By 
 
 DAVID 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 

 
 I 
 
 
 
 Da^id Barker, 
 
 JOHN E. GODFREY. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 AUGUSTA, MAINE : 
 E. E. KNOWLKS & CO., PUBLISHERS. 
 
 \
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 SUSAN C. BARKER, WIDOW. 
 WALTER ('., AM> MAUDE BARKER, 
 
 CHILDREN OF 
 HA VI I) BARKER.
 
 PS 
 
 '. 
 
 18 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Biographical and Historical Sketch 7 
 
 My First Courtship 17 
 
 MASONIC POEMS. 
 
 A Welcome to the Hugh De Payen Commandery 107 
 
 A Welcome to St. John and Union De Molay Coramanderies 109 
 
 Courting a Mason's Daughter Ill 
 
 Faith, Hope and Charity 113 
 
 (Jive Them Bread and Not a Stone 114 
 
 John Warner's Not Dead 116 
 
 Lines Written for the One Hundredth Anniversary of Fredericksburg Lodge,117 
 
 Meeting of Northern and Southern Masons in Massachusetts 1S."> 
 
 M y I -ust Request 110 
 
 Ode 120 
 
 The Mason's Farewell l^li 
 
 The Mason's Death and Burial li" 
 
 The Sign of Distress 125 
 
 The Templars 127 
 
 To Kossuth 120 
 
 To J. D. Willard of N. Y \::-> 
 
 Try the Square |:)4 
 
 RELIGIOUS POEMS. 
 
 Death of Kmma Hill, at Kxetor, Me 130 
 
 Keep to the Right 140 
 
 Laying of the Corner Stone 141 
 
 1'rayer 143 
 
 The Covered Uridge 144 
 
 The I'ale Boatman 14C 
 
 The Atheist's Last Look ...147 
 
 Thoughts at a Funeral 149 
 
 When. Where and How Shall 1 Die 150 
 
 762890
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 MORAL AND SENTIMENTAL. 
 
 All at Homo 1 &5 
 
 Act Yourself 156 
 
 A Short Story With a Moral..., 158 
 
 A Solace for Dark Hours 159 
 
 At the Front 162 
 
 Billy Dee 163 
 
 Disconnected Rhymes 164 
 
 Fannie Ward 165 
 
 Karly Recollections 167 
 
 Hope of Bliss 173 
 
 Influence and Retribution 174 
 
 I Think So, Don't You.... 176 
 
 Let Them Talk 177 
 
 Light 178 
 
 Lines to My Dead Dog 180 
 
 Love of Life 181 
 
 Make Your Mark... 183 
 
 Mary Dee 1*5 
 
 Mary Hall ' ....186 
 
 Mimchausen's Bugle 188 
 
 My Child's Origin 190 
 
 My Dream 191 
 
 My Sister 19t 
 
 Never Get Ready to Die 195 
 
 Never Mind 196 
 
 Old Rufus Ray 198 
 
 Only She and I 200 
 
 One World at a Time 201 
 
 Pious Like Hell 202 
 
 Prayers and Kisses 204 
 
 Stop Thief 205 
 
 The Bevelled Grindstone 206 
 
 The Blind Gateman 208 
 
 The Bradbury Boys .210 
 
 The Blade of Corn 213 
 
 The Dove 214 
 
 The Fools Ain't All, Dead 215 
 
 The Hunchback Boy 218 
 
 The Know-Xothin^s 219 
 
 The I-adies' Man -J21 
 
 The Poet's Invitation 223 
 
 The Poor Wood-Hauler 224 
 
 The Profligate Son to His Dying Mother 225 
 
 The Song of the Old Boys and Girls 227 
 
 The Two Prisoners 229 
 
 The I'lifinished Task !.._>3o 
 
 The Teachings of Philosophy 231
 
 CONTEXTS. 
 
 To Leather French. 232 
 
 The Shepherd and the Lamb 234 
 
 The Under Dog in the Fight 235 
 
 To Moll Molasses 236 
 
 To 8. C. Who Sent Me a Withered Leaf iis 
 
 To Sue 239 
 
 Try Again .... 240 
 
 What of That 242 
 
 Where the Old Folks Lived and Died -J4t 
 
 When You and I Were Boys L'4(; 
 
 PATRIOTIC POEMS. 
 
 A Welcome to the 2nd Maine Regiment 251 
 
 A Compromise 2:">3 
 
 From Maine to Massachusetts About the Burns' Case 255 
 
 Freedom's Battle Cry 257 
 
 General Berry 258 
 
 Gunboat Rhymes '2m 
 
 Imitation 261 
 
 Jack Frost to Yellow Jack 26:.' 
 
 Let Us Have Peace 264 
 
 Levi Emerson, the First Volunteer 267 
 
 Lines on the Death of John Oakes 2(>s 
 
 Lines Addressed to John A. Hill 269 
 
 Old Willey 270 
 
 Pat Golden 27 '> 
 
 The Old Camp Ground -77 
 
 The Old Ship of State 279 
 
 The Empty Sleeve 2SO 
 
 The Soldiers of Meduxnekeag 232 
 
 To John Brown in Prison 284 
 
 The Rebellion 25 
 
 You Thousand of Men 201 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 A Thought 295 
 
 A Bachelor's Life For Me 2!)i 
 
 After Marriage '-!9 s 
 
 An Hour With Tom Plumadore ^!l!) 
 
 Apostrophe to the Ocean 300 
 
 Apostrophe to a Gong 302 
 
 By Hokey , Them Is Pretty Verses -W4 
 
 Cornele 306 
 
 Five Stanzas ".Os 
 
 Flopdoddle 3W 
 
 Good-Bye to the Legislature 311 
 
 4i reclines* . .".12
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Katahdin Iron Worku 357 
 
 Lines Wendell Phillip.- on Lout Arts 314 
 
 My Boy 315 
 
 Mehetabel Junking 316 
 
 Midnight Melodies 318 
 
 Saxon Pluck 319 
 
 Steamboat Knitting 322 
 
 Tea Cheat Lead 324 
 
 The Lion and the Skunk 326 
 
 The Fourth of July at Belfast 328 
 
 The Hammer and the Anvil 333 
 
 The Levant Convention 334 
 
 The Meadow-King Mower 338 
 
 The Reform School 340 
 
 The Six Fellows 341 
 
 The Third Cremation 345 
 
 The Wheat and the Tare* 348 
 
 To <iovernor Coney 34j> 
 
 To the Rabble 350 
 
 Touch Not the Bowl 352 
 
 Private Remarks to the American Eagle 353. 
 
 What Is True Poetry 356
 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Nearly thirty years ago there appeared in the New 
 York Evening Post the following stanzas : 
 
 MY CHILD'S ORIGIN. 
 
 One night, as old Saint Peter nlt>pt, 
 
 He left the door of Heaven ajar, 
 When through, a little angel crept, 
 
 And came down with a falling star. 
 
 One summer, as the blessed beams 
 
 Of morn approached, my blushing bride 
 Awakened from some pleasing dreams, 
 
 And found that angel by her side. 
 
 <;<id grant but this I ask no more 
 
 That when he leaves this world of sin 
 He'll wing his way for that blest shore 
 
 And find that door of heaven again. 
 
 The lines immediately attracted attention and were 
 copied extensively into the newspaper press throughout 
 the country. Governor Andrew was so impressed by 
 
 V \J 
 
 F* TB
 
 BIOGUAPJIV 
 
 them that he carried them with him, affirming that they 
 were the "sweetest lines he ever read." 
 
 Of course their paternity was soon discovered, and the 
 name of David Barker became familiar. That such charm 
 ing verses should escape the profane hand of the paro 
 dist was too much to expect, when those of Longfellow 
 and Whittier could not. They came out from under it, 
 however, with a greater lustre, and, notwithstanding the 
 momentary shock to his sensibilities when it first fell un 
 der his eye, Mr. Barker had the satisfaction that it "has 
 done a world of good, nevertheless ;" and of knowing that 
 his little gem would sparkle when parody and parodist 
 were buried in oblivion. 
 
 Other productions of Mr. Barker have added no little 
 to his reputation. Among them, "The Old Ship of 
 State," "The Under Dog in the Fight," "The Covered 
 Bridge" and "The Empty Sleeve," have met with great 
 favor. That, however, which in the opinion of many of 
 liis friends, will be most enduring, is his longest poem, 
 "My First Courtship. "There is so much apparent reality 
 in the scenes described in that poem, and many of the 
 forms of expression adopted are so happily introduced, 
 that the people of his region, to whom their significance 
 is clear, will recur to it with delight. 
 
 In the last years of his life, this poem was read by Mr. 
 Barker to many audiences in different parts of the State, 
 and from the admirable faculty he had of inoffensively 
 pressing into his service, on occasion, the names of prom-
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 inent individuals in the assembly, as if they were one of 
 the dramatis persomc. he created great amusement 
 among his hearers. 
 
 Mr. Barker was born and reared, and spent the chief 
 part of his life in the thrifty, agricultural town of Exeter, 
 in the State of Maine. At the time of his birth, the pop 
 ulation of that town was composed chiefly of sensible, 
 hard-working, enterprising people, who had immigrated 
 thither, poor, but with a determination to have a share 
 in the world's prosperity. Among these pioneers was 
 Nathaniel Barker, a native of Exeter, New Hampshire, 
 then late a resident of Limerick, Maine. He came in 
 1803, and was instrumental in having the name of his 
 native town given to this one of his adoption. He took 
 up a farm, and, in 1807, married Sarah Pease, then of 
 Exeter, but born in Parsonfield, Maine, a wife not be 
 hind him in heroism and enterprise. Ten children were 
 the fruit of the marriage, the sixth of whom was David. 
 
 David was born September 9, 1816. When in his 
 seventh year, the family were thrown into deep affliction 
 by the death of the father, who was accidently killed in 
 Bangor, by his team, in 1823. The suddenness of the 
 calamity was sufficient to unnerve a person of less sensi 
 bility than the widow ; but though overwhelmed with 
 grief, she at once comprehended, and bravely assumed 
 her double responsibility. It was important that she 
 should know what were her resources for the support of 
 her family. She found that her husband's estate must be
 
 
 IO 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 administered upon, and relying mainly upon herself, 
 she commenced early proceedings in the Probate Court, 
 riding on horse-back nearly thirty miles over devious 
 bridle-paths and rough roads, to and from Bangor, in 
 doing her business. She discovered that the estate was 
 insolvent; and all she could obtain, with which to sustain 
 her young family, was an allowance of three hundred dol 
 lars from the Judge of Probate, and a trifle of dower. 
 But, with this little property and the encouragement of 
 her older children, she resolved to make the attempt to 
 live independently of outside assistance. She \vas upon 
 the farm that her husband had purchased, but it was in- 
 cumbered for more than it was worth. She and her 
 children determined to redeem it, and they did ; and she 
 lived upon that farm at the time of her death, which oc- 
 cured a few years since at the age of ninety-two. 
 
 David was too young at the time of his father's death 
 to be of much assistance to his mother, but he earlv 
 learned that he must depend upon himself when he had 
 attained to sufficient age. He had ambition for knowledge, 
 and was an apt scholar. Until about sixteen years of 
 age, he had only the advantages of the common school. 
 He had then, by his industry, obtained sufficient means 
 to enable him to attend the Academy in Foxcroft. In 
 that excellent school he made such proficiency that, after 
 a time he was employed in it as an assistant. After 
 leaving Foxcroft he engaged in school teaching, and soon 
 became so popular as a teacher that his services for
 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. I I 
 
 schools were always in demand. He was employed in 
 his own and neighboring towns, and was called away 
 from home as far as Eastport, where he exercised his skill 
 as instructor most satisfactorily. 
 
 But it was not his intention to make teaching his voca 
 tion. When Samuel Cony, (the late Governor Cony) 
 first established himself as a lawyer in Exeter, Mr. 
 Barker entered his office to qualify himself for the pro 
 fession of the law. He made due proficiency, and was 
 with that gentleman until he removed to Oldtovvn. Mr. 
 Barker then went into an office in Bangor, and not long 
 afterwards was admitted to the Bar. He opened his law 
 office in Exeter, and was in successful practice there 
 until within two or three years before his death, when his 
 physical system had become so shattered that he did lit 
 tle else than occasionally occupy himself in poetical com 
 position ; reading sometimes in public when he felt strong 
 enough. But the time came at last when he had to re 
 linquish that delightful employment. 
 
 While on a visit to his friends in Bangor yet main 
 taining the belief that many years were in store for him 
 lie quietly sunk into his final slumber. He died at the 
 house of his brother, Mark Barker, Esq., Sept. 14, 1874, 
 at the age of fifty-eight years. 
 
 At the next term of the Supreme Judicial Court, in 
 October, Judge John A. Peters presiding, the following 
 resolutions of the Penobscot Bar were presented by Hon. 
 Josiah Crosby, accompanied by an eloquent and touching 
 tribute to his memory : 

 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Resolved* That the members of the Penobscot Bar 
 have heard with deep sensibility the announcement of the 
 death of Brother David Barker, a member of this Bar. 
 
 That as a mark of respect to his memory, we desire to 
 put on record our cheerful testimony to his ability as a 
 lawyer, his amiability, urbanity and unquestioned integ 
 rity : and we shall ever remember with much interest 
 those other gifts by which he was distinguished in the 
 lists of poetic fame. 
 
 That these proceedings be recorded, and a copy of the 
 same be communicated to his family by the Secretary, in 
 token of our sympathy with them in their great bereave 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Crosbv. who knew him well having for many 
 years been his nearest neighbor of the profession said : 
 
 His ability and attainments in the legal profession, 
 notwithstanding constant feebleness of health, were 
 highly respectable ; and there is no doubt that had his 
 health been firm, and his physical powers equal to his 
 mental, he might have attained to a distinguished position 
 at the bar. Those of his brethren who some fifteen or 
 twenty years since were accustomed to meet him in the 
 conflicts of the arena, will well remember that victory 
 over such an antagonist was not easily won. Feebleness of 
 health, seated upon the nervous system, had a tendency 
 to create a disrelish for the combative part of legal practice 
 which he finally relinquished and gladly sought a purer 
 and higher enjoyment in the fascinating realms of poesy. 
 
 In his practice he was ever honest and honorable. 
 His word was never doubted. Sympathy for the distressed 
 was a most prominent trait. He never oppressed the poor, 
 never treated them with haughtiness, never trod upon 
 their feelings. His heart and purse were ever open to 
 the calls of charity. His poem on the Masonic sign of 
 distress could never have originated with one not in sym 
 pathy with the unfortunate. It was this trait, undoubtedly, 
 which, when many years ago to be called an abolitionist. 
 
 
 t
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 13 
 
 was, in the minds of most people, to be called by a term 
 of reproach ; in the times when Wm. Lloyd Garrison 
 was mobed, and churches were burned. I say it was in 
 great measure this trait which led him to break loose 
 from all his political affiliations, and to claim for himself 
 the appellation of the unpopular abolitionist. He was 
 not only honest in his business relations, but he had in a 
 marked degree that higher type of honesty which caused 
 him to be faithful in the expression of his convictions, 
 and to follow them to their logical result. He desired 
 not the rewards of political ambition. The only politi 
 cal position he ever held was that of representative in the 
 Legislature, which he filled one year at the request of his 
 townsmen, with much credit. 
 
 No man was ever more free from the trammels of dog 
 mas, creeds and traditions, but his religious faith was 
 strong. He had a firm beliet in an overruling Providence, 
 the life hereafter, and that death was but an entrance to 
 a higher state of existence, as that expressive poem, "The 
 Covered Bridge," will readily bring to mind. His re 
 ligion, however, was not of the boisterous kind. It con 
 sisted in doing to others as he would have others do to 
 him, rather than the observance of forms and ceremonies, 
 and the utterances of emotion. 
 
 In one department, that of poetry, he had obtained a 
 distinguished reputation, a lot which seldom happens to 
 travelers in the rugged and difficult paths of the legal 
 profession. Poetry he loved. The muses answered kindlv 
 to his call, and it was a source of just satisfaction to him 
 that he had written some things which would live after 
 him. ''The Sign of Distress," ''The Covered Bridge." 
 "The Empty Sleeve," and many others of his productions 
 and poems will not soon die." 
 
 Judge Peters bore testimony to his excellent qualities 
 in the following graceful response : 
 
 " Gentlemen of the liar : I am happy that it. falls to 
 myself as a member of this Court, to express a cordial
 
 V 
 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 concurrence in the sentiments contained in your resolu 
 tions, and in the warm and glowing tribute of respect 
 paid to the deceased by your committee, in presenting 
 them. 
 
 I first knew the deceased when I came to the Bar of 
 this county, about forty years ago. I very well remem 
 ber his encouraging expressions to me when I was en 
 gaged in trying the first case that I ever tried in this court. 
 After I had gained some position at the bar, in the trial 
 of causes, he often employed me for his clients. I do not 
 now recollect that we were ever opposing attorneys in 
 any litigated case. We were often together. In our pro 
 fessional intercommunication he wrote to me many let 
 ters some of them in verse of a humorous character, 
 containing flashes of wit and fun. Our relations led me 
 to know him well. 
 
 Although he was not lacking in any of the intellectual 
 qualities which would have made him a successful advo 
 cate, still he was disinclined to take upon his shoulders 
 the heavy responsibilities and burdens which an advocate 
 has to bear. But he was a most valuable associate. His 
 court business was always perfectly prepared. There was 
 great method and completeness in his preparation of 
 causes for trial. His perceptions were very quick and 
 exact, and his whole soul was engaged in any cause un 
 dertaken by him. 
 
 After all, professional life, evidently, was not entirelv 
 in accord with his predominating tastes, and for that rea 
 son, he has established before the world more position 
 and reputation out of, than in the courts. 
 
 He was extensively known and appreciated as a man. 
 
 He was invariably courteous and cordial. It was al 
 ways pleasant to meet him. His nature was kindlv and 
 sympathetic and sensitive. This led him to be, some 
 times, easily elated or depressed. Still he had great firm 
 ness of purpose and serious and settled convictions, al 
 though never obtruded upon anybody or offensively ex 
 pressed. He had no toleration for the shows or shams of 
 society, either in the social or the moral world. We all very 
 wcll remember how well he loved his countrv during the
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 late war ; how absorbed he was in its exciting scenes ; 
 what an enthusiast he was about the questions regarded 
 by him as affecting human freedom ! He found in those 
 stirring events an inspiration for that peculiar literary ef 
 fort for which he possessed a gift. 
 
 His poetical productions will be the principal monu 
 ment to his fame and memory. I frequently urged him to 
 collect and publish them while he lived. I was satisfied 
 that they would meet with marked public favor, which 
 would have been a great gratification to him. But noth 
 ing would have more deeply affected him in his lifetime, 
 than an anticipation and belief if such a thing could have 
 been that this grateful and tender tribute was in store 
 for his memory from this bar. Mv personal sentiment 
 and feeling is, that observances like this should not pass 
 into neglect or out of our esteem. They may serve to 
 stimulate a motive for honorable conduct at the bar. 
 There can be no better memorial offered for honorable 
 professional life than a tribute from the fraternity placed 
 upon the records of the courts where honorable charac 
 ter has been attained in the practice of the law. 
 
 The name and character of our lamented brother will 
 long be fresh within our memories. He will long be re 
 membered by us for his cordial, personal greetings ; his 
 pleasant anecdotes and playful remarks ; his activities and 
 sympathies in all the events that for many years passed 
 about us ; his gifts in poetical effusions that hit off our 
 local habits, costumes and character ; his own good char 
 acter as a man, and his unsullied reputation as a prac 
 titioner at this bar. 
 
 It was sad to see him in the prime of manhood pass 
 away. His death has cast a gloom and shadow upon our 
 path. It is another reminder that life is but "a vapor 
 that appeareth for a little time, and soon vanisheth away." 
 
 But we have the consolation that death is the beginning 
 of immortality. As Longfellow expresses it 
 
 "There is no death! 
 
 What seems so in transition."
 
 l6 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 In compliance with your request the resolutions of the 
 bar are ordered to be entered on the records of this Court ; 
 and as a further mark of respect this Court will now be 
 adjourned." 
 
 Mr. Barker left a widow the daughter of the late Tim 
 othy Chase, Esq., of Belfast, Me. and a son and a daugh 
 ter. As a poet he will live. There are many gems from 
 his pen that cannot die. The touching references to his 
 mother, in several of his poems, will endear him to all 
 who maintain their regard for the filial sentiment, and they 
 are legion. 
 
 His townsmen manifested their regard for his abilities 
 by electing him a Representative to the Legislature of 
 1872. But, though he was a useful member, and very 
 popular, yet this kind of public life was not to his taste, 
 and he had no desire to be returned. His modesty led 
 him to doubt his right to any peculiar public regard, and 
 he was often subject to surprises. That his poetical fame 
 should bring to him the degree of A. M. from Bowdoin 
 College, was as gratifying as it was unexpected. From 
 individuals in different parts of the country, who had 
 been moved by one or another of his poems, he received 
 letters expressing deep obligations for the pleasure he had 
 afforded them. But the surprise, which of all others, 
 most affected him, was a poetical greeting he received 
 from one who had been a soldier in the war of the Re 
 bellion, of whom he then had never heard, but whom 
 he afterwards met and thanked for his charming compli 
 ment. 
 
 \
 
 yl/fr F/^7 7 COURTSHIP. 
 
 V.
 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 Who seeks to drown the heart's first love. 
 
 Will find it harder, even, 
 Than that old task, in Palestine, 
 
 To stone the truth from Stephen. 
 
 Through all the pestering scenes of life 
 Each brother has his special need ; 
 
 Some need religion some a wife 
 A dog, or a velocipede 
 
 And many on this earthly ball 
 
 To keep them straight, should have them all. 
 
 
 My Muse knows no partiality, 
 But sends her notes, so thrilling, 
 
 For satin, broadcloth and for silk, 
 And also for blue drilling. 

 
 20 POEMS BY DAVJD BARKER. 
 
 I have seen flirting oft afar 
 
 In Tuileries and Boulevard : 
 I have seen courting going on 
 
 Up in the Scottish highlands, 
 In Cekic hut and Switzer's cot. 
 
 And in the sea-girt islands ; 
 But know not what true love may be 
 
 When dosed and dabbled out among 
 
 The numerous wives of Brigham Young, 
 Or peddled out to two or three. 
 
 1 cannot talk to you in words 
 Which you can fully understand, 
 
 Who, born with gold spoons 'tween the lips. 
 Or some proud scepter in the hand, 
 
 Have never felt Fate's grabs and grips ; 
 But you who, born as I was born, 
 
 In modern or in earlier times, 
 
 With sand and hay-seed in your hair, 
 And grew, like Topsy, without care 
 
 I sing to you in these odd rhymes. 
 
 When, for the first time in your life 
 You dream of those strange words, a wife, 
 And from your mother's cupboard go, 
 And the first time in earnest throw 
 In kind of bashful, leisure haste,
 
 % 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 21 
 
 Your green arm 'round a green girl's waist. 
 
 If, like the mariner, when tossed 
 
 On wave, with chart and compass lost, 
 
 Who trusts his helm, when tempest driven. 
 
 To the old dipper star in heaven. 
 
 She, in her new and girlish bliss. 
 
 Will trust your first, raw country kiss, 
 
 Then look as happy 's though she knew 
 
 She'd got one hard week's washing through, - 
 
 And if it gives your nerves a twist, 
 
 And sends a prickling through the wrist. 
 
 Much like a tunk upon the point. 
 
 Or apex of youV elbow joint. 
 
 Brings from your stomach long-drawn sighs. 
 
 And pumps up water through the eyes. 
 
 Then bet that you are both in love. 
 
 And that the match was made above, 
 
 That you and she, through smiles and tears. 
 
 Will live and love through life's long years, - 
 
 JShe turning with her wealth of soul. 
 
 As turns the needle to the pole. 
 
 And clinging through your rise and fall. 
 
 As clings the ivy to the wall, 
 
 Unless some fancy, curl-haired fop 
 
 Wades in and breaks love's crockery up 
 
 That thing was done, as you shall see. 
 
 Betwixt Almira Grant and me. 
 
 5^ 
 
 \
 
 V 
 
 32 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Yes, I have loved like other folks 
 
 Who've been to institutions : 
 Though love, like whiskey, different works 
 
 On different constitutions. 
 
 A man may blindly love for years 
 Without his neighbors knowing it, 
 
 As one may own the rarest gem 
 And not be always showing it. 
 
 'Twas at a country paring bee 
 
 I met the fair Almira. 
 I reckon from that blessed day 
 
 As Arabs from Hegira. 
 
 I waited on her home that night. 
 
 And spent the coming day with her. 
 
 And fixed my mouth a thousand times 
 To ask if I might stay with her. 
 
 Upon my chair I played old reels 
 By drumming with my fingers. 
 
 And felt, no doubt, as darkness feels 
 Which round the daylight lingers. 
 
 ? r~> O 
 
 We both were verdant as the blades 
 
 Of grass in summer weather ; 
 Hut then methought that we were made 
 
 To ripen oft" together. 
 
 \
 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 23 
 
 Some bards would make her free from sin, 
 
 And say that angels chased her, 
 To feast their eyes upon her skin, 
 
 Which shamed pure alabaster, 
 
 And paint her graceful, swan-like neck, 
 
 Her flowing auburn tresses, 
 Her Chinese feet, and arching back, 
 
 Her Aidenn-born caresses, 
 
 Her laughing eyes and sunny cheek, 
 
 Her breath so pure and balmy, 
 Her pearly teeth, erect and trained 
 
 Like soldiers for the army. 
 
 In building roads or telling yarns 
 
 I'm death against this crooking, 
 I only say that she was more 
 
 Than decently good looking. 
 
 She claimed no blood from royal fools 
 
 Her father was a yeoman, 
 Who owned his farm and farming tools, 
 
 Her mother was a woman. 
 
 One thing can truthfully be said, 
 Almira would not crawl from bed 
 
 And sit two hours a yawning ; 
 She seldom slopped and never sloshed,
 
 24 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Her back hair combed and face she washed, 
 And then the darling girl, beside, 
 Would always have her shoe-strings tied 
 The first thing in the morning. 
 
 Whene'er she stood, Almira looked 
 
 Straight as a gun from end to end ; 
 She was not twisted, warped nor crook'd 
 
 By what they call the Grecian bend. 
 My neighbor's girl Placenta Ladd 
 That Grecian bend she had it bad. 
 She caught it down at Saratogue 
 From one who had a foreign brosue. 
 
 In gazing on some lovely form, 
 
 Right from the hand of Nature warm. 
 
 Although your love be sizzling hot. 
 
 The fear of fist or pistol shot 
 
 From lover, father, or from brother. 
 
 Or swinging broomstick from the mother. 
 
 May silence you from winking 
 Too often at the luscious dear, 
 But, thank the Lord, one thing is clear : 
 Our courts have not decided yet 
 A love-sick fellow cannot sit 
 
 Stock still and keep a thinking.
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 One finds himself a monstrous dunce 
 Who tries to court two girls at once ; 
 
 I tried it many a year ago 
 
 With Florence Jane Matilda Rowe. 
 And also Patience Plummer. 
 
 In those old times if we should court 
 Two girls of Jones' or Hilliard's. 
 
 Who weighed one hundred sixty pounds 
 Each, bv her father's steelyards. 
 
 One thing is sure as time and tide, 
 That we were safe in betting, 
 
 'Twas solid girl and nothing else 
 That you and I were getting. 
 
 But now the flame you're "fluking" with, 
 Perhaps is mostly "boughten," 
 
 Made up in part of rubber goods. 
 And part of cork and cotton. 
 
 Those peeping mole-hills 'neath her chin. 
 
 To craze some frail beholder. 
 Perhaps are gutta percha balls 
 
 A-peddling Jew has sold her.
 
 
 26 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 And ten to one, the bridal night 
 May prove your festive charmer 
 
 Has nought but artificial legs, 
 Those patent legs by Palmer. 
 
 And she, whom paste has made as fair 
 As Whittier's Maud Muller, 
 
 May prove by touch of Castile soap 
 Quite of a different color. 
 
 The girls we picked in days of yore, 
 Before we used to choose 'em, 
 
 We "peeped" to notice if they wore 
 Crash towels in the bosom. 
 
 I care not what another says, 
 As woman rigs up now-a-days, 
 
 It muddles up your head 
 To know which part to call your wife 
 The real partner of your life 
 The part that she takes off at night, 
 By gas, or lamp, or candle light, 
 
 Or the part that goes to bed. 
 
 What shall be done, cries every one, 
 From priest to the wood-sawyer 
 
 I give advice, not as a saint, 
 But as an honest lawyer :
 
 V 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSI1I1'. 27 
 
 Have faith that all is genuine ; 
 
 But ere the anxious lover 
 Invests his all in fancy stocks, 
 
 He'd better look them over. 
 
 Some things the old folks seemed to prize 
 
 Above her being fair : 
 Her mother told me that her girl 
 
 Was rugged as a bear. 
 
 And then the old man bragged that she 
 Was built just like her mother; 
 
 Was just as limber as an eel, 
 And also tough as leather. 
 
 lie bragged that she was hard as horn. 
 
 And she could stand the hardest knocks, 
 And never yet had lost a meal 
 lint once, when she and Huldah Neil 
 Took cold one night in husking corn 
 
 That fall they had the chicken-pox. 
 
 When racked by pain and bowed by care, 
 
 Like most of us at present, 
 I think each stricken heart should feel 
 That u tough and rugged as a bear," 
 And "just as limber as an eel," 
 
 Are phrases rather pleasant.
 
 38 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 A healthy soul we all should prize. 
 
 But then 'tis doubtful whether 
 You well can run a rugged soul 
 
 And feeble form together. 
 
 If soul or body gets the pole. 
 
 Each makes bad time forever. 
 The same as Bonner's horse of fame 
 I think that Dexter is his name 
 The same perchance, or even worse. 
 If geared, when trotting on the course. 
 
 Beside a yearling heifer. 
 
 Our chance for courting was not big, 
 
 Me and my fair Almira, 
 Upon that night I reckon from 
 
 As Arabs from Hegira. 
 
 One side the room the old folks slept 
 Her father and her mother 
 
 The swifts, wheel, loom, and warping-bars 
 Were standing in the other. 
 
 The tom-cat and a cosset lamb 
 
 Were in one corner lying. 
 While o'er our heads the pumpkin hung 
 
 My darling had been drying. 
 \S
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 29 
 
 Above the belching back-logs, lain-. 
 
 The pigs' and turkey victual 
 Was sweating on the iron crane 
 
 Within a five-pail kettle. 
 
 The cross-cut saw, which never run 
 Except through stolen timber, 
 
 Stood grinning with its blunted teeth. 
 Until its back grew limber. 
 
 The linen wheel, which whirred and sung 
 By light from pitch-knots' kindle, 
 
 Thrust out its homespun flaxen tongue 
 From distaff to the spindle. 
 
 The sweet'ning-keg lay on the floor, 
 The "lobbing" dish lay by it ; 
 
 Those things they used when callers came 
 To keep their young ones quiet. 
 
 'Mid all inventions since those years, 
 
 Oh deem it not surprising, 
 That we must use some sweet'ning-kegs 
 
 To keep our folks from rising. 
 
 A rundlet, filled with Shubael's rum, 
 Which made him oft a noodle, 
 
 F
 
 JO POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Was horsed beside his tenor drum, 
 On which, when Elder Hatch was there, 
 He played some old John Bunyan air ; 
 But when the Elder whirled his gig, 
 And Shubael took an extra swig, 
 He dropped those airs from spirit lands. 
 And with his little horn-beam hands 
 First pitched into the Chorus Jig, 
 Then closed on Yankee Doodle. 
 
 Three boys were in a trundle-bed 
 
 One kicking with the colic ; 
 Three girls, down throngh the knot-hole, floor 
 
 Were peeping, full of frolic. 
 
 The old dog, with his glaring eyes. 
 
 Lay on the hearth-stone near us, 
 As if to watch my girl and me 
 
 Like the fabled dog. Cerberus. 
 
 Their library, on the rnantle-piece. 
 
 Was of a rare selection 
 They had all of the standard works, 
 
 And but one work of fiction : 
 
 The Bible, Bunyan, Watts' Hymns, 
 Which taught both me and you so 
 
 The reader, speller, grammar-book, 
 Arithmetic and Crusoe. 

 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 31 
 
 Grant said he always lived by plan, 
 
 For, on one shelf appointed, 
 There smoked the sulphur in the pan 
 
 From which the children ointed. 
 
 One picture, on the moss-chinked wall. 
 
 She had of Susan Tainter, 
 Would knock old Michael Angelo. 
 
 Or any modern painter. 
 
 It looked some like a frightened bull 
 
 Hitched to a porter wagon : 
 She said that Susan painted it 
 
 For Michael and the Dragon ! 
 
 The old flint gun I see it still- 
 That queen's-arm used at Bunker's hill 
 
 By her great-grandsir Lowder, 
 Lay calmly in the hooks at rest. 
 But kept within its iron breast 
 
 One charge of shot and powder. 
 
 Those day? I never can forget, 
 
 Till death my heart-strings sever 
 
 Your modern style of etiquette 
 Was then in fashion, never !
 
 32 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 If mothers wished you not to stop 
 To court a blushing daughter, 
 
 'Twas one blow with the handle mop, 
 Or else some boiling water ! 
 
 Ye need na piles of worldly gear. 
 Nor large amount of college lear, 
 By kintra wit and judgment clear. 
 
 'Twill quick be found 
 If the auld mither of the dear 
 
 Don't want ye round. 
 
 In writing thymes, oh, what a band 
 Aft throng me frae the ither land, 
 And a' in circling hurdles stand. 
 
 Though aft unsee'n 
 That was Rob Burns' spirit hand 
 
 On my machine. 
 
 Her mother, ere she went to bed 
 
 God bless the dear, old homespun saint 
 The round, pine kitchen table spread 
 With honey reeking from the bees, 
 W 7 ith nut-cakes and some pigs'-foot cheese 
 
 In case the girl or I was faint. 
 I see that table standing there 
 With top turned up it made a chair
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 33 
 
 To give us one warm luncheon then, 
 (A theme fit for a seraph's pen) 
 Brought baked beans from the earthen pot. 
 An Indian loaf all piping hot, 
 
 Whose worth the world has proven, 
 Whose inspirations oft I feel, 
 All reddening for the morning meal 
 
 Inside the old mud oven. 
 
 Then from the scriptures read a psalm. 
 
 And prayed to Israel's God above 
 To keep their darling girl from harm, 
 
 And shield her in His arms of love. 
 
 Oh, had that mother's prayer been heard. 
 
 No fitful touch from memory's breeze. 
 Some string upon my harp had stirred 
 
 To bellow out such strains as these. 
 
 I, as the son-in-law of Grant. 
 
 Had never caught the crazy whim 
 To spend my hours in idle rant 
 
 And write these coming lines on him. 
 
 It may seem wrong this bundling up 
 This mixing in the self-same cup 
 Life's awful facts with fiction ;
 
 V 
 
 -. POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 It makes a mixture and a twist, 
 
 Like playing one short game of whist 
 
 'Tween prayer and benediction. 
 But then, what can a fellow do 
 When love has loosened many a screw, 
 And warped and wrenched, as may be seen, 
 The gearing of his song-machine? 
 I'll do but this to gain your pelf 
 I'll let the old gear run itself. 
 
 LINES ox SHUBAEL, THE FATHER OF MY INTENDED. 
 
 Old Shubael Grant then bragged an hour 
 
 Of every thing on earth he knew, 
 
 And all he ever dreamed of, too ; 
 
 How he had licked big Abel Tower, 
 
 And knocked an eye and wisdom tooth 
 
 Square down the throat of Orlan Booth ; 
 How on one leg he used to stand 
 
 And box an hour with Rufus Cam ; 
 And with an axe and flask in hand 
 
 Had run the ridge-pole of a barn ; 
 And how he always liked the fun 
 
 Of knocking hats with long-leg Banks ; 
 And how they danced from sun to sun 
 
 At the last muster on the planks ; 
 How, after dark, his old blind horse, 
 
 With heaves and lame in every foot,
 
 V 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 35 
 
 He linked on old Jehiel Morse, 
 
 And got a shoat and drink to boot ; 
 How, when they raised the Libb}' mill, 
 He "rasseled" twice with Albert Hill, 
 And what "a most Jehovah flip" 
 He got from Albert's swinging trip ; 
 But then for business, not for fun, 
 He tried the old half-buttock on ; 
 When quick from science, not from strength, 
 He stretched old Albert twice his length ; 
 How once a number twelve he wore, 
 
 Although his feet were small as mine, 
 To make them think 'twas neighbor Moore 
 
 Who plundered cedar o'er the line; 
 With iron heels and brads before, 
 The tracks resembled neighbor Moore. 
 And how he marketed his hay, 
 
 Not when the skies were bright and warm, 
 But always on a lowcry day, 
 
 And often through a driving storm ; 
 That half a ton, less tare and tret, 
 Was just twelve hundred when 'twas wet ; 
 And what a joke he played on Howes 
 
 You know that Howes, that old blind Lem, 
 He milked two teats of both his cows 
 
 One season when he pastured them ; 
 How good the Lord had been to him, 
 
 For he had always had through life
 
 36 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 A blessed, rousing appetite, 
 
 A rugged and a praying wife^ 
 A wife who never had been slim, 
 
 No "rheumatiz" or dizzy spell ; 
 Their victuals always sat so well 
 
 That they could eat, by day or night, 
 
 Most any thing that they could bite ; 
 And how he wiggled Ephraim Kidd, 
 
 By making talk as fine as silk, 
 For, many a year ago, somehow, 
 He learned one lesson from his cow ; 
 She always kept her garget hid 
 
 Until she showed it in her milk. 
 Though 'gainst the rules of fighting rings. 
 
