,CK 
 4 EX 
 
 California 
 legional 
 'acility 
 
 W^AY: MOSES :
 
 -JACOB HUFF.
 
 (JACOB 'HUFF:)
 
 iiK 10 Art of Cm.zn-ss. in tin- \ ,.,, is!i;>. in .[.U'ni! HI FT 
 in the ottir<> nf the Librarian "I Conutvss. 
 at \Va-liiiu'tli. 
 
 Press of Pennsylvania Grit, 
 Williamsport. Pa.
 
 AUTHOR'S APOLOGY. 
 
 5INCE it is the custom of authors to write a sort of 
 apologetic preface for their works, I will work one 
 into mine, although I do not know what I could say 
 that would make the stuffing of the book suit the taste 
 of those who have no taste for verse. 
 
 Almost everybody will be disappointed in this book, 
 because they have been expecting something humor- 
 ous. But there is a sad and serious side to every man's 
 life, and in mine there has been a homesick feeling 
 haunting my soul since I came West, and, while roam- 
 ing over the deserts of Colorado, where the silence feels 
 as heavy and gloomy as the shadow of death, these 
 songs came into my heart like requiems sung over the 
 graves where I am fast burying the memories of my 
 boyhood friends ; for the many faces I loved in the long 
 ago seem to be fading away from Memory's view, like 
 the little whirlwinds of sand that go dancing out 
 towards the horizon and disappear forever. 
 
 My next book will be in prose, giving the humorous, 
 pathetic and wicked sides of Western life, and will be 
 my master- work. I have been already two years col- 
 lecting material for this book, and it will take one year 
 more to complete the work. It will be called 
 
 "THE MORTAL CINCH ; 
 
 A TALE OF THE 
 
 SINS AND SORROWS OF THE WILD AND 
 WICKED WEST." 
 
 L,ook out for it in the near future. 
 
 FARAWAY MOSES. 
 
 (JACOB HUFF.) 
 
 2200401
 
 INDEX 
 
 Page. 
 
 Out on the Desert, 7 
 
 Charlie, ........... 10 
 
 Little Injun Dick 12 
 
 Superstition, i^ 
 
 The Cow Boy's Wife 14 
 
 Forethought, 15 
 
 It Is Kasy to Talk, 16 
 
 Thunder Storm on the Rockies. 17 
 
 Song of the Burro, 19 
 
 The Miser of Lost Canyon, 21 
 
 If Christ Were Here, ......... 23 
 
 Silver Threads, 25 
 
 The Lost Troopers, 27 
 
 Smothered Thoughts, 31 
 
 The Cliff Dwellers, 33 
 
 You and I Together, 36 
 
 Left Behind 38 
 
 Little Maverick 41 
 
 Dreaming of Home, 42 
 
 Oblivion, ........... 45 
 
 nXa-Wee-Ta, 47 
 
 My Church, 49 
 
 Alone by the River, 50 
 
 Casting Bread 52 
 
 A Slight Mistake 53 
 
 Bedtime, 54 
 
 There is No Friendship, 55 
 
 The Curse of Colorado 56 
 
 The Accursed Cities 57 
 
 Don't Forget Your Mother, 60 
 
 The Old Stone Fence, 62 
 
 God Never Willed It So, ...'.... 64 
 
 The Sheep Herder, 65 
 
 The Wise Boy 66 
 
 The Stranger, 67 
 
 Pleading Eyes, 68 
 
 November, 70 
 
 Flowers My Mother Loved, 72 
 
 The Weary Wanderer, 74 
 
 Who Spoiled the Poet 76 
 
 My Doubts, 77 
 
 Back Again, 78 
 
 The Contrast 79 
 
 While Betsy Played the Organ, 80 
 
 Happy ! Happy New Year ! 82 
 
 Looking Down the Road, ........ 84
 
 INDEX -Continued. 
 
 Page. 
 
