I see the boy's mad effort To turn the boat to the shore; Then I watch him look for something- Great God! he had dropped an oar I WALLS OP CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 93 My old knees they smote together; I could feel my cheeks grow pale, As I heard above all the roaring, The sound of that maiden's wail; And I clutched as if I were drowning, My hands to the wooden rail. Still I gazed, in my frozen terror, For I could not turn away; And I saw them clinging together, As down in the boat they lay; And the sight my midnight pillow Will haunt till my dying day. I saw the boat swing over The crests of the first descent; It was lost to sight for a moment Where the hollowed waters bent; The next, on a rock, foam-covered, It poised, then downward went. I saw no more; but others Standing beside the fall, Watching the beautiful rainbow That spans the eternal wall, Beheld a few black fragments Of a boat and that was all. Down Stream. I see a boat drift lightly by, The stream is wide, the current slow; No ripples break the sunbeam's glow; Yet well I know that, ceaselessly, The great fall thunders down below. 94 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. I see the boatman idly lean. With listless hand upon his oar, Unheeding that the summer shore, With safe, still coves and banks of green, Recedes behind him more and more. The sunlight gilds the golden hair That clusters round his stately head; A lurid flush, youth's rose instead. Dyes rounded cheek and forehead fair, Caught from the wine cup's ruby-red. I watch him, and I hold my breath! He seems like one wrapped in a dream: While swiftly rolls the narrowed stream, And, bending o'er yon gulf of death, I see the baleful iris gleam. Why floats he so, like one asleep, While nearer sounds that awful roar? Awake, O friend! take up thine oar, And stem the rapid's fatal sweep, Turn hither, hither, I implore. I stretch my arms and loudly cry; I call until the welkin rings, At last he hears the frail boat springs, Trembles a moment doubtfully, Then slowly, landward swings. Saved, saved at last! Adrip with spray, I see him stand upon the shore; And then my senses swim; the roar Sounds like a murmur far away: Would I might hear it never more! WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Magic Stones. Three oval stones, worn by the lapping waters Of wide Lake Michigan. As smooth are they As if some lapidary's patient lingers Had wrought their polished disks of mottled gray. Long have I kept them; and I well remember, When, where I picked them up. A summer's day Drew near its close; the sunset glory Flooded the land and on the water lay. Rut not alone the sunset's gold and crimson, The sparkling waves, the white sails moving slow, These stones recall. Dear friends were there beside me, With faces radiant in the evening glow. What happiness it was to talk and listen, To say with confidence the things we thought! To look straight into the eyes whose open shining Itself was speech, frank, full, concealing naught! The city, with its restless, fevered pulses, Was near, yet not in hearing, not in sight, No smoke of furnaces nor roar of traffic, Marred the still beauty of the evening light. Alone, we few. beside the blue-green water, To us, for one brief hour, the world was not. Its wild ambitions, and its throes of passion, Its fierce and selfish struggles all forgot. And while we stood and talked, the glory faded, The shores grew dimmer in the failing light; The shadows deepened and the lake grew darker, The white sails vanished in the gathering night. % WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 'Twas years ago, and time hath wrought its changes Yet have these magic stones the power to wake A throbbing memory of friendly voices, Heard in the twilight, by the darkening lake. Dreams. When the sun is shining o'er us, And our duties lie before us, We lay our wishes by on secret shelves: In their napkins, wrapped securely, We enfold them, thinking surely They are hidden both from others and ourselves. But when slumber sweetly holds us, And in velvet arms enfold us, And the moonlight through the curtain faintly streams; Then from out their hiding places, Clad in soft, bewitching graces, Come our wishes to inspire and rule our dreams. How they haunt the midnight pillow! How the pulse swells, like a billow, As the dreamer clasps the thing he most desires! And his throbbing heart rejoices As he hears enchanting voices Singing, keeping rythmic time to golden lyres. Wants he riches? power? honor? Fancy is a lavish donor, All he craves bestowing on his longing soul. Oh, the ripe, delicious sweetness! Oh, the rare and rich completeness, As he quaffs with thirsty lips the brimming bowl! But alas! the sudden waking, When above the hill tops breaking, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. With its weary burdens bringing, comes the day! Then the dreamer grasps the real, Puts aside his sweet ideal, Deftly hides his dream within its nook away. October Days. Push back the curtains and fling wide the door; Shut not away the light nor the sweet air, Let the checked sunbeams play upon the floor, And on my head low bowed, and on my hair. Would 1 could sing, in words of melody, The hazy sweetness of this wondrous time! Low would I pitch my voice: The song should be A soft, low chant, set to a dreamy rhyme. NQ loud, high notes for tender days like