 He said he always felt 
 'Twas well, sometimes, to vary things, 
 
 And strike below the belt ; 
 And how, at Glover's nine-pin hall, 
 
 He found one day in bowling, 
 There was as much in keeping slate himself, 
 
 Or more, than there was in rolling. 
 
 How in the play, whate'er the name, 
 
 One sacred rule he makes, 
 To end disputes about the game 
 
 He always grabs the stakes. 
 
 Though he had strongest Bible faith, 
 One thing he shouldn't try on 
 
 V 
 
 ^
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 37 
 
 He ne'er should try that Bible game 
 To camp down with the lion : 
 
 For somehow he had always felt, 
 Before they got through kissing, 
 
 Or got through with the play of lamb. 
 The lamb would come up missing ; 
 
 And how he always took his swigs 
 In the old brown earthen cup ; 
 
 For one, he always meant to stick 
 Right square to his bringing up ; 
 
 And how it made him "cussed riled" 
 
 To have it hinged by others, 
 Although his name was Shubael Grant. 
 
 His father's name was .Leathers ; 
 
 And how at Pullen's piling bee 
 
 He whacked and whelted Simon Spear, 
 And warmed the wax within his ear, 
 
 Yes, browsed him like a Saxon 
 For speaking disrespectfully 
 
 Of God and Andrew Jackson. 
 
 Then sipped, and told his girl and me, 
 
 How many a year ago that he 
 
 Once staid one night with Hulda Murch,
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 The very day she joined the church 
 And worked for Captain Brown, 
 
 And how she had the smoothest skin 
 Of any girl in town. 
 
 And how there was no woman born. 
 Not e'en the wife of Elder Ayer, 
 
 Could hold a candle-stick to his 
 In exhortation or in prayer. 
 
 How many a kicking colt he'd broke ; 
 How many a pair and many a yoke 
 
 Of kicking, hooking, sulky steers ; 
 Then took some worm-wood for his cough, 
 Then pulled his shoes and stockings off, 
 
 And cut his toe nails with the shears ; 
 Then told me that he always waked 
 
 From any little noise or sound ; 
 He wanted me to feel at home, 
 
 But hoped I wouldn't "larrup 'round ;" 
 Then put on airs and, most polite, 
 He bade the girl and me good night. 
 
 Grant could not speak a word of Greek, 
 And yet, from what I've heard them say, 
 He'd steal more hoop-poles in a day
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 39 
 
 Than Reverend Doctor Carlos Bawn, 
 
 Or learned Professor Enoch Swan 
 Could get by cutting all the week. 
 Before we close earth's doubtful strife, 
 Or end this splendid fuss of life, 
 When fame and wealth and health have fled, 
 And friends to lean upon are dead, 
 Yes, when we're growing old and poor, 
 And hear the wolf around our door, 
 But hoop-poles in the market sell, 
 
 It may be well plain truth to speak 
 If honestly, it may be well 
 
 To mix some hoop-poles with our Greek. 
 
 But after all, 'twixt you and me, 
 
 'Tis hard to tell you which is 
 The toughest load for mortals here, 
 The pinching load of poverty 
 
 Or galling load of riches. 
 
 For I have ever dreamed this dream, 
 A hand, veiled out from human sight, 
 
 To meet our false weights on the beam, 
 Will fix the passive scales aright. 
 
 And each will find, throughout the strife, 
 
 Though fed from lean or fat ox, 
 Upon this battle-field of life, 
 
 Bull Run and Appomattox.
 
 40 HOEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Have you ever yet felt as once I have felt, 
 
 What a world's wealth and glory are worth ? 
 With an earthquake beneath, when around me they knelt, 
 With my faith that was clear in my youth blotted out 
 By a touch from the hand of the demon of Doubt, 
 When from pale, mortal lips there ascended the cry 
 To a Power, dwelling up, as they said, in the sky ; 
 When the summits were ripped from the mountains afar, 
 With the flames shooting out from their seams like a star, 
 And strange mutterings came from the upheaving dell, 
 Like the rumblings that come from the bowels of hell, 
 And when, full on the ear, fell the sickening sound, 
 And we felt, as we hugged, like a child, to the ground, 
 
 The uplift and the swing of the earth ? 
 Since then I have dreamed, though I cannot tell why, 
 Of a Power in the spheres that is greater than I. 
 
 The fruits that grow from deeds of ill. 
 Somehow, have ever brought to mind 
 
 That old and crazy cog-wheel mill 
 Where old John Buzzell used to grind. 
 
 Each for his grist must take his turn, 
 Each form that shields a deathless soul. 
 
 And one tough lesson he must learn, 
 
 That though he curse, or though he pray. 
 
 While Justice grinds he takes his pay 
 To the last kernel of the toll.
 
 V 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 Grant was an awful Democrat ; 
 
 To prove his hate of Whigs, 'tis said 
 He voted for old Jackson once, 
 
 Long after that old saint was dead. 
 
 He was a rigid Baptist, too ; 
 
 One day he cursed old Elder Pease. 
 The leader of the bolting crew, 
 
 For preaching 'gainst Divine decrees. 
 
 Grant was an office-seeker some 
 
 He spared no pains, and spared no plan 
 
 One year he paid a pint of rum 
 To be elected tythingman. 
 
 He stood against Elkanah Brown, 
 And, though the office didn't pay, 
 
 He swore he'd stop their strolling 'round 
 Upon the holy Sabbath day. 
 
 And then he struck for power and place ; 
 
 Ah ! how his cousins rent the air 
 The time he run with Uncle Mace, 
 
 And beat him as highway surveyor.
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 This second office paid him best ; 
 
 He worked the taxes in his bills 
 Upon a fell-piece that he cleared ; 
 You knew that "cut-down" little west 
 
 And little east of Henry Hill's. 
 
 Sometimes I fear that, now-a-days, 
 
 Our men of place have found the tracks 
 
 Into a cut-down, like where Grant 
 Worked out his neighbors' highway tax. 
 
 Old Shubael said he always prized 
 The privilege of being found 
 Upon the blessed, holy ground 
 
 Where converts went to be baptized. 
 
 Old Shubael was like one in ten, 
 One of your handy kind of men ; 
 He very often stood or sat 
 And held the convert's coat and hat, 
 And said that he could always tell 
 When pious folks were feeling well ; 
 Then was a bully time, he said, 
 To show his spavined quadruped. 
 He said, in talking up a horse, 
 
 No matter if he swapped or sold him, 
 The man of prayer and strongest faith 
 
 Was apt to suck down what he told him. 
 
 \
 
 ^ 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 43 
 
 Some traits I liked of Shubael Grant's, 
 He played well on his drum and fife, 
 
 And though he wore blue drilling pants. 
 Was true and clever to his wife. 
 
 And, though he had a rattle head, 
 At things Divine he wouldn't scoff, 
 
 And though he went half choked, 'tis said 
 He never took his well-crank off*. 
 
 He never changed nor flopped about, 
 And now, wherever Grant may be, 
 
 In any world, I have no doubt, 
 He writes God with a little g ; 
 
 And is, as he was here in Maine. 
 
 Dead set against each liquor law 
 "Hain't got no nigger on the brain,", 
 
 And always takes his whiskey raw. 
 
 If in the roaring pit beneath, 
 He'll fight in lava to the knees 
 
 Each sulphurous imp who dares to breathe 
 One word against Divine decrees! 
 
 That blessed wheat, mixed in with tares, 
 The pious mother's humble prayers, 
 
 %
 
 
 44 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 And love you harbor for her daughter, 
 You know will often make you stand 
 More lies and brags and drunks and cheats 
 
 From the old father than you ought to. 
 And so, through prayers and rum and all. 
 I toughed it out at Grant's that Fall. 
 
 When Grant retired, so nearly nude. 
 
 I felt upon my cheek a tear 
 A blessed tear of gratitude ; 
 
 It was not that the coast was clear. 
 But ah, I felt 'twas plain to see 
 That Shubael Grant had faith in me. 
 He knew I was not shilling 'round. 
 
 Like Rufus York, that long-haired curse, 
 Who came that way and mended clocks. 
 
 And fooled and ruined Mary Burse. 
 Poor Mary, and her mother, too. 
 
 One night to Crowell's meadow came 
 Poor Widow Burse to drown her grief, 
 
 o 
 
 And Mary Burse to drown her shame. ' 
 W'hen Mary and the Widow Burse 
 
 You know, within that brook were found. 
 And the crazed people thundered in 
 
 From half a dozen miles around, 
 How some grieved folks would stand and cry, 
 
 While gazing on their dripping locks, 
 And some pile curses mountain high 
 
 \
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 45 
 
 Upon the wretch who mended clocks. 
 I love to hear a people pray 
 
 Then love to hear that people curse, 
 If they will curse, as on that day, 
 
 While standing 'round poor Mary Burse. 
 But those my heart cannot approve, 
 
 Whose pulses throb but one desire, 
 Whose eyes with measured winks will move, 
 And have the same look when they love 
 
 As when a building is on fire. 
 
 But what has this poetic rant 
 To do with courting 'Mira Grant? 
 I said that Shubael Grant believed 
 And Shubael Grant was not deceived 
 That I had come from mother's bound 
 
 For good and not for evil, 
 For in five minutes Shubael Grant 
 Turned over once and took a cant 
 Upon sleep's sloping plane, it seems, 
 Which sluiced him to the land of dreams 
 
 While snoring most uncivil, 
 Then Shubael's rest seemed sweet and deep, 
 Much like some certain lawyer's sleep ; 
 For, though the bed is scrimped or wide, 
 Some lawyers lie on either side. 
 There's nothing for the realms of rhyme 
 
 In future can occur,
 
 46 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 To make me feel as, on that time, 
 I sidled up to her, 
 
 I told my feelings square, if brusk, 
 My talk seemed to amaze her ; 
 
 Her heart beat so it broke her busk, 
 Carved with her father's razor. 
 
 But, after I'd explained awhile, 
 And got her more enlightened. 
 
 She seemed to act like other girls, 
 More natural and less frightened. 
 
 For then she tied me up a wreath 
 From flowers she had been culling, 
 
 The hollyhock, and butter-cup, 
 The sunflower, pink and mullen. 
 
 And then she "sat and told how mean 
 Jane Whitcomb cooks and washes, 
 
 And how the ring-tailed, striped bugs 
 Had eaten up their squashes. 
 
 How Peavey's cats had lapped their cream, 
 For yesterday she caught 'em ; 
 
 And how she drove the measles out, 
 And when and where she got 'em. 
 
 V
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 4/ 
 
 About this time I worked for Dole, 
 
 A boiling sap and burning coal ; 
 
 Yes, worked from the first blush of morn, 
 
 With hands much harder than a horn. 
 
 Though my young life was cloud and storm, 
 
 I knew that there would come 
 Sometime, within life's Fall, a warm 
 
 And mild old Indian Summer. 
 This was the year that old Christopher Hill, 
 Four bushels of wheat from the winnowing-mill 
 Lugo-ed on his back to his home on the knoll, 
 
 OO 
 
 Three miles from the barn of one Joshua Towle, 
 
 With never a halt nor a rest nor a lag, 
 
 Winning the wheat that was tied in the bag. 
 
 Men were made up with a nerve and a will 
 
 In the days when they modeled old Christopher Hill. 
 
 Ere women with their trousers' legs 
 
 Throughout the land were going, 
 Or roosters took to laying eggs, 
 
 Or pullets took to crowing ; 
 Ere hen-pecked husbands, made to mind, 
 
 Would humbly tag their swift Camilla 
 By waddling some ten feet behind 
 
 With baby, band-box and umbrella. 
 
 When bridal oaths were sworn for life, 
 That sacred oath 'twixt her and him.
 
 48 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 When man, till death, picked out his wife, 
 And not a wife ad interim, 
 
 These were the days when mothers felt 
 
 No interest in our party votes, 
 And pulpits were not wide enough 
 
 For the full spread of petticoats. 
 
 This was long before Jane Peaslie 
 
 Had that whooping cough ; 
 Long before her uncle Cyrus 
 
 Made that yoke and trough, 
 Or New England rum was slandered 
 
 By the lips of Gough ; 
 Long before I fought my battle 
 
 'Mid Plebian throngs ; 
 Long before I caught this rattle 
 
 From John Whittier's songs : 
 
 "Ho, fishermen of Marblehead, 
 Ho, Lynn cordwainers, leave your leather, 
 And wear the yoke in kindness made, 
 
 And clank your needful chains together." 
 
 Now let me stop and say one verse 
 I think it rather rich and mellow, 
 
 I've written better, written worse, 
 
 Though this was made by one Longfellow ;
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 49 
 
 He wrote it at his old abode 
 
 f understand he lives there still, 
 Near Guppy's, on the old cross road, 
 
 A nearer cut to Bunker's Hill : 
 'The heights by great men reached and kept 
 
 Were not attained by sudden flight, 
 But they, while their companions slept, 
 
 Were toiling upward in the night." 
 In singing of the great man's climb 
 
 Longfellow's words were plain and true ; 
 The only doubt about his rhyme 
 
 Is wether he meant me or you. 
 
 Now back to my Almira Grant : 
 
 These tangent strides will prove my ruin ; 
 I wander oft' and scoot and rant 
 
 As Byron did in his Don Juan. 
 She told me how Lize. Leathers walked, 
 
 Or how she minced and wiggled, 
 And tried to tell me something else 
 
 But grabbed her nose and giggled. 
 How Rose Matilda Cole had got 
 
 Red ears of corn at huskings ; 
 How Grace Keziah Hodge had knit 
 
 Jake Hazeltine some buskins ; 
 Then, with a mild and reverent air, 
 
 She told how Mary Eaton
 
 "7r 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Was just baptized by Elder Pease, 
 And how she spoke in meeting ; 
 
 How all the converts in the town, 
 "Brought out" at Deacon Horton's, 
 
 o 
 
 Would meet and tell experiences 
 
 At the big barn of Norton's. 
 To build the towering church and spire 
 
 God's people were not able, 
 And so to hear their humble prayer 
 The Lord would meet them anywhere 
 
 In kitchen, grove or stable. 
 With all the stains upon my soul, 
 
 Which years of sin have brought me, 
 1 loathe the female tongue that scoffs 
 
 The faith my mother taught me ; 
 A faith that tells to weary forms, 
 
 And hearts with sorrow riven, 
 Of healing balms in Gilead 
 
 And better homes in heaven. 
 (These last two verses I have made, 
 
 So pious in expression. 
 Came from the heart, though they may seem 
 
 Unpardonable digression.) 
 You knew that frog-pond near our house, 
 
 On the old farm of mother's? 
 'Twas near the present grassy road 
 
 Which leads west from mv brother's.
 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 Some forty years ago or so, 
 
 When there was fun in playing, 
 We boys would meet and spatter there 
 
 Each evening after haying ; 
 With little shirts and trousers off, 
 
 We little human cattle 
 Would splash around and duck our heads, 
 
 All eager for a battle. 
 I recollect (as plain as day) 
 
 One little Tommy Dyer, 
 Would always wade in to his knees, 
 
 But never wade in higher ; 
 But I, your poet, feeling brave, 
 
 And finer than a fiddle, 
 Once waded in clear to my chin, 
 
 A foot above my middle, 
 But making then a slip or trip. 
 
 The fellows standing by me. 
 All had to join and fish me up, 
 
 Then pump me out and dry me. 
 So ever after that, when one 
 
 Would wish to wade in, just for fun, 
 A piece of bed cord we had got 
 
 We tied around him with a knot, 
 And held one end when, in and in. 
 
 The fellow waded to his chin. 
 My love-sick brother, hear me through, 
 This sage advice I give to you :
 
 v Xi 
 
 52 POEMS BY DAVID BAKKER. 
 
 When with some female turtle-dove, 
 You come to the frog-pond of love, 
 Duck in and frolic as you please, 
 
 But then, like Tommy Dyer, 
 1 wouldn't wade in to the knees, 
 But this strong resolution keep, 
 Wade in, perhaps, some ankle deep, 
 
 But never wade in higher. 
 
 My Muse now takes another flop 
 
 This moment as she passes, 
 With one remark, and simply this, 
 When courting, filled with rustic bliss, 
 
 We're often like the long-legged boy 
 Who lived beneath the Hermon hill, 
 (I think his hat-band lives there still) 
 
 Who, in his hour of awful joy. 
 Could not, for life, tell when to stop 
 
 The time he lobbed molasses ; 
 When hogshead burst outside the door 
 Which led to big George Brackett's store 
 So, on one beauteous Summer day, 
 He lobbed and lobbed himself away. 
 Metempsychosis may be true, 
 
 And in the future, dark and dim, 
 I may take on the poodle dog, 
 
 Or e'en one of the seraphim. 
 
 \
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 53 
 
 If self must die, and change must come, 
 
 How would my pulses thrill with joy 
 To know that I could be transformed 
 
 Into that long-legged Hermon boy. 
 Devoid of friction, care and pain. 
 
 No aspiration, nor a throb 
 Except to lie, while God should reign, 
 
 Around some bursting cask and lob. 
 
 Now let me bounce back to that girl. 
 
 So fair to each beholder, 
 And skip awhile what she told me 
 
 But tell vou what I told her. 
 
 I told her how that our steer calves. 
 
 We swapped with Ivory Nutter, 
 Were having horns two inches long. 
 
 And getting fat as butter ; 
 How Chamberlain's sheep had owned her lamb 
 
 A fact which you and I know 
 By putting Bose into the pen 
 
 Beside the young Merino : 
 Not Chamberlain who, long moons ago, 
 
 Sent Paugus with a yell and bound 
 That Lovell pond or red-skin foe. 
 
 Up to his upper hunting ground ; 
 Not lie one J. L. Chamberlain.
 
 1'OEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Who once was Governor of Maine. 
 Whose name may die in after times 
 Unless I save him by these rhymes ; 
 Whose name you all may soon forget 
 Unless he asks a pardon yet, 
 
 He, with the loyal many. 
 For dealing out in that red fight. 
 
 With sword and grape, and shot and shell. 
 On Little Round-Top, through that night, 
 
 That awful, lurid dose ot hell. 
 To those, by man and God accursed, 
 Turning the tide of treason first. 
 
 Way down in Pennsylvania. 
 But Chamberlain, whom you all well know. 
 Who lived nor' west of Alfred Rowe. 
 And sou'west of the Gilman hill. 
 And east of Eastman's cider mill. 
 His girl, you know, they called her Beck 
 (You know that mole upon her neck.) 
 She wears the same knit garters still. 
 The bodice, with the skirt and frill. 
 The cotton-pads and raccoon fur 
 As when young Coburn courted her. 
 Beck gave young Blaine the mitten once. 
 Then took up with that perfect dunce. 
 That long nose Roswell Griffin, 
 
 Who came up from the Willard Bend 
 The dav that our new barn was raised.
 
 ?r 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 And drank new rum till nearly crazed, 
 Then won a gill from Moses Shead 
 By standing longest on his head, 
 And lifted short-legg'd Deacon Deals 
 A dozen times at the stiff heels, 
 
 Threw me at the backs and the arms'-end : 
 But then I tried a different lug 
 And took him at the old side-hug, 
 And whopped and laid him on his mug 
 In just a half a "jiffin." 
 
 In the last settlement above, 
 Whatever crimes or faults they prove, 
 
 Whatever else old Shubael lacks, 
 One thing his enemies will say, 
 He was a good man in his day 
 
 To break and swingle flax ; 
 And, with two swigs of cherry rum, 
 Played nice tunes on his tenor drum, 
 And this was more, 'twixt me and you, 
 Than ever Deacon Beals could do. 
 
 Rebecca Chamberlain, ere she wed. 
 Had every thing within her head ; 
 For miles around she knew them all, 
 By bonnet, overcoat or shawl, 
 
 And I was told by Widow Moore
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 That Miss Rebecca Chamberlain knew 
 The quantity and value, too, 
 
 Of every rag of clothes you wore. 
 I think you knew poor Widow Moore? 
 
 Though pure and holy, meek and mild. 
 Like a caged maniac she swore, 
 
 The night she lost her only child. 
 Sometimes a solace may be found 
 
 To snatch and break the chastening rod, 
 And clank your galling chains, though bound, 
 
 Square in the face and ear of God. 
 
 One day she told me, and she cried, 
 That winter that her husband died, 
 
 She tended her own barn, 
 And spun with her poor widowed hands 
 
 Five hundred skeins of yarn. 
 Ah ! woman, in your gorgeous wealth. 
 
 With false, perverted taste, 
 Who drizzle out a vapid life 
 
 'Mid frippery and paste ; 
 Come, I can teach you many a phrase, 
 
 Yes, teach you how to speak, 
 Not only in my native tongue, 
 
 But Latin, French and Greek ; 
 But cannot tell you what this means 
 
 She tended her own barn, 
 And spun 'with her poor 'widowed hands 
 
 Five hundred skeins of varn.
 
 MY FIKST COURTSHIP. 
 
 I told of Lot Brown's piling-bee. 
 
 The wrestle and the scuffle. 
 The French four and four-handed reel, 
 
 The jig and double shuffle ; 
 And how we played the "needle's eye 
 
 Which carries its tape so true, 
 It has caught many a smiling lass. 
 
 Now, lass, it has caught you." 
 I told her how at Captain Ware's 
 We fixed a quilt across two chairs 
 Which Lydia Rich and Rachael Hart 
 Had stood or fixed two feet apart, 
 And how we got one Edward Fox 
 'Twas not your learn'd Judge. Edward Fox 
 But he of the long and yellow locks. 
 He of the sunburnt, dog-tail curls. 
 To set him down between those girls, 
 When his true lover, quick, perhap, 
 Would come and sit upon his lap. 
 One fact was kept from Ed., you know, 
 The yawning, watery tub below. 
 Although we had a world of fun 
 With Edward Fox the Baptist's son 
 
 That single hour's diversion 
 Sent Edward son of Deacon Fox 
 Half over with the orthodox. 
 
 Although his heart and head were right, 
 Although in soul a Baptist still. 
 
 \
 
 58 POEMS BY DAVID BARKKR. 
 
 To gratify a stubborn will 
 The lower half of Edward Fox 
 
 Was ever, from that blessed night 
 A rabid, blue-light orthodox, 
 
 Or death against immersion. 
 
 I think 'twas after she had gone 
 
 And put another apron on, 
 
 And fixed, like other angel girls, 
 
 Those darling little water curls, 
 
 A,nd hooked new nubs or ear-rings in. 
 
 Put on some other beads and pin, 
 
 Used camomile instead of musk, 
 
 And slipped in sly another busk, 
 
 And with her side-combs "primped" her hair ; 
 
 I told my dear Almira there 
 
 Yes, spoke right out that she was sweet 
 
 And nearly good enough to eat ; 
 
 She changed so quick from white to red 
 
 It made a swimming in my head ; 
 
 The doctors for a fee, you know, 
 
 "Would call that swimming vertigo. 
 
 Heaven only knows how we poor fools 
 Have toiled and sweat, from day to day, 
 To earn enough in part to pay 
 
 For such old stuff they learn at schools. 
 
 As felt some Grecian mothers son 
 Who bore one of the classic names. 

 
 MY FIKST COURTSHIP. 59 
 
 In boasting of a prize he won 
 
 At those renowned Olympian Barnes, 
 I strutted with a peacock's air. 
 And told my sweet Almira there 
 How I and Dolly Peavey ran. 
 
 And how I ran the faster 
 When old York's Durham roared and pawed 
 
 As we went through the pasture. 
 I mind it well I tried to write 
 
 Almira Grant a love-sick sonnet. 
 And how my heart would throb that night 
 
 As though it had a stone-bruise on it. 
 
 The darts of love I bravely met, 
 As Switzer Arnold Winkelried 
 Received the shafts within his breast. 
 When by the Austrian squadron pressed. 
 While leading through the Alpine fray 
 His comrades on that glorious day. 
 Young Love-and I played hide and seek, 
 
 By skulking 'round, then darting in 
 The dimples on her rosy cheek 
 
 And creases of her double chin. 
 
 I told my dear Almira there. 
 Who looked so fleshy and so fair. 
 (While sitting prettv near her chair)
 
 60 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 How Rose Ross threw a ball of yarn 
 Into the well behind the barn, 
 
 Then wound it with a fellow ; 
 How, one dark night, Robena Rand 
 Backed, with a looking-glass in hand. 
 
 Into Joe Hooker's cellar 
 Not old fighting Joseph Hooker. 
 
 Who, above the clouds. 
 In the loom of the red angel 
 
 Wove those dead men's shrouds ; 
 Marching through those blistered regions 
 With his blue and conquering legions. 
 
 Bathing, as they trod. 
 Bathing, from War's purple fountain, 
 The fevered brow of Look-Out mountain. 
 
 Half way up to God ; 
 And how we played old hide and seek. 
 
 How Liz. Jones tried to find me. 
 And how we used to "shave her down" 
 By one song sung by Nancy Brown. 
 That blessed, sentimental song, 
 Which my scarred heart remembers long. 
 
 "The girl I left behind me." 
 'Twas whistled, too, by Simon Phipps. 
 Whose lummox, loose and lumbering lips 
 We country boys with wallets thin 
 Had chartered for a violin. 
 Now Simon's notes were not so full 
 \/ 
 
 V
 
 
 \ 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 6l 
 
 As those, perhaps, from Ole Bull, 
 And then, perchance, had not the ring 
 Like that which fell from Mozart's string, 
 And not like Paganini's strains, 
 Which he would barter oft' for gains ; 
 What Simon lacked in art sublime 
 lie well made up in lips and time : 
 Sime. learned his trade in Nature's shop 
 And whistled until hired to stop. 
 Until my sun of life shall set 
 These ancient legs can ne'er forget 
 Those gay old dances up at Drew's, 
 When girls flocked in with calf-skin shoes, 
 And never left the kitchen floor 
 Till one good pair of taps they wore ; 
 They never danced the eye to please, 
 They knew no polka or schottische ; 
 They used no modern, mincing trips, 
 As though tight buckled 'round their hips 
 Each had a dozen leathern straps, 
 When on the boards with us old chaps ; 
 Our style was this we "stronged" it through, 
 Led on by my friend, Hiram Drew ; 
 You know old Hiram Drew, of course, 
 The man who raised that trotting horse? 
 Like the mad waves we surged about, 
 Through the blind whirl of jig and reel 
 With flourish of the toe and heel, 
 
 \
 
 
 62 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Until one side was "tuckered" out ; 
 But taking breath and drying sweat 
 We formed on for another set. 
 
 That ancient music from the lips 
 
 Of our hired whistler, Simon Phipps. 
 
 Was somewhat different I should sav 
 
 From that I heard but yesterday 
 
 In Reverend Wooster Parker's church. 
 
 (You see my Muse has taken a lurch) 
 
 There, one of the smooth-haired fellows, 
 I noticed that he looked so grand. 
 Held that big lever in his hand 
 
 And blew that organ bellows. 
 Beside that girl who oft was seen 
 To thump the keys on that machine, 
 When tunes slid out so smooth and still. 
 As grain slides from a winnowing mill. 
 
 And then I bragged how Bose would fight 
 
 When Hi. Drew's dog would mad him, 
 And how, like blazes, Bright would pull 
 
 When Leather French would brad him 
 Old Leather French, whose hermit name 
 
 From leathern garb was fitly given, 
 Whose fervent prayer like incense came 
 
 Upon each wandering breeze of heaven. 
 

 
 MY FIRST COURTSH11'. 63 
 
 Who gave earth's favored lodgers room 
 By sleeping in a pauper's tomb 
 
 All unlettered, unknown, unattended and poor, 
 Both afoot and alone he went down to a shore 
 With no weight at his heart, and no chafe, I am told, 
 With no chafe from the lugging of silver and gold, 
 With a gaze at a mount, in a summer-like land. 
 With a seat by a form, with an oar in its hand. 
 On the tide and the wave he was quickly afloat 
 With no baggage to bother in the ferryman's boat. 
 
 Whene'er I see a poor man kneel. 
 
 And hear his fervent, humble prayer. 
 Within my very heart I feel 
 
 'Tis well that I am listening there. 
 Although to me his aims are dim. 
 That service may be much to him : 
 It tells of hopes beyond the screens. 
 
 Of strugglings through a bitter strife, 
 Of trustings to an Arm unseen. 
 
 Of outlooks to a higher life ; 
 Whate'er my careless tougue may say. 
 My heart says, "let the poor man pray." 
 
 You see how oft my Muse will turn 
 And meet you with a smile or frown, 
 
 And imitate the old dash churn 
 That's either up or down.
 
 64 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Say, what would you give for a look 
 
 Through a book, 
 
 Containing each word from the lips of a human 
 
 In his billing and cooing. 
 
 In his efforts at wooing 
 
 The heart of a woman. 
 
 Since Adam first plucked up the courage to lead on 
 And court that old girl in the garden of Eden? 
 When my hurry is over, with a plenty of time, 
 I am going to write such a volume in rhyme. 
 
 Though the record declares Adam took, as his bride, 
 
 Blushing Eve as she leaped from a rib in his side ; 
 
 Yet the facts being known, oh, I think 'twould be found 
 
 That he courted her first when the Lord wasn't round. 
 
 He's a fool who would marry an angel of light 
 
 Till he'd courted that angel at least for a night. 
 
 There was sense in the speech of the boy, who, you know, 
 
 Wouldn't work till he first got the hang of his hoe. 
 
 Ah ! the first couple on the Eden ground 
 
 What a big time they must have had in wooing 
 No old folks standing tip-toe, "harking" 'round, 
 
 Nor -'peeking" in to see what they were doing : 
 No foreign force to tempt them on to sin, 
 For this was just before the snake came in. 
 And Adam, to secure his female treasure, 
 Had the full swing around about in Asia ; 
 And ere he dressed him in those fig-leaf pants, 
 
 %
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 Had elbow room that I had not at Grant's ; 
 
 One thing looks queer, that they could not refrain 
 
 From hooking pears, and then from raising Cain. 
 
 How oft I dreamed through my young brains. 
 That I should lead in golden chains 
 
 My blushing, fair Almira. 
 As led that famed and warring man, 
 The Emperor Aurelian. 
 When, meeting with success one day. 
 He conquered proud Zenobia, 
 
 The Queen of old Palmyra. 
 
 The old folks woke when I sung "Brave Wolfe," 
 
 Then kept a hem and hawing. 
 And then I let her "chaw" my gum 
 
 Which I had just been "chawing." 
 I felt it like old Bible proof 
 
 Her love was most divine, 
 When buckling down with cherry lips 
 
 She sucked the gum from mine. 
 But time has taught my cheated heart 
 
 To watch the smile and frown. 
 And see if it is love or gum 
 
 When^woman buckles down ; 
 For woman is woman wherever you go, 
 'Mid the jabbering hordes of the Esquimaux 
 
 I
 
 
 66 POEM'S BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Or your lettered tribes, where the pearly face 
 Shows the tint of the Anglo Saxon race. 
 She snickered, and she chawed the gum, 
 
 When I hauled from my waist-coat, 
 And played my jews-harp I had bought 
 
 One day of Reuben Prescott. 
 Now Prescott, since he sold that harp, 
 
 Much money has been clearing ; 
 While I slopped over into rhymes, 
 
 He went to auctioneering. 
 
 We then played two of those old games 
 
 I learned of Esther Norris ; 
 She beat me bad at fox and geese, 
 
 But I beat her at morris. 
 I told her how our old gray mare 
 
 Was getting lame and heavey ; 
 'Twas one we had the Fall before 
 
 Of dickering Reuben Seavey. 
 Not Seavey Maine's famed surgeon, now 
 
 Not Calvin, I am sure 
 Who learned to cut oft' legs and arms 
 
 Of the famed Scotch McRuer. 
 
 She then brought on some ivy leaves 
 Just picked near Deacon Howse's ; 
 We sat and sat, and ate the best, * 
 
 And then we filled up with the rest 
 Both pockets of my trousers. 

 
 V 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 While I was sitting by her side 
 
 And my new knife was showing, 
 She told me how that Peter Rich 
 
 With Dora Nutt was going. 
 She showed me her new calf-skin shoes, 
 
 Her work-bag and her duster, 
 Her vandyke and her green calash 
 
 Which she had bought for muster. 
 
 \ 
 
 Those calf-skin shoes had turned up toes. 
 
 She said that one who knew her 
 Told her to wear those turned up toes 
 
 As they were more becoming to her. 
 
 Almira's wardrobe, or trousseau, 
 Was not like Butler's girl's, you know, 
 That rigging with those awful names 
 Blanche wore when marrying General Ames. 
 
 All trimmed their gowns with poppy leaves, 
 The girls we loved, in those old days ; 
 
 They wore no modern "angel sleeves" 
 With smilax and japonicas. 
 
 I had no extra clothes to show, 
 
 No jsatinet nor shoddy ; 
 But always hung all wardrobe then 
 
 On my volumptuous body.
 
 68 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 The bull's-eye watch her father clean 
 Had made by horses swapping, 
 
 To witness well the amorous scene 
 Would now and then keep stopping 
 
 Then hurrying up with all its power. 
 Laid, while we both were fawning, 
 
 Its brassy hands upon the hour 
 Which told the birth of morning. 
 
 The rosy tints which fell aslant 
 And set the east aglowing. 
 
 Told me, if not Almira Grant, 
 'Twas time that I was going. 
 
 Outside the door on that blest morn 
 
 When heaven's blue stars were beaming. 
 
 Our first, pure rustic kiss was born 
 While Shubael Grant lay dreaming. 
 
 In wending to my cottage home, 
 
 The earth beneath and heavens above. 
 
 And all the circling spheres around 
 
 Bespoke and breathed of nought but love.
 
 % 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 Andromeda, I noticed then, 
 
 From the northern hemisphere 
 Looked down and smiled tho' chained behind 
 
 Her mother, Cassiopea. 
 
 When they, and all the laughing hosts. 
 
 Along the starry trail. 
 Reached out and fixed an extra kink 
 
 In Ursa Major's tail. 
 
 When twilight's sable curtain falls, 
 Then stars stand thick at even 
 
 To act as outside sentinels 
 Around the gates of heaven. 
 
 That night, along the shimmering slant, 
 (I tell you true my brother,) 
 
 The pass- word was " Almira Grant" 
 They whispered to each other. 
 
 The northern lights so leaped and flashed, 
 
 And shot their fitful rays, 
 1 thought that "long John" Couillard's shop 
 
 One moment was ablaze.
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 And Boreas, humming through the trees 
 Hushed up its mournful sigh, 
 
 And tried to laugh, like Shubael Grant. 
 Each time he told a lie. 
 
 I milked our cross, old lop-horn cow ; 
 
 She never acted half so nice ; 
 She never broke her bow but once, 
 
 And never kicked my pail but twice. 
 
 Before that hour a hook or kick 
 Would follow up the slightest stir ; 
 
 I think the love that fired my breast 
 
 Wrought out that blessed change in her. 
 
 For every word from human lips, 
 The harshest, kindest and the least. 
 
 Will make its impress, deep and broad. 
 Upon the heart of man or beast. 
 
 And not one thought sweeps o'er the soul. 
 
 Though never by a word expressed. 
 But that some hovering spirit, round. 
 
 Transfers it to another's breast.
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 'Jl 
 
 And there, within its secret depths, 
 
 So surely, steadily, though still, 
 It toils through many a weary hour, 
 
 And does its work for good or ill. 
 
 Had I this tough old world to rule, 
 
 My cannon, sword and mallet 
 Should be the dear old district school, 
 
 God's Bible and the ballot. 
 
 If Bible, ballot and the school 
 
 Should fail me all in turn, then let 
 Me have, instead of rabble rule, 
 
 The educated bayonet. 
 
 Amid the tumult and the strife, 
 In weaving out our web of life, 
 Although the task be light or hard. 
 Whatever be the cost per yard 
 
 A doubloon or a shilling, 
 Regardless of our prayer or ban, 
 God furnishes the warp for man, 
 
 But man must find the filling. 
 
 My Muse oft seeks some dizzy height 
 
 By giving one unearthly bound, 
 Then, quick as thought, she loves to light 
 
 And sing her songs on level ground.
 
 f2 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Her folks, not mine, were well to do. 
 
 And had a high position, 
 Though bed quilts, hanging up, they used 
 
 Instead of board partition. 
 
 We had no boards to make two rooms 
 
 In hot or chilly weather. 
 And quilts we used on little groups 
 
 That snuggled down together. 
 
 For mother's tear-stained widow's weeds 
 To ten young hearts were telling. 
 
 That father could not toil for us 
 
 In the land where he was dwelling. 
 
 'Tis many a year since the old folks, mine, 
 
 With their mortal eyes have seen us, 
 For their sight grew dim on a winter's day, 
 And they wandered off, and they lost their way ; 
 But they pressed along, though they hardly knew 
 Which way to turn or what to do, 
 For the night came on and it chilled them through, 
 But I learn from a friend who has just come back, 
 That they struck at last on a beaten track 
 Which led the old folks safely o'er 
 To a fairer sky and a better shore, 
 
 Though a mist now broods between us.
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 7J 
 
 And my friend who has brought these tidings o'er 
 From that milder sky and the better shore, 
 Brings a word from the old folks living there, 
 Where the lands are green and the skies are fair, 
 We had better come-, and we needn't fear, 
 For the work isn't hard as the work is here, 
 And they have a home which they own all clear 
 Not a mortgaged home like some homes here 
 But a home as good as a home need be, 
 With a plenty of room for the girl and me. 
 And they sent me word, as they chanced to look 
 One day, in an old, worn spirit book, 
 Which the angels keep for the oath and prayer, 
 They found these words written out up there : 
 "Those chains which bind her as the wife 
 
 "To him within the lower land, 
 "Shall, by the laws of spirit life. 
 
 "Prove only as a rope of sand. 
 
 "For, after earth's mistakes are past, 
 
 "Each human, yearning, unmatched heart. 
 