 A Child of Fate, . . 86 
 
 My Creed, 88 
 
 Art, 88 
 
 Thoughts on Theosophy, ........ 89 
 
 Society, 91 
 
 Life, 92 
 
 Life's Bloody Battle, 95 
 
 A Bad Cough, 96 
 
 Myself, ............ 97 
 
 Philosophy of the Hat, 99 
 
 My Farm, ........... 100 
 
 Desert Heart, .......... 102 
 
 My Love Story, . . . .104 
 
 Poor Farmer Boy, ......... 105 
 
 When Daddy Said the Blessing 108 
 
 Dreamland Faces, ......... no 
 
 Love, . .in 
 
 The Bully, 1 1 1 
 
 The Cries Go Up to Heaven, . . . . . . .112 
 
 Ready to Go, . . . . . . . . . . 113 
 
 He Shocked the World, . 115 
 
 Life is All Guess- Work 117 
 
 Little Nell, 119 
 
 lone 121 
 
 Rural Melodies, . . . . . . . . 1 23 
 
 Kbb and Flow, .......... 125 
 
 After Many Years, . . 127 
 
 Frost Bites, 128 
 
 Quotin' Skriptoor, 130 
 
 The Chief End of Man, 132 
 
 The Silent Somewhere, 133 
 
 She Never Knew, ......... 135 
 
 Changes, 137 
 
 What the Spirits Told Me, ....... 138 
 
 Who Lies Here? ........ . . 141 
 
 Grandpa's Baby, 142 
 
 We Are Blind, ' . 144 
 
 Jilted, 145 
 
 Love's Young Dream, 146 
 
 Retrospect, ........... 148 
 
 Going to Mill, 150
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 OUT ON THE DESERT. 
 
 Were you ever on the desert, 
 
 out on Colorado's plains? 
 Where the sun shines hot all Summer, 
 
 and it very seldom rains ; 
 Where the grease wood and the salt-sage 
 
 are the only living thing, 
 Except some loneh^ flowers 
 
 in the early months of Spring ; 
 And the prairie-dog and rabbit, 
 
 and the raven's lonely "caw," 
 And the air so sad with silence 
 
 that it fills your soul w y ith awe. 
 Oh, it's awful tramping over 
 
 through the silence strange and odd, 
 And the sun-rays pouring on you 
 
 like the vengeance of your God. 
 There are mountains all around you, 
 
 in the distance looking blue. 
 With their peaks in the horizon, 
 
 just as tho' they'd stabbed it through
 
 .SY).Y(/.V OF THE DESERT. 
 
 And the highest covered over 
 
 with a coat of ice and snow, 
 So far above the timber-line 
 
 where trees can never grow ; 
 And they look so strange and dreary 
 
 looming up so high and odd 
 Look as tho' the}' frowned upon you, 
 
 and were lonelier than God : 
 And you wonder if they stood there 
 
 through so many million years, 
 And were always cold and lonely 
 
 and unmoved by human tears. 
 And the winds rush by so silent, 
 
 sending dust clouds in the air, 
 For there's no trees, with their branches, 
 
 to obstruct the passage there ; 
 And the sky seems far and distant, 
 
 painted in the deepest blue, 
 And there's not the smallest cloudlet 
 
 to obstruct the distant view. 
 But the silence, oh, the silence ! 
 
 fills your soul with nameless fears, 
 And your heart is aching, aching, 
 
 filled with dreams of former years ; 
 And the dry plains, parch'd and barren, 
 
 and the sand-hills standing bare, 
 Here and there the bones of cattle 
 
 bleaching in the silent air: 
 And you wonder if in Heaven 
 
 God remembers this lone place. 
 If he looks on it in pity,
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 seeing it in the embrace 
 Of this awful, death-like silence, 
 
 and the great sun's burning rays ; 
 Where all nature cries for water 
 
 through the burning summer days : 
 And you wonder if the angels 
 
 know how all these cattle died 
 Of thirst and grim starvation, 
 
 on this desert parch 'd and dried ; 
 And your heart grows sad and heavy 
 
 as you onward silent plod, 
 Looking to the far-off mountains, 
 
 standing lonely as their God. 
 But yet, with all its horrors, 
 
 and its dreadful, barren state, 
 Men are trying to reclaim it, 
 
 even tho' the task is great ; 
 For there seems to be a hunger 
 
 in the human heart for land, 
 And the poor men, who are driven 
 
 from their homes with empty hand, 
 Will now face this dreadful silence, 
 
 and, where nature does oppose, 
 Will, by careful irrigation, 
 
 bloom this desert like the rose : 
 And the mountains over yonder 
 
 watching these poor people plod, 
 Will know they feel the silence, 
 
 and are lonelier than God.
 