these! No trumpet tones, no swelling words of pride, Beneath these skies, so like dim summer seas, Where hazy ships of clouds at anchor ride. At peace are earth and sky, while softly fall The brown leaves at my feet. A holy palrn Rests in a benediction over all. O silent peace! O days of silent calm! And passion, like the winds, lies hushed and still; A throng of gentle thoughts, sweet, calm and pure, Knock at my door and lightly cross the sill. Would that their fair feet might stay, their reign endure! But storms will come. The haze upon the hills Will yield to blinding gusts of sleet and snow; And, for this peace that all my being fills, The tides of battle shall surge to and fro. 98 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Life is a struggle: and 'tis better so. Who treads its stormy steeps, its stony ways, And breasts its wintry blasts, must battling go. And yet it hath its Indian summer days. Becalmed. Adrift in my little boat, Becalmed on the cold, gray sea And chill mists lazily float All over my boat and me. The breezes lie dead asleep Not a breath in the idle sails! And I wearily watch and weep, And listen for distant gales. Shall I still drop useless tears, And sit here and wait and wait, Till my head grows gray with years, For the wind that may come too late? To be idle is shame to the strong! I will lay my hand to the oar; And the craft that has waited long, Shall wait for the wind no more! Is Marriage a Failure? When we were young, and Love was young, And life was bright with morning dew, And Hope sang sweet with silver tongue. I did not think so then did you? The years went by. Up stony roads We toiled, still hand in hand, we two, While dear love lightened heaviest loads I did not think so then did you? WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 99 Sore trouble cams; and griefs and fears Sat at our herath the sad days through; And while each dried the other's tears, I did not think so then did you? While henceforth through the shadows lead Dim down-hill piths before us two, And each of us had greatest needs, I do not think so now do you? When throngh the dark vale all must tread One passes, and on bosom true, Leans at last a dying head I will not think so then, will you? Laura. A Tillage street, a cottage-home, A summer night, a starry sky, A moon-lit porch where woodbine climb, A sound of late feet hurrying by. Two lovers, underneath the vines, With warm hands clasped, look out on life A glowing scene, all sunny lines- No tears, no clouds, no stormy strife. A sweet perspective stretched afar, With rippling streams and vales of green, And love the steady guiding star; Could aught, aught be thrust between? How fair they were, cheek pressed to cheek, Gold locks and brown in mingled strands, A fairer picture one might seek In vain through all Earth's sunny lands. 100 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The summer waned: the nights grew chill: With stealthy lingers Autumn came, And clad the copse and wooded hill In gorgeous garments, splashed with flame. At eve, returning homeward late, Just as the frosty twilight fell, I found young Laura at the gate, Counting the tolling of the bell. The last stroke fell. Against her heart She passed her hand. '"Tis he!'' she said; No other sign of present smart. Would she had moaned, or wept, or prayed ! A grave upon a lone hill-side, Where Autumn leaves lay sere and dead. Here oft, at the cold even-tide, Came silent Laura, bride unwed. One morn they found her, still and cold, With white lips pressed against the stone, While in her mantle's crease and fold, And on her hair, the hoar-frost shone. United. Round their lowly bed The fierce winds howl in wild delight. Not thus, not thus they thought to wed; Not so they planned, that summer-night. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The Whip-po-wil. When softly over field and town. And over yonder wood-crowned hill. The twilight drops its curtain down, 'Tis then we hear the whip-po-wil. From the near shadows sounds a call, Clear in its accents, loud and shrill, And from the orchard's willow wall Comes the faint answer, " Whip-po-wil." The night creeps on; the summer morn Whitens the roof and lights the sill; And still the bird repeats his tune, His one refrain of " Whip-po-wil." We hear him not at morn or noon: Where hides he then so dumb and still:* Where lurks he. waiting for the moon? Who ever saw a whip-po-wil? Where plies his mate her household care? In what veiled nook, secure from ill, Builds she the tiny cradle, where Nestles the baby whip-po-wil? I cannot tell, yet prize the more The unseen bird, whose wild notes thrill The evening gloom about my door, Still sweetly calling, " Whip-po-wil." Asleep through all the strong daylight, While other birds so gayly trill; Waking to cheer the lonely night, We love thee well, O whip-po-wil! 102 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Deep Waters. Laughing and shouting its rocks among-, The brook threads the upland lea: Hut, for all its song so loudly sung, And the small uproar of its babbling tongue, 'Tis a shallow thing in its glee. Solemn and still doth the river go, As it winds through its vale of rest: Calm is its mien and its tide is slow. Smooth is its face and its voice is low Yet fleets may ride on its breast. Oh! the river is great in its silent might, As it rolleth eternally: But, with all its calm, so still, so bright, In a passionate longing day and night, It stretches its hands to the sea. The brook and the river are each alike; And the one all men may know; For its fretful current with noises rife, And its grief and joy, and its petty strife, Are seen in its shallow flow. The other so peaceful seems, So still; and we fancy a soul at rest: But, little we know what strength of will, What mighty pulses that thro!) and thrill, Are hid in the silent breast. A clear, cool eye, with a changeless glow, The clasp of a steady palm, May cover the tide that sweeps below, In a strong and resistless undertow, Yet we say, "how cool and calm!" Here on this ragged bluff I stand alone, And look OUL on the waters. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The Sod House on the Prairie. A low sod house, a broad green prairie, And stately ranks of bannered corn; 'Twas there I took my dark-eyed Mary, And there our darling boy was born. The walls were low, the place was homely, But Mary sang from rnorn till night. The place beneath her touch grew comely; Her cheerful presence made it bright. Oh. life was sweet beyond all measure! No hour was dull, no day was long; Each task was easy, toil was pleasure, For love and hope were fresh and strong. How oft we sat at eve, foretelling The glories of that wide, new land! And gayly planned our future dwelling For low sod house, a mansion grand. Alas! we little know how fleeting The joy that falls to human lot. While unseen hands were dirges beating, We smiled secure and heard them not. One day Death came and took my Mary; Another, and the baby died. And near the sod house on the prairie I laid my darlings, side by side. I could not stay. My heart was weary, And life a load too hard to bear. That low sod house was dreary, dreary, For love and hope lay buried there. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Will He Come To-Xiglit? Will he come to-night? There is rain in the sky: Yonder great clouds like mountains lie; And a leaden fold hangs over the town, Coming slowly up where the sun went down. About its edges the lightnings play In sheeted flashes, and far away The thunder utters its sullen roar In a tone of menanee I'll shut the door. The swell of the wind in the forest trees Sounds like the surging of distant seas. The lightning, the thunder, the surging roar, And the dark'ning sky I'll watch no more. He will not come, for the way is long; Yet the kettle is singing its cheery song, And the firelight dances, red and bright And the meal is spread but what a night! Were you here, Love, we should like the storm We two, by the firelight, bright and warm But I'm lonesome, sad. The flash and roar Startle me, frighten me, more and more. What a terrible wind. It has burst the door. Full into the room the waters pour. I can only shut it with might and main So strong is the push of the gusty rain. The thunder is distant, now, but the rain Beats steadily yet on the window pane. It falls from the eves on the cold door-stone With its drip, and drip what a lonesome tone. Watching the butterflies, chasing the bees, Wading in clover up to her knees. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. It is over at last. I will go to bed; Hut there is something missing beneath my head. What loving simpletons girls must be To go and get married, and be like me. The First Breath of Spring. The drifts lie deep, the ice bound stream Wrestles in vain with its wedded chain: The lake still sleeps, still dreams its dream, Under its bright, cold counterpane. The woods are mute, save the mournful tune Sung by the wind in last year's leaves. Still that cracked and dolorous tune Sobs and shudders and frets and grieves. Winter is king: yet, soft and sweet, Comes a whisper, a fair, faint tone Of distant music in muffled beat, Only a breath, yet it shakes his throne! Only a breath! and so faint and low, That I lean to listen, and bare my head Lean to listen till over the snow Comes the sound of a velvet tread. Who breathes so low? who comes apace. Treading softly, with feet unseen, With muffled form, and with covered face? It is Spring that comes. Long live the Queen! Welcome! all hail to the reign so near! Thine hour is not yet come, we know; We shall wait through days that are gray and drear, Through howling tempest and driving snow. 106 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. But we well can wait: the fields, the lake. Silent lie, like a realm of death: Yet thou art near and the dead shall wake, We have heard thy voice, we have felt thy breath: Haste! oh haste! In this hour of calm We have heard thee, but oh to feel thy kiss! Oh for the touch of thy lips of balm! And oh! to bs drunk with thy draughts The Wayside Trough, On the velvet bem of grasses green That borders the edge of the dusty way, Under a maple's glossy screen, Is a rough hewn trough, all battered and gray. All through the summer, wet or dry, With dripping crystal the brim o'erflows, Pure as the rain that falls from the sky, Free as the air that comes and goes. Into the trough falls a tiny stream- Steadily falls, both day and night In the noontide's glow, in the moon's pale beam. Sparkling always a thread of light. This battered trough and this tiny stream Are known for many and many a mile. Tis here that the wagoner rests his team; For this he waits it is worth his while. Tis here that the footman, faint and sore, Lured by the streamlet's silver tone, Rests till the midday heats are o'er, Then cheered, refreshed, presses bravely on. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 107 And children, loitering borne from school, With hot, flushed faces, and bare, brown feet, Dip their brows in the waters cool, With ringing shouts and with laughter sweet. Whence does it come this stream so bright, That falls in the trough by the dusty way-- This sparkling, musical thread of light, That tinkles and sings, by night and day? Rack in the tields, at a meadow's edge, Under a bank, by trees o'erhung, 'Mid sweet-flag clumps and grassy sedge, Is born the stream with the silver tongue. A deep, clear spring, with a household name Through fiercest drouth it still o'erflows, As pure and as cold as if it came From rifted bosoms of melting snow. 'Twas a dear old man (bless his memory! It should live forever, fresh and sweet!) Who hewed the trough from a linden tree, And set it down by the dusty street. He caught and harnessed the tiny stream; It filled the trough and fills it yet. In the old man's heart was a simple dream Of blessing his kind but men forget. lie sleeps on the hillside, peacefully, Whether zephyrs sigh or storm winds blow The hands that hollowed the linden tree Were mutely folded, oh! long ago! Still weary wayfarers stoop to drink, Where tinkles the stream like a silver bell. Of the old, kind man few ever think; But I know he would say " It is just as well." 10x WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. The Talking Fiend. Sad is his fate, we may well suppose. To whose pillow at dead of night, Comes a ghost in diaphanous clothes, And stands there, still and white. It wouldn't be pleasant for you or me The ghost that in silence stalks; But worse than a silent ghost can be, Is the fiend who always talks. As to spiteful spirits, black or gray, If you keep your conscience clear, And a horseshoe over the door, they say, Not one will venture near. But there's nothing yet, as I've heard tell, That can lay this thing of evil. Not saintly purity, charm, or spell, Can banish the talking devil. There are bolts and bars for midnight crime. Which in darkness prowls about; But the thief who filches your precious time. There's nothing to keep him out. Of all life's miseries dread and dire, Have sorrowful poets sung; But worse than famine, or flood, or fire, Is the fiend with the ceaseless tongue. You know him; he calls himself your friend-; But your deadliest enemy. Who presses hate to the bitter end, Is more of a friend than he. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 109 Does lie dwell with you? At your table sit? Then pack up your traps and fly! Or be talked to death and I've heard that "it Is a terrible death to die." Should the fiend read this, he'll not look grim, But a smile shall his visage mellow. He'll never dream it is meant for him, But he'll think of some other fellow. Woman's Work. Let her not lift a feeble voice and cry, "What is my work?" and fret at bars and bands, While all about her life's plain duties lie, Waiting undone beneath her idle hands. The noblest life oft hath, for warp and woof, Small, steady-running threads of daily care; Where patient love, beneath some lowly roof, Its poem sweet is weaving unaware, And soft and rich and rare the web shall be. O wife, and mother, tender brave and true, Rejoice, be glad! and bend a thankful knee To God, who giveth thee thy work to do. Grandmother. Busy and quiet, and sweet and wise, With a long life's thought in her gentle eyes The hoarding of many a year- Nearer drawing, from sun to sun, To the peaceful goal of a race well run, Waiting her record of work well done In the hearts that hold her dear. 110 \VALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Grandmother's locks, all silver}' white, Seem to my fancy like bands of light, Crowning her sweet pale face. Grandmother's voice is tender and low; And the fall of her footsteps soft and slow, As hither and yonder,and to and fro, She glides with a saintly grace. Grandmother's mission, for every day, Is to do the duty that comes her way. Whatever that duty may be. To think of others, her self forgot, To dry sad tears when her own are wet, Is Grandmother's plan and the best one yet, "Twere a good one for you and me. She has her griefs, though she hides them well. Her heart still throbs when a tolling bell Utters its mournful tone. For she thinks of a knell rung long ago, Of a far off grave underneath the snow, And a silent sleeper on pillow low, Whose lips once pressed her own. Thirty years 'tis a lonely while! Yet Grandmother's face wears a peaceful smile As she sits in the sunset glow. She is busy still, as evening light Falls on her hair, so silvery white: And she softly speaks of the coming night- She is biding her time to go. Indian Summer. Again the leaves come fluttering down, Slowly, silently, one by one, Scarlet, and crimson, and gold, and brown, Willing to fall, for their work is done, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. And once again comes the dreamy haze, Draping the hills with its filmy blue, And veiling the sun, whose tender rays, With mellowed light come shimmering through. Softly it rests on the sleeping lake This fllmy veil and the distant shore, Fringed with tangles of brush and brake, Shows a dim blue line and nothing more. The winds are asleep, save now and then Some wandering breeze comes stealing by, Softly rises, then sinks again, And dies away like an infant's sigh. You feel the spell of those dreamy days I know for your soul is in tune with mine. You love the stillness, the tender haze; I know for your thoughts with my own entwine. But this dreamy calm, this solemn hush, The sleeping winds, and the mellow glow, Only foretell the tempest's rush, The icy blast, and whirling snow. We you and I must bow to the frost, When our locks are white with hoary kiss; Our last rose scattered, its petals lost, May our Indian summer be calm like this. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Love. Some men there are, called holy, who ret JIT To dreary deserts from the world away, Who scourge the flesh, and meditate and pray. And for each earthly thought do penance dire Until all human sympathies expire: Who sacrifice God's precious gifts and say That from the bitter ashes, dead and gray. Shall spring the glowing flames of sacred tire. But cold the ashes are, no flames arise. When hearts are dead no fervent pulse can beat, No warm blood flow. Oh, fools are they, and blind, Who, scorning earth, think thus to scale the skies! Such scorn (would they could know!) but weights the feet. He loves God best who best doth love his kind. High and Low. Down in the valley, a peaceful scene Streamlets winding through meadows green, Rippling, smiling, their banks between. Up on the heights, the torrents flash. Rush and tumble, and roar and dash. Seaming the soil with many a gash. Down in the valley, the summer rain Gently falls on the growing grain. Softly taps at the window-pane. Up on the heights, the tempests beat . Hurling volleys of pelting sleet, When winds and clouds like armies meet. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 113 Down in the valley, through growing corn, The warm wind steals, and the breeze of morn, Kisses the buds, and the flowers are born. Up on the heights, the wind blows chill, Smiting the heart with its icy thrill, Shrieking at midnight, sharp and shrill. Down in the valley, a level street, Shaded by trees whose branches meet, Trodden lightly by tripping feet. Up to the heights, the way is steep, The stones are sharp, the chasms deep, And oft the pilgrims pause to weep. Down in the valley, a vine-wreathed cot, A happy household where strife is not, Each content in a simple lot. Up on the heights, one dwells apart, A mark for many an envious dart, Lofty, but lonely, and starved in heart. Oh, would there were less of strife to gain, With bleeding feet, with tug and strain, Far, rocky heights, that are heights of pain. The brightest wreaths of fame may rest On throbbing brows, and royal vest Oft has covered an aching breast. 114 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POKMi-v A Wayside Tree. I passed to-day through a foiv-t In somberest sombre drest; Furled were the blood-red banners, Quenched was each flaming crest. The wind swept through the branches: The clouds hung low and gray, Bearing storms in their bosoms. Stealing the sun away. The roar far back in the forest. The crackling above my head, As the crisp leaves shook and quivered, Filled me with nameless dread. Like the leaves, I shook and shivered As the cold wind colder blew, And the tread of advancing tempests Sounded the deep woods through. Was there nothing left of the summery Naught of the autumn show;' Nothing bright for the winter To fold in its sheets of snow? Me hold! by the dreary roadside, Towering fair and green In the midst of its sombre sisters, A single oak is seen. Touched with spatters of crimson, Bordered with flery bands, Across its resplendent garments The sun and the frost clasp hands. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 115 I look at the tree in wonder! It seems like some ancient sage, Wearing his youthful freshness Along with the frosts of age. Oh! the life must be pure and noble That can keep, as the seasons go, Its June and its rich October Till falleth the winter snow! A Song of Peace. Sing me a song to-night, Not sad, nor yet keyed to mirth; But a household lay, in a soothing voice, As the cricket sings on the hearth. No loud high-soaring strains, When body and brain are spent; But I long to listen, with half-shut lids, To a song of sweet content. Let the notes drop from your lips Like summer rain from the eaves, Or the dreamy tinkle of far-off bells That comes through whispering leaves. Let me hold your hand a while Your hand so firm and flne; Its soft, warm clasp is a touch of peace, And its pulses shall quiet mine. Sing on, so soft and low; Dispelled by the soothing strain, Gone the heat from my throbbing brow, And the ache from heart and brain. IK, WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Sing on; your breath at my cheek, Your hands still clasping mine: Your voice and your touch, my household bird. Are sweeter and better than mine. A Kansas Prairie and Its People. How grandly vast the prairie seems. Beneath the pale winter's glow A wide, white world, in death-like sleep, under its shroud of snow. Yet there are signs of life: the lanes Are trod by heavy teams; A horseman, on the yon distant swell, A moving atom seems. The wide, white lands that stretch away Are dotted everywhere With orchard clumps, and farmers' hoim- Are snugly nestled there. The people of this great new world Have come from every quarter: Some faced each other long ago, On red fields bathed in slaughter. In frosty dawns of winter morns, The white smoke curls away From homes of men who wore the blue, And men who wore the gray. Here, brothers all; they hang their gifts On the same Christmas tree; Our kindly neighbors, cordial friemK Are as brothers ought to be. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. And crowds of children, Kansas born, Our young state's hope and pride, With rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, Learn lessons side by side. Xaught reck they of the battle field, Of sad, dark years of slaughter; The Northmen's son some day shall wear The Southron's gentle daughter. Acceptance. That man is wisest who accepteth his lot Yet mends it where lie-can glad if there grows Some lowly flower beside his lonely cot, E'en while he plants and tends his Alpine rose. Some good comes to us all. No poverty Hut has some precious gift laid at its door. We scorn it, call it small, what fools are we, To spurn the less because it is not more! There are some thirsty souls, all sick and faint With longing for the cup that is denied. Would they but stoop and drink, without complaint, From the near stream, and so be satisfied. There are some hungry hearts that well nigh break With the dull soreness of mere emptiness. To fill the void and sooth the weary ache Let them but strive some other hearts to bless. There are some idle hands that reach afar For wilder mission, some great work of fame. Would they but grapple life's daily waf, Reward awaits them, nobler than a name. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. ()li. thirsty souls! Oh, hungry hearts and hands, Weary with idleness! Take what you may Of proffered good; accept life as it stands, And make the most of its swift, fleeting day. A Lesson for the New Year. The last night of the year, I sat alone Beside the dying fire. The whole house slept. Naught stirred the silence, save the wind's low moan. As sadly through the naked streets it crept, The fall of embers and the clock's low beat, That mark the passing years with tiring feet. I am weary; and the coming year Seemed but an added load that pressed me son-. The morrow would bring friends, and I should hear The tread of many feet upon the floor. I longed for quiet; I was vexed with care; Just then my burden seemed too great to bear. I thought of my unopened book, my pen, Lying long idle, rusting in its place. Could I but take them to some lonely glen Where toil were not, nor any human face! li 'Twere joy," cried I, so fretful was my mood "To dwell one year in utter solitude." Have then thy wish!" Was uttered sad and low; I turned, and one stood by me, fair and tall, And from his countenance with light aglow, A look of pitying grief on me did fall. "Have then thy wish!" He stooped and touched mine eyes' And I stotxl dumb, overwhelmed with strange surprise. The silent room had vanished and the wood, Peopled with birds, that tilled its aisles with song WALLS OF CORN* AND OTHER POKMS. Compassed me round with sweet green solitude; A clear stream trailed its silvery thread along; And close beside it stood a rustic cot. Piled high with volumes, and here toil was not. Fruits for my food fell lightly at my feet; I was alone; through all that lovely place I knew that I might wander, and not meet, In hill or hollow, any human face. Within my books, all wit and wisdom blent. I had my wish: was I therewith content? Nay, verily. A sharp grief pierced me through, My spirit sank, oppressed with midnight gloom, While trees hung o'er me wet with heaven's dew. L felt as one walled up within a tomb. I sought my books: locked were their stores from me; The hot tears dimmed my sight. 1 could not see. I tried my pen in vain. No words would come. Thought was an arid desert, wide and gray. From which no streams would flow. My soul wa> dumb With utter loneliness; but could I pray? I cast me on the fragrant, dewy sod, My face pressed in the grass and cried to God. "Oh! Give me back," I prayed, "The dear days gone The toilsome days, so full of crowded care The hands I clasped, the lips that pressed my own. For these, for these, could I all burdens bear!" I started, for a rustling robe trailed near: And "Have again thy wish!" fell on my ear. Again I felt soft, gentle fingers press Mine eyelids down; and lo! The dear old room, The smiling lamp light home's blessed homliness! The lonely wood was gone, its grief, its gloom: And close within my call my dear ones slept. For very joy I bowed my head and wept. ]2i> WALLS OF CORX AND OTHER POEMS. Tlie fire was dead, the moon shone on the snow, The wailing wintry wind blew bitter sold, And yet I laid me down with heart aglow, For all life's leaden care seemed turned to gold. I slept the sleep of peace: I rose at morn, Strong in the glad Xew Year as one new born. Bubbles. I saw an urchin with a pipe of clay Held to his rosy lips; a rippling brook Kissed his bare feet, then, singing, sped away. His cheek was dimpled, mirth wa-* in his look. The child was blowing bubbles. One by one The tiny globes of rainbow, frail and fair, Sailed upward, glittered in the morning sun, Trembled and swung upon the summer air. Then one by one I saw them burst. Some fell Tpon the stream that gurgled swiftly past. Broke, and were gone forever. Balanced well, Some stayed a moment, but all burst at last. I saw 'iem vanish, and I sadly thought, With tear-wet eyelid and with quivering lip, That such was history thus frailly wrought, Men's lives are bubbles, Fortune blows the pipe. A drop, a breath no more is place and power. The crowd that cries to-day, " Long live the King I*' To-morrow spurns its creature of an hour, And lays him low a scorned and hated thing. 