 "In some of God's wide spheres at last 
 "Shall find its own true counterpart." 
 
 They told me from those climes above, 
 One boon survives this mortal breath, 
 
 For there the beauteous form of love 
 
 Finds entrance through the gates of Death. 
 
 \x 
 
 ^
 
 74 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 I have my child a prattling girl 
 
 One tie that binds me to my wife ; 
 With laughing eyes and glossy curl 
 
 A chip cut from my tree of life ; 
 And long before her soul is fired 
 
 By dreams of bridal ring and kiss, 
 I shall, perhaps, get worn and tired, 
 
 And seek some other clime than this. 
 But then what then? I'll take no sphere, 
 
 Nor hidden place above, below, 
 Where I can gain no hint from here 
 
 To tell me how home matters go. 
 And should I learn my child's astray, 
 By flinging her young heart away, 
 Worse than the fate the Tuscan found 
 Who, to the rotting corpse was bound, 
 I swear by Him who gave me breath, 
 There is no secret power in death, 
 Nor force above which angels know, 
 Nor chains within the gulfs below, 
 Nor distance in the realms of God 
 To keep me from my darling Maude ! 
 I will come back by sign or grip, 
 By rap, or scroll, or table tip, 
 Or steal your human throngs among, 
 And seize upon some mortal tongue, 
 And warn my child to shun the deck, 
 The voyage with him the storm the wreck I 
 
 '. \
 
 
 MY FIKST COURTSHIP. 75 
 
 The story of my creed is brief, 
 1 have this shadowy belief 
 
 My only hope of real bliss 
 That sometime on some distant day. 
 
 I shall with penitential tear, 
 Find chance to blot or wash away, 
 Or, at the least, one chance to try 
 To palliate or rectify, 
 
 Within some far more favored sphere, 
 Some blind mistakes I've made in this, 
 And not let Innocence atone 
 For crimes or errors of my own. 
 
 Don't get alarmed at my poet dreams, 
 
 At my ghostly, ghastly, spirit themes, 
 
 For it may be in the times afar, 
 
 When spirit stocks are up at par 
 
 I shall sell out, for here I own. 
 
 In the sight of Him on the great white throne, 
 
 In my wanderings 'round from creed to creed, 
 
 In my dashings ofTat a fearful speed, 
 
 With my bark afloat on a doubtful wave. 
 
 To a fitful light beyond the grave ; 
 
 I have learned no prayer that has seemed to me 
 
 Like the one I lisped at my mother's knee. 
 
 Fate has decreed, to win our wives 
 We cannot sail around their coop.
 
 
 76 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 And come the night-hawk when he dives 
 And take them at a single swoop. 
 
 You cannot seize our modern dames, 
 
 With rings and bustles, hoops and curls, 
 
 As, at those Neptune feasts and games. 
 The Romans grabbed the Sabine girls. 
 
 But man must have his hours of fuss, 
 Must fawn and bluster, fret and crone, 
 
 In keeping off some rival "cuss" 
 Who has more bear's-oil and cologne. 
 
 If you wish to outdo a Chinaman 
 
 A real Chinaman to beat 
 The safest, wisest, surest plan 
 Is an extra braid in your flaunting queue ; 
 In your vest an extra shade or two, 
 
 And an extra breadth in your trousers' seat ; 
 And, my friend, if you ever fall in love, 
 And another is after your turtle-dove, 
 The safest, wisest, surest plan 
 Is the same you would try on a Chinaman ; 
 For woman is woman wherever you go, 
 'Mong the jabbering hordes of the Esquimaux, 
 (Which I roamed among long years ago) 
 Or your lettered tribes, where the pearly face 
 Shows the tint of the Anglo Saxon race. 
 Since the primeval birth of morn. 
 
 \ 

 
 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 77 
 
 
 When the voice came, k> let there be light,' 
 There never was a woman born 
 
 A real woman, moulded right, 
 Who would not through this vale of tears. 
 Form one blade of the human shears. 
 
 Miss Katie Field you all must know, 
 
 That pure young type of womanhood 
 I'll bet my head worth much to me 
 That Katie Field yes, even she. 
 
 When in the Adironack wood. 
 And for the night was snuggled down 
 Beside the soul of old John Brown 
 Would sometimes dream about a beau 
 A beau, not of the spirit form. 
 But clothed in solid flesh, so warm 
 With sinewy arms to chop or hug, 
 With arms her kindling stuff to lug. 
 To build her fire and cook her food 
 Within the Adirondack wood. 
 
 Experience proves 'twill never pay 
 To hire your wandering spirit bands 
 With boneless feet and nerveless hands 
 
 To chop your cord- wood by the day. 
 
 I think some forty years ago, 
 A boy whose name was William Snow 
 Lived up near Deacon Howse's
 
 >7 
 
 78 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 His mother never loved to mend, 
 And having little time to spend 
 One Winter dressed him up so neat, 
 But fixed a kind of double seat 
 
 In making his new trousers 
 So when the hinder seat was wore, 
 The boy could turn it round before ; 
 But then one trouble you should know, 
 Came up with poor old Mrs. Snow ; 
 
 'Twas said there was no knowing 
 When Bill would walk from place to place, 
 Unless you chanced to see his face, 
 
 Which way the boy was going. 
 The seat before and seat behind 
 Just made the thing a little blind ; 
 Thus in my rhymes I oft compete 
 With Bill Snow's double trousers' seat. 
 
 My Muse so oft is shifting, 
 Unless you watch her movements well, 
 You'll find it mighty hard to tell 
 
 Which way she is drifting ; 
 Enough for me that in her song 
 She seeks the right and spurns the wrong. 
 
 Our bridal tour was all arranged 
 
 O 
 
 'Twas not for Saratoga, 
 Nor Orchard Beach, nor Belfast Bay 
 Down where I caught a wife one day
 
 -s^ 
 
 xT 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 79 
 
 And where they catch the porgy ; 
 Nor Plymouth Rock, nor Mount Desert 
 That natural place to fish and flirt 
 But then, as Grant's whole team and ours 
 
 Were hauling bark for Skinner, 
 We 'greed to foot it down to Tower's 
 
 And wait till after dinner : 
 Then take the back road out bv Wright's 
 And stop with Betsy Cook two nights ; 
 For Grant's own cousin, Peter Brooks. 
 Was shaving shingles down at Cook's. 
 In case the Cooks' were not at home, 
 
 Or didn't ask us both to stay. 
 We were to foot it back that night 
 
 And eat our sweet cake on the way. 
 In a tough, hard old world like this, 
 'Twere well if many more would be 
 Somewhat like Almira Grant and me 
 And guard against contingencies. 
 And then to close our honey-moon. 
 
 When she had knit some linen lace, 
 We were to spend one afternoon 
 
 At that old classic watering place 
 You all must know, that Lombard stream, 
 
 Where Dole and Drew and Booth and Locke 
 Caught suckers by the birch-bark gleam, 
 
 And where they watered all their stock.
 
 x\ 
 
 So POKMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Grant talked of adding to his house 
 
 To make the rude log cabin square 
 So, through my brain these thoughts would run, 
 When the dear girl and I were one, 
 With the first brand new Hampden stove. 
 With spread and tick her mother wove, 
 And chest which Shubael Grant could make 
 To keep our handsome clothes and cake. 
 And the whole mulberry tea-set bought 
 With blackberries the dear girl had got. 
 With six red chairs Jail bottomed fine 
 With basket stuff or ''ellum rine ;" 
 With blushing flowerets peeping through 
 The barrel we could saw in two ; 
 With half-high bed and cedar broom 
 We'd occupy the new front room 
 
 And take such solid comfort there. 
 God never made a purer gem 
 That sparkles in a diadem 
 Than the ambitious, modest pride 
 Within the breast of the young bride 
 \Vho strives though poverty her lot 
 To beautify her humble cot. 
 
 When you have loved some red-cheek girl, 
 With many a dimple, many a curl. 
 And waited on her night and day, 
 And many a side-comb given away.
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 With heart and soul aglovving with her 
 When Love has formed its choicest plan, 
 To find some short-legg'd gentleman 
 
 With frizzled hair a going with her; 
 Although by nature meek and mild, 
 It makes you feel a little riled. 
 
 From saint or sinner, fop or prude, 
 There's nothing like pure gratitude. 
 For one I go, if I go alone, 
 
 For the sergeant, Tillman Joy, 
 Who told them square down at Spunky Point, 
 
 In the State of Illinois. 
 If they drove him out or they touched one hair 
 
 Of the black boy, Banty Tim, 
 Who trumped death's ace at Vickshurg Heights, 
 
 Yes, trumped death's ace for him ; 
 When the sergeant told how his ribs caved in 
 
 From the whirl of a splintered shell. 
 And the black boy shouldered and lugged him through 
 
 From the fire-proof, gilt-edged hell : 
 How he stronged him off in his brawny arms 
 
 At the ring of the Union calls. 
 Though his dark hide looked like a pepper-box 
 
 As 'twas riddled by Rebel balls ; 
 Yes, I go for these tough, rough words that boiled 
 
 From the heart of that sergeant Joy 
 ''He will rassle his hash in hell to-night 
 
 Who touches that black-skin boy !"
 
 82 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Fix all your earthly plans so nice, 
 
 And Burns would say 
 "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 
 
 Gang aft a-gley" 
 
 Another fellow gazed on her 
 
 A swanking, brainless high-head 
 
 With this advantage over me, 
 He'd better clothes than I had. 
 
 He wore a full-cloth suit of clothes, 
 One made by a man tailor ; 
 
 My mother made mine out of wale. 
 Though cut by Hannah K'aler. 
 
 My home-made cap was red and blue, 
 The young sprout seemed to chuckle, 
 
 For a felt hat graced his bullet head, 
 With hat-band and with buckle. 
 
 The shirt I wore my mother made 
 
 Without much extra stitching, 
 'Twas carded, colored, spun and wove 
 
 Within the old log kitchen. 
 \
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 83 
 
 He wore an eight cent boughten one 
 Though very few could use 'em 
 
 And then, by thunder! in that shirt 
 He had a linen bosom ! 
 
 'Twas ironed stiffer than a stake 
 He knew such bosom pleases 
 
 And then 'twas ironed up and down, 
 And then across in creases. 
 
 And Gale had collar-buttons, too, 
 My shirts I used to pin them ; 
 
 And, don't you think, his wristbands once 
 Had bone sleeve-buttons in them ! 
 
 His stocking yarn, he said, was dyed 
 
 By Mrs. Jonas Warner, 
 But mine was dipped in our dye-house, 
 
 The dye-pot in the corner. 
 
 He used fresh bear's-oil on his hair 
 To please that mother's daughter ; 
 
 I used a wooden pocket comb 
 Dipped into soap and water.
 
 1'OEMS BY DAVID BAKKKR. 
 
 'Mid all attempts to please the fair. 
 
 I think I never yet 
 Stuck side-combs in my parted hair 
 
 Or wore a chemisette. 
 
 I have a love for things Divine 
 And every thing that's human 
 
 Except a brothy, female man, 
 Conceived by a male woman. 
 
 I dined on bannocks at the school 
 Kept down at Huldah Grover's : 
 
 He carried nut-cakes once a week. 
 And frequently turnovers. 
 
 My hair was parted at the side 
 His parted in the middle ; 
 
 I played upon the old bass drum 
 He played upon the fiddle. 
 
 Our buskin strings were made of tow 
 And twisted by each mother ; 
 
 But after Caleb put on airs, 
 
 His buskin strings were leather.
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 
 
 How many things like buskin strings. 
 While traveling to death's portals. 
 
 Have builded high the walls of caste 
 To separate poor mortals ! 
 
 He used a pongee handkerchief 
 Lent by his cousin Hannah 
 
 I used the one I carry now, 
 A cotton, red bandanna. 
 
 I rubbed cold tallow on my shoes 
 To keep those shoes from cracking ; 
 
 On week days he used melted grease 
 And Sundays he used blacking. 
 
 And both of Caleb's ears were bored 
 A pegging awl run through them 
 
 And two new German silver rings 
 Like drops of sweat hung to them. 
 
 Some women cannot stand such show 
 The gay "cuss" seemed to know it ; 
 
 And so he spoiled one heaven-made match, 
 But made one earthly poet.
 
 86 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 "Poeta nascitur nonjH" 
 
 Was true, perhaps, when it was said, 
 
 But times, since then, have changed a bit; 
 For now-a-days, 'tis plain to see 
 To save the nurse and doctor's fee 
 
 Most poets are not born, but made. 
 
 Ah, vain attempt on me to try 
 The doctrine that there is no lie 
 
 As some have sung or said ; 
 That falsehood is the child of truth 
 That capers 'round within its youth 
 
 And stands upon its head. 
 I say it in this world beneath, 
 Yes, shout it in the very teeth 
 
 Of philosophic cant, 
 It was a whopper nothing more 
 That teetered me in days of yore 
 
 Out of Almira Grant. 
 You'll always find the road up hill 
 To drive a woman 'gainst her will ; 
 
 Yes, even if you know most, 
 'Tis better, safer, to engage 
 To split wood with an iron wedge. 
 
 And drive it butt end foremost. 
 
 I promised to be true as steel, 
 She promised to be truer
 
 /\ 
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 87 
 
 But oaths she broke and soon became 
 The bride of Gale McCluer. 
 
 Yes, ere twelve circling golden suns 
 
 Within the East had risen, 
 To fill my youthful cup with woes, 
 Both stood up in their handsome clothes 
 And pressed each other's palms in turn, 
 He swearing ever to be "hern," 
 
 She swearing to be "hisen." 
 
 Cale cut me out and took the girl 
 I loved and spotted for my wife ; 
 
 But there are things besides the girls 
 Of which we're oft cut out in life. 
 
 But, after all is done and said, 
 
 'Tis better, as the heart will prove, 
 
 To love a girl you cannot wed, 
 Than wed a girl you cannot love. 
 
 And though life's fiery trials bring 
 
 Some vain regrets and bitter tears. 
 This earth is but a scaffolding 
 A scaffolding so broad and grand 
 On which God's spirit workmen stand 
 To build us up for higher spheres.
 
 V 
 
 88 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 One day Van Pronk, a Dutchman, died 
 
 His widow, fair and good, 
 Ordered a likeness of Van Pronk 
 
 A statue carved from wood. 
 
 But soon another Dutchman came, 
 A Dutchman fresli and yonk ; 
 
 The widow, for a courting fire. 
 Then split up old Van Pronk ! 
 
 Almira, once of me so fond, 
 When Caleb came to woo her. 
 
 Split me, Van Pronk, for kindling wood 
 To warm up Cale McCluer. 
 
 And such is life both sons and sires. 
 
 The worldling and the monk, 
 To feed the flames of new desires 
 
 Will split up old Van Pronk. 
 
 The Leathers's took up the cry, 
 And prophesied that I should die ; 
 
 But, then, 'tis my belief 
 'Tis mighty seldom that you see 
 A gentleman built just like me 
 
 For standing love and grief. 

 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 89 
 
 We had no lawyer in our town 
 To take our greenbacks from us ; 
 
 No learned man to bring, for me. 
 A suit for breach of promise. 
 
 These were long years before my mind 
 Had turned to legal reading 
 
 Though 'Mira thought I understood 
 The forms of "special pleading." 
 
 So there are times when human laws 
 
 Cannot be found to save us ; 
 When we must use those substitutes 
 
 Which God or Nature gave us. 
 
 Next day I met the festive lover. 
 
 When Caleb put on airs anew 
 When wounded love and wounded pride, 
 
 When anger and ambition, too, 
 Came rushing, frantic, to my side. 
 And fired the feelings of a man, 
 Then raised my double-sole brogan 
 Against the form of Cale McClure, 
 That ponderous part of him, I'm sure, 
 Which seemed the most exposed to be, 
 That part of his anatomy 

 
 90 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Which gentlemen with coat-tails cover. 
 I fdt it, whether wrong or right, 
 The hour had come for me to fight ; 
 I felt myself in the same fix 
 As the old Massachusetts Six, 
 When thro' the mob they hewed their way 
 
 'Mid the first spatter of the gore 
 Upon that wild, old April day 
 In the red streets of Baltimore. 
 'Tis settled we'll ; there seems to be 
 (I learn it from zoology) 
 Four types or grades of animals, 
 And which the man of science calls 
 The vertebrated, 
 Articulated, 
 The mollusk 
 And the radiated. 
 That day, in looking Caleb over, 
 I found the festive rival lover 
 
 Possessed the functions of the four ; 
 But when I raised my foot to rout him, 
 I found, 
 
 The way he measured off the ground 
 There was but little man about him. 
 With my passions boiled down in my youthful brogan, 
 Oh, the way that I routed that young married man 
 Makes me think of the time, on that glorious day, 
 That we routed the Rebs in the Winchester fray ;
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 9! 
 
 When Phil. Sheridan flew o'er the Winchester course 
 Resembling the picture of Death on his horse. 
 If there's one in this crowd to the Union so true, 
 That he shouldered his gun and was dressed up in blue, 
 And was there in that fight in that battle so grand 
 I will wait for a time till he holds up his hand ; 
 Yes, I see you were there, when the old starry flag 
 Slapped its folds in the face of that rattle-snake rag. 
 
 Bret Harte, no doubt, in writing how poor Walker 
 
 Was dogged from rock to tree, 
 Had heard about my routing Cale McClure 
 
 And took his style from me. 
 Bret says, when Walker blew a hole thro' Peters 
 
 For telling him he lied, 
 Then up and dusted out of South Hornitos, 
 
 Across the long Divide ; 
 They ran out at Strong's, and up thro' Eden, 
 
 And 'cross the ford below ; 
 Then up the mountain Peter's brother leadin, 
 With guide and Clark and Joe. 
 
 I feel it, somehow, 
 
 That I ought to be a little more definite now. 
 
 And to tell you the spot on this new married man 
 
 That I hit with the sole of my maddened brogan ; 
 
 It was just at the forks that was made by his pins, 
 And near at the point if my memory don't fail 
 Where Agassiz tells me the base of the tail
 
 92 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Of a perfectly well formed gorilla begins. 
 
 As age creeps on, 'tis strange how memory fails 
 
 For, come to think, gorillas have no tails ! 
 
 Another blind mistake, 'twixt you and me, 
 
 I never saw this famous Agassiz. 
 
 One sterling principle of law 
 
 I find is settled well- 
 Each has the right to run or fight. 
 
 In earth, or heaven, or hell ; 
 But cannot find in any code. 
 The Koran, Shaster, or the Word 
 Which Moses from the mountain heard ; 
 In any musty book of mine, 
 The human, doubtful, or Divine 
 
 'Tis written down a sin 
 To gently raise your young brogan 
 Against the form of any man 
 Who steals by night your girl away, 
 Then puts on airs the coming day 
 
 And tries to rub it in. 
 
 Gale's father kept a dancing school 
 
 Perhaps the old folks, present, knew him 
 
 He was a fiddling barber, too, 
 
 His wife was double cousin to him. 
 
 They say when double cousins wed, 
 By Fowler's phrenologic rules, 
 
 Their children are almighty smart 
 
 i
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 93 
 
 Or else they are almighty fools. 
 Now Caleb spread himself so wide 
 
 He lapped each phrenologic rule ; 
 For, every day and every time, 
 
 Cale was a smart, almighty fool. 
 On marriages I make no raids : 
 I make no thrusts at honest trades ; 
 By sledge and hammer, spade and hoe. 
 By lathered brush or rosined bow, 
 By sword and lancet, pill and probe, 
 By priestly cowl and priestly robe ; 
 
 Man has the right to earn his pelf. 
 Although, from policy or pride, 
 I keep no striped pole outside. 
 By razors strapped on Coke and Kent, 
 And lather made from twelve per cent., 
 
 I run a shaving mill myself! 
 But then, amid my wrong and right. 
 
 I never did nor never can 
 Defraud a fool, a cripple fight, 
 
 Or plague a crazy man. 
 
 I've read but where I cannot say 
 In that old Indian book by Drake, 
 
 In Hudibras or Rabelais, 
 
 Or else, perhaps, in Ida May. 
 
 Or dreamed it all when wide awake ; 
 
 In Audubon on forest birds,
 
 94 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 On Ganssen's Plenary Inspiration ; 
 In Doctor Dadd on flocks and herds, 
 
 Or Rollin on some ancient nation ; 
 In some weird tale by Walter Scott, 
 
 His Black Dwarf or his Quentin Durward ; 
 In Mrs. Lane's Forget- Me-Not, 
 
 Or those etherial songs by Sherwood ; 
 In some old book where gibberish words 
 
 Were found like *-*ego, tuus, meus" 
 Or in some work of modern date, 
 
 Your Ecce Homo, Ecce Deus ; 
 In Random Rambles 'Mong the Tombs, 
 
 Which makes the brain feel wild and frantic ; 
 In some quaint scrap by Wendell Holmes 
 
 Just published in the last Atlantic ; 
 In Miracles bv Doctor Stone, 
 
 Or rhymes by Hosea Bigelow, 
 
 Or Uncle Tom by Mrs. Stowe 
 Hold up your horses ! here I own 
 
 I've given these names just for a show 
 As thousand others have before, 
 
 To make the auditors the green 
 Believe they have a world of lore 
 
 From books their eyes have never seen. 
 I never read one-half the books 
 
 Here named, so pompously, to-night; 
 And, ten to one, 'twixt me and you, 
 
 I havn't spelt the names aright. 
 
 %
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 95 
 
 I have no eye, no love I own 
 
 For beauties in your lettered lore ; 
 Upon the cold, white leaf alone 
 
 I find no heart to look them o'er ; 
 But let those lettered beauties shine 
 Upon this brain and heart of mine, 
 
 All pure and radiant, fresh and warm. 
 Shine through that strange, mysterious prism 
 
 Some human, sympathetic form, 
 But vet intcnser organism 
 
 Or, held within that circling band. 
 Upon the unseen, verging line 
 
 Which separates the border land ; 
 And I can see and feel their power, 
 And in the fervent, frenzied hour, 
 Transfer those rays with rustic art 
 Which fall upon rny brain and heart. 
 
 Now let me stop and quote eight lines 
 
 From Lalla Roo, or Lalla Rookh, 
 You'll find the verses printed out 
 
 In Tom Moore's Irish poet book : 
 "Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour. 
 
 I've seen my fondest hopes decay 
 I never loved a tree or flower, 
 
 But 'twas the first to fade away. 
 I never nursed a dear gazelle. 
 
 To glad me with its soft, black eye, 
 \
 
 96 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 But when it came to know me well. 
 And love me, it was sure to die." 
 
 Moore wrote those lines with heart and soul, 
 With thought some critic's taste to please ; 
 
 But, writing them, Tom felt no worse 
 Than I in writing lines like these. 
 
 A pale, thin form oft meets my gaze. 
 
 Clad out in tattered dresses, 
 Compelled to take through forms of law 
 
 A bloated brute's caresses. 
 
 And, as she passes, oft I dream 
 
 When in my office lawing, 
 That form resembles a green girl 
 
 That my spruce gum was "chawing." 
 
 And, ah ! I well remember once, 
 
 In making up my docket. 
 Instead of my old client's name 
 
 I think his name was Patrick Dunn 
 My hand, entranced, wrote out the name, 
 
 The strangely magic name of one 
 Who, by a tallow candle's light, 
 Crammed ivy leaves with me, one night, 
 
 Into my trousers' pocket.
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 97 
 
 Oh, for that blessed hour and place, 
 
 When some benign divinities 
 May furnish souls, unmated here, 
 
 With spiritual affinities ! 
 
 I care not where that place may be, 
 
 Though to that place is given 
 The common scare-crow name of hell, 
 
 Or the milder one of heaven. 
 
 How, many and many an hour, I feel 
 That Cale McCluer should meet my steel, 
 Or whizzing bullet, were it not 
 For this truth that Hans Breitmann wrote : 
 
 'Ach, de efils dat from efil 
 
 Troo a life ish ever grow ! 
 
 Had I never dink I killed you 
 
 Many a man were living now, 
 
 Many a man dat shleeps in canebrakes, 
 
 Many a man py pillow-shore ; 
 
 For dy morder make me reckelos, 
 
 And von tead man gries for more !" 
 
 I have, upon life's lower plane, 
 
 Some darling ones around me ; 
 And I have ties in upper spheres 
 
 Whose spirit links have bound me ;
 
 98 POEMS BY DAVID BARKF.R. 
 
 And I have bread enough in store, 
 
 And friends, from judge to peasant, 
 To keep the gaunt wolf from my door, 
 
 At least just for the present. 
 I love them all as man should love, 
 
 And love to write and sing 'em, 
 But since that strange and primal brush 
 
 Which came from that girl's gingham, 
 My heart has never beat as then, 
 
 While sitting by Almira, 
 Upon that night I reckon from 
 
 As Arabs from Hegrira. 
 
 'Tis said the microscope now tells 
 
 That every breathing human frame 
 Is made from little curious cells, 
 
 And all too numerous to name ; 
 That each contains distinct, alone, 
 A life, a being of its own. 
 Oh, could I be but young once more! 
 
 I feel I can, then feel I can't, 
 And she was blooming as of yore 
 
 That daughter of old Shubael Grant 
 How would my spirit love to dwell, 
 For ages in each tiny cell, 
 Then garner in each little life, 
 And form one entity a wife.
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 99 
 
 I ask no purer draught of bliss. 
 No other Moslem heaven than this : 
 Except outside my gate I should 
 Keep Cale McCluer sawing wood. 
 I went to Denmark once, you know. 
 And there, I learned that, years ago, 
 In Jutland, when a warrior died, 
 
 They took the mailed and grinning corse 
 And stretched the stiffened legs astride 
 
 The back of his scarred battle- horse, 
 Then pranced the snorting steed around, 
 
 When the pale corse 
 
 And the live horse 
 
 Were buried 'neath some burial mound. 
 I cannot help it no, I can't 
 When thinking of Almira Grant; 
 I sometimes wish I was that corse 
 If Cale McCluer was my horse ! 
 
 With all my love for Caleb's bride. 
 
 Of one thing I am sure, 
 Though you may take my pledge or not, 
 
 I will not on this earthly side 
 Lay claim by act, or word, or thought, 
 
 To the wife of Cale McCluer. 
 Maine's statute law gives Cale the right 
 To claim that wife both day and night ;
 
 POEMS BV DAVID BARKER. 
 
 But may be, on that yonder side 
 
 That spirit side the water 
 Where old earth laws are all repealed, 
 And truth and love are quick revealed, 
 As Cale McCluer did years ago, 
 I may just put on airs, you know, 
 And ask the curl-haired spirit fop 
 To vacate, there, his bridal shop, 
 And then take charge of Caleb's wife, 
 
 And of old Shubael's daughter. 
 
 The new-born, blissful butterfly 
 While scooting through the liquid sky 
 
 With its ethereal tiller 
 May recollect, and with a squirm, 
 The way folks used him when a worm 
 
 Or creeping caterpillar. 
 Though arms be swapped for wings, yet I 
 May think back like the butterfly ; 
 
 "For time at last sets all things even. 
 And, if we do but watch the hour, 
 There never yet was human power 
 
 Which could evade, if unforgiven. 
 The patient search, and vigil long, 
 Of him who treasures up a wrong." 
 
 But I have blabbed of death enough 
 I feel the risk of death like this :
 
 MY FIKST COURTSHIP. IOI 
 
 'Tis like the playing blind-man's-buff 
 
 Around some fearful precipice. 
 All creeds and all foundations laid, 
 
 All promises through pardoning grace 
 Are swept like grass before the blade 
 
 When gazing in a dead man's face. 
 
 "There is not of that castle gate, 
 Its draw-bridge or portcullis weight, 
 Stone, bar, moat, bridge or barrier left. 
 Nor of its fields a blade of grass, 
 Save what grows on a ridge of wall 
 Where stood the hearth-stone of the hall." 
 
 Thus spoke the old Mazeppa, freed 
 From Palatine's wild Tartar steed ; 
 
 And thus speak I, that you may know 
 The fate of Grant's old log house where 
 
 McCluer and I, long years ago, 
 Once battled for Almira there : 
 That castle to which Caleb ran 
 With three hoists from mv young brogan. 
 
 The cot where Shubael Grant once dwelt 
 
 Has felt the force of Time's decay. 
 The place where 'Mira's mother knelt
 
 1O2 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 I visited but yesterday ; 
 1 heard no sound like those of yore 
 
 When Grant's whole tribe of children played ; 
 I found no foot-prints at the door 
 
 Which I or Cale McCluer made. 
 A groan, a tear, the spade, the mound, 
 
 Then the tall grass came bending o'er 
 The forms of three young laughing girls 
 
 Who "peeked" down thro' that chamber floor. 
 Those three small boys who cuddled down 
 
 Within the trundle-bed that night, 
 Dressed up in blue and went to God 
 
 From Spottsylvania's gory fight ! 
 One topless tree now stands between 
 
 Two knolls where Shubael piled his wood ; 
 One little heap of rocks is seen 
 
 On which the catted chimney stood. 
 Around that spot how many a time, 
 
 When dreaming, drunk with saddened bliss. 
 Some relic of a Scottish rhyme 
 
 Has pelted at my heart like this : 
 
 ' l My master's gone, and no one now 
 
 Dwells in the halls of Ivor, 
 Men, dogs and horses, all are dead 
 
 I am the sole survivor." 
 When Cale McCluer had stole my girl. 
 And brokers came one chilling morn 
 And claimed, through my dead father's deed,
 
 MY FIRST COURTSHIP. 103 
 
 My mother's cot where I was born 
 I cannot tell the reason why, 
 
 But heart and brain and nerve grew strong, 
 And quickly took this wholesome hint 
 From fragments of an Irish song : 
 
 "When nettles grow around the hearth, 
 And towers that now so stately stand, 
 In scattered fragments fill the earth, 
 And Saxon strangers own the land, 
 To Adrighoole's sea-beaten coast 
 Then let O'Gara's son repair ; 
 
 W r ealth far beyond what he has lost, 
 And joy shall be restored him there." 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Now stick to your homes, whether husband or wife, 
 With a hope in the skies and a purpose in life ; 
 Tho' you revel in wealth, or thro' poverty plod, 
 Be true to yourselves, to each other and God ; 
 In your journeyings thro', whether servant or master, 
 Like the brave engineer at the Hamburg disaster 
 Whatever your loss or whatever your gain 
 Like immortal "Doc Simmons,"^? down with the train.
 

 
 \J
 
 A WELCOME 
 
 TO THE HUGH DE PAYEN COMMANDERY OF KNIGHTS TEM 
 PLAR, MELROSE, MASSACHUSETTS, AT BANGOR, 
 JULY 2O, 1869. 
 
 Craftsmen, listen to my sayings : 
 Welcome, welcome Hugh De Payens, 
 
 From old Massachusetts Bay, 
 To our climes where Boreas bloweth, 
 Where the sturdy pine-tree groweth, 
 
 Welcome to our shores to-day. 
 
 From your land, with age so hoary, 
 Land of pilgrim, song and story, 
 
 From your living streets and marts, 
 From your sacred soil of Warren, 
 Welcome to our cliffs, though barren, 
 
 Welcome to our homes and hearts. 
 
 Welcome as the old Crusader, 
 From the Palestine invader 
 
 Bringing back the saber scar, 
 'Mid the songs and feasts and dances, 
 And the flash of virgin glances, 
 
 Making sweet the fruits of war.
 
 IOS POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Gallant members of our order 
 
 Who have crossed the Cyprian border, 
 
 Join us in a song to-day. 
 With a curse (and not a lament) 
 For a Philip and a Clement. 
 
 And a tear for De Molay. 
 
 Banish now each cankering sorrow, 
 
 Banish each fear of to-morrow- 
 While we gather round our feast ; 
 
 While the thought of rank we smother, 
 
 Welcome here each "Serving Brother," 
 
 Welcome "Knight" and welcome "Priest."* 
 
 Welcome here each sworn defender 
 Of the helpless virgin tender. 
 
 And the ancient Calvary cross ; 
 Bear it like our great Exemplar. 
 Bear it, patiently, each Templar, 
 
 Though the end be gain or loss. 
 
 When the full earth path we travel, 
 And the click of Death's dark gavel 
 
 Falls upon the leaden ear, 
 May we meet the Prince of Princes 
 Shouting "in hoc signo vz'nces," 
 
 In some new celestial sphere. 
 
 *Three classes of the "Order of the Temple" in the 12th Century, viz : "Serv 
 ing Brothers," "Knights" and "Priests."
 
 >r 
 
 ST. JOHN AND DE MOLAY COMMANDERIES. 109 
 
 A WELCOME 
 
 TO "ST. JOHN" "UNION DE MOLAY" COMMANDERIES 
 
 OF NEW BRUNSWICK, AT THE HALL OF ST. JOHN'S 
 
 COMMANDERY, BANGOR, JUNE 23, 1874. 
 
 Knights "St. John" and "De Molay," 
 Here's a Welcome warm to'-day. 
 
 Welcome to our teeming marts, 
 To our halls and feasts and hearts, 
 
 With a pride and not a shame 
 ' Sing we of the Templar's fame. 
 
 Through the past of fire and flood, 
 Through the gory scenes of blood ; 
 
 'Mid the monarch's toppling thrones, 
 And the mouldering of their bones ; 
 
 'Mid the mercy-craving cries, 
 As some weak 1'epublic dies ; 
 
 'Mid the prison vault and chain, 
 Through each worldly loss or gain : 
 
 As a true and loyal brother 
 We have stood by one another ;
 
 IIO POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Kept the oath that you and'I 
 Swore 'mid scenes of mystery; 
 
 Scenes that our Craftsmen saw 
 Listening to Mosaic law 
 
 Since the tragic hour when He 
 Drained the cup at Calvary, 
 
 When each Templar breathed his name, 
 And the hour for trial came, 
 
 Counting earthly things but dross, 
 We have borne aloft the cross. 
 
 Happy hearts and lengthened days 
 Knights "St. John" and "De Molays" 
 
 Safe return to child and wife, 
 Peaceful ebbing out of life. 
 
 TO ST. JOHN COMMANDERY, BANGOR. 
 
 Craftsmen, ere we leave these walls, 
 And these consecrated halls, 
 
 Let each Templar in his heart 
 Yitld some sacred place apart, 
 
 And with impulse, pure and kind, 
 Keep the name of John H. Lynde.
 
 COURTING A MASON'S DAUGHTER. Ill 
 
 COURTING A MASON'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 In my earlier years 
 
 (And the thought brings tears, 
 
 For horrible 'tis to say,) 
 I was false as the pit 
 To each girl that I met, 
 
 Till meeting with Caroline Ney. 
 
 Each time that I strode 
 To her father's abode 
 
 The neighbors were struck with dismay ; 
 At morning and even 
 A prayer went to heaven 
 
 For the innocent Caroline Ney. 
 
 The old matrons winked 
 And the old maids blinked 
 
 And tuned up a sorrowful lay, 
 And nodded the head 
 While they "gravely said 
 
 "He'll ruin that Caroline Ney !"
 
 112 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 The young country "Squire" 
 In his dreams would perspire, 
 
 In counting his bountiful pay 
 For conning the laws 
 And pleading the cause 
 
 Of beautiful Caroline Ney. 
 
 The old village Priest 
 Not doubting the least 
 
 The gossips who threaded the way, 
 Bid the father beware 
 Of the terrible snare 
 
 I was setting for Caroline Ney. 
 
 But the father cared not 
 For the idle report 
 
 Which haunted him every day. 
 For the old man knew 
 I should ever be true 
 
 To the innocent Caroline Ney. 
 
 For 1 whispered a word 
 Which the old man heard, 
 
 'Twas a magic word, though simple, 
 'Twas a word which we caught 
 On a sacred spot 
 
 Just west of King Solomon's Temple. 
 
 %
 
 1L. 
 
 FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY. 
 
 FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY. 
 
 Distrust not every form without, 
 
 Than live through life such living death, 
 In the betraying fiend of Doubt 
 
 Have Faith. 
 
 Though through a blind-man's-buff we're led, 
 
 Or though in dusky paths we grope, 
 In a blest something, just ahead, 
 
 Have Hope. 
 
 The treacherous blocks we may not see 
 
 O'er which our stumbling brothers fall, 
 So then have God-like Charity 
 
 For all. 
 
 With these the three we may be blest, 
 
 And leave behind us when we go, 
 Around Life's sunset in the west, 
 
 A glow. 
 
 Then onward press, though for the grave, 
 
 And calmly meet the closing strife, 
 Death is the only proof we have 
 
 Of life.
 
 I4 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 GIVE THEM BREAD AND NOT A STONE. 
 
 First dry that orphan's tears, 
 And hush that orphan's cries, 
 
 Then pile up, if ye will, 
 Your marble to the skies. 
 
 But, Craftsmen, spare that fund, 
 Part earnings of the dead, 
 
 A pittance laid aside 
 
 To buy their orphans bread. 
 
 Touch not a single dime, 
 But let that fund alone 
 
 'Tis mocking God and man 
 To barter it for stone. 
 
 'Tis better, better far, 
 
 No monument should rise 
 To tell the hallowed spot 
 
 Where any hero lies, 
 \
 
 GIVE THEM BREAD AND NOT A STONE 
 
 Than that one orphan child 
 Should pine for want of bread, 
 
 Or gold be squandered off 
 By which that child is fed. 
 
 First dry that orphan's tears, 
 And hush that orphan's cries, 
 
 Then pile up, if ye'will, 
 Your marble to the skies. 
 
 [At a meeting of the Grand Lodge of Maine in 1851, a resolution was intro 
 duced authorizing the appropriation of a certain amount of the Lodge Fund 
 for the purchase of a block for the Washington monument. The lion. Comp. 
 Ezra B. French, of Damariscotta, opposed the passage of the resolution in a 
 very eloquent speech. In the course of his remarks he said: {'When the orphan 
 children of our dead brethren throng around us destitute and tearful and ask for 
 bread, will ye give them a stone?"] 