 SONGS 01' Till': DESERT. 
 
 CHARLIE. 
 
 In the Spring time when we parted, 
 I remember how love .smarted, 
 And she left me broken-hearted. 
 
 For her parents frowned on me. 
 To the far West they did take her, 
 Thinking I would then forsake her, 
 But this promise 1 did make her : 
 
 Charlie, I will come for thee ! 
 
 Oh, the sad and weary waiting, 
 And my poor heart nearly breaking ; 
 No one else could feel the aching, 
 
 Nor the shadows could they see. 
 But the years went slowly crawling, 
 Thrice the Winter snows came falling, 
 And my heart was ever calling : 
 
 Charlie, I will come for thee ! 
 
 In the twilight shadows falling. 
 And the Coyote's dismal calling, 
 And the weary cattle bawling, 
 
 Pictures Western life to me. 
 On the old Ute reservati >n, 
 There is one sage-brush plantation ; 
 From the little railroad station 
 
 Charlie's new home one can see.
 
 so.\<is or Tin-: DESERT. 
 
 To this cabin I'm advancing, 
 
 While my blood goes through me dancing, 
 
 Visions my poor heart entrancing, 
 
 For my loved one I can see. 
 To the gate with one hand clinging 
 Hark, I hear her sweet voice singing : 
 To the new moon she is singing 
 
 "Bring my loved one back to me !" 
 
 "Both my parents have relented, 
 And their cruel deed repented, 
 And to-day they both consented 
 
 My loved one dare come to me. 
 All our fortune has departed, 
 And the old folks broken-hearted " 
 At these words I cried and started : 
 
 "Charlie, I have come for thee!" 
 
 No more words were spoke at meeting. 
 For our true hearts, wildly beating, 
 vSmothered ev'ry tender greeting, 
 
 While I held her close to me. 
 And the stars in Heaven shining, 
 Smiled to see our arms entwining ; 
 There shall be no more repining 
 
 Charlie, I have come for thee !
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 There may come sad days of sighing 1 
 Over hopes so slowly dying, 
 And our hearts in secret crying : 
 
 God of mercy, pity me ! 
 But should sorrow hover o'er us, 
 May this bright hope go before us, 
 Always singing this sweet chorus : 
 
 Charlie, I have come for thee ! 
 
 LITTLE IXJUN DICK. 
 
 Little Injun Dick 
 
 Was up to ev'ry trick, 
 Tho' he was but a dozen years old; 
 
 In summer he run bare, 
 
 Except his head of hair, 
 A breech cloth added when the nights got cold. 
 
 His daddy was a chief, 
 
 Also a horse thief, 
 And he loved whisky better than his kid; 
 
 He had the biggest maw 
 
 For rum you ever saw, 
 And many a quart into it slid. 
 
 Little Injun Dick 
 
 Found a dynamite stick 
 Some prospector had lost in the wood; 
 
 And, thinking it sweet meat, 
 
 He began at once to eat, 
 And said, "White man's sausage welly good."
 
 .SY;AY;.V OF THE DESERT. 13 
 
 Then home he ran with glee 
 
 To his father's teepee, 
 And found the old man drunk as a lord; 
 
 He had just whipped his squaw 
 
 For having too much jaw 
 And ttyingto get in the last word. 
 
 When little Dick came in 
 
 He was cussing like sin, 
 And the moment he set eyes on his kid, 
 
 He made a wicked kick 
 
 At poor little Dick 
 'Twas the very last thing that he did. 
 
 'Twas wonderful to see 
 The end of that teepee, 
 
 The dust, smoke, legs, thunder and roar; 
 There were entrails and hair, 
 And ham-strings in the air, 
 
 And it rained meat for two davs or more. 
 
 SUPERSTITION. 
 
 Men know but little of nature, 
 Or the grass on which they have trod, 
 And all that, of which they know nothing, 
 They worship and call it their god.
 
 14 SON(,'S OF THE DIVERT. 
 
 THK COW BOY'S \VIFK. 
 