1 see how men go up and men go down; I see the high and noble sink to shame; I see the high exile's ban succeed the crown: I see vile Slander dog the steps of Fame. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 121 So must it be; the brightest bubbles burst; To grasp them is to clutch at empty air. Is naught, then, certain? is all good accurst? Is this life all? Proclaim it, ye who dare! God's Truth abides. We turn and veer about; We clasp our idols, and they fall to dust: Our faith is weak we plunge in seas of doubt- Yet there is still the Rock; and God is just. Confidence, Is it better never to hope, than to hope in vain? Is it better never to strive, lest we never attain? Js it better to cling to the shore and leave untried Life's wide, deep sea, for dread of its storm and tide? Who ventures naught, he surely shall never win: He naught shall finish, who never doth aught begin; .The sun may shine and the heavens may shed its rain, But only the sower may harvest his golden grain. To-morrow, we know, is dark with its misty veil: The light on the path to-day is but dim and pale; Blindly we grope our way but 'tis better so What God hath hidden 'tis better we should not -know. Xobler and braver is he who stakes his all, And takes his loss or gain as the chances may fall, Than he who folds his hands and idly waits, Till the shadows gather darkly about his gates. Shall we turn our ear away from a sweet refrain, Lest the pleasant song may turn to a diqje of pain? Shall we close our eyes to the ray in the midnight gloom, Lest it prove a lure that leads to the door of a tomb? WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Is it better never to love, lest love mistake;' The passionate heart may quiver and ache and break Yet give us the warm, rich wine, though well we kn<>\v That dregs as bitter as death may lie below. We sigh for the joys that were coming, and never came: We sit in the dark and weep, with our hearts aflame: We feel the crush and grind of the silent mill Feel the crush and grind, while our lips are still. What, then! shall we spurn our life as a broken thing;' Shall we fling a curse in the face of Heaven's King? Happy is he who keepeth his trust through all: He may shrink and shiver, and falter, but shall not fall. November Rain. November rain! November rain! Fitfully beating the window pane: Creeping in pools across the street: Clinging in slush to dainty feet; Shrouding in black the sun at noon; Wrapping a pall about the moon. Out in the darkness, sobbing, sighing. Yonder, where the dead are lying, Over mounds with headstones gray. And new ones made but yesterday- Weeps the rain above the mould. Weeps the night-rain, sad and cold. The low wind wails a voice of pain. Fit to chime with the weeping rain. Dirge-like, solemn, it sinks and swell>. Till I start and listen for tolling bells. And let them toll the summer fled. Wild winds and rain bewail the dead. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 123 And yet not dead. A prophesy Over wintry wastes comes down to me, Strong, exultant, floating down Over frozen fields and forests brown, Clear and sweet it peals and swells, Like New Year chimes from midnight bells. It tells of a heart with life aglow, Throbbing under the shrouding snow, Beating, beating with pulses warm, While roars above it the gusty storm. Asleep not dead your grief is vain, Wild, wailing winds, November rain. Shadows. Gray, cold and gray Is the desolate wintry sky. As the colorless daylight fades away And the starless night draws nigh, I sit in my darkened room By the fire, it is burning low, While fancy weaves in her pauseless loom, And swift and silent, amid the gloom. Her shuttle glides to and fro. Sad, sombre and sad Is the web that she weaves to-night; And it wraps my soul as the world is clad In the desolate evening light. Strange is this nameless sorrow! I weep, and I scarce know why It is the frown of some dark to-morow That looms above me, and I must borrow Grief from by and by? 124 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Why, fancy why Hast done so ill thy task? Instead of a gloom like the starless sky, Oh, give me the thing I ask. It is just as easy to rear A sunny castle in Spain As to conjure up some faith or fear. Some shadowy grief that brings a tear From the ache of a nameless pain. Over the Hill. We met on the hillside we both were young Where countless thousands have met before: And read together the tender book Tliat youth in all time cons o'er and o'er. How sweet the rhymes! How brightly down Shone on our faces the golden morn! Far up the path sweet roses clung. Soft blew the wind of the Summer's born. Our path shall be one," he tenderly said. 'Tp the hill, down the other side: Whether heavy or light the burden be, Only as one shall our strength be tried.'' So we climbed together, young and strong For no toil is heavy to Love and Youth And plucked the flowers that fringed the way Flowers that blossom for Trust and Truth. How sweet the morn! How the hours sped! And dancing beside us came little feet, Sweet, tiny voices and little hands. Clinging softly, with clasping sweet. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 125 All, the tender sadness with which one tells Of joys that are dead! The morning gone, Rough grew the way and hard the toil, As the weary heat of the noon came on. And then he was stricken! falling down In the rugged way at the hot noontide; And cold hands bore him away from me, Over the stream to the other side. O! weary, weary, the way I have trod! The pattering feet beside my own No more keep time, and the little hands Clasp mine no more. Old, and alone! 1 have passed the summit long ago Slowly, painfully, creeping down! Gray locks are straying my temples o'er, Where clustered brightly the curls of brown. At the foot of the hill rolls the sullen stream; I am nearing it now, at the eventide; I shall enter it when the sun goes down, And meet my love on the other side! The First Bird. The south wind blows with a hint of spring A prophecy it can be nothing more; But there sits a bird with wee brown wing, Up in the hickory, over the door. On a naked twig he sits and sings; And the March sun shines, and the warm winds blow And his frail perch trembles and sways and swings, Over great masses of melting snow. 126 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. Oh! his song is sweet! and almost I think That the spring is come; and a conjured scene Of the planting of corn and the bobolink, Dreamily rises my thoughts between. But heavy and deep lies the winter drift! Ah, little bird, you're ahead of your time! The wind will change with a sudden shift; You will shiver and chill in our northern clime. You had better have stayed in the orange trees For some days yet for where will you go When the icy raindrops fall and free/e? And where will you hid from the sleet and snow:* Little bird, would you only come to my door; I would take you into my kitchen warm- Where strangers a welcome have found before And keep you safe from the driving storm. Will you come? But you still believe in the spring; You slight the offer I make, and me. You are off ! with your song and your glancing wing, And silent and bare is my hickory tree. WALLS OF CORN" AND OTHER POEMS. 127 Carrier's Address. I Wish you Happy New Year, kind friends and patrons all, On you may Heaven's blessing, like summer showers fall: May your joys be great and lasting, your sorrows short and small. With the New Year at the threshold, and the Old Year laid away Beneath the shrouds of winter, of the winter hoar and gray, I come to pray your patience while I sing my simple lay. Did you hear the bells a-ringing in the middle of the night? Did you see, athwart the darkness, a radiance clear and bright, As the strong hands of the New Year folded back the gates of light? It is come the joyful morning; let all words be words, of cheer; Let sorrow cease its warning and forget to drop its tear: Let the croaker cease his croaking, for once in all the year. There is ample cause for triumph, ample cause for hopeful song, For the Right has learned to conquer in its conflict with the Wrong, And Corruption fears and trembles, for the arm of Truth is strong. You have watched the tides of battle, from your firesides bright and warm; You have marked the people's banner, the broad banner of Reform; You have seen it waving proudly above the surging storm. 128 WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. You have heard the victor's peans floating up from distant shores, From the beaches of the May state, where the wild Atlantic roars, And from sunny southern gardens, where the Mississippi pours. Where Ohio rolls its waters, where sweeps the Tennessee, From the shores of bleak Ontario, from the vales of Genesee, You have heard the thunderous echoes of the guns of victory. What means the glad rejoicing? What do we hope to win When the Old is going out, and the Xew is coming in? For a change that betters nothing, is a change not worth a pin. We hope for better rulers men who earnestly desire The good of all the country, and who honestly aspire To wash away the traces of the days of blood and tire. The war is long since over, and it is not brave we know, To keep relentless foot upon the neck of fallen foe; Let us bridge the "bloody chasm,'' o'er the graves let gra>-< - grow: Across old fields of battle let the breath of kindness blow. Send out the cleansing besom, sweep away the rot and rust From the courts our fathers founded! Brush away the gath ered dust Where righteous laws lie burried should not judgement aye be just? "Down witli the Carpet Baggers, '' comes witli the glad hurrah: "Down witli the Salary Grabbers," and "down the Press Gag Law." While we snatch the good old Union from destruction's rav ening jaw. WALLS OF CORN AND OTHER POEMS. 129 Ho, for the good time coming! even now its on the way. When the rascals shall be punished, and the patriots win the day; When only faithful servants shall receive the people's pay. 'Tis true our own Wisconsin fell partly away from grace, She was seized with sudden panic, and backward turned her face, But she even now repenteth, and is mourning her disgrace. She was caught by a wily lawyer, who went out to hunt for votes, Courting the sturdy farmer, praising his wheat and oats, And damning the railroad system as the rottenest ship that floats. He filled his hair with hay seed, as he grasped the farmer's hand, And he sang this pious anthem, so lofty and so grand,