 
 Il6 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 JOHN WARNER'S NOT DEAD.* 
 
 Why mourn you the Craft? for John Warner's not dead. 
 
 Though his body lies pulseless and still, 
 That missile which forced its fierce way through the head 
 
 No real John Warner could kill. 
 
 John Warner's not dead, though the casket is dumb, 
 
 But has gone on a mission of love, 
 With his Compass and Square, with his Level and Plumb, 
 
 To his work in the Grand Lodge above. 
 
 John Warner's not dead, but will often return. 
 
 And oft in our Lodge will appear, 
 And o'er his cold ashes which lie in the urn 
 
 Will whisper the Word in our ear. 
 
 John Warner's not dead by each hope in my breast 
 I would swear on this spot where I stand, 
 
 That since the last sun sank in silence to rest 
 I have felt the Strong Grip from his hand. 
 
 *John Warner, of Kenduskeag, a member of Pacific Lodge, Exeter Me., No. 
 W. and of the 2nd Maine Regiment, was accidentally shot in camp, at Hall's 
 Hill, Va., Feb. 24, 1862, and was buried with Masonic honors at Kenduskeag, 
 March 1, 1862.
 
 V 
 
 WASHINGTON'S INITIATION. n 
 
 7f 
 
 LINES 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE lOOth ANNIVERSARY OF WASHING 
 TON'S INITIATION INTO FREDERICKSBURG LODGE. 
 
 
 Ho, worthy brother Craftsmen, all 
 Throughout our wide domain, 
 
 Up, up in living, countless throngs, 
 Put Lambskin on again. 
 
 From California's golden hills 
 
 Off by Pacific's side, 
 To farthest beetling cliff which stands 
 
 As guard o'er Fundy's tide ; 
 
 From wild Atlantic's hungry waves 
 Which gnaw our rock-bound shore, 
 
 To where Niagara's seething floods 
 Send forth their deaf 'ning roar ; 
 
 Come to the Temple, Brethren, come, 
 
 With Mason's armor on, 
 To deeper carve upon our hearts 
 
 The name of Washington.
 
 Il8 POEMS BY DAVID BAHKKR. 
 
 Ye spirits of our chieftain's band, 
 
 If liberty is given 
 By Him who sits within the "East" 
 
 Of the Grand Lodge in heaven, 
 
 To members there within those halls 
 To "pass the outer door," 
 
 Oh, leave for once yon blissful realms, 
 Be with us, we implore. 
 
 Inspect our work, reprove our faults, 
 Inspire our hearts with love, 
 
 And teach all Craftsmen how to find 
 That better Lodge above.
 
 MY LAST REQUEST. 119 
 
 MY LAST REQUEST. 
 
 Brethren of our mystic order, 
 
 Bound together by a tie, 
 Olden, sacred and enduring, 
 
 Come and see a Craftsman die. 
 
 Watch like angels round my pillow, 
 Till the ransomed spirit flies 
 
 To its Excellent Grand Master, 
 In His lodge above the skies. 
 
 Oft we've met upon the Level, 
 Let us part upon the Square 
 
 Perfect Ashlers in the Temple, 
 May we meet together there. 
 
 Let no stranger's hand entomb me 
 
 Underneath the tufted sod, 
 None except a brother Mason 
 
 Should consign my dust to God. 
 
 Heave no formal sigh of sorrow 
 
 O'er the ashes of the dead, 
 Only plant the priceless symbol 
 
 Freshly blooming at my head. 
 
 When death's gavel sound shall call you 
 
 Off from Labor unto rest, 
 May you, Craftsmen, find Refreshment 
 
 In the mansions of the blest.
 
 1 2O POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 ODE. 
 
 T 
 
 Ho, worthy Craftsmen, all, 
 Up cheerily to your toil 
 
 While strength is given. 
 Strike boldly for the right, 
 Drive error from your sight, 
 Grasp virtue with your might 
 
 And trust in heaven. 
 
 By Trowel, Plumb and Square, 
 By watchfulness and prayer 
 
 Our temple rose. 
 And while the mystic Three, 
 While Faith, Hope, Charity 
 Shall Mason's motto be, 
 
 W 7 e fear no foes. 
 
 Fight with the arms of Love, 
 Press for the Lodge above. 
 
 Never despair. 
 Our work is ju^st begun, 
 Toil till your task is done, 
 Speed till the goal is won, 
 
 The prize is there.
 
 ODE. 121 
 
 When blood shall cease to flow, 
 When sickness, care and woe 
 
 Are felt no more, 
 When Slander's tongue we hush, 
 When Crime's huge form we crush, 
 When Right on Wrong shall rush 
 
 And overpower ; 
 
 When orphans shed no tears, 
 When widows have no fears. 
 
 When Want's unknown, 
 When foemen foeman greet, 
 When lambs and lions meet, 
 Our mission is complete, 
 
 Our task is done.
 
 123 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE MASON'S FAREWELL. 
 
 While far, far away from my native land, 
 
 To feel the warm "grip" from a Craftsman's hand, 
 
 And to hear the '"'"word" and to see the "sign" 
 
 Will strangely quicken this pulse of mine. 
 
 For I know full well that a friend is near 
 
 To whisper a word in th' "attentive ear" 
 And to walk " 'bare-foot" 'neath a winter's sky 
 To aid a Brother of the '"mystic tie" 
 
 CHORUS. We've met on the "Level" 
 
 We'll part on the "Square" 
 For prized as the sunlight 
 My Brothers, you are. 
 
 'Tis a kind farewell 1 must quickly say, 
 
 For the cares of life bid me haste away ; 
 
 But I leave my heart and a tear-drop, too, 
 
 As a pledge that I'm ever a Mason true, 
 
 And will toil with the Craft till I yield my breath 
 
 To a " Gavel-blow" from the hand of Death. 
 
 'Tis a long farewell I must quickly speak 
 
 While the scalding tears course down my cheek. 
 
 CHORUS. God bless you my Brothers 
 
 It pains me to part, 
 You're dear as the life-drops 
 Which visit my heart. 
 
 Farewell !
 
 1^ 
 
 THE MASON'S DEATH AND BURIAL. 123 
 
 THE MASON'S DEATH AND BURIAL. 
 
 The old church bell struck a startling note 
 
 And sent forth a solemn knelling, 
 While every peal from its brazen throat 
 
 Of a sundered tie was telling. 
 
 And soon I learnd from a Craftsman's woe, 
 
 And the summons hastily spoken, 
 That a brother was passed from the lodge below, 
 
 That a link in our chain was broken. 
 
 With a quivering lip and a glistening tear, 
 Each Craftsman speedily hurried 
 
 To see that the cold, pale sleeper there 
 In an ancient form was buried. 
 
 We laid him down in his lonely tomb, 
 Our hearts o'ercharged with sorrow, 
 
 But saw through the mystic sprig in bloom 
 The gleam of a brighter to-morrow.
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 The sickening sound of the 'falling sod 
 Which covered our brother's coffin, 
 
 Was lost in the wails that rose to God 
 From the widowed wife and orphan. 
 
 Ah, little they dreamed, in that darksome hour, 
 When the bitter tears were gushing, 
 
 And fell despair, with a tyrant's power, 
 The stricken heart was crushing 
 
 Of a pledge we breathed to our brother at rest, 
 
 Who lies in his narrow coffin, 
 A balm that shall soothe the troubled breast 
 
 Of that widowed wife and orphan.
 
 THE SIGN OF DISTRESS. 125 
 
 THE SIGN OF DISTRESS. 
 
 'Twas a wild dreary night in the cheerless December, 
 'Twas a night only lit by a meteor's gleam ; 
 
 'Twas the night of that night, I distinctly remember, 
 That my soul journeyed forth on the wings of a dream. 
 
 That dream found me happy, by tried friends surrounded. 
 Enjoying with rapture the comforts of wealth, 
 
 My cup overflowing with blessings unbounded, 
 
 My heart fully charged from the fountains of health. 
 
 I 
 
 That dream left me wretched by friendship forsaken, 
 Dejected, despairing, and wrapped in dismay, 
 
 By poverty, sickness and sorrow o'ertaken, 
 To every temptation and passion a prey. 
 
 In frenzy, the wine-cup I instantly quaffed at, 
 And habit and time made me quafF to excess, 
 
 But heated by wine, like a madman, I laughed at 
 The thought of e'er giving a Sign of Distress.
 
 
 126 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 But wine sank me lower, by lying pretences, 
 It tattered my raiment and furrowed my face, 
 
 It palsied my sinews and pilfered my senses, 
 And forced me to proffer a Sign of Distress. 
 
 I reeled to a chapel where churchmen were kneeling, 
 And asking their Saviour poor sinners to bless, 
 
 My claims I presented the door of that chapel 
 Was slammed in my face at the Sign of Distress. 
 
 I strolled to the priest, to the servant of heaven, 
 And sued for relief with a wild eagerness ; 
 
 He prayed that my sins might at last be forgiven, 
 And thought he had answered my Sign of Distress. 
 
 I staggered at last to the home of my mother, 
 Believing my prayers would meet with success, 
 
 But father and mother, and sister and brother 
 Disowned me and taunted my Sign of Distress. 
 
 I lay down to die, as a stranger drew nigh me, 
 A spotless white lambskin adorning his dress, 
 
 My eye caught the emblem, and ere he passed by me, 
 I gave, as before, the sad Sign of Distress. 
 
 With God-like emotions that messenger hastens 
 To grasp me, and whisper, ''my brother I bless 
 
 The hour of my life when I learned of the Masons 
 To give and to answer your Sign of Distress." 
 
 Let a Sign of Distress by a Craftsman be given, 
 And though priceless to me is eternity's bliss, 
 
 May my name never enter the records of heaven 
 Should /fail to acknowlede that Sin of Distress.
 
 V 
 
 THE TEMPLARS. 127 
 
 THE TEMPLARS. 
 
 DEDICATED TO THE MEMBERS OF ST. JOHN S ENCAMP 
 MENT, RANCOR, MAINE. 
 
 Who aid the widows with their mites 
 And guard the helpless virgin's rights? 
 A band of old and valiant Knights, 
 
 The Templars. 
 
 To save a friend who walks around 
 
 With blood-stained feet on frozen ground? 
 
 If any such are ever found 
 
 They're Templars. 
 
 Who shield the Christians as they kneel, 
 And wall them in with burnished steel, 
 And guard them well thro' woe and weal? 
 
 The Templars. 
 
 What men are those, despite of scars, 
 Who, facing flashing scimetars, 
 Defend the Cross in Holy Wars? 
 
 The Templars.
 
 128 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 When Knights are called from k ' labor" here, 
 Who throng around the sable bier, 
 And drop the warm, fraternal tear? 
 
 The Templars. 
 
 God of our Craft, enable me 
 A faithful, worthy Knight to be, 
 And bring me home, at last, to Thee 
 
 A Templar. 
 
 4F
 
 TO KOSSUTH. 129 
 
 TO KOSSUTH. 
 
 Immortal man, I pray forgive 
 
 A bard unknown to fame. 
 Who 'tempts to write with trembling hand 
 
 Thy world-wide, magic name. 
 
 But, hearing brother Craftsmen say 
 
 Thy tongue of living fire 
 Can speak in whispered tones a word 
 
 You caught on Mount Moriah, 
 
 
 I've dared to raise my feeble pen 
 
 A Magyar chief to greet, 
 Remembering Masons can and will 
 Upon the Level meet. 
 
 Hurl cannon, musket, grape and ball 
 
 The cragged "cliffs" among, 
 Toss sword and scabbard to the winds, 
 
 The best sword is thy tongue.
 
 130 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Stand ! tell the bloody Austrian, 
 
 And tell the Russian Beat- 
 That nations, like a fellow-man. 
 Should "act upon the Square." 
 
 And warn them that the time may come, 
 
 And speedily. I trust, 
 When Vengeance with a "Gavel-blow" 
 
 Will smite them to .the dust. 
 
 And bid them look to Lexington, 
 And gaze on Bunker's height, 
 
 Where Freedom raised her arm at last 
 And battled for the right. 
 
 And tell them Freedom fought it through 
 
 And conquered, hilt to hilt. 
 But not until the richest blood 
 
 From Britain's Isle was spilt. 
 
 And point them back to by-gone years, 
 
 To sainted days of yore, 
 When God's oppressed, through seething floods, 
 
 Escaped from Pharaoh's power.
 
 TO KOSSUTH. 
 
 And tell them, Craftsmen, God will yet 
 Your people's wrongs redress, 
 
 And answer in an "ancient form" 
 Their sad "Sign of Distress." 
 
 Speak mystic words, give sacred signs, 
 
 Seek all the means you can 
 To spare the blood which war will drain 
 
 From out thy fellow-man. 
 
 If mystic words nor signs will do, 
 Take sword in hand once more, 
 
 Hunt Russian from thy father-land, 
 Drive Austrian from thy door. 
 
 If aid is needed raise the shout 
 ' From mountain-top and glen, 
 In every clime where freedom breathes 
 A horde of warrinsr men 
 
 Will wildly start to hear the cry, 
 Cross desert, heath and wave, 
 
 To strike the chains from Hungary's limbs 
 Or fill a warrior's grave.
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TO T. D. WILLARD, OF N. Y. 
 
 I will not breathe upon you, man, 
 From Flattery's hollow lungs, 
 
 Nor utter breathless, lying words, 
 Which drop from lying tongues. 
 
 Full many a day we've marked your course, 
 
 And watched you from afar, 
 As mariner on drifting wreck 
 
 Would watch the polar star. 
 
 And you have earned an honored name, 
 
 And living one, we trow 
 No laurel bathed in human gore 
 
 Decks your Masonic brow. 
 
 We saw you sit within the East 
 
 And raise the stalwart arm, 
 Heard Gavel's click, and heard you ask 
 
 " The cause of the alarm;"
 
 V 
 
 TO J. D. WILLARD, OF X. V 
 
 '33 
 
 And heard you rush from door to door 
 
 Around the ancient Dome. 
 And quickly fly from nether floor 
 
 Into the Holy Room ; 
 
 Bid 'Prentice, Craftsmen, Masters, all, 
 Their useless bickering cease, 
 
 And saw you wave above the storm 
 The olive-branch of Peace. 
 
 The war is o'er your Lambskin, too. 
 
 Is free from blood and stain 
 Your name is cherished by the Craft 
 
 Among the "pines of Maine.'' 
 
 Health to you, Craftsman, is my prayer 
 
 Long may you live to see 
 Which Brother in your ranks' "can work" 
 
 'And which can best agree."
 
 134 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TRY THE SQUARE. 
 
 Is a Brother oft' the track ? 
 
 Try the Square. 
 Try it round on every side, 
 Nothing draws a Craftsman back 
 
 Like the Square when well applied ; 
 Try the Square. 
 
 Is he crooked is he frail? 
 
 Try the Square. 
 Try it early try it late. 
 When all other efforts fail, 
 
 Try the Square to make him straight, 
 Try the Square. 
 
 Does he still persist in wrong? 
 
 Try the Square. 
 
 Loves he darkness more than light? 
 Try it through try it long, 
 
 Try the Square to make him right, 
 Try the Square. 
 
 Fails the Square to bring him to? 
 
 Try the Square. 
 Be not sparing of the pains 
 While there's such a work to do, 
 W T hile a crook or knot remains 
 Try the Square.
 
 MEETING OK NORTH KKX AND SOUTHERN MASONS 135 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE PROPOSED MEETING 
 
 OF NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN MASONS IN MASS. 
 
 Craftsmen, craving kindly greeting, 
 Doff your blue and gray, 
 
 Let us hold one cordial meeting 
 On the Square, to-day. 
 
 Whether coming from our regions 
 Where the pine-tree grows 
 
 Whether coming from your legions 
 Where the orange blows ; 
 
 From plebeians or from princes, 
 
 Owning gold or dross, 
 Sing we "/ hoc signo vinces" 
 
 Marching 'round the Cross. 
 
 If war's thundering roar and rattle 
 Haunt our memories still, 
 
 Let them come from that old battle 
 Fought on Bunker's hill ;
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Let each blackened corpse of passion 
 
 In its casements rot ; 
 Plant no mystic sprig Acacian 
 
 E'er to mark the spot. 
 
 Let us bury feuds forever 
 
 Deep in common graves ; 
 Let us quaff for now or never, 
 
 From Lethean waves. 
 
 When we cross the final ferry 
 
 Claiming earth no more ; 
 When we step from out the wherry 
 
 On that distant shore, 
 
 We will strike one harp and tymbal 
 
 At the master's calls ; 
 We will use one word and symbol 
 
 In the mystic halls. 
 
 JxL 
 
 V
 

 
 DIED: 
 
 AT EXETER, (MAINE) EMMA, DAUGHTER OF FRANCIS W. 
 AND SARAH A. HIJ.L, AGED 14 YEARS. 
 
 We have laid aside your casket 
 
 Peacefully to rest, 
 With that simple wreath of flowers 
 
 Blushing on the breast ; 
 
 While your mates with tones of music 
 
 'Round the casket stand, 
 Cheering on the trembling spirit 
 
 To the Morning Land. 
 
 For this pleasing, painful trouble, 
 
 For this tearful task, 
 Simple are the terms of payment 
 
 Is the boon we ask ; 
 
 From your home which love inherits 
 
 O'er this vale of tears. 
 With your choir of kindred spirits 
 
 In those happier spheres, 
 
 On some beauteous Summer evening:, 
 
 O 7 
 
 Whei the world is still, 
 Send us back those tones of music, 
 Angel Emma Hill.
 
 140 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 KEEP TO THE RIGHT. 
 
 An hour ago a bridge I nearecl 
 
 Where rival roads invite ; 
 With threatening words a sign appeared 
 
 And said, "Keep to the right." 
 
 I marked the threat, and onward dashed. 
 
 Left sign and bridge behind. 
 When quick this thought, unbidden, flashed 
 
 Like lightning through my. mind : 
 
 There are two roads on which we go 
 
 To other worlds than this, 
 The one leads down to endless woe, 
 
 The other up to bliss. 
 
 Across a bridge these roads both lead, 
 O'er Jordan's heaving flood ; ' 
 
 A sign stands out which all may read, 
 The letters traced in blood. 
 
 Methought I heard : "Take not the one 
 Its end is veiled in night. * 
 
 Inspect the sign, then travel on. 
 But mind "Keep to the right !"
 
 LAYING OK THE CORNER STONE. 141 
 
 LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE 
 
 TRINITY CHURCH, EXETER. 
 
 Let your mitred Bishop stand 
 By this upturned yielding sod, 
 
 And with consecrated hand 
 Lay your corner stone to God. 
 
 Then with skillful builder's care 
 Rear aloft your sacred dome, 
 
 Raise your steeple high in air 
 Pointing to a spirit home. 
 
 Let no bitter, burning brawls 
 Foully nursed by blended zeal 
 
 Ever echo round our walls 
 Fatal as the cannon's peal. 
 
 To your robed and tutored Priest 
 Acting here his Rector's part, 
 
 Let me hold some thoughts at least, 
 Gushing warmly from my heart.
 
 142 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Whether pleasure come or pain, 
 . Whether worldly gain or loss, 
 When the crucible you drain 
 Give us gold refined from dross. 
 
 With a scholar's loyal lore 
 
 And a heart imbued with love, 
 
 Ever guard your chapel door 
 As they guard the gates above. 
 
 Though your armor bids you face 
 
 All the elements of strife. 
 It will elevate your race 
 
 To a higher plain of life. 
 
 Preach the everlasting word 
 
 Free from innovated taints- 
 Preach the Christ that Peter heard 
 As he journeyed from the Saints. 
 
 By the help of Him who died 
 Aided by redemption's plan, 
 
 Bridge the chasm deep and wide 
 
 That has vavvned 'twixt God and man.
 
 PRAYEK. 143 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 _.._ 
 
 A matchless telegraphic wire 
 To every saint is freely given, 
 
 O'er which each prayer, the heart's desire, 
 Is quickly sent from earth to heaven. 
 
 There is a bank beneath God's throne 
 Where Christians' choicest treasures are 
 
 Before deposits can be drawn 
 
 The draft must be indorsed by Prayer. 
 
 There is a well where Faith must drink, 
 And Prayer that well descends and dips 
 
 For Faith, who stands upon the brink. 
 And holds the goblet to her lips. 
 
 Humanity, so prone to err, 
 
 When violating heaven's laws. 
 
 Engages Prayer as Barrister, 
 Who freely advocates her cause. 
 
 Secure by lock and bolt and bai 
 ls yonder mansion in the skies, 
 
 And nothing but the Key of Prayer 
 Can ope those gates of paradise. 
 
 ' 

 
 
 144 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE COVERED BRIDGE. 
 
 Tell the fainting soul in the weary form 
 There's a world of the purest bliss 
 
 That is linked as that soul and form are linked 
 By a covered bridge with this. 
 
 Yet to reach that realm on. the other shore 
 We must pass through a transient gloom, 
 
 And must walk unseen, unhelped and alone 
 Through that covered bridge the tomb. 
 
 X
 
 THE COVERED BRIDGE. 145 
 
 But we all pass over on equal terms, 
 
 For the universal toll 
 Is the outer garb which the hand of God 
 
 Has flung around the soul. 
 
 Though the eye is dim and the bridge is]dark, 
 
 And the river it spans is wide, 
 Yet faith points through to a shining mount 
 
 That looms on the other side. 
 
 To enable our feet, in the next day's march. 
 
 To climb up that golden ridge, 
 We must all lie down for a one night's rest 
 
 Inside of the covered bridge. 
 
 
 19
 
 
 146 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE PALE BOATMAN. 
 
 In that cold and ancient wherry, 
 By that thronged, though fearful ferry, 
 O'er that bold and boisterous river. 
 See that Boatman, bending ever. 
 
 He has toiled for every nation 
 Since the birth-da v of creation. 
 
 When old Eve, our primal mother 
 Wiped the death-damp from Cain's brother, 
 Then that Boatman took that wherry, 
 And first crossed that fearful ferry ; 
 
 Looked he stern and pale beside it. 
 At that first time that he tried it. 
 
 MORTALS . 
 
 You and I must go in 
 
 That same boat which he is rowing !
 
 THE ATHEIST'S LAST LOOK. 147 
 
 THE ATHEIST'S "LAST LOOK." 
 
 The Atheist's child in its coffin slept, 
 
 In the village chapel's nook, 
 Ere the time when the stricken father said, 
 " 'Tis the last look!" 
 
 He never heeded the soothing balm 
 
 Which dropped from the holy book, 
 But only thought of the time he must say, 
 '"Tis the last look!" 
 
 The lid of the coffin was slowly raised, 
 
 When the crimson his face forsook, 
 For he knew that the words must quickly come, 
 '"Tis the last look!" 
 
 He tottered along to the coffin's side, 
 And his child's cold hand he took, 
 And uttered a shriek which pierced the heart, 
 '"Tis the last look!"
 
 148 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 And I saw a tear in that Atheist's eye, 
 
 And I saw that a Deist shook 
 As he uttered those thrilling words once more, 
 " 'Tis the last look!" 
 
 Methought if he hoped as a Christian hoped. 
 
 And walked by the light of God's book, 
 He never would murmur those words again, 
 " 'Tis the last look!"
 
 THOUGHTS AT A FUNERAL. 
 
 '49 
 
 THOUGHTS AT A FUNERAL. 
 
 My memory holds one thing intact, 
 
 That he, who lies so low, 
 Did me a generous, kindly act 
 
 In the long years ago. 
 
 Since then, the teachings of the brain, 
 
 Or feelings of the heart, 
 Have held for each a different reign, 
 
 And kept our paths apart. 
 
 But now amid death's awful night, 
 
 With tapers burning dim, 
 I hold my screen to catch the light, 
 
 And not the shades from him.
 
 I5O POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 WPIEN, WHERE, AND HOW SHALL I DIE. 
 
 When shall I die? 
 It may be, perchance, to-morrow. 
 Ere a larger, newer sorrow 
 Comes around my soul to borrow 
 
 Half the bliss it saves ; 
 It may be when locks are bleaching, 
 When life's lengthened shadows teachin- 
 
 o & 
 
 That my feet are swiftly reaching 
 
 J J 
 
 Near a place for graves. 
 
 Where shall I die? 
 It may be with tearless stranger, 
 It may be 'mid toil and danger, 
 It may be in hut or manger 
 
 Far from friends removed ; 
 It may be when friends are near me. 
 Breathing kindly words to cheer me 
 Few, who neither scorn nor fear me. 
 
 Friends mv heart has proved. 
 
 %
 
 WHEN, WHEUE, AM) HOW SHALL I DIE. I ^ I 
 
 How shall I die? 
 It may be when doubts assail me, 
 When my trust in God shall fail me, 
 While a horde of phantoms hail me 
 
 From a land of gloom ; 
 It may be when hope attends me, 
 When a world's Redeemer sends me 
 Living, dying faith, that lends me 
 
 Peace beyond the tomb. 
 
 Thou Great Architect of Power, 
 Though my sky of life must lower, 
 Aid me in death's awful hour, 
 
 Save me from despair ; 
 When I cross the stormy river, 
 Be my bark, my pilot, ever, 
 Leave me, God of mercy, never, 
 
 This is all my prayer. 

 

 
 V 
 
 \ 
 X 
 
 1
 
 ALL AT HOME. 
 
 Drive every care and pain the farthest distance, 
 
 For we, the children ten, 
 And they, the two who blessed us with existence, 
 
 Are all at home again. 
 
 Say not that three are dead and gone forever, 
 
 Talk not to me of gloom, 
 Tell not of Jordan's cold and cheerless river, 
 
 And brood not o'er the tomb. 
 
 We all are here, and God has not bereft us ; 
 
 Then every grief assuage; 
 They have not gone far oft', but only left us 
 
 Like actors on the stage, 
 
 And stepped aside behind the sable curtain 
 
 Which briefly drops between 
 The nine and three, and busied now in dressing 
 
 Just for another scene. 
 
 I hear their footfalls tinkling all around us, 
 I see their shadowy forms now flitting by, 
 
 I feel the pressure of the tie that bound us, 
 I breathe their teachings of philosophy. 
 
 Then drive each care and pain the farthest distance, 
 
 For we, the children ten, 
 And they, the two who blessed us with existence, 
 
 Are all at home aain.
 
 156 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 ACT YOURSELF. 
 
 If you ever act at all 
 
 Act yourself; 
 Never try to ape another, 
 Sink or swim, or rise or fall. 
 Never imitate, but rather 
 Act yourself. 
 
 Brains than many have you less, 
 
 Act yourself; 
 
 Each for something must be fit, 
 Give me native foolishness 
 
 Rather than this borrowed wit 
 Act yourself. 
 
 i 
 
 Elephants should never dance, 
 Act yourself; 
 
 Turkeys should not try to hound, 
 Women should not wear the pants, 
 Men should never wear the gown 
 Act vourself.
 
 ACT YOURSELF. 157 
 
 Forms nor fashions never heed, 
 Act yourself; 
 
 Talk of fashions for a man ! 
 Copies never did succeed, 
 
 And mere copies never can, 
 Act yourself. 
 
 Human nature wants her way, 
 
 Act yourself; 
 
 Out upon the tricks of art, 
 When you have a word to say, 
 When you take the simplest part, 
 Act yourself.
 
 158 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 A SHORT STORY WITH A MORAL. 
 
 In a barn-yard once upon the ground 
 A negro rolled, and kept a screeching, 
 
 Because he thought he heard the sound 
 Of Rev. Abel Whitefield's preaching. 
 
 But when the priest the door had reached 
 The negro quickly stopped his frothing. 
 
 For he found it wasn't Whitefield preached, 
 And he had soiled himself for nothing. 
 
 A moral hangs around this tale, 
 And one deserving approbation. 
 
 And not a single soul should fail 
 To make a special application.
 
 A SOLACE FOR DARK HOURS. 
 
 A SOLACE FOR DARK HOURS. 
 
 (WRITTEN IN DARK HOURS.) 
 
 A purling rill, so small and weak. 
 
 Once nearly died upon its way 
 While running round the sea to seek 
 
 Upon a summer's day. 
 
 But soon a cloud hung o'er that rill. 
 
 And soon came down an autumn rain. 
 When quick it danced by vale and hill, 
 
 Restored to strength again. 
 
 So pilgrim, though your cloud should lower, 
 Though sorrow's storm should come at length. 
 
 Yet God may clothe that storm with power 
 To give your spirit strength. 
 
 It is not best that all should live 
 
 'Mid peaceful gales, 'neath sunny skies. 
 
 For cloud and tempest often give 
 Rich blessings in disguise.
 
 l6o POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 The seaman's bark, whose bellied sail 
 
 The storm has drenched and wind has filled, 
 
 To reach its destined port might fail 
 If storm and wind were stilled. 
 
 And thus our barks may quicker find, 
 Though long of angry waves the sport, 
 
 Though dashed ahead by storm and wind, 
 A final, peaceful port. 
 
 The smouldering coals that underneath 
 Some cumbrous pile have calmly lain 
 
 Might fire the world if fanned by breath 
 Of passing hurricane. 
 
 And brother, now, perhaps thou hast, 
 Deep buried 'neath plebeian name, 
 
 A fire, which touched by sorrow's blast, 
 May kindle into flame. 
 
 The rust that creeps o'er warrior's blade, 
 When Peace can sleep without alarms T 
 
 Is seen no more when shout is made 
 "To arms ! the foe ! to arms"
 
 A SOLACE FOR DARK HOURS. l6l 
 
 And thus a readiness for strife, 
 For action in this world of fight, 
 
 May both protect the spirit's life 
 And keep its weapons bright. 
 
 How oft the fearful conflict serves 
 To weaken woe and strengthen weal, 
 
 By hardening up the softened nerves 
 As smith-man hardens steel. 
 
 Fear not the man of wealth and birth 
 
 Securely resting in his seat, 
 But sooner him, who, dashed to earth, 
 
 Is rising to his feet. 
 
 From straightened bow the arrowed spear 
 By warrior's arm is never sent ; 
 
 The danger which you have to fear 
 Comes when that bow is bent.
 
 
 102 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 AT THE FRONT. 
 
 Let me ask in a manner both earnest and kind, 
 Let me ask of the throng surging on from behind, 
 In the name of our Christ, if you can't and you won't 
 Be a little less rough to our ranks at the front. 
 It is hard that they send the pale, weak ones ahead, 
 Through the dark, chilly march thatleads down to the dead ; 
 But perhaps that the crowds pressing strong on us here, 
 Are pushed on by a horde farther back in the rear. 
 Will you hold while I read, 'mid the dusk, what they say, 
 On the mile-stones that rise like pale ghosts on the way? 
 
 'Tis the usage of years in all wars of the tent, 
 
 With the cannon and grape, with the sword and the gun 
 That the wounded and weak to the rear shall be sent 
 
 Shall be sent in platoons or be sent one by one 
 While the front is made up of the brave and the strong, 
 Though the battle be short or the battle be long. 
 But the war I am in in this war with disease 
 With a fear and a tremor the enemy -sees. 
 To this custom of ages they pay no regard, 
 And I say to my race and to God, it is hard, 
 It is hard that they send us pale, weak ones ahead, 
 Thro' the fight and the march that leads down to the dead. 

 
 BILLY DEE. 163 
 
 BILLY DEE. 
 
 Come, dwellers in this mortal tent, 
 
 Just step aside and see 
 The cold and fleshly tenement 
 
 Where dwelt poor Billy Dee. 
 
 When Billy's house grew old and poor 
 From life's rude storms and wind. 
 
 He batteped down the outer door 
 And left the wreck behind. ' 
 
 But in that land where Billy went, 
 Each kind and generous brother 
 
 Gave something from his spirit tent 
 To build him up another.
 
 164 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 -* 
 
 DISCONNECTED RHYMES. 
 
 The man, around whose roof the burglar lingers 
 
 And robs him of his pelf, 
 Is rich compared with him whose thievish ringers 
 
 Can madly rob himself. 
 
 There is no heart so full of earthly sorrow, 
 
 So gorged in every pore, 
 But that such heart will quickly strive to borrow 
 
 And hold one trouble more. 
 
 There is no stain, so deep with ruin laden. 
 
 No blot that lives so long, 
 As that which rests upon the trusting maiden 
 
 Who does herself a wrong. 
 
 There never was a greater curse not even 
 
 That old and fearful strife 
 Which Beelzebub raised 'mong the hosts of heaven, 
 
 Than starting wrong in life. 
 
 How strange, when Hope has proved a base deceiver, 
 
 We blindly hold her fast, 
 And never for a single moment leave her, 
 
 Though cheated to the last.
 
 ; /r 
 
 FANNIE WARD. 165 
 
 FANNIE WARD. 
 
 Full oft I have dreamed of the hours, Fannie Ward, 
 
 Full oft of those joy-laden hours, 
 We strolled from your cot when your cheek was in bloom 
 
 And sung with the birds in the bowers. 
 
 And well I remember the day, Fannie Ward. 
 
 That cheerless and sorrowful day 
 My spirit was fainting and bleeding within 
 
 When bearing you, lifeless, away 
 
 This world has been dreary since then. Fannie Ward, 
 
 Most gloomy and dreary since then 
 And sad were each moment except for the hope 
 
 To meet you in heaven again. 
 
 Do you ever look down from the skies, Fannie Ward, 
 From your own happy home in the skies. 
 
 To note the wild throbs of my sorrowing heart 
 And count the tear-drops in my eyes? 
 
 &
 
 
 1 66 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Oh, grant me but this, only this, Fannie Ward, 
 
 Oh, grant me, my lost one, but this : 
 Restrain me when tempted to swerve from the path 
 
 Which leads to your haven of bliss. 
 
 That vow which I breathed as you died, Fannie Ward, 
 
 That vow, in your ear, as you died, 
 Is fresh on my heart, as when kneeling I pledged 
 
 To make none but Fannie mv bride.
 
 
 
 EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 l67 
 
 Old Stevens' Mill-site on Kenduskeag stream at East Exeter, being the first 
 mill in town, and btiiltby Levi Stevens in 1813. 
 
 EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 I'm sitting alone in my office, dear Lew., 
 
 Both writing and singing my lays, 
 I'm laughing and crying, as memory runs back 
 
 To the time of our boyhood days. 
 
 Though lawyer you are, do you mind it, dear Lew. 
 
 The cottage where first we saw light, 
 Which father so carefully chinked up with moss 
 
 To keep all the crevices tight ?
 
 l68 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 D'ye mind it, your lubberly form, my dear Lew., 
 Your eyes ever laughing through tears. 
 
 Your ball and your skates, and your trundling hoop, 
 The bliss of vour earlier years? 
 
 D'ye mind it, the times I have switched you, dear Lew. , 
 When " Mother /" or some such a shield 
 
 Was the word that instinctively burst from your lips. 
 While /took to the woods or the field? 
 
 D'ye mind it, the road with the gateway, dear Lew., 
 
 That led down to Stevens' mill ; 
 The spot where old Patrick the porcupine slew, 
 
 Near the "little great rock" on the hill? 
 
 D'ye mind it, our mother's red cupboard, dear Lew., 
 Where nut-cakes and bannocks were kept ; 
 
 The old trundle-bed that was pulled out on trucks, 
 Where we have so peacefully slept? 
 
 At picnic and tavern and jam. my dear Lew., 
 
 I've feasted quite often, since then, 
 But all of such feasts I would give to the dogs 
 
 To lunch at that cupboard again. 
 
 x
 
 EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. 169 
 
 Since then, upon mattress and sofa, dear Lew., 
 Oft times I have pillowed my head, 
 
 But, ah, I have never yet found such repose 
 As came from that old trundle-bed. 
 
 Our mother, dear Lew., though decrepit and old, 
 Has baked us a loaf, now and then. 
 
 To see if by practice we ever could find 
 The tastes of our childhood again. 
 
 That poor mother's labors. I fear, were in vain, 
 
 Our efforts were powerless, too, 
 For life's bitter emptings have tainted those loaves, 
 
 And poisoned our appetites. Lew. 
 
 D'ye mind it, old Hephzibah's ferule, dear Lew., 
 Which taught us to read and to spell ? 
 
 The fears of that ferule were kin to the fears 
 I now entertain of a hell. 
 
 That ferule was missing, one noon, my dear Lew., 
 While Hephzibah went to her home, 
 
 Ase Lombard but Asa I will not expose 
 For. mind it. we "greed to keep mum. 

 
 v^ 
 
 17O POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 D'ye mind it, our terrible punishment. Lew.. 
 
 That sitting with Catherine Russ ; 
 Our peeping thro' fingers when prisoned there, too. 
 
 To see who were giggling at us? 
 
 'Tis strange, my dear Lew., how that habit of late 
 
 Has conquered the boyish fear ; 
 Since then I have sat a whole night beside Kate 
 
 Without even shedding one tear ! 
 
 D'ye mind it, the place where we teetered, dear Lew. 
 
 The fence that stood over the run ? 
 Such teetering, Lew., was an innocent sport. 
 
 For mind it, we teetered for fun. 
 
 Since then I have teetered with larger sized boys. 
 
 But always have teetered for pelf; 
 I've teetered full many a lad from the plank. 
 
 Rut sometimes been teetered myself. 
 
 D'ye mind it, the dreadful long night that we passed, 
 
 The night we divided our coin, 
 The ninepence we saved for the muster, dear Lew., 
 
 The muster that came in the morn? 
 
 %
 
 KAKLV RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 D'ye mind it, old Robinson's husking, dear Lew., 
 Where all drank new rum from a jug ; 
 
 Where husking commenced with a jig and a reel 
 And closed with a kiss and a huo-? 
 
 I now am a rigid teetotaller, Lew.. 
 
 And stick to my principles snug, 
 And nothing would tempt me to "liquor" again 
 
 Unless 'twere old Robinson's jug ! 
 