 Sweet little Maverick, go to sleep, 
 
 Bossie cow's bell is ringing ; 
 The moon o'er the mountain soon will peep, 
 
 The birds have all quit singing ; 
 Sleep while your papa is riding 
 
 Out where the cougar is hiding, 
 And baby is well in the home corral, 
 
 While the sandman sleep is bringing. 
 
 Papa is bringing the cattle home, 
 
 Out on the mesa they're bawling ; 
 Supper is waiting for him to come 
 
 Loudly the coyote is calling. 
 Papa is mamma's brave hero, 
 
 Broad is his beaded sombrero, 
 And we need not fear the bellowing steer, 
 
 Nor accidents befalling. 
 
 Sleep has lassoed my baby at last, 
 
 Sweetly he smiles in his dreaming ; 
 Tangled in slumber's lariat fast 
 
 Hears not the catamount screaming. 
 'Bove the crag's peak over yonder 
 
 Hang storm-clouds charged with thunder, 
 I hear the deep roar as it echoes o'er 
 
 The mesa, where moonlight is streaming.
 
 SO.VG'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Far up the crag where the moonbeams fall, 
 
 Through the window I'm seeing 
 Two pumas fierce through the moonlight crawl, 
 
 After the antelope fleeing. 
 Softly the night winds are blowing, 
 
 Louder the thunder peals growing, 
 Sleep, baby, sleep, while the storm-clouds creep, 
 
 The midnight storm decreeing. 
 
 Hark ! in the distance the cattle bawl, 
 
 I hear the cow boys yelling ; 
 And papa's voice rings above them all 
 
 My lonely heart is swelling. 
 Sometimes I sigh for the city, 
 
 Where friends think of me in pity, 
 But I love the steer and the wild life here, 
 
 And my heart with joy is welling. 
 
 FORETHOUGHT. 
 
 'Will you love me when I'm old?" 
 
 Said the whisky to the man ; 
 'You'll be better then, I'm told, 
 
 And I'll love you all I can." 
 'Will you love me when I'm old ? 
 
 When there's wrinkles on my brow ?' 
 'Then I may be turned to mould, 
 
 So I'd better drink you now."
 
 1 6 .SY>.V<V.V OF THE DESERT. 
 
 IT IS EASY TO TALK. 
 
 It is easy to talk of your virtue 
 
 When you have grown old and gray, 
 When your blood is cold and your heart is old, 
 
 And passion has faded away; 
 But the young man may fall to temptation 
 
 The maiden act indiscreet, 
 For the sins of youth are really, in truth, 
 
 A something awfully sweet. 
 
 To tell how to get wealthy is easy, 
 
 When your fortune is already made; 
 But the man in the yoke will think it no joke 
 
 To make millions by his trade. 
 For the great world is always changing, 
 
 Aad chances are not the same, 
 And the hog in most men is as great as then, 
 
 And the shrewd have blocked ev'ry game. 
 
 It is easy to talk of wisdom, 
 
 If 3'ou yourself have been schooled; 
 But the factory child who works all the while, 
 
 By just such as you are fooled; 
 For you lie to them, and deceive them, 
 
 And tell them God has made 
 A particular few with nothing to do, 
 
 While millions must work at their trade.
 
 or THE DI-:SERT. 17 
 
 It is easy to talk of religion, 
 
 And speak of the mercies of God, 
 While you hold in your hand the fat of the land, 
 
 Accumulated by fraud; 
 But the poor man, in rags and tatters, 
 
 With his children crying for bread, 
 Knows very well there could be no worse hell 
 
 Fall over his poor weary head. 
 
 THUNDER STORM ON THE ROCKIES. 
 
 The dark clouds hang o'er the mountains; 
 
 The crags, again and again, 
 Seem to stab the storm clouds bosom, 
 
 And make it roar with pain ; 
 The lightning wickedly flashing, 
 
 Illuminating the sky, 
 Seems like a terrible warning 
 
 The storm will conquer or die. 
 
 And midst the roar and the flashing 
 
 'Round the rugged crag's high head, 
 The monstrous mountains tremble 
 
 Like giants filled with dread; 
 And the lurid streaks of lightning 
 
 Darting athwart the cloud, 
 And thunderbolts loud jolting 
 
 Behind the storm-crest proud.
 