 D'ye mind it, how anxious you were, my dear Lew., 
 
 To have the good haying-time last 
 One season, when finding a bumble-bees' nest 
 
 In every rock-heap that you passed? 
 
 D'ye mind it. the day of all days in our youth, 
 
 When death came so horrid and grim. 
 And brandished his scythe till he clipped the last thread 
 
 Of the life of our dog we called "Prim?" 
 
 D'ye mind it, the knoll by the "beech-bars," dear Lew. , 
 
 Where beech-nuts so many we got, 
 And lugged in our caps down to Huckins' store 
 
 To barter for powder and shot?
 
 *' 
 
 v~ 
 
 172 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Since beech-nuts grew dull. Lew., I've tried other 
 schemes. 
 
 And now am in business that pays : 
 But all of my gains I would toss to the winds 
 
 For a month of our boyhood days. 
 
 For, mind it, those times were the times when we thought 
 
 What any one said must be true ; 
 Since then, from some causes I need not explain, 
 
 A change has come over us. Lew. 
 
 If days like the days I am talking of, Lew., 
 Through eternity's rounds could be given, 
 
 As true as my Bible I'd not give a fig 
 
 For a pass through the portals of heaven. 

 
 HOPE OK lil.iss. 173 
 
 HOPE OF BLISS. 
 
 SIXTEEN LINES. 
 
 Build barriers high and wide and deep 
 
 To wall your castes apart, 
 Such fortresses can never keep 
 
 The heart from answering heart. 
 
 A magic, telegraphic cord 
 
 Extends from soul to soul, 
 O'er which leap burning thoughtjand word 
 
 Despite of man's control. 
 
 The king with crown upon his head. 
 
 The beggar at his gate. 
 The Christian on his dying bed, 
 
 The convict at his grate, 
 
 One common hope together share, 
 
 A boon for rich and poor, 
 Each to that hope a rightful heir, 
 
 A hope of bliss in store.
 
 174 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 INFLUENCE AND RETRIBUTION. 
 
 Ye cannot send the simplest line 
 
 Abroad from off your pen, 
 But ye must meet, in future hour, 
 
 That very line again. 
 
 The slightest word ye cannot speak 
 
 Within a mortal ear. 
 But that the echo of such word 
 
 Ye must forever hear. 
 
 Ye cannot stride one single step, 
 
 While journeying here below, 
 But that some brother takes your path 
 
 For happiness or woe. 
 
 Unholy thoughts ye cannot think, 
 
 Though never once expressed, 
 But that some demon plucks those thoughts 
 
 To fill another's breast.
 
 /T 
 
 INFLUENCE AND RETRIBUTION. 175 
 
 Then watch your pen with miser care. 
 
 And let its labors be 
 A fount of solace to the soul 
 
 And not of misery. 
 
 And guard your lips, nor let them speak 
 
 A word which future years 
 Can by some magic process change 
 
 To bitter, burning tears. 
 
 And mark the road on which you stand. 
 And note your footsteps well. 
 
 And shun that broad, frequented track 
 Which leads away to hell. 
 
 And check your vain, unholy thoughts. 
 
 As much as in you lies. 
 Nor let them rob you of that bliss 
 
 Beyond the starry skies.
 
 x 
 
 176 POKMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 I THINK SO. DON'T YOU? 
 
 That girl in her silks, gadding down through your streets, 
 And prating small talk with each fool that she meets, 
 Had better be helping her poor jaded mother 
 By fixing a patch on the pants of her brother. 
 I think so, don't you? 
 
 That fop that you see with the hair on his lips, 
 Who sports a rattan and a mint julep sips, 
 Would do well to learn there are thousand worse woes 
 Than hats out of style and a poor suit of clothes. 
 I think so, don't you? 
 
 That weak, silly man, whom his neighbors defame. 
 Who comes into court to retrieve a lost name 
 Will find, when his lawyer is taxing the cost, 
 The fees are worth more than the character lost. 
 I think so. don't you? 
 
 I've noted some matters and things as they passed. 
 And tender this legal opinion at last : 
 'Tis best to be honest and always content. 
 And keep your books straight for a last settlement. 
 I think so, don't you?
 
 LET THEM TALK. 
 
 LET THEM TALK. 
 
 Do the fools around you prate? 
 
 Let them talk. 
 
 Shape your course and travel through, 
 Never grumble at your fate, 
 
 Fools have nothing else to do 
 Let them talk. 
 
 Heed not leakings at the rnouth, 
 Let them talk. 
 
 Think and act the best you can. 
 Leaking long will bring a drouth, 
 While you do your duty, man, 
 Let them talk. 
 
 Never mind, but jog along, 
 Let them talk, 
 Idle talk is only gas, 
 Nothing but a foolish song 
 Coming from a human ass, 
 Let them talk. 
 
 While you have an honest heart, 
 Let them talk, 
 
 While you utter what you mean, 
 While you act the manly part, 
 
 While you keep your conscience clean, 
 Let them talk. 
 
 VI
 
 178 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 Brother, are you faint and weary? 
 Is your pathway dark and dreary? 
 Doubt, nor fear, nor falter never, 
 Let this be your watchword ever, 
 
 Light ! 
 
 Better days may soon be dawning, 
 Darkest hours give birth to morning ; 
 Yield not to the fiend Despair, 
 Keep in mind old Ajax's prayer 
 
 "Light!" 
 
 Ask no garb from Nemean lion, 
 But with heart and nerves of iron 
 Fight your fight in fearless manner 
 With this motto on your banner 
 
 Light ! 
 
 -
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 Light to stamp each sin with terror. 
 Light to hunt and banish error, 
 Light to kill or weaken sorrow, 
 Light to gild a better morrow 
 Light ! 
 
 Light to make oppression falter, 
 Light from truth's own burning altar, 
 Light to shine on hearts benighted, 
 Light to see each wrong is righted 
 Light ! 
 
 While one intellect is clouded, 
 While one soul in sin is shrouded, 
 While a world for light is dying, 
 Brother, never cease your crying 
 Light !
 
 l8o POBMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 LINES TO MY DEAD DOG. 
 
 (SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN KILLED BY THE TRAIN AT 
 WATERVJLLE.) 
 
 You're dead in form, old Pont, but not in spirit; 
 
 Dead is a heathen term, which simply shows 
 That we for garbs, which men and dogs inherit, 
 
 Have swapped our earthly clothes. 
 
 Each beast, each bird, each germ of vegetation 
 
 Designed for mortal's use, 
 God's spirit power shall, in the new creation, 
 
 Hereafter reproduce. 
 
 The buried Indian with his bow and arrow 
 
 In some unlettered mound. 
 Thinking to meet upon the coming morrow 
 
 In some new hunting-ground, 
 
 His faithful dog, had in his savage dreaming 
 
 A faith and truth sublime 
 A blessed scintillation and a gleaming 
 
 To gild the close of time. 
 
 \ 
 
 We part awhile, old Pont, but not forever, 
 For you will meet me with the Boatman pale 
 
 The moment that he leads me o'er the river 
 And wag your spirit tail.
 
 LOVE OF LIFE. l8t 
 
 LOVE OF LIFE. 
 
 
 I have no longings for the skies, 
 
 No vain philosophy 
 That makes me wish to close my eyes 
 
 And lay me down to die. 
 
 I'd rather live through countless years, 
 And storms and troubles brave, 
 
 And hourly steep my eyes in tears, 
 Than slumber in the grave. 
 
 'Tis not the toys of earth I love, 
 'Tis not the midnight gloom 
 
 Which hangs its solemn folds above 
 The chambers of the tomb ; 
 
 'Tis not the common, selfish fear 
 Of losing heaven's bliss ; 
 
 'Tis not there is no other sphere 
 To be preferred to this : 
 
 V
 
 l82 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 'Tis not the agony of death. 
 
 The fearful, closing strife ; 
 'Tis not the yielding up my breath, 
 
 Which makes me covet life. 
 
 This is the burthen of my dread 
 
 Oh, horrible to name ! 
 That loathsome worms must yet be fed 
 
 Upon my pulseless frame.
 
 
 MAKE YOUR MARK. 183 
 
 MAKE YOUR MARK. 
 
 In the quarries should you toil, 
 
 Make your mark, 
 Do you delve upon the soil, 
 
 Make your mark, 
 In whatever path you go, 
 
 In whatever place you stand, 
 Moving swift or moving slow, 
 With a firm and honest hand 
 
 Make your mark. 
 
 Should opponents hedge your way, 
 
 Make your mark, 
 Work by night or work by day, 
 
 Make your mark, 
 Struggle manfully and well, 
 
 Let no obstacles oppose, 
 None right-shielded ever fell 
 By the weapons of his foes, 
 
 Make your mark.
 
 184 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 What though born a peasant's son, 
 
 Make your mark, 
 Good by poor men can be done, 
 
 Make your mark. 
 
 Peasant's garbs may warm the cold, 
 Peasant's words may calm a fear, 
 Better far than hoarding gold 
 Is the drying of a tear, 
 
 Make your mark. 
 
 Life is fleeting as a shade, 
 
 Make your mark, 
 Marks of some kind must be made, 
 
 Make your mark, 
 Make it while the arm is strong, 
 In the golden hours of youth, 
 Never, never make it wrong, 
 
 Make it with the stamp of truth, 
 Make your mark.
 
 V 
 
 MAKY DEE. 185 
 
 MARY DEE. 
 
 'Tis well that poor old Mary Dee 
 
 Some little rest has found. 
 For she has washed full fifty years 
 
 For all the folks around. 
 
 Her soldier husband, "Billy Dee," 
 
 I told you once, you know. 
 Was captured on Death's skirmish line 
 
 Some sixty days ago. 
 
 In any hearing up above 
 
 I shall be glad to tell 
 This much, or more, of Mary Dee : 
 
 She did her washings well. 
 
 That by her mild, unlettered tongue, 
 
 No fuss was ever made. 
 That when she got her washings through, 
 
 She smoked, or sung, or prayed. 
 
 If Mary and poor Billy meet 
 Beyond Death's somber screen. 
 
 The first of Mary's care will be 
 That Billy's robe is clean.
 
 l86 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 MARY HALL. 
 
 My heart with grief is riven 
 When I think of Mary Hall, 
 
 Though she dwells in yonder heaven r 
 If there is a heaven at all ; 
 
 Yes, she died and went to heaven, 
 If there is a heaven at all. 
 
 The stars refused at night 
 To shine from out the skies, 
 
 When the mellow, liquid light 
 Floated forth from Mary's eyes ; 
 
 When she lived, such liquid light 
 Floated forth from Mary's eyes. 
 
 The modest flower and meek 
 Always felt ashamed to bloom, 
 
 For the tint on Mary's cheek 
 Ere we laid her in the tomb ; 
 
 Made the modest flower and meek 
 Always feel ashamed to bloom.
 
 MARY HALL. 
 
 The angels getting lonely 
 In their old and quiet home, 
 
 Sent a word to Alary, only. 
 Just for Mary Hall to come ; 
 
 The word was, "Mary, only, 
 None but Mary Hall to come." 
 
 The courier could not tarry 
 Only just to make a call. 
 
 So he threw a garb o'er Mary 
 'Twas a dark and funeral pall 
 
 And he fled to heaven with Mary, 
 If there is a heaven at all.
 
 v- * 
 
 l88 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 MUNCH AUSEN'S BUGLE. 
 
 Who has not heard of though by chance- 
 (Each dreamy lad and maiden) 
 
 The bugle, named in that romance. 
 Which old Munchausen played on ? 
 
 How once each soul-inspiring note. 
 
 Each tune so rare and chosen. 
 One day within its brazen throat 
 
 Became congealed and frozen. 
 
 Munchausen, then, with all his power. 
 
 The hidden cause not knowing, 
 Strove hard in vain for many an hour 
 
 To set those tunes agoing. 
 
 When quick each heart-inspiring note, 
 From tunes too thick to number, 
 
 Leaped from that bugle's brazen throat. 
 Woke from its frozen slumber.
 
 MUNCHAUSEN S BUGLE. 
 
 189 
 
 How many a true, kind heart to-day 
 Hath strains both rare and chosen, 
 
 That lie as old Munchausen's lay, 
 Congealed and chilled and frozen. 
 
 Hearts that in vain, with all their power. 
 
 The hidden cause not knowing, 
 Have strove through many a weary hour 
 
 To set those strains asfoinsr. 
 
 .
 
 190 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 MY CHILD'S ORIGIN. 
 
 One night as old Saint Peter slept, 
 He left the door of heaven ajar, 
 
 When through a little angel crept, 
 And came down with a falling star. 
 
 One summer as the blessed beams 
 
 Of morn approached, my blushing bride 
 
 Awakened from some pleasing dreams 
 And found that angel by her side. 
 
 God grant but this, I ask no more, 
 
 That when he leaves this world of sin, 
 
 He'll wing his way for that blest shore 
 And find that door of heaven again.
 
 \ 
 
 MY DREAM. 
 
 MY DREAM. 
 
 THE NIGHT AFTER RECKIVING A VALENTINE. 
 
 'Twas in the present month of February, 
 The day I have forgot, the hour was nine. 
 
 And 9 A. M., too, I am certain, very, 
 
 The Eastern stage brought me a Valentine. 
 
 The day before this I had opened many, 
 
 From "Cupid's Angel," "Ades," "Fides," "Ewer,' 
 
 But this I speak of came from "Glenwood Jenny," 
 Or "Jenny Glenwood" was her signature. 
 
 I am a bachelor and mean to die so, 
 
 And when you read these hasty scribblings o'er, 
 You'll find one reason why my lips should lie so 
 
 In swearing constancy to twelve or more. 
 
 The pugilist, who finds himself afalling, 
 
 Though not from fair, but from deceptive blows, 
 
 Should learn the trade before a second sprawling, 
 To deal false passes at his foeman's nose. 

 
 192 
 
 POEMS BY DAVIL) BARKER. 
 
 So in my early years the worst of treason. 
 From one i loved, taught me the knavish art, 
 
 (Why she was false I never asked a reason) 
 To make false passes at a woman's heart. 
 
 That night, and when the clock struck twelve, I think, 
 I went to bed the pattern of sobriety, 
 
 With all my faults I've never ta'en to drink 
 Since first I joined a Temperance Society. 
 
 But to the point : I say I went to bed, 
 
 This wandering trait has nearly proved my ruin, 
 
 I have some failings which Lord Byron had 
 When writing that immortal tale, Don Juan. 
 
 Those faults were, first, unpardonable digression, 
 A rhyming comet Byron seems to be ; 
 
 And next, a reckless manner of expression, 
 Which poet Holmes calls "groggy brilliancy." 
 
 I say I went to bed that night and dreamed 
 Of things in sea, in sky, and heaven many, 
 
 But from my dreamy mass of dreams there gleamed 
 One brightest dream which was my dream of Jenny. 
 
 I dreamed of longer stockings on my line, 
 
 I dreamed of Hymen's cords and Hymen's nets ; 
 
 I dreamed of ringlets locking in with mine, 
 And, strange to tell, I dreamed of pantalets.
 
 MY DREAM. 193 
 
 I own a trotting mare, both sleek and spry, 
 I dreamed I put her in my trotting carriage, 
 
 And went like blazing rocket through the sky 
 To offer Jane my heart and hand in marriage. 
 
 I dreamed we had not met and such the fact 
 And dreamed 'twas tough to make such quick proposal, 
 I dreamed I made it free from guile or tact, 
 And found her heart was at her own disposal. 
 
 I dreamed she was a finely chiselled Miss. 
 
 A fairy form, of every fault denuded, 
 I dreamed I then proposed a parting kiss 
 
 To bind the bargain we had just concluded. 
 
 I dreamed my offer she could not resist, 
 I thought the laws of physical attraction 
 
 Brought lips to lips when each the other kissed, 
 Until we kissed each other to distraction. 
 
 And when my brain grew frantic with my bliss, 
 
 And when my breast outheaved the foaming billow, 
 
 I found 'twas all a dream, and that my kiss 
 Had been implanted on my mother's pillow. 
 
 * 
 
 13
 
 /r 
 
 194 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 MY SISTER. 
 
 How calmly she sleeps in the grave, 
 
 Let her rest ; 
 How sadly the cypress trees wave 
 
 O'er her breast. 
 
 How anxiously gazed I with fear 
 
 At her bed ; 
 How startling the sound in my ear, 
 
 "She is dead !" 
 
 What a night brooded over that day, 
 
 What a gloom, 
 When bearing her slowly away 
 
 To the tomb. 
 
 Let me live as she lived, and die 
 
 As she died ; 
 Deny me not this, let me lie 
 
 At her side. 
 
 How sweetly we'll rest in the grave 
 
 When I die, 
 Though nought but the cypress trees wave 
 
 Where we lie.
 
 NEVER GET READY TO DIE. 195 
 
 NEVER GET READY TO DIE. 
 
 Up, up and give fight to the legions of wrong, 
 
 Give zealots and bigots the lie, 
 Who cantingly tell you, with faces so long, 
 
 That all should get ready to die. 
 
 This world is too full of your dying ones, now, 
 
 And we need in this terrible strife, 
 Not souls that are pining and fainting, I trow, 
 
 But souls that have vigor and life. 
 
 While one lift at humanity's wheels you can give, 
 Or one tear you can wipe from the eye, 
 
 Get ready, my brother, keep ready to live, 
 But never get ready to die.
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 NEVER MIND. 
 
 Should Misfortune dog your track 
 
 Never mind. 
 Make no rain-bow of the back, 
 
 Never mind. 
 Turn not to the left or right, 
 
 Quail not at a menaced blow, 
 Onward, upward in your might, 
 Shout this motto as you go : 
 
 'Never mind !" 
 
 Foes may frighten friends away, 
 
 Never mind. 
 Fear not what traducers say, 
 
 Never mind. 
 Single handed fight it through, 
 
 Trust not in the countless throng, 
 One a legion may subdue 
 
 With that legion in the wrong, 
 
 Never mind. 

 
 NEVER MIND. 197 
 
 Should you meet with pointless slurs. 
 
 Never mind. 
 Every fool by instinct errs, 
 
 Never mind. 
 Let spawns scribble if they will, 
 
 Man of nerve is never slain 
 By one's firing through a quill 
 "Paper bullets of the brain," 
 
 Never mind. 
 
 Each shall get just what he earns, 
 
 Never mind. 
 Roads are long which have no turns, 
 
 Never mind. 
 Yielding up the other cheek, 
 
 Dropping humbly on the knees, 
 Closing lips when dared to speak, 
 Will not do in times like these, 
 Never mind.
 
 
 198 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 OLD RUFUS RAY, 
 
 OR "WHEN THE PLACE WAS NEW. 
 
 Tn an ancient cottage yonder 
 
 Lives old Rufus Ray, 
 To that cottage oft I wander 
 
 At the close of day. 
 
 Like a fixture now he lingers 
 
 On his bed of pain, 
 Grief has filched with thievish fingers 
 
 Reason from his brain. 
 
 Passing brief the words he utters, 
 
 Senseless words, but few, 
 This, and only this he mutters : 
 
 "When the place was new." 
 
 Years agone he loved a maiden, 
 
 Blindly, fondly, true,- 
 But she died with sorrow laden 
 
 "When the place was new."
 
 OLD RUFUS RAY. 
 
 I 99 
 
 Grief then filched with thievish fingers 
 
 Reason from his brain, 
 Ever since this being lingers 
 
 On his bed of pain. 
 
 God restore that long-lost maiden 
 
 Wretched man, to you ; 
 Mav you meet at last in Aidenn 
 
 Where "the place is new." 
 
 In a lonely cottage yonder 
 
 Breathes one Rufus Ray, 
 To that cottage let us wander 
 
 At the close of day. 
 
 We shall find he ever utters 
 
 Senseless words, but few ; 
 This, and only this he mutters : 
 
 "When the place was new."
 
 2OO POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 ONLY SHE AND I. 
 
 Since our last, tho' rapturous meeting 
 
 Years have flitted by, 
 Yet I mind it, how we met there 
 
 Only she and I. 
 
 Quickly after that last meeting, 
 
 Life's embittered storm 
 Frightened out her trernbling spirit 
 
 From its fragile form. 
 
 'Tis no matter all no matter 
 
 In God's future years 
 We shall meet again together 
 
 Somewhere in the spheres. 
 
 When that meeting how that meeting, 
 
 Where, I cannot say 
 But I'm sure of such a meeting 
 
 At no distant day. 
 
 Yes, within some cozy corner 
 
 In the earth or sky, 
 We shall hold one blessed meeting 
 
 Only she and I.
 
 ONE WORLD AT A TIME. 2OI 
 
 ONE WORLD AT A TIME. 
 
 I doubt not that God has created some sphere, 
 
 Some region of exquisite bliss, 
 More glorious, by far, than we journey thro' here, 
 
 And free from the sorrows of this. 
 
 But mortals are dreaming, while plodding along, 
 Too much of that heavenly clime ; 
 
 They'd-better be singing this practical song 
 This motto : One world at a time. 
 
 To God, to yourself, to your fellow be just, 
 To the winds toss your creeds and your sects, 
 
 And, leaving this world with a confidence trust 
 To the chances that follow the next.
 
 V 
 
 2O2 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 PIOUS LIKE HELL." 
 
 A few years since a powerful revival of religon was witnessed at Oldtown, 
 Maine. Among the hopeful converts was an Indian of the Penobscot tribe 
 who, soon after his conversion, attended a prayer-meeting and was called upon 
 to "tell his experience," Not exactly understanding the construction of the 
 King's English, Peol expressed himself as follows : "Oh glory : me feel pious 
 like hell." That incident suggests the following stanzas : 
 
 The hand of religion is potent to save, 
 
 Its value no mortal can prize, 
 It leads us in safety clear down to the grave, 
 
 Then gives us a pass to the skies. 
 But since the grand choice in the garden was given, 
 
 Since Adam from Paradise fell, 
 Full many are found to be pious like heaven, 
 
 "While many are pious like hell." 
 
 I once was an orphan boy, mortgaged and leased, 
 
 And served without hope of a fee, 
 For one who was lending the Lord what she fleeced 
 
 From the girl in the kitchen and me. 
 'Twas a day or two since that I gazed on the face 
 
 Of her, the once mademoiselle, 
 And thought, tho' she bragged of abounding in grace, 
 
 Of Peol, and "pious like hell."
 
 
 PIOUS LIKE HELL. 
 
 203 
 
 But tares in the wheat nor the counterfeit coin 
 
 Should rob us no night of our rest, 
 Let this be our motto while journeying on : 
 
 God orders all things for the best. 
 And mind it, no knowledge to mortal is given 
 
 By which that frail mortal can tell, 
 Except by the fruits, who is pious like heaven, 
 
 Or Peol-like, '-pious like hell."
 
 204 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 PRAYERS AND KISSES. 
 
 This morn I saw a stern man kneel 
 
 One of the holy order 
 He had a white robe round him wrapped, 
 
 With black upon its border. 
 
 Just at my front a roguish boy 
 
 Sat there, among the many. 
 With laughing eyes, whose name I learned 
 
 Was little Murray Dana. 
 
 And, at my left, a cherub girl 
 Wore smiles as thick as spatter, 
 
 While little Murray, now and then, 
 Was throwing kisses at her. 
 
 Pray on, stern man God give you light 
 
 To you the task is given 
 To guide our stumbling feet aright 
 
 And lead the way to heaven. 
 
 And you, my boy, keep at your task 
 
 Till death's cold chains have bound you, 
 
 With laughing eyes and merry heart 
 Throw kisses all around you. 
 
 For, 'mid the throng, that, at the last, 
 
 The gate of glory misses, 
 Some may be found upon their knees 
 
 As well as throwing kisses.
 
 STOP THIEF. 
 
 STOP THIEF. 
 
 Not only him who gets by stealth 
 
 From banker's safe and tradesman's shop, 
 
 A fraction of his neighbor's wealth, 
 For there are other thieves to stop. 
 Stop Thief! 
 
 He is a thief who holds the cup 
 
 To other's lips for paltry gain, 
 Who eats a brother's life-blood up, 
 
 And filches reason from his brain. 
 Stop Thief! 
 
 He is a thief whose robber trade 
 Is in the rights our fathers gave, 
 
 Whose gold is coined, whose bread is made 
 From sundered heart-strings of the Slave. 
 Stop Thief! 
 
 He is a thief, the pampered priest, 
 
 Who with God's chart and compass stands, 
 
 But runs your freighted bark at last 
 On moral rocks or moral sands. 
 
 Stop Thief! 
 
 He is the prince of thieves among, 
 And needs in hell the hottest flame, 
 
 Whose lying lips and slanderous tongue 
 Can rob another of a name. 
 
 Stop Thief!
 
 206 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 ' 
 
 THE BEVELLED GRINDSTONE. 
 
 Some thirty years ago, or so, 
 When I lived with my mother, 
 
 I knew a man whose name was Joe, 
 And Simon, his half brother. 
 
 Now Simon was a whole-soul man, 
 
 Though often getting mellow ; 
 But Joe was made on a different plan 
 
 A most penurious fellow. 
 
 This Joe for so the neighbors say 
 
 Told Simon, his half brother, 
 He thought it might be made to pay 
 
 To run a grindstone together. 
 
 They bought the stone, when Joe, you know, 
 
 Just ground it to a bevel ; 
 For, as I said before, this Joe 
 
 Was meaner than the devil.
 
 
 THE BEVELLED GRINDSTONE. 
 
 207 
 
 He gave the left side of the stone 
 
 To Simon, his half brother, 
 And run the right-hand side alone. 
 
 While Simon run the other. 
 
 When neighbors came to grind now mind, 
 
 And Joe the mean one finding 
 They had no coin to pay they say 
 He gave them Simon's side to grind, 
 Who charged no fee for grinding. 
 
 As time rolled on, they say, one day 
 
 That Joe came in a frothing ; 
 For, grinding on the other side, 
 Old Simon's bevel side grew wide, 
 
 While Joe's run off to nothing. 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 I sing to each earth-child around. 
 
 To each whose "head is level :" 
 When piled beneath that six-foot mound, 
 
 If not before, you'll surely find 
 ' Tis just as well to let folks grind 
 
 Upon your side the bevel.
 
 2O8 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE BLIND GATEMAN. 
 
 1 claim the legal right to boast. 
 
 For sure I felt a pride 
 When I, with learn'd Judge Appleton 
 
 Close seated at my side 
 To-day, around your city walls 
 
 Was taking such a ride. 
 
 Around your classic Lover's-leap, 
 
 And famous old High-head, 
 Around Mount Hope, where many a tear 
 
 Has crystalized the dead, 
 My steed, held firm by bit and rein,, 
 
 With willing footsteps fled 
 
 Around full many a beetling crag, 
 
 So threatening and bold, 
 And many a weird and shattered home 
 
 Reared in the days of old, 
 And. many a towering, lordly roof 
 
 That hints of treasured gold.
 
 xf 
 
 THE BLIND GATEMAN. 209 
 
 At last that steed with hurrying hoof 
 
 Took Judge and poet o'er, 
 And halted with a conscious look 
 
 At Penury's cold door 
 Those arid lands where city chiefs 
 
 Have garnered up their poor. 
 
 One thing I swear by every saint 
 
 Who dwells above the skies 
 Believe me, now, the thing is true, 
 
 We found, to our surprise, 
 That he who swung the gate was blind. 
 
 Because he had no eyes ! 
 
 They say for years that man has stood 
 
 Within that self-same place, 
 And swung that ponderous pauper gate 
 
 With the same measured pace, 
 And gazed with that strange, blinded stare, 
 
 Into each passer's face. 
 
 I trust that at the pearly gate 
 
 The Judge and I shall find 
 The gateman there who lets us in, 
 
 Like Paul Demeritt blind 
 For sight might magnify some sin 
 
 And make him change his mind ! 
 
 * '^ 
 
 14
 
 210 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE BRADBURY BOYS. 
 
 I know how people talk and feel 
 
 About this noise and fuss, 
 This meeting here to-day between 
 
 The Bradbury boys and us. 
 
 How time whirls on, in figuring up 
 
 We find this fact appears : 
 Since last we met these Bradbury boys 
 
 'Tis more than fifty years. 
 
 Perhaps you know these Bradbury boys, 
 
 If not, you ought to know ; 
 This tall, gray fellow here is Cale. 
 
 And then come Ase and Joe. 
 
 These other fellows lubbering round 
 
 Are all our boys, you see ; 
 Here's Noah and Nat. and Dan. and Mark, 
 
 And also Lew. and me.
 
 THE BRADBURY BOYS. 
 
 21 I 
 
 These Bradbury boys one left his law, 
 And one his grapes and corn, 
 
 And traveled near a thousand miles 
 To find where they were born. 
 
 Look ! here's where old Joe Bradbury lived, 
 
 The place that Bradbury tilled, 
 And there's the chopping father cleared 
 
 The year that he was killed. 
 
 And there's where Thomas Townsend "dwelt, 
 
 Where, on his leathern seat, 
 He took those measures year by year 
 
 For our tired, pattering feet. 
 
 Those feet have trod some slippery paths 
 
 Since death one day so grim 
 Took Townsend from his kit of tools, 
 
 And then his breath from him. 
 
 That broken clam-shell skimmer there. 
 This moment found by Joe, 
 
 His mother used for skimming milk 
 Some sixty years ago.
 
 212 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Poor Joe but then my muse can wait 
 
 Until your cheeks are dry, 
 Some think that nought but loss of fees 
 
 Can make a lawyer cry. 
 
 That wall hold on Nat's pigs are out 
 
 Good gracious what a fuss 
 'Mid pigs and tears to rhyme about 
 
 The Bradbury boys and us. 
 
 Don't ask that thought has bothered me ; 
 This ho-ja and -where and when 
 
 We six shall meet and recognize 
 Those Bradbury boys again. 
 
 Friends of life's early youth accept 
 
 This humble gift of mine, 
 A wreath wrought with a hurried hand 
 
 Around this pilgrim shrine. 
 
 However faint a fickle faith 
 
 Some future bliss insures, 
 Amid each agony of doubt 
 
 One present bliss is yours 
 
 If you will bear to western homes 
 Old memories fraught with joy, 
 
 As ^Eneas bore Anchises through 
 The burning gates of Troy. 
 
 %
 
 V 
 
 THE BLADE OF CORN. 213 
 
 THE BLADE OF CORN. 
 
 Died at Kxeter, on the 10th of June, 1852. Elizabeth Ellen, daughter of Al 
 bert and Julia Morrison, aged 4 years and 10 months. This beautiful and prom 
 laing child had, just before her last sicknesb, planted a kernel of corn at her fath- 
 er's door, and a day or two before her confinement to a sick room its tiny blade 
 appeared above the surface of the earth. A short time before her death she re 
 quested her mother to watch her "blade of corn" until she recovered. That ten - 
 der plant was her only idol at the time. 
 
 Yes, loved one, hush those childish fears. 
 
 And bid thy care begone. 
 And dry thy flowing, artless tears 
 
 About thy "blade of corn." 
 
 For at the hour of parting dav. 
 
 And at the break of morn, 
 A mother's feet shall feebly stray 
 
 Around thy "blade of corn" 
 
 To see the tender plant shoot forth 
 That priceless "blade of corn," 
 
 To watch its slow but steady growth, 
 When thou. my child, art gone. 
 
 That "blade" 's an emblem of thv form, 
 
 Both fleeting as our breath ; 
 At night comes frost and gathering storm. 
 
 At morn both sleep in death. 
 
 I
 
 214 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE DOVE. 
 
 I pined for something pure to love, 
 The angels caught my wish on high. 
 And sent me from the azure sky 
 
 A pure and spotless dove. 
 
 The angels knew its tender age 
 To shield it well from earthly harms 
 They sent it trembling to my arms 
 
 Within a tiny cage. 
 
 One day my dove while dreaming o'er, 
 A wintry blast came in its rage, 
 And beat upon that tiny cage 
 
 And battered down its door. 
 
 The dove, despite its tender age. 
 
 Flew out and sought its native sky 
 It knew no other place to flv 
 
 And left me with its cage. 
 
 But.,oft from out that azure sky 
 My angel gift comes back to coo, 
 As though it fondly tried to woo 
 
 Me to its nest on high.
 
 V 
 
 THK FOOLS AIN'T ALL DEAD. 215 
 
 'THE FOOLS AIN'T ALL DEAD." 
 
 "The fools ain't all dead" is a maxim that's sounded 
 From grog-shop and stable, from tavern and shed. 
 
 And truthfuller adage .was never propounded 
 
 Than this modern proverb, "the fools ain't all dead. 
 
 While Virtue, in tatters, is shunned and neglected, 
 And wanders an outcast, forlorn and distressed, 
 
 While Vice, in its tinsel, is wooed and respected, 
 Invited and flattered, esteemed and caressed ; 
 
 While Quackery the practice of Science is aping, 
 Though Science goes hungry while Quackery is fed. 
 
 While hundreds and thousands are greedily gaping 
 To swallow a humbug, "the fools ain't all dead." 
 
 While kinsman with kinsman, or neighbor with neighbor, 
 
 For merest of trifles will madly dispute, 
 And squander the proceeds of twenty years' labor 
 
 To settle the quarrel by reference or suit :
 
 2l6 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 While printers depend for their bread on their patrons ; 
 
 While ballots are sold for a demagogue's bow ; 
 While damsels, despite of advice from the matrons. 
 
 Will barter their all for a libertine's vow : " 
 
 While striplings imagine that leaving the tillage. 
 Where Nature designed them as fixtures for life. 
 
 And flocking, unposted, to city or village 
 Imbued with the notions of Potiphar's wife ; 
 
 That they, by a system of swelling and blowing. 
 
 And long ere the hay-chaff' has worked from the head, 
 Can fix the impression they're fellows worth knowing, 
 
 'Tis fair to presume that "the fools ain't all dead." 
 
 When Churchmen will argue that every true preacher 
 Should pound out his sermons by stamping and blows ; 
 
 That learning disqualifies man for a teacher, 
 
 And gospel 's not pure till it twangs through the nose ; 
 
 While women conjecture that novels before them 
 Will stamp them forever as ladies of taste. 
 
 That man cannot fail to admire and adore them 
 For smallness of feet and for hornet^like waist :
 
 XT 
 
 THE FOOLS AIN'T ALL DEAD. 21 f 
 
 While fops are esteemed for the starch in the collar, 
 And bear's oil 's preferred to the brains in the head ; 
 
 While merit's outweighed by the "almighty dollar," 
 'Tis plain to be seen that the "fools ain't all dead." 
 
 "The fools ain't all dead,'' and my readers will know it, 
 For he who can hope to win glory or bread 
 
 By leaving his law-books and turning to poet 
 Illustrates the fact that the "fools ain't all dead."
 
 2l8 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE HUNCHBACK BOY. 
 
 While some are singing their songs of grief, 
 
 And others their songs of joy, 
 I will tune my harp for a different strain, 
 
 And will sing of a hunchback boy. 
 
 They say that his mother now sleeps in her grave. 
 
 And his father is helpless, too, 
 From wounds dealt out by a rebel horde 
 
 Because he was dressed in blue. 
 
 And now that his father is scarred ami poor. 
 
 And now that his mother is dead, 
 This hunchback boy with his feeble form 
 
 Toils on for his scanty bread. 
 
 In a few brief years my name may die 
 When my heart and my brain are cold, 
 
 And the weary hand that writes these lines 
 Is wrapped in the church-yard's mould. 
 
 But then, through the long and the distant years, 
 
 If the world to itself be true, 
 'Twill remember the name of the hunchback boy 
 
 And the father who's dressed in blue.
 
 
 THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 
 
 "Behold! we know not anything." 
 
 TENNYSOM. 
 
 This world is full of Know-Nothings, 
 The cruising sage o'er Wisdom's sea 
 
 Returns at length and only brings 
 The tidings of uncertainty, 
 
 We do not know. 
 
 Is there a rose for every thorn ? 
 
 Is there a hope for every fear? 
 Shall every night give birth to morn ? 
 
 Is there a smile for every tear? 
 
 We do not know. 
 
 Shall we not meet some future hour 
 
 A court where wrongs may be redressed 
 
 Or shall we find no higher power 
 Than that we feel within the breast? 
 We do not know. 
 
 THE KNOW-NOTHINGS. 2 19
 
 22O POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 What is the punishment for sin? 
 
 The recompense for moral worth ? 
 Where does that punishment begin ? 
 
 And is that recompense from earth ? 
 We do not know. 
 
 Is there a light above this gloom? 
 
 Is there a choice of weal or w oe ? 
 A consciousness beyond the tomb? . 
 
 A life beyond this life we know? 
 
 We do not know. 
 
 Is there a world of quenchless flame? 
 
 Another, too, of ceaseless bliss? 
 Can any prayer the lips may frame 
 
 Affect that life which follows this? 
 
 We do not know. 
 
 From killing fears is there no arm 
 To lead our fainting spirits out ; 
 
 Is there in Gilead no balm 
 
 To soothe the agonies of doubt? 
 
 We do not know. 
 
 When doubts and fears around us throng, 
 And when in blackest night we grope, 
 
 Oh ! what could urge our feet along 
 
 Except the pledge of Faith and Hope ? 
 We do not know.
 
 >T 
 
 THE LADIES MAN. 221 
 
 THE "LADIES' MAN." 
 
 Who is a '"Ladies' Man?" not he, 
 The "dem foine," art-begotten fop 
 
 Who lives through life a devotee 
 To dancing hall and tailor's shop ; 
 
 Who lacks for ballast, not for sail. 
 
 Whose beard around the place he chews 
 
 Is like a kink on Puppy's tail, 
 For ornament and not for use. 
 
 He cannot be a "Ladies' Man," 
 
 Who dreams that for a world of gold 
 
 The love of woman can be won, 
 Or virtue can be bought and sold. 
 
 Not he a "Ladies' Man," I ween, 
 Who dares assert or dares expect 
 
 That trappings can be made to screen 
 The poverty of intellect. 
 
 %
 
 
 XT 
 
 222 POEMS BY DAVID BARKKR. 
 
 He is of "Ladies' Man" the kind 
 
 Who lives to learn and learns to prize 
 
 The sterling brilliancy of mind 
 Beyond the brilliancy of eyes ; 
 
 Who feels that purity and love. 
 
 That native modesty arid taste. 
 Are gems which man should hold above 
 
 The small circumference of a waist. 
 
 Who knows that all the toys of earth, 
 The pride of rank and power of might 
 
 Are always tipped by moral worth 
 
 When weighed upon the scales of right. 
 
 He is a "Ladies' Man" the best 
 
 Who, though he toils at sledge or cart, 
 
 Has got a something in his breast 
 The dictionary calls a heart.
 
 
 
 THE POET S INVITATION. 
 
 223 
 
 7 
 
 THE POET'S INVITATION. 
 
 If I have found upon this mortal plain 
 
 One whose full heart to mine an echo gives : 
 Who notes my hope, my fear, my bliss, my pain. 
 Come where a poet lives. 
 
 Not to my walls where justice blushes decked 
 
 With legal quibbles and the foolish flaw, 
 Where the best gushings of the soul are wrecked 
 
 Among the mists of law ; 
 Not to my curtained room, so primly cold, 
 Filled with formalities so dull and drear. 
 Whose latticed^bars to chase away the mould 
 Are opened once a year ; 
 
 Not to my room where the grim miser's chest 
 
 Sends forth its creakings from its iron lid 
 To tell some heir, when life escapes my breast, 
 
 Where ghostly gains are hid ; 
 But come where my best treasures caper round 
 
 Upon the worn and on the dented floor, 
 Where blessed, tiny hand-prints may be found 
 Upon the cupboard door ; 
 
 Come to my home, where every trifle tells. 
 
 In summing up the ills and joys of life, 
 Not to the home where my dear lady dwells. 
 But where I keep my wife. 

 
 % 
 
 224 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BAKKEK. 
 
 THE POOR WOOD-HAULER. 
 
 Do you think of the forty years ago, 
 
 When you and I were smaller, 
 And the cold, dead man that was found in the snow 
 
 Whom we'll call the poor wood-hauler? 
 
 With a manly heart he was bartering wood 
 From the home where love had bound him 
 
 To deal with an honest hand the food 
 To the flock that cuddled 'round him. 
 
 When that star!' we leaned upon was broke 
 
 Tn that awful hour, my brother. 
 We had nothing left to lean upon 
 
 But God and a Roman mother. 
 
 But that mother's form is trembling now. 
 Though her spirit is strong as ever, 
 
 And is tottering down with a feeble step 
 To the brink of a stormy river. 
 
 Hark ! I hear a voice o'er the river's roar, 
 
 'Tis a voice that seems to call her, 
 And it comes from that man on the misty shore, 
 
 Oh ! I see 'tis the poor wood-hauler.
 
 THE PROFLIGATE SON TO HIS DYING MOTHER. 225 
 
 THE PROFLIGATE SON TO HIS DYING 
 MOTHER. 
 
 I've lingered near your couch, mother, 
 And watched your waning breath, 
 
 And struggled with a giant's strength 
 To stay the hand of death. 
 
 I find such efforts vain, mother, 
 And now since we must part, 
 
 One moment listen to the words 
 That burn within my heart. 
 
 While gazing on your brow, mother, 
 
 With bitter, burning tears, 
 A living record of the past, 
 
 A journal of the years, 
 
 Which I have bartered off, mother, 
 
 For vanity and vice, 
 By unseen hands is opened wide 
 
 Before my startled eyes.
 
 226 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Within that frightful book, mother, 
 But one bright page I see 
 
 A record made by angel's pen 
 Of early infancy. 
 
 I'll read no other page, mother, 
 'Twill make you sad and wild 
 
 To hear upon those sybil leaves 
 The history of your child. 
 
 I've passed a wretched life, mother, 
 
 The furrows on my cheek 
 Of murdered hours and wicked deeds 
 
 In fearful accents speak. 
 
 But you are not in fault, mother, 
 
 Tour duty has been done, 
 I mind the prayers you breathed to heaven 
 
 To save your erring son. 
 
 Those prayers were not in vain, mother, 
 
 For hei'e beside you now, 
 I humbly kneel before my God 
 
 And offer up a vow : 
 
 If he will hear my prayer, mother, 
 
 And speak my sins forgiven, 
 My feet shall ever keep the path 
 , Which leads to you in heaven.
 
 
 THE SONG OF THE OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. 227 
 
 THE SONG OF THE OLD BOYS AND GIRLS.* 
 
 We have met though some bring their tottering forms, 
 
 While others are hale and hearty, 
 We have met here to-day we boys and girls 
 
 We have come to another ''party ." 
 
 We were here in the ancient "Blaisdell totun" 
 We were here with the "first beginner " 
 
 When the owl felt at home from the Corinth line 
 To the line of the now Corinna. 
 
 We were here when they built up the Stevens Mills, 
 
 And long before Stevens run 'em, 
 When the mill-crank came on the old horse, "Tib" 
 
 That was straddled by Thomas Dunham. 
 
 c 
 
 When the good old dame at the old Hatch house 
 Sold the teamsters tea with their victuals, 
 
 When a part of our rum came from "Taylor's store," 
 And a part came from "Case & Little's." 
 
 I
 
 228 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 When we all drank out the same brown jug, 
 When our fish came so cheap by the "kentle" 
 
 When the spare-rib broiled on the tough tow string 
 That was hung to the long stone mantle. 
 
 Though too old for the "jig" and the "pigeon's wing, 
 And too old for the "busk" and the "ruffle" 
 
 We are good for the "reel" and the "blind-man's 
 And are good for the "double shuffle. 
 
 Though the outer boy and the girl have failed, 
 
 Yet our spirits shall falter never ; 
 For the inner boy and the inner girl 
 
 Are as young and as fresh as ever. 
 
 Though the hill we are tottering down is steep, 
 
 And the weather now looks uncertain, 
 We are peeping o'er to a better shore 
 
 Through a rent in a sable curtain. 
 
 *The following citizens of Exeter, who were among the first settlers of the 
 town, dined at Mr. Thomas J. Hill's, March 4, 1864 : 
 
 Eben Towlc, aged 87 
 
 Mrs. Eben Towle, 
 MjTS. Sam'l Brown, 
 Asa Shaw, 
 Mrs Asa Shaw, 
 Josiah Barker, 
 Mrs. Joaiah Barker, 
 Mrs. Nath. Barker, 
 
 79 
 83 
 79 
 70 
 85 
 73 
 74 
 
 Total. 630
 
 THE TWO PRISONERS. 229 
 
 THE TWO PRISONERS. 
 
 I've somewhere read, or heard, or dreamed, 
 
 And which I cannot say, 
 Of a strange custom practiced long 
 
 By the famed Seneca : 
 
 Whene'er a tender maiden dies, 
 
 A mourner quickly brings 
 A captured hird to keep encaged 
 
 Till some sweet song he sings ; 
 
 When the chained bird with dulcet tone, 
 
 Borne by some warrior brave, 
 Is loosed with many a fond caress 
 
 Above the maiden's grave, 
 
 And charged with many a message there, 
 
 From the rude savage band, 
 To bear on swiftest wing to her 
 
 In the bright spirit land. 
 
 Perchance my chafing, struggling soul, 
 
 Imprisoned close and long, 
 Is kept within these earthly walls 
 
 To test its power of song. 
 
 And soon, like the caged Indian bird 
 
 Let loose, will carry o'er 
 Some message to the loved who dwell 
 
 Upon God's shining shore.
 
 230 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE UNFINISHED TASK. 
 
 I have stood by the unmarked, lowly tomb 
 Of the blacksmith, Hiram Staples, 
 Who was made a corse 
 When shoeing a horse 
 
 The old man Vulcan Staples. 
 I have stood 'mid the gloom 
 Of a Virgil's tomb 
 
 In the famous land of Naples. 
 And the dirt was the same 
 That covered the frame 
 
 Of the old man Hiram Staples, 
 As the dirt that I found 
 On the poet's mound 
 
 In the classic land of Naples. 
 One went 'neath the sod, 
 Ere the horse was shod, 
 
 To the home of the Virgin Mary, 
 And the other went there, 
 'Mid his dreams so rare 
 
 On his visit to Megara. 
 
 I was sorry that either went under the sod, 
 Ere the rhymes were finished or the horse was shod, 
 But we all pass off with a task undone, 
 Sudden and silent, and one by one. 
 
 Like the old man, Hiram Staples, 
 Or the bard who died 
 'Mid his fame and pride, 
 
 In the beauteous land of Naples. 
 But the work that we leave unfinished here 
 We will finish all up in another sphere.
 
 1L 
 
 THE TEACHINGS OF PHILOSOPHY. 23! 
 
 THE TEACHINGS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 What matters where the bar may be 
 To which our world is cited? 
 
 Though here or in eternity 
 
 Each wrong must yet be righted; 
 
 No drop of blood was ever spilt 
 
 That washes out another's guilt. 
 
 There is no bankrupt-law for sin, 
 Though heretics may teach it, 
 
 No limitation act steps in, 
 
 Though Paul himself might preach it; 
 
 For ages, though the time 's delayed, 
 
 Each moral debt must once be paid. 
 
 The felon tried and doomed to die, 
 Might shuffle oft" his sentence, 
 
 And claim the largest liberty 
 By pleading true repentance ; 
 
 And good that plea and righteous, even, 
 
 If sin could ever be forgiven. 
 
 -When life has closed, whoever gains 
 The station God assigned him, 
 
 And pays his debt and breaks the chains 
 Which Sin has forged to bind him, 
 
 Is fitted for the bliss of heaven, 
 
 And never needs to be forgiven.
 
 232 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TO "LEATHER FRENCH."* 
 
 You have haunted the dreams of my sleep, 
 
 Leather French, 
 
 You have troubled me often and long, 
 And so now to give rest to the waves of my soul 
 
 Leather French, let me sing you a song. 
 
 I suppose that the cold world may sneer, 
 
 Leather French, 
 
 For they've done it too often before, 
 When the innermost spirit has snatched up its harp 
 
 Just to sing o'er the grave of the poor. 
 
 Never mind, let them laugh, let them sneer, 
 
 Leather French, 
 
 We will not be disturbed by them long, 
 For we'll step out aside from the battle of life 
 
 While I question and sing you my song. 
 
 You were poor when you lived here below, 
 
 Leather French, 
 
 And you suffered from hunger and cold, 
 And 'twas well you escaped from the storm and the blast 
 
 At the time you grew weary and old.
 
 TO LEATHER FRENCH. 233 
 
 Has that old leather garb that you wore, 
 
 Leather French, 
 
 That you wore in the days long ago, 
 Been exchanged for the robe that you named in your 
 
 prayer, 
 For a robe that is whiter than snow? 
 
 And that dreary old hut where you dwelt, 
 
 Leather French, 
 
 That old hut on the hurricane lands, 
 Was it bartered by you at the passes of death 
 
 For a house not erected with hands?. 
 
 When the toys that I love become stale, 
 
 Leather French, 
 
 And my life's fitful fever has passed, 
 Shall I safely cross over the Jordan of death. 
 
 Shall I meet you in heaven at last? 
 
 Tell me true tell me all tell me now 
 
 Leather French. 
 
 For the tale you can tell me is worth 
 More to me than the wisdom, the pleasures, the fame 
 
 'And the riches and honors of earth. 
 
 Shall I meet no response to my call, 
 
 Leather French, 
 
 Tell me quick, for I cannot wait long, 
 For I'm summoned again to the battle of life 
 
 Leather French I have finished my song. 
 
 *Stephen Y. French, a well known hermit, called "Leather French," died at 
 the alrnshouse in Exeter, Me., March 8, 1838, aged about 80 years.
 
 234 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD AND THE LAMB. 
 
 In the Scottish hills as a shepherd strolled 
 
 On an eve, with his ancient crook, 
 He found a lamb that was chilled and young 
 
 By the side of a purling brook. 
 
 And through fear that the lamb might sicken and die, 
 
 Fi-om its mother's side might roam. 
 He carried it up with a tender care 
 
 To a fold in his Highland home. 
 
 'Mid the dreary night, o'er the cragged peaks, 
 Through the winds and the storms and the cold, 
 
 The mother followed her captured lamb 
 To the door of the shepherd's fold. 
 
 Once we had a lamb by its mother's side, 
 
 It was artless and pure and mild, 
 'Twas the dearest lamb in my precious flock, 
 
 Oh, the pale, little blue-eyed child. 
 
 But a shepherd came when the sun grew low, 
 
 By a path that has long been trod, 
 And he carried our lamb through the mists of night 
 
 To his fold in the mount of God. 
 
 With a teajful eye and a bleeding heart 
 
 We must bear it and struggle on, 
 And climb that mount by the shepherd's track 
 
 To the fold where our lamb has gone.
 
 A 
 
 THE UNDER DOG IN THE FIGHT. 235 
 
 THE UNDER DOG IN THE FIGHT. 
 
 I know that the world that the great big world 
 
 From the peasant up to the king, 
 Has a different tale from the tale I tell, 
 
 And a different song to sing. 
 
 But for me, and I care not a single fig 
 
 If they say I am wrong or am right, 
 I shall always go in for the weaker dog, 
 
 For the under dog in the fight. 
 
 I know that the world that the great big'world 
 , Will never a moment stop 
 To see which dog may be in the fault, 
 But will shout for the dog on top. 
 
 But for me, I never shall pause to ask 
 
 Which dog may be in the right, 
 For my heart will beat, while it beats at all, 
 
 For the under dog in the fight. 
 
 Perchance what I've said, I had better not said, 
 Or, 'twere better I had said it incog., 
 
 But with heart and with glass filled chock to the brim, 
 Here is luck to the bottom dog. 
 
 V
 
 236 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TO "MOLL MOLASSES."* 
 
 You say, through joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, 
 The Spirit Power the Wise and Blessed Giver 
 
 Has lengthened out your life a hundred years 
 Upon the banks of old Penobscot river. 
 
 . 
 
 You say in childhood's hours you used to trudge 
 Around the "Point" full many years before a 
 
 Good title came to crazy, rhyming Budge 
 A name to live in song if not in story. 
 
 You say your maiden feet once used to range 
 
 Around your cabin, which you tell me stood hard 
 
 Upon the spot where stands the old ^Exchange" 
 A noted tavern kept by Abram Woodard. 
 
 You say, long moons ago, your sanup found 
 That hunting with the pale face was a burden, 
 
 And so he left this lower hunting ground 
 And found a better on the banks of Jordan
 
 
 TO MOLL MOLASSES. 237 
 
 Look, Moll ! your sanup's coming o'er the tide 
 I see him from his light canoe a landing 
 
 I see him now a hurrying to your side 
 I see him in our very presence standing. 
 
 He says, " Tell Moll, my wigwam in the wood 
 
 For her and our pappooses ready ever, 
 Tell Moll her sanup feel so very good 
 
 When they leave earth and paddle 'cross the river " 
 
 I write these rhymes, poor Moll, for you to sell 
 Go sell them quick to any saint or sinner 
 
 But not to save one soul from heaven or hell, 
 But just to buy your weary form a dinner. 
 
 We may not meet again upon life's shore, 
 But when my spirit over Jordan passes, 
 
 I'll merely look for one that's gone before, 
 
 And then will look for you old ' Moll Molasses" 
 
 *A well-known Squaw of the Penobscot tribe.
 
 238 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TO S. C. WHO SENT ME A WITHERED LEAF. 
 
 Take back your leaf again, 
 Why make the tear-drops start? 
 
 Why plant this weary pain 
 Like daggers in my heart? 
 
 Take back your leaf again, 
 Why drain my drop of bliss? 
 
 Why madden up my brain 
 With such a type as this? 
 
 I knew our joys had fled, 
 I knew your faith was brief, 
 
 I knew my love was dead, 
 Dead like this withered leaf. 
 
 Why haunt me with that vow 
 My fickle lips have spoke? 
 
 Why kill my spirit now 
 
 Because one oath was broke? 
 
 That leaf I now return, 
 A useful gift the last 
 
 Girl, take the leaf and learn 
 One lesson from the past. 
 
 %
 
 TO SUE. 239 
 
 TO "SUE." 
 
 If girls like a girl I am dreaming of, Sue, 
 
 For ages to man could be given, 
 I think 'twas a wasting of timber, don't you 
 
 In building that fabric named heaven? 
 
 But life's so uncertain to creatures below, - 
 (At least to all creatures called human) 
 
 That oft I am tempted to lecture and show 
 'Twill not pay to Chase for a woman. 
 
 To-day a young angel in wedlock is bound, 
 A creature outpricing the diamond 
 
 To-morrow old Time with his scythe lurks around 
 And sunders the heart-strings of Hymen. 
 
 But off with this moaning and groaning, dear Sue, 
 And off with this sighing and crying 
 
 If fevers, half conquered, attack us anew, 
 We'll bargain and hazard this dying.
 
 240 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TRY AGAIN. 
 
 Should your cherished purpose fail, 
 Try again, 
 Never falter, never quail, 
 
 Try again. 
 Nerve the arm and raise the hand, 
 
 Fling the outer garments by, 
 
 With a dauntless courage stand 
 
 Shouting forth the battle-cry, 
 
 Try again. 
 
 Is your spirit bowed by grief? 
 
 Try again, 
 Rally quick for life is brief, 
 
 Try again ; 
 Every saint in yonder sphere, 
 
 Borne through tribulation there, 
 Whispers in the anxious ear 
 Of each mortal in despair, 
 
 Try again.
 
 TRY AGAIN. 
 
 What though stricken to the earth, 
 Try again, 
 Up, as from a second birth, 
 
 Try again. 
 Yonder flower beneath the tread, 
 
 Struggling when the foot has gone. 
 Rising feebly in its bed 
 
 Tells the hopeless looker-on, 
 
 Try again. 
 
 Guided by the hand of Right, 
 
 Try again, 
 With Hope's taper for a light, 
 
 Try again. 
 With a destiny like ours, 
 
 And that destiny to choose, 
 With such God-created powers, 
 And a heaven to gain or lose, 
 
 Try again. 
 
 2 4 I 
 
 I 
 
 18
 
 V 
 
 242 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 WHAT OF THAT. 
 
 < 
 
 Is your life a life of care? 
 
 What of that ! 
 Toiling ever though you are, 
 
 What of that ! 
 Since the moment of the fall 
 
 Want by Labor has been fed, 
 And a man to breathe at all 
 
 Should exchange his sweat for bread, 
 What of that ! 
 
 1 
 
 Is old Slander on your track ? 
 
 W T hat of that ! 
 Slyly prating at your back ? 
 
 What of that ! 
 Let no slander shake the nerve, 
 
 Straight and forward on your way, 
 Never for a moment swerve, 
 Only turn around to say, 
 
 What of that !
 
 WHAT OF THAT. 243 
 
 Jealous Envy do you spy ? 
 
 What of that! 
 Envy with a jaundiced eye ? 
 
 What of that ! 
 Mind it she's too far below 
 
 Like a viper robbed of sting 
 Rising ever as you go, 
 If she hisses calmly sing, 
 
 What of that ! 
 
 Is the crowd around you wrong ? 
 
 What of that ! 
 Are you jostled by the strong? 
 
 What of that ! 
 Time will straighten matters right 
 
 Better far than mortals can, 
 Truth has often crouched to Might 
 Ever since the world began, 
 
 What of that! 
 
 r
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Birthplace of Barkers. 
 
 WHERE THE OLD FOLKS LIVED AND DIED. 
 
 I never shall tell who the old folks were, 
 
 'Tis a wasting of time and breath 
 To give you the names of the humble pair 
 
 Who have passed through the courts of death. 
 
 But the cot on the lot on the top of the hill, 
 Near the spot where I just have cried 
 
 'Tis the lot where the old folks toiled and lived', 
 And the cot where the old folks died 

 
 V 
 
 XT 
 
 WHERE THE OLD FOLKS LIVED AND DIED. 245 
 
 Is dearer far to my weary heart 
 
 Than the dearest spot on earth. 
 For that was the cot on the lot on the hill 
 
 Where the old folks gave me birth. 
 
 There's a slab near the cot on the lot on the hill 
 
 That will tell to the traveler there, 
 When the old folks passed through the gates of death, 
 
 And the names of the humble pair. 
 
 When I tire of the toils and the cares of my life, 
 
 Oh, then, at the spot where I cried, 
 Near the cot let me sleep, on the top of the hill, 
 
 Cuddled down bv the old folks' side.
 
 246 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Kenduakeag Stream at East Exeter. 
 
 WHEN YOU AND I WERE BOYS. 
 
 TO GEN. JAMES HENRY CARLETON, U. S. A. 
 
 I'm dreaming of the days, dear James, 
 
 Such days we ne'er shall know, 
 When happiness lived up this way 
 
 Some twenty years ago ; 
 When feet could stroll and hearts could beat t 
 
 And never feel fatigue, 
 Those times we swam and fished and sailed 
 
 Upon old Kenduskeag. 

 
 WHEN YOU AND I WERE BOYS. 
 
 That stream now ripples just the same, 
 
 So calm and clear but still, 
 And turns that same old water-wheel 
 
 Beneath that same old mill. 
 But now, dear James, that ancient mill 
 
 Another crew employs, 
 The crew now sleeps that run that mill 
 
 When you and I were boys. 
 
 Where are those lads with whom we spelt 
 
 Within that school-house room ? 
 Some, far away, are hoarding gold, 
 
 Some rest within the tomb. 
 The change that time has written here 
 
 Oft makes the tear-drops start, 
 And .sends a sickening coldness through 
 
 Each fibre of my heart. 
 
 We've clambered up the hill of life 
 How short the journey seems 
 
 And now are pitching o'er the top 
 Bound to the land of dreams. 
 
 But when at last we reach the foot 
 And leave our earthly toys, 
 
 Oh, may we meet just as we met 
 When you and I were boys.
 
 J 
 
 248 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 In toddling down the dreary slope. 
 
 Beset with dangerous snares, 
 Our locks bleached out by frosty winds, 
 
 Our backs bent down by cares ; 
 Full oft we'll stop to take a breath 
 
 And scare away fatigue, 
 By dreaming of our boyish sports 
 
 Upon old Kenduskeag. 
 
 In battling through our pilgrimage 
 
 Amid the ceaseless strife, 
 And jostlings at each step we take 
 
 Throughout this warring life, 
 Oh, would it not exceed all bliss, 
 
 Transcend all earthly joys 
 To feel the freshness that we felt 
 
 When you and I were boys.
 
 PATRIOTIC 
 

 
 

 
 A WELCOME TO SECOND ME. REGIMENT.* 
 
 Though enfeebled by clime and disfigured by scars, 
 Here's a "welcoming home" to you, children of Mars. 
 
 \ 
 
 From your honors and perils, through your rivers of gore, 
 We will welcome you back like the Templars of yore. 
 
 Like the knights who (the song and the legend hath told) 
 Brought their wounds from the lance of the Paynim of old. 
 
 We will welcome you, warriors, all weary and worn, 
 We will welcome your banners, all tattered and torn ; 
 
 For those rents tell the world you've accomplished your 
 
 part, 
 And the light streaming through gilds the hope of the 
 
 heart. 
 
 But I see through the lens of a glistening tear 
 Oh, I see what my heart had long taught me to fear,
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 There are some of your braves who walked out in their 
 
 might 
 There are some from your ranks who went forth to the 
 
 fight 
 
 Are not here with you now in a bodily form 
 
 Are not here in your ranks with their hearts beating warm , 
 
 But they know and they feel, and they live as before 
 'Mid your scenes of to-day they are here en rapport. 
 
 Though the check on the rolls makes a part of you slain. 
 Yet we welcome you all as the Second of Maine ! 
 
 And to you who survive, and to those who have bled, 
 Here's a welcome to all whether living or dead ! 
 
 *The Second Maine Regiment, under Colonel Varney, was received 'by the 
 city authorities of Bangor, May 25, 1863, and I read the foregoing poem to them 
 at Nororabega Hall.
 
 A COMPROMISE. 253 
 
 A COMPROMISE. 
 
 Thank God the warrior's widow's wail 
 From northern winds shall cease, 
 
 For through the rifted clouds I hail 
 The blessed bow of peace. 
 
 But yet no song my harp has sung 
 Throughout this deadly strife, 
 
 No words have fallen from my tongue 
 But " War war to the knife" 
 
 And oft with passion's burning ban 
 My fevered lips were led 
 
 To call my differing brother man 
 A "traitorous Copperhead." 
 
 Now in the haven while we rest 
 On the proud old Ship of State, 
 
 I feel no more within my breast 
 The blazing fires of hate. 
 
 3F
 
 A 
 
 7s: 
 
 254 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 So, brethren, let no thought deter 
 
 Forgiveness while we live, 
 For, oh, 'tis human-like to err, 
 
 But God-like to forgive. 
 
 With humble heart and tearful eyes, 
 
 With pulses beating true, 
 I tender now one compromise, 
 
 "Peace Democrats," with you. 
 
 No "Copperheads," I'll call you, friends, 
 Nor call you "traitors," never, 
 
 But compromise and call you hence 
 " BOOTH DEMOCRATS" forever.
 
 % 
 
 V 
 
 A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE BURNS CASE. 255 
 
 A FEW WORDS 
 
 FROM MAINE TO MASSACHUSETTS ABOUT THE BURNS 
 CASE. 
 
 Massachusetts, God forgive her, 
 She's a kneeling 'mong the rest, 
 
 She that ought to have clung forever 
 In her grand old eagle-nest." 
 
 "Is water running in your veins?" 
 
 Have ye no pluck at all ? 
 What, stand and see a gyve put on 
 
 In sight of Faneuil Hall ! 
 
 For many a long and tedious year 
 We've heard your people tell 
 
 About a little rise of land 
 Where Joseph Warren fell. 
 
 Oh, brag no more about that spot, 
 
 Let every tongue be still, 
 But scratch the name of Bunker out 
 
 And call it "Buncombe" Hill.
 
 256 POEMS BY DAVID BARKKR. 
 
 We have no Boston down in Maine, 
 
 No Massachusetts Bay, 
 No Plymouth Rock to tell the world 
 
 Where once the Mayflower lay : 
 
 No Garrisons, no Phillipses, 
 
 No poets, martyrs, sages, 
 No mighty man to light a torch 
 
 To lighten future ages. 
 
 And yet with all our ignorance, 
 
 We've often felt of late 
 That Burns could never have been dragged 
 
 From out the "Pine Tree State."
 
 FREEDOM'S BATTLE CRY. 257 
 
 FREEDOM'S BATTLE CRY. 
 
 Now is the very hour for fight, 
 
 This is no time for men to swerve. 
 
 Oh, rouse ye, freemen, in your might 
 And say which master ye will serve 
 
 If Freedom* strike to save our land, 
 
 If Slavery, join its robber band. 
 
 Dream not of calms in days like these, 
 From out your hearts such hopes dismiss, 
 
 Dream not the olive branch of peace 
 Can flourish in a soil like this ; 
 
 For Slavery's rank and fetid breath 
 
 To every germ of life is death. 
 
 Are there no signs for men to fear? 
 
 Hear ye no threatening* from the South? 
 'Tis safer far to slumber near 
 
 The heaving crater's fiery mouth 
 Than thus to cast aside your swords, 
 And think to conquer wrong with words. 
 
 Up, all who strike for Freedom's cause, 
 Send forth the thrilling battle cry 
 
 Quick to the fight no time to pause 
 The choice is death or victory I 
 
 Give freedom to the toiling slave 
 Or sleep within a warrior's grave. 
 
 17
 
 258 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 GENERAL BERRY.* 
 
 Oh, wipe out the tears that bedim ; 
 What ! standing and weeping for him 
 
 The soldier why, this is not he 
 
 In the long, narrow box that you see. 
 
 He lives on just the same as before: 
 This is only the blouse that he wore 
 
 That he wore 'mid the din and the strife 
 In the terrible battle of life. 
 
 Though death, in his terrible raid, 
 Has stolen the sheath from his blade ; 
 
 Yet that blade shall be witnessed again 
 In the fight, o'er the ranks of his men.
 
 GENERAL BERRY. 259 
 
 When yon waves marshalled out like a host 
 Shall forget to march up 'round your coast ; 
 
 When these quarries beneath us shall fail, 
 And the sun and the moon shall turn pale ; 
 
 When the stars shall wane out from the sky, 
 Then the name of your Berry shall die : 
 
 For he fell with a myriad like him, 
 Striking chains from the manacled limb. 
 
 Then dry up the tears that bedim ; 
 Not standing and weeping for him 
 
 The warrior for this is not he 
 
 In the long, narrow box that you see. 
 
 Gen. Hiram G. Berry, of Itocklaml, was killed at the Battle of Chancellora- 
 vHle.'May 3rd, 1863, and buried with military and masonic honors at Rockland, 
 May 14. 1863; and the foregoing stanzas I wrote for the purpose of reading t 
 the burial service, but was not able to attend.
 
 a6o 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BAKKEK. 
 
 GUNBOAT RHYMES 
 
 ON BOARD THE "MAHOXIXG," AUG. l6, 1864. 
 
 From Pennsylvania's yawning mines 
 And from my native land of pines, 
 From stern New Hampshire's granite hills 
 And from your Bay State Cotton Mills ; 
 From climes where heated freemen spoke 
 Their wrongs around the Charter Oak ; 
 Whate'er your names, whoe're you are, 
 From old Vermont or Delaware, 
 From Jersey or Manhattan's Isle ; 
 All coming here from many a mile 
 Form, comrades, quick, form in the ring 
 And join me in this song I sing. 
 With humble heart and tearful eye 
 Send up the prayer send forth the cry ; 
 For heaven to smile, for God to bless 
 Our country in her dire distress ; 
 To haste the hour when wars shall cease 
 And bring the olive-branch of peace. 
 Now, brothers, closer join the ring 
 And join another song I sing ; 
 With craven souls, before we stand 
 And see a leprous, traitor hand 
 Raised on a robber arm to tear 
 Our nation's ensign, fluttering there, 
 Or blot one star, or make it dim ; 
 Then welcome famine, gaunt and grim, 
 And welcome fire, and welcome flood. 
 And welcome deeper seas of blood. 
 
 %
 
 -k. 
 
 IMITATION. 
 
 26l 
 
 
 IMITATION. 
 
 Hark, what crv arrests the ear ! 
 
 Hark, what accents of despair ! 
 'Tis the bondman's dying prayer, 
 
 Friends of Freedom hear. 
 
 Northern men, to you they cry. 
 
 Rests on you the tearful eye, 
 Help them, Brethren, or they die, 
 
 Die in dark despair. 
 
 Hasten, Brother, haste to save. 
 
 Snatch them from a Bondman's grave, 
 Dangers, death and distance brave. 
 
 Hark ! for help they call. 
 
 See them bend the Suppliant Knee, 
 See them wave their hands to thee, 
 
 Hear them urge the Heaven-born plea, 
 "Liberty to all." 
 
 Gods of Freedom shall we boast, 
 'Equal Rights" e'er be the toast. 
 
 While man-stealers range our coast. 
 Bartering deathless souls? 
 
 No, let Moloch's temple fall, 
 
 Let us answer Afric's call. 
 Till "Liberty's secured to all !" 
 
 Echoes to the poles.
 
 262 
 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 JACK FROST TO YELLOW JACK.* 
 
 AN ARMY SONG. 
 
 Air "A life on the ocean wave." 
 
 DEDICATED TO GEN. BUTLER. 
 
 Come on with Treason's hordes, 
 Come on, you murderous pack. 
 
 Jack Frost with loyal swords 
 Will meet old Yellow Jack. 
 
 And let each son of Mars 
 
 His own selection make 
 'Twixt the flag with the stripes and stars, 
 
 And the flag with the raftle-snake. 
 
 For never till the end of time 
 Can flags so diverse as these, 
 
 Be borne in the self-same clime 
 Or float in the self-same breeze.
 
 JACK FROST TO YELLOW JACK. 
 
 We wage no party fight, 
 We wield no tyrant's rod, 
 
 We fight for life for right 
 For Freedom and for God. 
 
 Then come with Treason's hordes. 
 And come you murderous pack, 
 
 Jack Frost with loyal swords 
 Will meet old Yellow Jack. 
 
 *"Yellow Jack" i a Southern disease, which is said to disappear at the first 
 Jroit* of .Autumn.
 
 264 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 'LET US HAVE PEACE." 
 
 ADDRESSED TO PRESIDENT GRANT. 
 
 It needs the nerve to stand upright 
 
 And bullets take and give, 
 But different nerve to stand and fight 
 
 The age in which you live. 
 
 Old Chief, of heart and arm so strong, 
 
 With tuneful harp again 
 We welcome you with honest song 
 
 To the rough coasts of Maine. 
 
 From every loyal word that falls 
 
 Upon our Northern air, 
 From peasant's cot and princely halls 
 
 We breathe one earnest prayer. 
 
 Our prayer is this : that through the land 
 
 All bickerings shall cease, 
 And that our nation's sky be spanned 
 
 By the blessed bow of peace.
 
 LET US HAVE PEACE. 265 
 
 Give peace our passions to assuage 
 
 The sweetest boon of earth, 
 But peace of honest parentage, 
 
 And not of bastard birth. 
 
 One kind of peace will never do 
 Peace tricked out for a day, 
 
 With outside dress of Union blue. 
 And under-clothes of gray. 
 
 Not peace that glibly prates and sings 
 About the stripes and stars, 
 
 And hides beneath the eagle's wings 
 The rebel stars and bars ; 
 
 That whispers round with look so bland, 
 
 But keeps without remorse, 
 Concealed and armed, its robber band 
 
 Within some Trojan horse. 
 
 Not peace to them the craven clique 
 Whose hearts have never felt 
 
 The meanness of the coward's trick 
 To strike below the belt.
 
 * 
 
 X 
 
 266 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Have peace, but of the self-same kind 
 You made with Robert Lee 
 
 With you before and him behind 
 That Appomatox tree. 
 
 Peace, though amid the scattered wreck 
 From crash of love with hate, 
 
 Peace, born and christened on the deck 
 Of the old Ship of State. 
 
 Peace, though again you bathe her prow 
 
 In the red sea of death, 
 And breathe upon a foeman's brow 
 
 With the hot cannon's breath.
 
 LEV I E.MEKSON. 
 
 267 
 
 LEVI EMERSON, 
 
 OK THE FIRST VOLUNTEER. 
 
 What! never saw Captain Emerson, 
 
 Looking so cool and calm ; 
 Toiling away at his old abode 
 Two miles or more from the Hampden road 
 
 Out there on the Miller farm ? 
 
 Well, that is most wonderful queer. 
 Why, he was the man, Lord bless your souls. 
 The very first man who signed the rolls, 
 The very first one who shouldered his gun 
 In the wild old spring of "sixty-one" 
 As a Union Volunteer. 
 
 Made the first advance to the fiery front, 
 And stood in the battle's booggerish brunt. 
 Yes, led the tramp of the warring host 
 From the golden shores to the Quoddy coast, 
 Of the hosts that rose in their Union Blue 
 Like the plaided hordes of Roderick Dhu. 
 I tell you now as I hope for bliss 
 (For I never would lie 'bout a thing like this,) 
 I tell you my friend, why, bless your soul, 
 I have a certified duplicate roll 
 
 Of the Captain's file and rank ; 
 While the roll first signed with ink and pen 
 By the eighty stern and stalwart men 
 
 Hangs now in the Farmer's Bank. 
 Look for yourselves while going past 
 Emerson first and Drummond last. 
 
 '
 
 V 
 
 268 POEMS BY DAV r ID BARKER. 
 
 LINES ON THE DEATH OF JOHN OAKS. 
 
 Another veteran sinks to rest, 
 His earthly pilgrimage is o'er. 
 
 His last dread battle now is fought 
 And he has made a happier shore. 
 
 We could but weep as to the tomb 
 We bore the cold and pulseless frame 
 
 Of him who bled at Bennington, 
 When liberty was but a name. 
 
 No clash of arms nor cannon's roar. 
 Nor Freedom's call nor battle's din 
 
 Can wake him from that lasting sleep, 
 Nor tempt him back to earth again. 
 
 Though he has gone to that last bourne 
 From which no traveler returns. 
 
 His noble deeds and name will live 
 While Freedom's lighted altar burns. 
 
 Upon a nation's grateful heart 
 
 They're written down by memory's pen, 
 And time shall never dare erase 
 
 The deeds of patriotic men. 
 
 When recollection leaves her throne. 
 
 When Liberty and life are not, 
 When ancient chaos holds its reign, 
 
 Then veterans shall be forgot.
 
 LINES ADDRESSED TO JOHN A. HILL. 269 
 
 LINES ADDRESSED TO JOHN A. HILL, 
 
 CAPT. OF CO. K, Ilth ME. REG'T, AT A PUBLIC MEET 
 ING IN STETSON. 
 
 Welcome back again brave soldier 
 From your fields of fire and flood ; 
 
 Welcome to your scenes of childhood, 
 Tho' your hands be stained with blood. 
 
 From the pallid lips of weakness, 
 From the florid lips of health, 
 
 From the poor man in his tatters, 
 From the rich man in his wealth, 
 
 From the old man toddling to you 
 
 Trusting to his faithful cane, 
 From the wee ones at the window 
 
 Prattling through the broken pane, 
 
 From your brethren with the lambskin, 
 And their mystic grip and sign, 
 
 From the poet in his frenzies 
 Coming from the fabled Nine, 
 
 There's a greeting for you, soldier, 
 From the great and from the small, 
 
 There's a welcome for you, Craftsman, 
 There's a welcome from us all.
 
 POHMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 OLD WILLEY." 
 
 Who cares in this crowd what a Homer says 
 
 Of the warring man in the ancient days ; 
 
 What matters it now to you or me 
 
 Though the Iliad or Odyssey 
 
 May tell of the time when a Trojan corse 
 
 Was tramped by the feet of a Grecian horse ; 
 
 Though the epic song of the bard may state 
 
 How Achilles fell at the Scaean Gate? 
 
 But it startles a world that I am come down 
 
 To tell of a man from my native town : 
 
 Of a man unknown, obscure and plain, 
 
 But who once belonged to the nth of Maine ! 
 
 When Slavery, pressed by Freedom hard. 
 
 Fired up the heart of a Beauregard. 
 
 And the first red shot on Sumter fell. 
 
 And the Eagle screamed like a scream from hell ; 
 
 When her shriek went out o'er vale and crag 
 
 As she clung like death to the dear old Flag. 
 
 And the first kind look she got was one 
 
 I
 
 % 
 
 OLD WILLEY. 
 
 From a man named Robert Anderson, 
 
 I felt somehow, and I wrote and said 
 
 That we had a big old trouble ahead. 
 
 With all my faith in God and such. 
 
 With all my religion, and that wan't much, 
 
 My faith wan't clear and my hope wan't bright 
 
 Till Daniel E. Willey went into the fight. 
 
 They called him " Old Willey" up there, I'm sure 
 
 'Tis a term oft used when our clothes get poor ; 
 
 He laid the wall and he sawed the wood 
 
 For me and others in the neighborhood ; 
 
 He never could lecture and never could speak 
 
 One word of grammar, and couldn't read Greek, 
 
 Though he dwelt in that old school-house, 'tis true, 
 
 Where the old road butts at the avenue. 
 
 Through his leaky boots you could see his feet 
 
 As he toiled for his daily food to eat ; 
 
 For many a palm can never hold 
 
 The sordid dust that is scraped from gold. 
 
 Though he felled the trees and he tilled the lands 
 
 With his biawnv arms and his hornv hands, 
 
 It never entered a soldier's brain 
 
 That Willey would ever fight or train : 
 
 And never getting a draft or call 
 
 He sawed the wood and he laid the wall.
 
 272 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 One day to my village two men rode down 
 
 Yes, both came over from Stetson town, 
 
 And one was General Hill, I believe, 
 
 He hadn't on then that empty sleeve ; 
 
 I could told them quick that he wouldn't yield 
 
 For a one right arm on the Deep Run field ; 
 
 And the other fellow with Hill, they say 
 
 Was General Plaisted, who talks to-day. 
 
 This Willey an J I were standing o'er 
 
 (He sawing wood) near my office door. 
 
 As the men from Stetson town rode by 
 
 A neighbor of mine was standing nigh, 
 
 With his traitor lips to the startled air 
 
 He hissed the flag that was floating there. 
 
 Like a granite post old Willey stood 
 
 And his old saw dropped from the half-sawed wood ; 
 
 Then he hoisted the strap round his big broad hips 
 
 And he crumbled the pipe 'neath his firm blue lips ; 
 
 And his burnt, tanned face gave a fiendish smile, 
 
 But never a word did he speak the while 
 
 Till he glowered at the man hard by, and when 
 
 He taunted that Union flag again, 
 
 Then his tortured nerves like a serpent coiled 
 
 And these tough words from the old man boiled : 
 
 Said he, " Did you hear how that devil hiissed? 
 
 By Jesus, Squire* I'm going to enlist!" 
 
 Though he split huge logs he couldn't stand 
 
 The thought of a rift in his native land, 
 
 %
 
 OLD WILLEY. 273 
 
 And he did enlist, for the brave old soul, 
 
 With hi? name on the gallant Plaisted's roll, 
 
 For the cast of a die, for a loss or gain, 
 
 With the gory, famed old nth of Maine, 
 
 For a mortal fray with his kith and kind 
 
 Left a dying wife and a child behind, 
 
 Marched out to the front where he fought and bled, 
 
 And he came back maimed, and now he is dead. 
 
 With his folded arms he lies so still 
 
 In a cold, sound sleep on the "Crowell Hill." 
 
 I wish t knew if he felt the least 
 
 As he felt when our Father's flag was hissed ; 
 
 For he slumbers there 'neath a beetling crag 
 
 By the side of the one who hissed the flag. 
 
 As we go all pale, with the boatman, o'er 
 In our final voyage to the other shore, 
 'Mid the fearful surge of the rolling tide, 
 
 Sometimes you know 
 
 That friend and foe 
 Will crouch and cuddle down side by side. 
 
 In the last review, somewhere beyond, 
 
 Of the world's grand army train, 
 When the books are read to an anxious throng 
 
 And they call for the i ith of Maine, 
 And the Judges come to Willey's case,
 
 274 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Looking so w r ise and grim ; 
 
 Unless by some strange farce they rout 
 
 And crush this life's remembrance out, 
 
 Or blot those scenes of warring strife 
 
 When battling for a Nation's life, 
 
 And from my soul wipe every trace 
 
 Of love for Country, Home and Race ; 
 
 If any part of me is there, 
 
 In the face of every power I swear 
 
 If Willey finds no credit given 
 
 Behind those balance sheets in Heaven, 
 
 For fighting in the nth of Maine, 
 
 And reapes thereby no single gain 
 
 Although a spirit death I die 
 
 With loss of immortality. 
 
 Should I find his case is going hard 
 
 I'll help the old man "run the guard" 
 
 Ere the srold gate swings on him.
 
 PAT. GOLDEN. 275 
 
 PAT. GOLDKN.* 
 
 I have seen him to-dav, 
 And have sat by his side 
 
 Learning small bits of brogue 
 As he gave me a ride. 
 
 I was glad to meet "Pat," 
 
 Before leaving earth's shore 
 
 Having heard having read 
 Of "Pat. Golden" before. 
 
 From the stories they told 
 I have honored his name, 
 
 And would walk with bare-feet 
 But to add to his fame. 
 
 From my thought-plain to-day. 
 Just believe me I ain't 
 
 Going to ask him at all 
 If he's sinner or saint.
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Through all worlds that may come 
 
 I'll remember Bull Rim 
 And remember the years 
 
 Since the year sixty-one. 
 
 To the throng that sank down 
 From the loved ones on earth, 
 
 Patrick Golden gave large 
 
 From the group at his hearth. 
 
 From the first to the last. 
 
 Through each pulse of his soul, 
 Patrick Golden was true 
 
 As the star at the pole. 
 
 *Patrick Golden wan one of the few loyal Irishmen in Bangor, Me., r during 
 the Rebellion. 
 
 \ 
 
 \
 
 % 
 
 THE OLD CAMl' GROUND. 
 
 277 
 
 Carap Ground. 
 
 THE OLD CAMP GROUND. 
 
 As the sun sank down to rest. 
 Like a child upon the breast. 
 
 Guarded by the picket on his round, 
 Each regiment and corps. 
 With another day's toil o'er. 
 
 Was feasting on the old camp ground.
 
 278 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 But there came another sound, 
 
 For the grape and shot and shell 
 Hissing like a fiend of hell 
 On their serried columns fell, 
 At the closing of the fight. 
 In the darkness of the night, 
 
 There was blood upon the old camp ground. 
 
 Then the hasty, fervent prayer 
 Of the priest, who hurried there, 
 Like a mother kneeling o'er 
 Some young hero in his gore, 
 
 Faintly gasping out the name 
 That an absent loved one bore ; 
 Told of who the wine-press trod, 
 Told of hope and faith in God 
 
 To the dying on the old camp ground. 
 
 When the night had worn away, 
 Then the blessed beams of day, 
 
 By the spade and ditch and mound, 
 Told that spirits, brave and true, 
 Had forsook those forms in blue 
 
 And ascended from the old camp ground.
 
 THE OLD SHIP OF STATE. 279 
 
 THE OLD SHIP OF STATE. 
 
 O'er the dark and the gloomy horizon that bounds her, 
 Thro' the storm and the night and the hell that surrounds 
 
 her, 
 
 I can see with a faith which immortals have given, 
 Burning words blazing out o'er the portals of heaven, 
 
 "Sfie Will Liver 
 
 But a part of \\\z freight that our forefathers gave her 
 We must cast to the deep, yawning waters to save her, 
 'Tis the chain for the slave we must fling out to light her, 
 'Tis the brand and the whip we must yield up to right her, 
 
 She will live. 
 
 CLEAN THE DECKS OF THE CURSE if opposed by the 
 
 owner. 
 
 Hurl the wretch to the wave, as they hurled over Jonah, 
 With a "FREEDOM TO ALL," gleaming forth from our 
 
 banner, 
 
 Let the tyrant yet learn we have freemen to man her, 
 
 She will live. 
 
 She will live while a billow lies swelling before her, 
 She will live while the blue arch of heaven bends o'er her, 
 While the name of a Christ to the fallen we cherish, 
 Till the hopes in the breast of humanity perish, 
 
 She will live.
 
 280 POEMS BY DAVID BARKF.R. 
 
 T 
 
 THE EMPTY SLEEVE. 
 
 By the moon's pale light, to this gazing throng, 
 Let me tell one tale, let me sing one song 
 'Tis a tale devoid of an aim or plan, 
 'Tis a simple song of a one-arm man ; 
 Till this very hour I could ne'er believe 
 What a tell-tale thing is an empty sleeve 
 What a weird, queer thing is an empty sleeve.
 
 >T 
 
 THE EMPTY SLEEVE. 28 1 
 
 It tells in a silent tone to all 
 Of a country's need and a country's call, 
 Of a kiss and a tear for a child and wife, 
 And a hurried march for a nation's life ; 
 Till this very hour would you e'er believe 
 What a tell-tale thing is an empty sleeve 
 What a weird, queer thing is an empty sleeve. 
 
 It tells of a battle-field of gore, 
 Of the saber's clash, of the cannon's roar, 
 Of the deadly charge of the bugle's note. 
 Of a gurgling sound in a foeman's throat, 
 Of the whizzing grape of the fiery shell, 
 Of a scene which mimics the scenes of hell ; 
 Till this very hour who could e'er believe 
 What a tell-tale thing is an empty sleeve 
 What a weird, queer thing is an empty sleeve. 
 
 Though it points to a myriad wounds and scars, 
 
 Yet it tells that a flag, with the stripes and stars, 
 
 In God's own chosen time will take 
 
 Each place of the rag with the rattle-snake, 
 
 And it points to a time when that flag will wave 
 
 O'er a land where there breathes no cowering slave ; 
 
 To the top of the skies let us all then heave 
 
 One proud hurrah for the empty sleeve ! 
 
 For the one arm man and the empty sleeve !
 
 282 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE SOLDIERS OF MEDUXNEKEAG. 
 
 Come on with me now, let us travel on. 
 
 Not far, not many a league 
 From the spot where the old and bold St. John 
 
 Locks hands with Meduxnekeag. 
 
 As a pay or a fee for this stroll with me, 
 
 I will tell you a tale to-day 
 Of the wife, the mother, the widow all three 
 
 And the soldiers Robert Gray. 
 
 It was here, very near where we stroll to-day, 
 Where the grim old barrack stands. 
 
 That a girl, in the pride of her youth, they say 
 With a Sergeant Gray locked hands. 
 
 But death stole into those barrack walls 
 Which stood near the river's banks, 
 
 And entered the name of that Sergeant Gray- 
 On the list of his spectre ranks. 
 
 But the years rolled by at Meduxnekeag, 
 
 When quick came a country's call 
 For the name of her own of her manly boy 
 
 Through a rent in that barrack wall.
 
 SOLDIERS OF MEDUXNEKEAG. 283 
 
 She bade him go forth from Meduxnekeag, 
 
 To his God and his country true 
 She bade him go forth, this young Robert Gray, 
 
 Clad out in his Union blue. 
 
 He went, but he wandered not back again 
 
 To the roof near the river's banks 
 He went like his father, old Sergeant Gray, 
 
 To fill up death's spectre ranks. 
 
 From the charge on that field that was steeping in gore 
 He went where the brave spirits dwell, 
 
 With "no matter for me, but push on my brave boys," 
 Ringing out o'er the shot and the shell. 
 
 What is that crouching there, in the barrack nook, 
 Bowed down by the hand of dismay? 
 
 There's a trace in her face of the laughing girl 
 'Tis the mother of Robert Gray. 
 
 Let us leave these weird walls at Meduxnekeag, 
 
 I'm too old and ashamed to cry, 
 And I feel that the tears are rushing fast 
 
 For the crow's feet 'round my eye. 
 
 But my friends, if you worship a God in this life, 
 
 And you ever kneel down to pray, 
 Remember the mother, the widow, the wife 
 
 Of the soldiers Robert Gray. 
 

 
 284 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TO JOHN BROWN IN PRISON. 
 
 Stand firm, John Brown, till your fate is o'er, 
 
 For the world with an anxious eye 
 Looks on as it seldom has looked before, 
 While the hour of your doom draws nigh 
 
 Stand firm, 
 John Brown, 
 Stand firm ! 
 
 Dread not the blow that a coward deals. 
 
 And fear not the tyrant's nod, 
 Doubt not the end of the work you would shape, 
 For you're shaping the work of God 
 
 Stand firm, 
 John Brown, 
 Stand firm ! 
 
 The outer John Brown they may torture and kill, 
 
 And tumble it into a grave, 
 
 But the inner John Brown will trouble them still 
 By its whisperings 'round with the slave 
 
 Stand firm, 
 John Brown, 
 Stand firm ! 
 
 Death nears you, John Brown, old outer John Brown, 
 
 And marks you as food for the worm, 
 But death nor the worm can harm inner John Brown, 
 So inner John Brown, stand firm 
 
 Stand firm, 
 John Brown, 
 Stand firm ! 
 Old inner John Brown, Stand firm !
 
 \ 
 
 THE REBELLION. 
 
 285 
 
 THE REBELLION. 
 
 There's a law of compensation 
 And a law of retribution 
 For each mortal and each nation, 
 And I've seen the plain solution. 
 If there's truth in the evangel, 
 Then the old recording angel, 
 By that law of compensation, 
 And that law of retribution, 
 For I've seen the whole solution 
 Has a reckoning with this nation. 
 
 1 have seen the primal entry 
 In the books beyond the sentry, 
 Of the sentry standing ever 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river ; 
 At the bridge that passes over, 
 At the dark bridge with the cover. 
 
 On a midnight dark and dreary, 
 \Yhen my form was weak and weary, 
 
 \
 
 286 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Then my spirit left its dwelling, 
 Left it in another's keeping, 
 In the kind care of another, 
 Of a loving angel brother 
 Who had left his earth friends weeping 
 And had crossed the river swelling, 
 But had found a passage over 
 Through the dark bridge with the cover 
 And had made another entry 
 On the shore this side the sentry. 
 Of the sentry standing ever 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river. 
 
 As my spirit made its entry 
 On the shore beyond the sentry. 
 Of the sentry standing ever 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river, 
 At the bridge that passes over, 
 At the dark bridge with the cover, 
 There I met the writing angel 
 With his records all before him, 
 And a halo hanging o'er him, 
 With his books named in the evangel. 
 With a saddened, anxious feeling, 
 Through my inner spirit stealing. 
 Turned I to the writing angel, 
 With his books named in the evangel. 
 Just to learn the situation
 
 THE REBELLION. 2$7 
 
 Of our struggling, bleeding nation ; 
 Just to learn this from the entry 
 On the books beyond the sentry. 
 Of the sentry standing ever 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river, 
 At the bridge that passes over, 
 At the dark bridge with the cover. 
 
 With a tear the angel said it, 
 
 " There's your debt* and there's your credit. 
 
 Just inspect each primal entry 
 
 On the books this side the sentry, 
 
 Of the sentry standing ever 
 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river, 
 
 At the bridge that passes over, 
 
 At the dark bridge with the cover." 
 
 Turned I quick aside the cover, 
 
 And L glanced the pages over. 
 
 And I found the primal entry 
 
 On the books beside the sentry. 
 
 Of the sentry standing ever 
 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river. 
 
 At the bridge that passes over. 
 
 At the dark bridge with the cover, 
 
 Was before the old embargo, 
 
 When the Dutch ship with her cargo 
 
 Ploughed her keel across our waters 
 
 With her fettered sons and daughters.
 
 2S8 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 'Tvvas a charge for countless terrors, 
 And the middle passage horrors. 
 Turned I then again the cover, 
 And I searched the pages over, 
 But I found no credit entry 
 On the books beyond the sentry, 
 Of the sentry standing ever 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river, 
 At the bridge that passes over, 
 At the dark bridge with the cover. 
 Then I gave unto the angel 
 All his books named in the evangel, 
 
 O " 
 
 When a deep and saddened feeling 
 Came across my spirit stealing; 
 But the angel sternly said it 
 44 Tou shall have your honest credit." 
 Then the next and second entry 
 On the books beyond the sentry, 
 Of the sentry standing ever 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river. 
 Was the wails of wives and mothers, 
 And for fathers, sisters, brothers 
 When the auction hammer thundered 
 That all human ties were sundered. 
 
 Then the next and final entry 
 On the books beyond the sentry, 
 Of the sentry standing ever
 
 %_ 
 
 THE REBELLION. 
 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river, 
 At the bridge that passes over, 
 At the dark bridge with the cover, 
 Was the proceeds of the cargo, 
 Brought before the old embargo ; 
 
 And I found the angel had it 
 With each mill of interest added. 
 But we pass now to the credit 
 As the writing angel had it 
 "When your land is filled with terrors, 
 Like the middle passage horrors. 
 All the horrors of each cargo 
 .Since the Dutch keel ploughed your waters, 
 With her sable sons and daughters, 
 Long before the slave embargo ; 
 When your wails of wives and mothers, 
 Of your fathers, sisters, brothers, 
 Shall amount through all your slaughters 
 To the wails of sons and daughters, 
 Of the sable sons and daughters. 
 Since the auction hammer thundered 
 That all human ties were sundered ; 
 When the proceeds of the cargo 
 Brought before the old embargo, 
 When the proceeds as you had it, 
 With each mill of interest added, 
 Shall be squandered in your slaughters, 
 'Mid your wails of wives and daughters
 
 2QO POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 You will get your honest credit." 
 
 Then he closed the opening cover, 
 When #gain I crossed the river 
 By the sentry standing ever 
 Gaunt and grim beside the river ; 
 Then my spirit sought its dwelling 
 Left within another's keeping, 
 Of an angel brother's keeping. 
 W'hen my brother left this dwelling 
 And recrossed the river swelling 
 From the land with sorrow laden. 
 To his better home in Aidenn. 
 
 _</
 
 YOU THOUSAND OF MEN. 
 
 YOU THOUSAND OF MEN. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE iSth MAINE REGIMENT ON ITS DE 
 PARTURE FOR THE SEAT OF WAR. 1862. 
 
 Sav. where are you going, you thousand of men? 
 
 Now one thing is certain. 
 That never, ah never 
 This side the deep river. 
 
 This side the dark curtain 
 Just flung out to screen us, 
 Which drops down between us 
 And those who've passed over 
 That cold, stormy river. 
 
 No, never again 
 
 Shall this crowd ever meet you. 
 Shall this throng ever greet you 
 In a bodily form 
 With your hearts beating warm 
 
 You thousand of men ! 
 
 But. thank the Great Giver. 
 Though crossing that river 
 Your barks may be shattered. 
 Your Outer Garbs tattered 
 Thank God that again
 
 292 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 From the mount you inherit 
 You may come back in spirit 
 All you who pass over 
 That cold, stormy river 
 You may come back to meet us, 
 You may come back to greet us 
 With your hearts beating warm 
 In a blesseder form 
 You thousand of men ! 
 
 With the clearest of vision 
 
 I have witnessed the yearning 
 Of the troops now returning 
 From the land so elysian ; 
 Of the troops who passed over 
 That cold, stormy river, 
 'Mid the roar and the rattle 
 Of a nation in battle 
 
 So, quickly again 
 From the mount you inherit, 
 
 You must come back to meet us, 
 You must come back to greet us, 
 You must come back in spirit 
 With your hearts beating warm 
 In a blissfuller form, 
 All you who pass over 
 That cold, stormy river 
 From you thousand of men ! 
 
 IS
 
 I
 
 V 
 
 A THOUGHT. 
 
 295 
 
 A THOUGHT. 
 
 I wouldn't surrender the exquisite pleasure 
 Of soothing a sorrow and drying a tear 
 By heaping around me, regardless of measure, 
 The purest of gold and the choicest of treasure 
 Which Dives, while living, inherited here. 
 
 I wouldn't add pain to a chord that is aching, 
 
 Nor furrow new lines on the forehead of care, 
 Nor prove instrumental, ah never, in making 
 One throb of a poor brother's heart that is breaking 
 Or bleeding from wounds by the blade of despair. 
 
 I wouldn't kneel down to the goddess of fashion 
 And list to the notes of her treacherous song, 
 Nor govern my pulse by the fever of passion, 
 Nor blindly and madly and recklessly dash on 
 Neglectful of right to the bosom of wrong. 
 
 I wouldn't give much for the world that we live in 
 
 Where fruitful is hatred and barren is love, 
 Where friendship's foundation is ever upheaving, 
 And half of existence is squandered in grieving 
 Except for the hopes of a heaven above.
 
 296 pdEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 A BACHELOR'S LIFE FOR ME. 
 
 A bachelor's life for me 
 
 While wandering here below, 
 
 A life from anxiety free, 
 
 A scene that's unknown to woe. 
 
 They said when my youth passed by, 
 And time with its palsying breath 
 
 Had dimmed the fire of my eye 
 And taunted my hopes with death, 
 
 That a ray from woman's love 
 Would light up my cheerless way 
 
 Which leads to the realms above, 
 And scatter all clouds awav. 
 
 I've climbed to life's mountain top 
 Unblessed by a blushing bride, 
 
 And now 'tis too late to stop 
 While toddling the other side.
 
 7C 
 
 A BACHELOR'S LIFE FOR ME. 297 
 
 I go to the Lodge by night 
 
 And practice the mystic art. 
 And tarry till morning light 
 
 And leave with a merry heart. 
 
 I fly to my curtained room 
 
 And fall on my cozy bed, 
 And fear not the horrid gloom 
 
 Which hangs round a husband's head. 
 
 The Craftsmen's ^lectures" I take 
 
 With a world of relish and glee, 
 But woman's lectures would make 
 
 Me worse than a man should be. 
 
 A bachelor's life for me 
 
 While wandering here below, 
 A life from anxiety free, 
 
 A scene that's unknown to woe. 
 

 
 298 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 AFTER MARRIAGE. 
 
 IX I.MITATIOX OF POE. 
 
 Thank heaven the crisis, 
 
 The danger is passed ; 
 This billing and cooing 
 
 Is over at last. 
 
 And the fever called ''courting" 
 Is over at last. 
 
 This primping and fussing, 
 
 This breaking of rest 
 Have ceased with the fever 
 
 That maddened my breast ; 
 With the fever called "courting" 
 
 That maddened my breast ! 
 
 And oh ! of all tortures ! 
 
 That scorpion whip 
 Has abated ; that terrible 
 
 Fear of a "slip;" 
 That worst of all curses, 
 
 The fear of a "slip !" 
 
 My tranquilized spirit 
 
 Now blandly reposes, 
 Forgetting or never 
 
 Regretting past roses ; 
 Its old agitations 
 
 From myrtle to roses. 
 
 I
 
 /r 
 
 AN HOfK WITH TOM IM. I'M ADORE. 299 
 
 AN HOUR WITH TOM PLUMADORE. 
 
 What, never saw Tom Plumadore 
 Him from the Frenchman nation 
 
 Who runs the tank at Clinton Gore, 
 At the old Biirnham station? 
 
 You know Judge Rice, who sleeps on down- 
 
 Our learned, legal brother 
 Him of the highest type of man, 
 
 Tom Plumadore the other. 
 
 Rice is the famed Maine Central boss 
 Runs that machine of ''hisen ;" 
 
 Tom runs the tank a kind of cross 
 'Twixt hell and Libby prison. 
 
 For years within that tank, 'tis said. 
 
 That Bull-Run scarred old fellow 
 lias slept with pea-straw for his bed 
 
 And beech-log for his pillow. 
 
 Oh, strange extremes that meet our eyes 
 
 Which ever way we turn 'em 
 Soft down for the sleek limbs of Rice, 
 
 And straw for Tom at Burnham ! 
 
 I tried Tom's bed. and thought, perhaps. 
 My poor, scarred Bull-Run brother 
 
 May find some sweeter, pea-straw naps, 
 Than down may yield the other.
 
 V 
 
 3OO POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN. 
 
 Written on my first and last sea voyage, on board of schooner "hucretia," is 
 1841, bound for the city of Washington, from Eastport. 
 
 "Roll on thou dark and deep blue ocean, roll ;" 
 Roll on and moan and rear thy horse-like mane, 
 
 But never more shall thou my powers control 
 Or use thy stomach-pump on me again. 
 
 I loved thee once, but ah, that love has fled, 
 For well I know thou treated me too rough 
 
 Thou poured thy choicest fury on my head 
 And would not cease when I did cry enough. 
 
 The heart of man, though made of flint and steel, 
 Is often moved by seeing mortal's woes, 
 
 Thy liquid heart was never made to feel 
 
 For human writhings or for death-like throes. 
 
 Oh, sooner let me be where Etna's fire 
 Shall send around its crimson lava tide. 
 
 Or dwell in caves with fabled gorgons dire, 
 
 Than hear thy splashing 'gainst Lucretia's side.
 
 V 
 
 APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN. 30! 
 
 Say, didst thou hope to make Lucretia think 
 That I was Jonah and must be cast forth 
 
 That she was verging to destruction's brink 
 Unless she gave the helpless inmate birth ? 
 
 Too well she knew that I'd no call to preach 
 The joyful news of righteousness and peace ; 
 
 She knew my only call had been to teach 
 
 Some Eastport urchins merely for the fleece. 
 
 And knowing this she clasped me to her breast, 
 And tried my sinking, drooping heart to cheer 
 
 Yes, in her hammock arms 1 might had rest 
 Iladst though not thundered in my sea-sick ear. 
 
 But more than this : As I lay on the deck 
 A basking in the sun's meridian rays, 
 
 Thou stretched in air thy huge and brawny neck 
 And spewed thy briny spittle in my face. 
 
 Rare sport for thee couldst thou have laid thy hand 
 Upon my form and chilled me in thy wave ; 
 
 Or bleached me for a season on thy strand, 
 And then consigned me to a watery grave. 
 
 Let sailors chant thy praise in thunder tones, 
 And trust their fortunes and their lives to thee, 
 
 But other music than thy death-like moans. 
 And other jovs than ocean jovs for me ! 
 
 '
 
 3O2 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 APOSTROPHE TO A GONG. 
 
 They say, old thunderer, that away in China, 
 Some thousand miles the other side of earth. 
 
 Where tea is grown beyond the ocean briny, 
 Near the big ancient wall, thou hadst thy birth. 
 
 If true or not, the one who gave thee breath 
 Ought to have lived until he starved to death. 
 
 No doubt that Chinaman once kept an inn. 
 
 And was a Shylock and a hardened sinner. 
 Who, for the sole and naked thirst for "tin," 
 
 Conspired to cheat his guests of half a dinner. 
 And so the old. penurious, wicked sprite 
 
 Invented thee, to kill the appetite. 
 
 Strange that the love of gold and power of error 
 Should propagate upon the human brain. 
 
 And proffer birth to such a child of terror, 
 A progeny to fill the world with pain, 
 
 An instrument of woe that only serves 
 To furnish torture to the feeble nerves.
 
 >f 
 
 APOSTROPHE TO A GOXG. 303 
 
 I fear there is a hell our Bibles teach it, 
 
 And reason, conscience, say the Bible 's true, 
 
 And lettered priests in every nation preach it. 
 Except a modern, theoretic few, 
 
 Insurance agents, peddling out for hire 
 Sham policies against eternal fire. 
 
 But in those dark and foul and burning regions. 
 
 Where direful noises echo loud and long, 
 There is no sound sent forth by hellish legions 
 
 One half so horrid as thy noise, oh Gong. 
 For wild and fearful though their howlings be, 
 
 They are, to thine, a perfect symphony.
 
 304 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 'BY HOKEY, THEM IS PRETTY VERSES." 
 
 WRITTEN TO SHOW HOW THE STARCH IS SOMETIMES 
 
 TAKEN FROM A MAN* WHO READS HIS POETRY 
 
 TO OTHERS. 
 
 Some months ago so says my notes 
 
 When Sabbath's brazen bells were chiming, 
 
 The music from their hollow throats 
 
 Induced me straight to take to rhyming. 
 
 For many a dreary hour I sat, 
 
 And having closed poetic labor, 
 I put my rhymes within my hat 
 
 And started for the nearest neighbor. 
 
 My neighbor's eldest girl I knew 
 
 Laid claims to being ''literary" 
 So to her father's house I flew 
 
 To read my poetry to Mary. 
 
 She was the fairest of our race, } 
 
 Her waist was small, her fingers tapered, 
 
 And smiles around her rosy face 
 
 Like lambkins 'round a pasture capered. 

 
 BY HOKEY, THEM IS PRETTY VERSES. 305 
 
 I read of war and read of peace, 
 And read of many an ancient nation, 
 
 Of ancient Rome and ancient Greece, 
 
 And thousand things throughout creation. 
 
 I read of husband and of wife 
 
 A note prepared to please my fairy 
 I hinted of my lonely life 
 
 And of the witching name of Mary. 
 
 I read how raven eyes encased 
 
 A dagger for each trusting lover, 
 But eyes of blue and slender waist 
 
 I echoed nearly ten times over. 
 
 I closed my reading, raised my eyes 
 
 To throw me on her tender mercies, 
 When with a drowsy yawn she cries, 
 
 "By hokcy, them is pretty -verses 1 ." 
 
 Within my hat I put my rhyme, 
 
 And raised the latch and left my fairy, 
 
 But never have I since that time 
 Read pretty poetry to Mary.
 
 306 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 CORXELE.* 
 
 I am sick, and have left all my papers and laws, 
 
 And am stopping awhile at this tavern of Shaw's ; 
 
 And I take what a prince or a monarch might get 
 
 Just the best of a meal and an ars'nic pellet 
 
 And this fact should come in : I was here you should know 
 
 When they opened this house, thirty-nine years ago. 
 
 From the crowd that was here in that year, '35, 
 
 Not a soul do I find 'round this mansion alive, 
 
 Not a man not a one do I find here about 
 
 But the porter, "Cornele," and a Judge with the gout. 
 
 Famed Cornele" with his brush for the boot or the blouse 
 
 All the world has regarded a part of the house. 
 
 What a load he has lugged the world's baggage among ! 
 
 For the garrulous old and the jubilant young ; 
 
 And he boasts with a true Celtic pride of the touch 
 
 He has put on the boots of a Webster and such. 
 
 And to-day, 'mid his books, right in earnest, not sport, 
 
 I have talked on one point with a Judge of our court 
 
 Ar>d he says that in spite of old statutes or creeds 
 
 This "Cornele" should now pass by all subsequent deeds. 

 
 V 
 
 CORNKLE. 307 
 
 When his last load is borne and the famed porter dies, 
 I would carve on the slab at the spot where he lies : 
 Here he sleeps, pardoned out from the last of his sin, 
 Ever true to the faith of his priest and his kin. 
 Had he faults? Let the world gossip round as it can, 
 He has blacked and has brushed and has lugged likea man. 
 How the dream chills my heart, how the thought makes 
 
 me feel, 
 
 That a breath may blow out the warm lamp of "Cornele," 
 Leaving two, only two from that big, ancient crowd, 
 And those two peering 'round for the turf and the shroud ; 
 One a pale, haggard bard tottering out on his cane 
 And the other the Judge on his hammock of pain. 
 
 *Cornelius Crowley, for 39 years head porter at the Bangor House, and who 
 died in 1876.
 
 308 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 FIVE STANZAS. 
 
 Grasp your paddle, take your boat, 
 Row the course you think is best, 
 
 But you shouldn't face the east 
 While you paddle to the west, 
 
 Never. 
 
 Fight for virtue or for vice 
 
 On your passage to the grave ; 
 
 Never sit astride the fence ; 
 Be an honest man or knave, 
 
 Ever. 
 
 Go for error or for truth ; 
 
 Go for darkness or for light ; 
 Paint your flag and hang it out 
 
 Be it black or be it white, 
 
 Ever. 
 
 Have a notion of your own ; 
 
 Speak that notion plain and flat ; 
 Be a mouse or be a bird ; 
 
 Never try to play the bat, 
 
 Never. 
 
 Never ape the tad-pole, man ; 
 
 Never swim around incog. ; 
 Oft* with tail or off with claws ; 
 
 Be a polliwog or frog, 
 
 Ever.
 
 V 
 
 FLOPDODDLE. 309 
 
 FLOPDODDLE. 
 
 How strange that men, and women, too, 
 Will strive to rack the noddle, 
 
 And use, instead of Saxon words, 
 The silliest "flopdoddle." 
 
 If from the garner of your lore 
 You wish to make a gleaning, 
 
 Select the purest, strongest words, 
 And words that have a meaning. 
 
 This hunting big jaw-crackers out 
 From Webster's Dictionary, 
 
 Will never serve, my foolish friend, 
 To make you literary. 
 
 This chasing for a pompous term, 
 As hares are chased by beagle, 
 
 Reminds me of the flight and fate 
 Of an old native Ea<rle
 
 310 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 That "soared aloft" one summer's day 
 
 Above her common ether 
 I will not tell how high she flew, 
 
 Nor what her fate was neither. 
 
 I once could speak some Latin words, 
 Once spoke by ancient Roman 
 
 But oh, how vain to slop them out 
 On every man and woman. 
 
 A Priest who preached one Sabbath past, 
 
 (In learning, most deficient) 
 Instead of plainly groaning, Lord 
 
 Would groan, "Tnou GREAT OMNISCIENT." 
 
 That night, a stripling said to me 
 
 "One name I can't get hold of, 
 I mean that long-named gentleman 
 
 That Elder Cooper told of."
 
 GOOD-BYE TO THE LEGISLATURE. 31 1 
 
 GOOD-BYE TO THE LEGISLATURE. 1872. 
 
 
 Now as we speak the last good-bye, 
 One thing my heart insures, 
 You've left no scars upon my soul, 
 I trust I've none on yours. 
 
 We've met like floating planks that touch 
 On ocean, lake or river, 
 We part to meet, though here or there, 
 Within that vast forever. 
 
 And when that meeting comes again, 
 In this world or the other, 
 Each shall be found upon my list, 
 Both as a friend and brother.
 
 312 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 GREENNESS. 
 
 'Tis not long since that I have gained 
 
 More real, useful lore, 
 Than all I ever gained for years, 
 
 Say twenty years before. 
 
 I used to think good Lord, how green 
 
 Was I in thinking so ! 
 That all said yes when meaning yes, 
 
 And no when meaning no. 
 
 I used to think that pious folks 
 
 Were folks who muttered grace 
 O'er daily bread on table spread, 
 
 And wore a lengthy face. , 
 
 I used to think that Clergymen, 
 
 Those enemies of sin, 
 Should drive out knowledge from their brains 
 
 To let the gospel in. 
 
 I used to think it was for me 
 
 To scrutinize and scan, 
 And judge the pulsings of the heart 
 
 Within a brother man.
 
 GREENNESS. 
 
 I used to think in silken gown 
 
 That Modesty was drest, 
 And Virtue in a bed of down 
 
 Was sure to make her nest. 
 
 I used to think that Editors, 
 
 And even Preachers, too, 
 Could live like Texan frogs and fat 
 
 On nothing but the dew. 
 
 I used to think the Doctor's child, 
 
 Whenever it was ill, 
 Was cured as other children are, 
 
 By swallowing a pill. 
 
 I used to think that gentlemen 
 Were those, and only those 
 
 Who sported canes and golden chains, 
 And dressed in broad-cloth clothes. 
 
 I never heard that rosy cheeks 
 Were made with common paint, 
 
 That maidens looked out special laps 
 Before they tried to faint. 
 
 I never knew, till late, that girls 
 In flaunting gauze could feel 
 
 So much at home, so mighty ''good" 
 With holes in stocking heel. 
 
 I never felt, till now, how vain 
 
 It is to squander time 
 In pumping fustian from the brain 
 
 For building fustian rhyme.
 
 314 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 LINES. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY WENDELL PHILLIPS' LECTURE ON THE 
 LOST ARTS. 
 
 You knew that brickyard where we used to play, 
 And the old Lombard horse that ground the clay ; 
 
 From year to year that bobtail nag was found 
 Hitched to the sweep upon his clayey round ; 
 
 And a new horse, you know, would only find 
 The marks and scenes the old nag left behind. 
 
 One day when straddle of that horse's back 
 Proud as a conquering Roman on the track, 
 
 Filled to the lips with hominy and bliss 
 
 1 had this dream, which Phillips claims as his : 
 
 Man moves in circles not in onward lines 
 And every track and every truth he finds, 
 
 And every thought that makes him smile or weep 
 Were left by others pulling 'round the sweep.
 
 . 
 
 MY BOY. 315 
 
 MY BOY. 
 
 WRITTEN UNDER THE STRANGE HALLUCINATION THAT 
 MY BOY WALTER WAS DEAD. 
 
 My boy is dead oh, sovereign God of mercies 
 
 Forgive this heart of mine 
 For sending up its mingled prayers and curses 
 
 At this dark doom of thine ! 
 
 My noble, lifeless boy, there coldly lying, 
 
 Was dearer than my breath, 
 And my deep love for him is madly trying 
 
 To scale the walls of death. 
 