 1 8 .SYUY/.V ()/' THE DESERT. 
 
 The heavens are filled with grandeur, 
 
 And the thunder's mighty roar, 
 Seems like a voice Almighty 
 
 And shouting from shore to shore; 
 And the fog banks down the canyon, 
 
 Afloat like rivers of love, 
 Are drifting to the storm clouds, 
 
 Like down from a snow-white dove. 
 
 And from the valley beholding 
 
 The grandeur of nature's might, 
 I'm standing in awe and transport 
 
 At such a majestic sight; 
 And I hear the great clouds roaring 
 
 Like demons in great pain, 
 And the whirlwinds in the valley 
 
 Go dancing before the rain. 
 
 And the withered vegetation 
 
 Takes on fresh hope, I think, 
 And to the storm-god of nature, 
 
 Holds out its hands for a drink. 
 But the storm clouds are receding, 
 
 They seldom cross the plain, 
 And down in the sun-dried valley 
 
 The flowers still crv for rain.
 
 OF THE DESERT. 19 
 
 SONG OF THE BURRO. 
 
 I am the emblem of patience and hope, 
 The angel of the great Pacific slope; 
 Though not embellished with aesthetic grace, 
 I have a very remarkable face 
 I'm a burro. 
 
 Some men call me the mountain canary, 
 And others call me the canyon fair}', 
 But instead of feathers I am hairy, 
 And cannot warble so light and airy 
 I'm a burro. 
 
 Old poets love to sing of fairy land, 
 Where a little wrinkled woman with a wand, 
 Can order half the universe to stand; 
 But when you want a fairy thats got the sand, 
 Take a burro. 
 
 Take me, for instance, with my sweet brown eyes, 
 Where you see reflected the summer skies; 
 Where hope and patience never, never dies; 
 But I sometimes give the bo\-s a surprise, 
 'Cause I'm a burro. 
 
 When they mount me in groups of three or four, 
 All crowded until I will hold no more, 
 From head to tail, as I said before, 
 I do sometimes scatter them on the floor 
 The rights of a burro.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Carefully he hid all trace of his treasure, 
 Covering it up with the dead leaves and moss, 
 Never devising an}' means or measure 
 To extract the gold from the granite and dross. 
 He was rich now this was all he required. 
 At last his efforts had been crowned with success ; 
 All love, and mercy, and kindness expired, 
 And he even now loved his poor self much less. 
 A week went by, and the old man still lingered, 
 Eating nothing, but drinking at the fountain ; 
 While the samples from his gold rock he fingered, 
 And watched the sun rise and set on the mountain. 
 
 Weaker and still weaker now the old man grew, 
 And at last could only crawl down for a drink ; 
 But he kept his golden rock always in view, 
 And seldom or never of grim death did think. 
 And now it is night on the moon-lit mountain, 
 And the stars like diamonds glitter overhead ; 
 And the darksome shadows down at the fountain 
 Are hiding the face of the miserable dead. 
 
 Oh, the miserable death of the mountain miser! 
 Now lying so stiff by the side of his gold ; 
 Still grasping his samples, but now no wiser 
 Than the rocks beside him in the shadows cold. 
 And the moon ascending shines down the canyon, 
 And melts the shadows from the face of the dead 
 Died as he lived, without friend or companion, 
 Thinking of his gold until the last breath fled.
 
 OF THE DESEKT. 
 
 IF CHRIST WERE HERE. 
 
 If I told you of a Savior 
 
 In a lowl\- stable born, 
 Could I tell by your behavior 
 
 That you gave the least concern 
 To his welfare or his mission ? 
 
 If his parents were both poor, 
 Would you bow in meek submission 
 
 Just outside the stable door? 
 
 Now, if this was in the city. 
 
 And the parents had no cash, 
 Would you mingle, with your pity, 
 
 Contempt for such lowly trash ? 
 Would you not laugh in derision 
 
 At the idea of a God 
 Meeting with such poor provision, 
 
 In a world where prophets trod? 
 
 Would you take them into your house ? 
 