 I vainly dreamed his merry peals of laughter 
 
 Would chase away my fears, 
 And cheer my footsteps 'mid Time's brief hereafter, 
 
 Through the dim mists of years. 
 
 With each small fault he had a thousand graces 
 
 Like priceless pearls encased, 
 lie was my only dear and blest oasis 
 
 Amid life's desert waste. 
 
 The consolation which the churchman offers 
 
 But aggravates my woe, 
 'Tis but the solace which the savage proffers 
 
 Around his tortured foe. 
 
 Until upon some shore of death's dark river 
 
 My darling boy I find, 
 And clasp and bind him to my heart forever 
 
 I will not be resigned.
 
 316 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 MEHETABEL JUXKINS. 
 
 How dear to my heart is Mehetabel Junkins, 
 
 When chance or good fortune presents her to view, 
 She's sweeter than sap or e'en pies made of pumpkins, 
 And the loveliest doughnut the world ever knew. 
 Her large massy head and the curls which hung by it, 
 
 The profusion of which no poet can tell, 
 Her graceful swan neck and dimpled chin nigh it, 
 And e'en that great bustle that made such a swell. 
 That well quilted bustle, 
 That monstrous great bustle, 
 Mehetabel's bustle that made such a swell. 
 
 Mehetabel Junkins I hailed as a treasure, 
 
 For often at noon when returned from the field 
 I found her the source of an exquisite pleasure, 
 The sweetest and purest that nature could yield. 
 
 How often I seized her with hands that were glowing, 
 
 When quick to my lap she ''reluctantly" fell, 
 And finding me often with words overflowing, 
 In whispers angelic she answered, ''du tell" 
 That well quilted bustle, 
 That monstrous great bustle, 
 Mehetabel's bustle that made such a swell.
 
 & 
 
 MEHETABLE JUNKINS. 
 
 How rich, how romantic it was to receive it, 
 
 A kiss from the curb of Mehetabel's lips, 
 Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it 
 Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. 
 A sigh will now often escape from my bosom, 
 
 The tear of regret will intrusively swell, 
 As fancy reverts to my former old blossom, 
 
 And thinks of the bustle that made such a swell. 
 That well quilted bustle, 
 That monstrous great bustle, 
 Mehetabel's bustle that made such a swell. 

 
 318 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 MIDNIGHT MELODIES ON BOAR-STONE 
 MOUNTAIN. 
 
 In the lone mid-night here with Nymphus Bodfish, 
 
 My pilot brave and true, 
 By aid of Java, hard bread, pork and cod-fish, 
 
 1 strike my harp for you. 
 
 In the cold dark we feel the damp mists creeping 
 O'er whitening beards and scalps, 
 
 And hear around us the '''live thunder''' leaping 
 As Byron near the Alps. 
 
 We see above, the famed old Ursa Major, 
 
 Lit by siderial lamps, 
 Circling around, as for a race-course wager, 
 
 On his eternal tramps. 
 
 Tell me, ye stars, upon my bed of granite, 
 Made up with care and pain, 
 
 Is there not near you some nice, quiet planet 
 For weary heart and brain, 
 
 Some outside lot, cleared out from sham and fiction, 
 From rhymes and troubles clear, 
 
 Where shattered nerves may shun the fearful friction, 
 They often meet with here? 
 
 No matter, now, for I will not aspire, 
 
 Nor risk a tougher curse, 
 For oft I find in trying to climb higher, 
 
 Our troubles ma be worse. 

 
 SAXON PLUCK. 319 
 
 SAXON PLUCK. 
 
 Oh, that some power would make and sell 
 
 A different ink and pen, 
 That I might truly write and tell 
 
 About one kind of men. 
 
 A set that's always sure to pass, 
 And worlds can't wag without 'em- 
 
 A "yes-sir," "no-sir," dodging class, 
 With no back-bone about 'em. 
 
 A scraping, bowing kind of folks, 
 Who o'er the rounds are going, 
 
 And always watching weather-cocks 
 To see how winds are blowing. 
 
 If you hate colored gentlemen, 
 And think yourselves above 'em, 
 
 'Tis just as well to say so, then, 
 As 'tis to say you love 'em. 
 

 
 32O POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Or think that slavery is worse 
 
 Than any other evil : 
 A filching, eating, mildew curse 
 
 Begotten by the devil ; 
 
 Then loose your tongues and talk it out, 
 And let the Hunkers howl, 
 
 No man is fit to be about 
 Who trembles at a growl. 
 
 Or, if you say and truly think 
 
 A statute, touching toddy 
 Is worse than certain pauper drink 
 
 Which kills the soul and body, 
 
 Repeal the law or raise a storm, 
 And pass around the "Cag," 
 
 But do not shield your brandy form 
 Behind a temperance flag. 
 
 But if you take the other tack, 
 And say the law should stand, 
 
 And if you know it sluices back 
 Damnation from the land, 
 
 Sustain the act in spite of knocks, 
 
 And keep away the sin, 
 Though you must wade to ballot-box 
 
 In purple to the chin.
 
 SAXON PLUCK. 321 
 
 But if you haven't got the nerve, 
 
 An honest hand to show, 
 If you TV ill quiver, nod and swerve, 
 
 Like saplings in a blow ; 
 
 Your hobbies fix and stand between, 
 
 And buckle if you must, 
 But mind it, men, 'tis shocking mean 
 
 To be a lapping dust. 
 
 Far better, far, it is to say, 
 We will not curve the back, 
 
 Though pestilence shall hedge our way 
 And sword be on our track. 
 
 I saw a temperance talker once 
 
 Embrace a stupid bloat, 
 And dicker with the loathsome dunce 
 
 For what? to get his vote ! 
 
 Methought I'd sooner bend my knees 
 
 To idols in the east 
 Than trim my sails to catch the breeze 
 
 Which blew from such a beast. 
 
 A spotless life is not my toast, 
 
 I never had the luck 
 Of being pure then let me boast 
 
 Of good old SAXON PLUCK.
 
 332 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 STEAMBOAT KNITTING. 
 
 On the 24th of August, A. D. \8f>3. an aged widow, fully clad in mourning 
 sat quietly and busily engaged in knitting a stocking in the saloon of the Steamer 
 Penobscot, on her passage from Belfast to Bangor. I observed, to my astonish 
 ment, two young women, gorgeously decked, pointing and laughing at the old 
 lady with her knitting work. One of the maidens referred to had a large hole 
 in the heel of her stocking. The foregoing incident suggested the following 
 lines : 
 
 Knit on let "moderns" giggle if they will 
 Knit on, nor squander thine allotted time ; 
 
 Knit on, old matron, and my poet's quill 
 
 Shall tell thy virtues in these measured rhymes. 
 
 Despite of idiot laugh and pointless joke 
 
 I love to see thee at thy knitting-work. 
 
 Thou 'mind'st me of those stormy days, old Dame, 
 When toil like thine was honored more than now, 
 
 When stockingless, through blood and frost and flame, 
 Our fathers won fresh laurels for the brow ; 
 
 When "Mother Bailey" raised her warring notes 
 
 And furnished wadding from her petticoats.
 
 STEAMBOAT KNITTING. 323 
 
 - 
 
 When girls were made to "draw" with handle mop 
 In "water colors," o'er unfinished room, 
 
 And taught, on washing day the "waltzing hop," 
 And learned their ''music" at the wheel and loom ; 
 
 When silk or satin, or the flaunting gauze 
 
 Was bad to milk in when the cows were cross. 
 
 When man of brain could triumph o'er his birth, 
 When all but monkeys shaved their upper lips, 
 
 When error met by truth was "crushed to earth" 
 When lodge-room was the only place for "grips," 
 
 When boys had fathers (now they have a "Pa") 
 
 And lived a space 'twixt nursing and cigar. 
 
 I hate to see the meanest reptile die, 
 
 I hate a fop, I hate a mincing prude ; 
 I hate the fret of saw-dust in my eye ; 
 
 I hate a thief, I hate ingratitude ; 
 But from mine inmost soul far worse than all 
 I hate a sneering o'er the sweat of toil, 
 And worse than sin I hate the wretch that leads 
 The van to taunt a widow in her weeds ; 
 I loathe the wretch if for no reason other, 
 I have mvself a stricken, widowed mother.
 
 324 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TEA-CHESX LEAD. 
 
 Hold on, my friends, and hear me tell 
 
 A tale without a sermon 
 Perhaps you know George Brackett well, 
 
 Beneath the hill at Hermon. 
 
 Perhaps you may, or may not know 
 
 A fact I simply mention, 
 That Brackett went some years ago 
 
 To a fat man's convention.* 
 
 The winner of the prize could boast 
 
 As fifty dollars richer, 
 For he who sat and weighed the most 
 
 Could claim a silver pitcher. 
 
 A fat one from the old Bay State, 
 
 (May conscience never grip him) 
 Learned, somehow, of George Brackett's weight, 
 
 And so prepared to tip him.
 
 ! K.\-l III.ST LEAD. 325 
 
 He quilted, so they say, to beat 
 
 Our honest friend, Geo. Brackett, 
 Some tea-chest lead in his trousers' seat 
 
 Just even with his jacket. 
 
 And don't you think the man by zounds, 
 
 To make himself the richer. 
 Tipped Brackett just two single pounds 
 
 And scooped the silver pitcher ! 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 Be true and honest if you can. 
 
 Seek always the defensive, 
 Keep peace with self, and peace with man, 
 
 With peace not too expensive. 
 
 But in life's combats, stern and tough, 
 
 In attic, palace, cellar^- 
 \Vhen using lead, melt lead enough 
 
 To fetch the other fellow. 
 
 *Lewiton. 
 
 -k.
 
 V 
 
 326 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE LION AND THE SKUNK. 
 
 A DREAM. 
 
 I met a lion in my path, 
 
 ('Twas on a dreary autumn night) 
 Who gave me the alternative 
 
 To either run or fight. 
 
 I dare not turn upon the track, 
 I dare not think to run away 
 
 For fear the lion at my back 
 Would seize me as his prey. 
 
 So, summoning a fearless air, 
 
 Though all my soul was full of fright, 
 I said unto the forest king, 
 
 "I will not run but fight ." 
 
 We fought, and as the fates decreed, 
 I conquered in the bloody fray, 
 
 For soon the lion at my feet 
 A lifeless carcass lay.
 
 THE LION AND THE SKUNK. 327 
 
 A little skunk was standing by 
 
 And noted what the lion spoke, 
 And when he saw the lion die 
 
 The lion's tracks he took. 
 
 He used the lion's very speech, 
 
 For, stretching to his utmost height, 
 
 He gave me the alternative 
 To either run or fight. 
 
 I saw he was prepared to fling 
 
 Fresh odors from his bushy tail, 
 And knew those odors very soon 
 
 My nostrils would assail. 
 
 So summoning a humble air, 
 
 Though all my soul was free from fright, 
 I said unto the dirty skunk, 
 
 "I'll run but will 
 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 As years begin to cool my blood, 
 I rather all would doubt my spunk 
 
 Than for a moment undertake 
 To fight a human skunk.
 
 
 328 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE 4TH OF JULY AT BELFAST, 1853. 
 
 My Muse, oh grant me one desire : 
 My lips and heart and pen inspire, 
 (I ask for this and nothing higher, 
 
 As poets all do,) 
 And aid me while I touch the lyre 
 
 For "bleeding Waldo." 
 
 In fancy's paths I will not stray 
 Through haunted fields and woods away 
 To conjure up some doleful lay 
 
 To move your pity, 
 But sing of Freedom's natal day 
 
 In Belfast city. 
 
 A city famed throughout the world, 
 Not for its diamonds, shells or pearls, 
 But as a place where Cupid hurls 
 
 His sharpest lances, 
 And as a town for handsome girls 
 
 And Polka dances.
 
 THE FOURTH OF JULY AT BELFAST. 329 
 
 The clang of bell and roar of gun 
 O'er vale and hill and mountain "run." 
 To notify each freeborn son 
 
 With joy elate, 
 To flee to town like Goth and Hun 
 
 To "celebrate." 
 
 The folks flocked in of every name 
 The country girl and country dame 
 At earliest blink of morning came 
 
 Brimful of glee ; 
 Well aproned up to fan the flame 
 
 Of Liberty- 
 
 And men were there who wooed the Nine, 
 And men were there with grip and sign, 
 And men who dripped with ocean's brine, 
 
 Men true and bold. 
 Who brave the dangers of the line 
 
 In quest of gold. 
 
 And men were there of every grade 
 
 The upper ten and men of trade, 
 
 And men who wield the axe and spade, 
 
 And those who won't try, 
 All under obligations laid 
 
 To serve their countrv. 
 
 V
 
 330 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 "Costumers" ancT' k Fantastics," too, 
 Were there in dress of every hue, 
 In every shade of green and blue ; 
 
 With swordless hands, 
 They would have routed Roderick Dhu 
 
 And all his clans. 
 
 Then Priest with solemn, lengthened face 
 Besought for Heaven's special grace 
 On all of every rank and case, 
 
 On rich and needy, 
 And e'en on that discovered race,* 
 
 By "Rough and Ready."f 
 
 Next came the Governor's oration, 
 A lengthy, learned dissertation 
 Upon the duties of the nation, 
 
 And sad condition, 
 Which ended by a sly flirtation 
 
 With Abolition. 
 
 There sat Machias, calmly gazing, 
 Though Federal guns were fiercely blazing, 
 And Federal balls his claws were grazing, 
 
 He took it cool 
 
 Until he found his foe was raising 
 The price of wool. 
 
 %
 
 XT 
 
 THE FOURTH OF JULY AT BELFAST. 33 1 
 
 For round and round passed leer and wink 
 (Bad theme for poet's "crambo clink" ) 
 But Pillsbury sat and looked like link 
 
 'Twixt wolf and lamb, 
 And doubtless thought as Dutchmen think, 
 
 He thought "Cot Tarn." 
 
 At length the welcome, joyous sound 
 Of "dinner hour" was passed around, 
 And quick to board the natives bound 
 
 With one accord, 
 When every Epicure was found 
 
 To worship God. 
 
 When evening's sable curtains fell, 
 From fire-works there came forth a smell 
 Of which no pen can truly tell 
 
 But this was sure, 
 They tried to represent a hell 
 
 In miniature. 
 
 Then to the hall the people go 
 
 To trip the light fantastic toe, 
 
 Where like fond sisters, belle and beau 
 
 With loving glance 
 Embrace to lead each other through 
 
 The mazy dance. 
 
 V
 
 332 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 / 
 
 Beauty was there with rounded arm. 
 With lips of rose and breath of balm, 
 Possessed of every pleasing charm 
 
 Which God had given, 
 Whose angel looks would quick disarm 
 
 The wrath of heaven. 
 
 And girls were there of different tastes. 
 With monstrous small and monstrous waists, 
 Some cloudy, others sunny faced 
 
 Some plain, some fair 
 All scented, slippered, decked and laced 
 
 With choicest care. 
 
 And some were there whom I espied 
 So near to youth and age allied 
 You could not call them girl or bride 
 
 In any sense 
 They were like blank leaves which divide 
 
 The Testaments. 
 
 When tolled the tongue of churchman's bell 
 "Some wee short hours ayont the twal,'' 
 Reluctantly I took mysel' 
 
 To Morpheus' lair ; 
 So many things I cannot tell 
 
 , Which happened there. 
 
 *' 4 The rest of mankind." 
 fG-eneral Taylor.
 
 THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL. 333 
 
 THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL. 
 
 Improve your hour as best you may, 
 Keep up your fitful clamor ; 
 
 I chance to be the anvil now, 
 You chance to be the hammer. 
 
 Although to deal the heaviest stroke 
 Your heated nerves are straining, 
 
 The thinking, passive anvil gives 
 No token of complaining. 
 
 Although the falling hammer now 
 The dented face is scorning, 
 Your patient anvil in its ring 
 
 Sends forth this note of warning: 
 
 Remember, 'mid your causeless blows, 
 Remember, 'mid your clamor, 
 
 You yet may be the anvil, boys, 
 And I may be the hammer. 
 
 
 \
 
 334 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE LEVANT CONVENTION. 
 
 Air "Old Oaken Bucket:' 
 
 The Federal Convention we all shall remember 
 
 As long as our pulses continue to beat, 
 When the Whigs formed a league to prepare for September 
 
 And hoped by that movement to make us retreat. 
 
 But when they can stop a Niagara's thunder, 
 Or stay the fierce comet by grasping its tail, 
 
 Or by spouting can rend Mt. Katahdin asunder, 
 'Tis then they can make these old Democrats quail. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Oh, the Federal Convention. 
 The Tory Convention, 
 The Federal Convention they held at Levant. 
 
 At nine in the morning their forces they rally, 
 And choose for commander Hibernian Pat 
 
 With pony from Shetland and sprig of Shillalah 
 
 He rode through the phalanx while each doffed his hat.
 
 i ?r 
 
 THE LEVANT CONVENTION'. 335 
 
 At ten the old hay-rack from Brewer approaches, 
 Pat says to the gentry, "Let's give it a cheer." 
 
 No sooner he spoke than they sprang from their coaches 
 And shouted, "Long live the young Brewer cashier." 
 
 / CHORUS. 
 
 Oh, the Federal Convention, etc. 
 
 All having arrived, they then formed a procession, 
 Both farmers and loafers, and demagogues, too, 
 
 But the hay-rack was filled with the men of profession 
 Who guarded the standard of Tippecanoe. 
 
 They furnished the landlord with funds to enable 
 Him amply to entertain half of the State, 
 
 But when the bell tolled and all rushed for the table, 
 There were 600 tickets, but 400 plates. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Oh, the Federal Convention, etc. 
 
 A motion for holding an extra convention 
 
 Was ottered by those thus deprived of their seat, 
 
 But the Marshal from Cork then called out for attention, 
 And soon they devoured all the "pratees" and meat. 
 
 H
 
 33^ POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Hard cider was wanting they called for some liquor 
 The waiter was tardy impatient they sat, 
 
 Their patience exhausted they cried out, "Move quicker, 
 We wish to imbibe to Hibernian Pat." 
 
 CHORUS. 
 Oh, the Federal Convention, etc. 
 
 The gin being brought they all gladly receive it, 
 
 With the speed of forked lightning it came to their lips, 
 
 'Not a full blushing goblet could tempt them to leave it" 
 Though filled with hard cider that Harrison sips. 
 
 They ate, drank and guzzled the space of an hour, 
 And getting quite balmy concluded that each 
 
 Should cease to imbibe and repair to the bower 
 And listen to Evans while making a speech. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 Oh, the Federal Convention, etc. 
 
 Their Cooly then offered some long resolutions, 
 No doubt for his labor expecting his pay, 
 
 And ended by saying, ki \Ve need contributions 
 To aid us in settling the bills of the day." 
 
 %
 
 V 
 
 THE LEVANT CONVENTION. 337 
 
 Their Allen, of Bangor, some two hours spouted, 
 In which he depicted the fate of us all, 
 
 And told them that Locos must ere long be routed 
 If they wished to elect "Ed" and "Tip" in the Fall. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Oh, the Federal Convention, etc. 
 
 But finding despite of Penobscot exertions 
 
 Their old Federal Ship would soon suffer a wreck, 
 
 Their alternative was to leave by desertion 
 Or call on their Evans from old Kennebec. 
 
 He rose from the altar on which he was seated 
 Like a lion when shaking the dew from his mane 
 
 And says, "My friends, if in the Fall you're defeated 
 I never will make you a speechment again." 
 
 CHORUS. 
 Oh, the Federal Convention, etc. 
 
 In the course of his harangue he gave them this warning : 
 "My brethren keep watch, for I really opine 
 
 These Locos will hook all your pork before morning, 
 For I swear I can hear the dripping of brine." 
 
 The speech being ended, they, without dissension, 
 Retired from the grove and repaired to the Inn, 
 
 And agreed that they never would leave the Convention 
 Until they had drunk up Joe's barrel of gin. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 Oh, the Federal Convention, etc. 
 
 u
 
 V 
 
 338 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE MEADOW-KING MOWER. 
 
 My Muse, if you know her, 
 
 You know is no blower, 
 
 But the Meadow-King Mower 
 
 Kept at Winterport, Maine, 
 By one Atwood 'tis said, 
 (And I think it is Fred) 
 Has excited my Muse, 
 And I cannot refuse 
 
 To indulge her again 
 Just to jump on behind 
 
 While I mount old Pegasus with saddle and rein 
 And tell you our mind 
 Of the Meadow-King Mower 
 
 Kept at Winterport, Maine. 
 One day as I sat 
 
 Looking over the list of the traps that old Noah 
 Once had in his ark as it twisted its wheel 
 
 And it rested its keel 
 Upon old Ararat ; 
 I found that old Noah 
 
 Had just such a gear 
 \
 
 THE MEADOW-KING MOWER. 339 
 
 As the Meadow-King Mower 
 
 Now it ain't at all queer, 
 For the Lord (it is said) 
 
 Helped him pack in the ark all the things that he had : 
 And he knew that old Noah, 
 When the waters slacked down 
 Through each village and town 
 Would want such a gear as the Meadow-King Mower. 
 
 Now one night after dark 
 
 When old Noah and his crew were unloading the ark, 
 I find that old Noah 
 Lost the Meadow-King Mower. 
 It is strange that this gear ever turned up again, 
 But 'twas found while ago by this Atwood of Maine 
 
 One day as he sat 
 
 Looking over the traps upon old Ararat, 
 Which Noah and his boys lost that night after dark 
 On old mount Ararat from the deck of his ark ; 
 So, believe what I say that the Lord and old Noah 
 Helped Fred Atwood, of Maine, to this Meadow-King 
 
 Mower. 
 
 Now with facts like the facts I have given you know, 
 Shall you ever think strange that this Mower can mow? 
 Shall you ever think strange that this Mower is best, 
 And by the help of the Lord it can beat all the rest, 
 All your earthly machines all excepting the one 
 The old rhyming machine that my Muse and I run? 
 
 The foregoing was written and sent to Fred Atwood, Winterport, in aniwer 
 to his letter requesting me to write Home lines on his Mcailou Kinir Mower. 

 
 340 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE REFORM SCHOOL. 
 
 WRITTEN AND READ AT AN OFFICIAL VISIT TO THE 
 
 BOYS AT THE REFORM SCHOOL, AT CAPE 
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 We come to you with fleeting powers, 
 
 You little types of man, 
 And find your school is just like ours, 
 
 But on a smaller plan. 
 
 This lower world in which we dwell, 
 
 Of sunshine and of storm, 
 The blending of a heaven and hell 
 
 Was made for our reform. 
 
 And every mortal here will find, 
 
 Whatever path he takes, 
 Though in the school of yours or mine 
 
 Some bill for his mistakes. 
 
 Whatever may be said or sung, 
 
 Though paid by tears or gold, 
 / The payment for mistakes when young 
 Is better than when old.
 
 THE SIX FELLOWS 341 
 
 THE SIX FELLOWS. 1 
 
 'Twas yesterday or day before 
 
 I and a country cousin 
 Saw six grave fellows on a seat, 
 
 (Near Haifa "baker s dozen.") 
 
 'Twas latish in the afternoon, 
 And rather chilly weather 
 
 So these six fellows in a box 
 Were huddled up together. 
 
 Now some of them would talk aloud, 
 And some of them would mutter, 
 
 And some of them were lank and lean, 
 And some were fat as butter. 
 
 Another fellowj 'cause the seat 
 Wan't wide enough to hold him 
 
 Sat near, and with a pen wrote down 
 What these six fellows told him. 
 
 4f
 
 342 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Two other fellows with the six 
 Make eight, when all together ; 
 
 Perhaps these fellows staid away 
 Because 'twas rainy weather. 
 
 I noticed those six fellows there 
 Who in a kind of line were 
 
 Wore merely middling kind of clothes, 
 And not so good as mine were. 
 
 They sat and looked upon some books 
 I think they call them dockets ; 
 
 They had no blacking on their boots, 
 Xo watches in their pockets. 
 
 I gazed upon those fellows there, 
 
 And as the twilight streamed off, 
 Strange fancies flittered thro' my brain 
 
 Few mortals ever dreamed of; 
 * 
 For these six fellows hold a power 
 
 A power for good or evil 
 Which analyzed and understood 
 
 Would fright the very devil. 
 
 For soon these fellows separate 
 And scoot about to try us ; 
 
 The place they go I most forget, 
 But think 'tis ''Nisi Prius"
 
 THE SIX FELLOWS. 343 
 
 And if one fellow makes a bull, 
 
 And we poor fellows feel it, 
 They have a right to meet again, 
 
 And have the power to heal it. 
 
 The dog you love, the horse you drive, 
 
 The gold mines you are selling, 
 The hut where shivering children sleep, 
 
 The palace that you dwell in ; 
 
 The loaf now steaming for a meal, 
 The quill-wheel, or your carriage ; 
 
 The baby mewling in your lap, 
 The wife you won at marriage ; 
 
 The last memento, dear as breath, 
 
 By some departed, given 
 Love's golden chain, forged out by death, 
 
 To link this life with heaven- 
 Some knavish whelp may up and claim 
 
 Before the sun has risen, 
 And these six fellows on that bench 
 
 Have power to say their "hisen." 
 
 Grave, worthy seniors, just one word 
 
 You, on that seat together 
 You counting six, and with the two, 
 
 Now tell me frankly whether
 
 344 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 You deem, because you have the right 
 To stop the bells from chiming, 
 
 And have the power to take one's breath 
 That you can stop my rhyming? 
 
 Sage men, a private word with you 
 
 You, on that seat together 
 You, of the six, and with the two, 
 
 Once more, now tell me whether 
 
 With all your Courtly wisdom here, 
 
 And all your power for terrors, 
 There may not be some higher Power 
 
 Some upper "Court of Errors?" 
 
 *Published in Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, accompanied by the follow 
 ing remarks by the editor: "The following impromptu lines were dashed off 
 by their witty and gifted author during a few lounging minutes in the Court 
 room, the other afternoon, where six judges were holding a Law term." 
 
 fReporterof Decisions.
 
 THE THIRD CREMATION* 345 
 
 THE THIRD CREMATION. 
 
 AN INCIDENT OF THE BELFAST FIRE, SEPT., 1873. 
 
 Joseph Dennett, sit down with me here on this rock, 
 Rest your legs and your heai't while you list to my talk, 
 Keep the smoke from my eyes while I read you my rhyme, 
 Take a lunch from my box in exchange for your time. 
 What ! Dennett, see there why, that looks some to me 
 Like the cellar and well, where your home used to be 
 And the knoll where that burnt, broken bureau is laid, 
 Why, it looks like the spot where your children once 
 played. 
 
 Twice before, 
 Twice before 
 I have stood at your door 
 When each bell in the spire 
 Screamed ''the city's a-jire!" 
 First on that wild night in the years long ago, 
 (You remember, I know, ) 
 When with borrowed horse dray 
 I bore swiftly away 
 The warm couch where you lay
 
 
 346 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 When those fire demons came 
 With their tongues all aflame, 
 
 And they poured and they swashed their red lava like rain, 
 And as roof after roof disappeared from the sight, 
 I remember those fiends how they rollicked that night ! 
 But your walls, they were brick, 
 And your walls, they were thick 
 So you lined up your charred, gutted castle again ; 
 
 But now, my tired man, 
 
 They have scooped and have cleaned you clear down to 
 the pan. 
 
 Joseph Dennett, sit still, and don't hurry one mite, 
 For I wish to know more of this singular fight 
 
 Of this fight against odds 
 
 With the demons or gods. 
 
 Say, what have you done, and pray what,have you said ? 
 Have you wronged the live living, have you wronged the 
 
 cold dead? 
 
 I believe in the warm, fervent prayer of the priest, 
 And believe in my mother's worn bible, at least ; 
 I believe while we dwell and we grope in the form 
 It behooves us to bow now and then to the storm ; 
 But ah, there are times when the blows are too tough 
 When the cold, stolid granite is battered enough ; 
 There are times when the act would be cowardly weak 
 To incline to the smiter the opposite cheek 
 
 So, old Craftsman, your ear,
 
 
 THE THIRD CREMATION. 
 
 And a word on the Square, 
 If you're honest, before I would buckle one hair 
 To the Powers in the skies or the regions below 
 I would stand up alone in your desolate woe, 
 And would say to those powers who have scooped you 
 
 so clean, 
 What in heaven do you want tell me square what you 
 
 mean ; 
 
 Must you go? but a word to the close of my rhyme, 
 Take the rest of my lunch and this scrip for your time.
 
 ^Jt 
 
 X 
 
 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 THE WHEAT AND THE TARES. 
 
 Oh, 'tis many a year, 
 In the country, up here, 
 
 Since the wheat and the tares 
 Grew together in pairs 
 Like a sister and brother, 
 Like a father and mother 
 Without one or the other 
 Always "putting on airs." 
 
 Then when the storm came, 
 And the big thunder hurled 
 Many a bolt at the world, 
 
 Then the wheat and the tares, 
 
 Growing timid, appalled, 
 And forgetting each name 
 
 By which they were called, 
 And forgetting the threat 
 
 As to which should be burned, 
 They each to the other 
 
 Instinctively turned. 
 
 Yes, the wheat and the tares, 
 In the midst of their fright, 
 'Mid the gloom of the night, 
 Leaned on to each other 
 Like a sister and brother, 
 Like a father and mother 
 Without one or the other 
 
 Even "putting on airs." 
 
 ^
 
 TO GOVERNOR CONEY. 349 
 
 TO GOVERNOR CONEY, 
 
 OR HOW DO WE STAND. 
 
 One quarter century ago, 
 
 When both were fresh and new, 
 
 Perhaps the anxious world should know 
 I studied law with you. 
 
 Since then, for pleasure or for pain, 
 We're fallen on strange times, 
 
 You left the law to govern Maine, 
 And I to scribble rhymes. 
 
 Now Judge, or rather Governor, 
 
 Suppose each of us tries 
 To find, in equity or law, 
 
 Where most the honor lies. 
 
 If on your side, state the amount, 
 
 And if Pegasus goes, 
 I'll quickly square the whole account 
 
 With any words but prose. 
 
 If on my side, just let it be 
 
 I'll call some future day 
 And take the balance coming me 
 
 In any place 'twill pay.
 
 35O POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TO THE RABBLE. 
 
 I have not time nor strength to stroll 
 
 And visit all your clan, 
 And tell you how, through all my soul, 
 
 I loathe you, man by man. 
 
 Then let me quickly clutch my quill 
 
 And steep its every part 
 In gall and wormwood which distil 
 
 So freely from my heart. 
 
 Perhaps by giggling at the words 
 Which leak from out your throats, 
 
 And mixing with your slimy herds 
 A man might get your votes. 
 
 But should you ever use my name 
 
 Upon your ballots given, 
 I would not, if elected, claim 
 
 A seat, though 'twas in heaven. 

 
 
 TO THE RABBLE. 351 
 
 I do not draw the rabble line 
 
 'Twixt wale and broad-cloth folks, 
 
 For thousand hearts have beat with mine 
 Beneath old homespun frocks. 
 
 And men are found, but knaves incog., 
 
 Tricked oft' from crown to feet, 
 Than whom I'd sooner trust my dog 
 
 To bring me in my meat. 
 
 Put trappings on and still your throng, 
 
 By one test may be known 
 While Right lies bleeding, crushed by Wrong, 
 
 Ye always mock her groan. 
 
 I sometimes fear it is a lie 
 
 To say the Bible's true 
 It staggers faith that God should die 
 
 For scoundrels such as vou.
 
 x 
 
 352 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 TOUCH NOT THE BOWL. 
 
 Touch not the bowl beware the risk 
 Though joy attends the minute, 
 
 More deadly than the basilisk 
 A serpent lurks within it ; 
 
 Touch not the bowl. 
 
 Scorn not the wine-cup's fearful power, 
 Thy hopes, that draught is killing, 
 
 That lazar potion hour by hour 
 Some new-made grave is filling ; 
 
 Touch not the bowl. 
 
 A demon, lingering round that bowl, 
 Thy funeral dirge is hymning, 
 
 And thousand woes to curse thy soul 
 Upon that bowl are swimming ; 
 
 Touch not the bowl.
 
 
 PRIVATE REMARKS TO THE AMERICAN EAGLE. 353 
 
 PRIVATE REMARKS TO THE AMERICAN 
 EAGLE. 
 
 Old Bird, 
 
 Believe this true, 
 To have a word in the most private manner here with you, 
 
 I like your style ; 
 Though many a time 
 It brings upon my face a smile 
 
 To see you swell your crop, 
 
 And flop 
 As people say that poets often flop in rhyme. 
 
 O'er you or other things I do not love to brag, 
 
 But now, I do declare, 
 
 Yes, now to use a stronger term, I even say I swear 
 I like the way 
 Through night and day, 
 Through drouth and flood, 
 And seas of blood 
 You've stuck to our old flag. 
 
 O'er mountain top and glen, 
 With Marion's bare-foot men, 
 With Perry on his deck, 
 And at Chepultepec ; 
 And at each fearful shock 
 Of blade with tomahawk, 
 
 Old Bird, 
 Your scream was heard.
 
 354 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 When Barbara Frietchie, down 
 
 At Frederick-town, 
 
 In Stonewall Jackson's face, and to the morning air 
 The dear old pennant flung, 
 The way you clung 
 To that old pennant there 
 
 Gave hope and courage strong 
 To all the loyal throng. 
 
 When Union mothers stood and placed cold guns 
 Into the hands of their own darling sons, 
 
 And treason would not brook 
 But buttoned 'neath their coats of blue 
 A biscuit and a Bible by heaven, 'twixt me and you 
 
 It had a business look ; 
 
 We knew there must be something in the cause 
 The way you gripped those arrows in your claws. 
 
 I mind it well at Vicksburg Height 
 When Death stalked 'round upon our right 
 
 So grim and gaunt, 
 You stood the storm of shot and shell, 
 And bore along the "gilt-edged hell" 
 The name of GRANT ! 
 
 Should any power again 
 From seraphs down to men, 
 Attempt to force you from your eyrie in the sky, 
 Put claws deep in their throat, 
 Then shriek this taunting note : 
 that for high?'
 
 PRIVATE REMARKS TO THE AMERICAN EAGLE. 355 
 
 Let any one who can, 
 The devil, God or man, 
 Once tell me what the gain to drag 
 You as an emblem from that dear old flag, 
 
 The substitute for you we cannot know 
 Perhaps a turkey, buzzard or a crow. 
 
 Down with your ear, old Bird, 
 That I may speak one word 
 Without the slightest risk of being heard ; 
 When Robert Lee 
 At Appomattox tree 
 Gave up the strife 
 And gave his carving knife, 
 
 Our Governor Chamberlain, though a Christian, swears 
 You flopped a little and kind o' put on airs. 
 
 Old Bird, 
 But one word 
 More and I am done ; 
 When I have run 
 
 Life's lower race, 
 
 And you and other friends shall meet 
 And see them bear me feet 
 Foremost to my last resting place, 
 
 Believe this true : 
 
 Though in my frailties I may be false to God and man, 
 I know I never was, and think I never can 
 Be false to our old flag or you.
 
 356 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 WHAT IS TRUE POETRY? 
 
 How many squander off their hours 
 In rhymingyfea with tea-, 
 
 And fondly dream it constitutes 
 The soul of poetry ! 
 
 It is not poetry to frame 
 
 A line that ends with chink, 
 
 And stretch another at its side 
 That ends with bobolink. 
 
 True poetry is never decked 
 It always lives undressed, 
 
 But has a fire to warm itself 
 Concealed within its breast. 
 
 Its joy is this : to find the key, 
 
 And keep it in control, 
 Which fits the lock that closes up 
 
 The chambers of the soul. 
 
 And then it labors long and well 
 
 To learn the magic art 
 Of throwing on a screen the lights 
 
 And shadows of the heart.
 
 
 KATAHDIN IRON WORKS. 357 
 
 KATAHDIN IRON WORKS. 
 
 This is his last earthly song, written at Katahdin Iron Works, Sunday night, 
 Aug. 30, 1874, where be had gone to drink the waters from the Katahdin Iron 
 Springs. He came back to Bangor on the Piscataquis train on Saturday even 
 ing, Sept 5th, took his bed Sept. 9U>, and died Sept. 14tb, 1874. 
 
 To my couch in Number 6, 
 
 Where one Wilder Taylor* dvvelleth, 
 Where the good dames round me fix 
 
 Those rare trout which Wilder selleth. 
 
 Through the darksome, livelong night, 
 Through the hours to sleep or ponder, 
 
 Comes a stream of moulten light 
 From the Davis foundery yonder. 
 
 As the yielding nuggets melt 
 
 For the crimson pigs of iron, 
 How it lights the famous belt 
 
 Of the classical Orion. 
 
 Lights the north star, pinioned there, 
 Where each race and age have found it, 
 
 Lights the blinking Major Bear 
 In its index tramps around it.
 
 V 
 
 358 POEMS BY DAVID BARKER. 
 
 Here the invalid seeks rest 
 
 Seeks the softened nerve to harden, 
 
 Sucking from each brawny breast 
 Iron milk from out Katahdin. 
 
 Let the bloated millionaire 
 And the worn demented fogy 
 
 Gloat around some bill of fare 
 'Mid the plates of Saratoga. 
 
 Let the modern-schooled divine, 
 With his faithless creed and flurry, 
 
 Shun this cool retreat of mine 
 For the Adirondack Murray. 
 
 Let some poet made not born 
 
 With strange airs, and verse, and metre, 
 
 Wake his harp each night and morn 
 Round the relics of St. Peter. 
 
 Better come to Number 6, 
 
 W'here one Wilder Taylor dwelleth. 
 
 Where the good dames round me fix 
 Those rare trout which Wilder selleth. 
 
 Here the invalid finds rest, 
 
 Finds the softened nerve to harden, 
 
 Sucking from each brawny breast 
 Iron milk from out Katahdin.

 

 
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