 Saying beggars, welcome here! 
 No; you'd cry, Off to the poor house! 
 
 There's the pauper's proper sphere. 
 Likewise, if you owned the stable 
 
 \Vhere the unknown Jesus lay, 
 You'd collect some rent, if able; 
 
 Or would drive them all away.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Carefully he hid all trace of his treasure, 
 Covering it up with the dead leaves and moss, 
 Never devising an}- means or measure 
 To extract the gold from the granite and dross. 
 He was rich now this was all he required. 
 At last his efforts had been crowned with success \. 
 All love, and mercy, and kindness expired. 
 And he even now loved his poor self much less. 
 A week went by, and the old man still lingered. 
 Eating nothing, but drinking at the fountain ; 
 While the samples from his gold rock he fingered, 
 And watched the sun rise and set on the mountain. 
 
 Weaker and still weaker now the old man grew, 
 And at last could only crawl down for a drink ; 
 But he kept his golden rock always in view, 
 And seldom or never of grim death did think. 
 And now it is night on the moon-lit mountain, 
 And the stars like diamonds glitter overhead ; 
 And the darksome shadows down at the fountain 
 Are hiding the face of the miserable dead. 
 
 Oh, the miserable death of the mountain miser! 
 Now lying so stiff by the side of his gold ; 
 Still grasping his samples, but now no wiser 
 Than the rocks beside him in the shadows cold. 
 And the moon ascending shines down the canyon, 
 And melts the shadows from the face of the dead 
 Died as he lived, without friend or companion, 
 Thinking of his gold until the last breath fled.
 
 SO.V(,'S OF THE DESERT. 23 
 
 IF CHRIST WERE HERE. 
 
 If I told you of a Savior 
 
 In a lowly stable born, 
 Could I tell by your behavior 
 
 That you gave the least concern 
 To his welfare or his mission ? 
 
 If his parents were both poor, 
 Would you bow in meek submission 
 
 Just outside the stable door ? 
 
 Now, if this was in the citj", 
 
 And the parents had no cash, 
 Would you mingle, with your pity, 
 
 Contempt for such lowly trash ? 
 Would you not laugh in derision 
 
 At the idea of a God 
 Meeting with such poor provision, 
 
 In a world where prophets trod? 
 
 Would you take them into your house ? 
 
 Saying beggars, welcome here! 
 No; you'd cry, Off to the poor house! 
 
 There's the pauper's proper sphere. 
 Likewise, if you owned the stable 
 
 Where the unknown Jesus lay, 
 You'd collect some rent, if able; 
 
 Or would drive them all away.
 
 24 .VaYG'.V OF THE DESERT. 
 
 You can boast of loving Jesus, 
 
 Knowing that He reigns above; 
 If He came as poor as Laz'rus, 
 
 To the winds would fly your love. 
 To the police you'd be flying, 
 
 With an angry, hurried tread; 
 In the chain gang Christ be tying, 
 
 If He dared to ask for bread. 
 
 Even in the gilded temple, 
 
 Christ, in rags, would dare not pray; 
 There's no seat for one so simple 
 
 'Mongst the Christians of to-day. 
 Christ the mighty, \\p in glory, 
 
 Having blessings to bestow, 
 Reads like quite another story, 
 
 Than a beggar down below. 
 
 Do you think God you're deceiving? 
 
 Do you think that Christ is blind ? 
 Do you think this make-believing 
 
 Teaches Christ that you are kind ? 
 Does not Christ know ev'ry beggar 
 
 That comes knocking at your door? 
 Would the God who guarded Hagar 
 
 Overlook the worthy poor? 
 
 God's fair earth you go on fencing, 
 To the best you lay a claim, 
 
 And your vile laws you're dispensing, 
 To the Lord Almighty's shame.
 
 SO.Vd'S OF THE DESERT. 25 
 
 For, on earth, Christ's greatest mission 
 Was God's justice to declare; 
 
 Do yon think yon have permission 
 To rob poor men of their share? 
 
 Do yon think the loving Savior 
 
 Has not wisely laid his plan? 
 Does He not see onr behavior 
 
 Shown towards our fellow man ? 
 In the beggar yon receive Him; 
 
 In the prison He is too; 
 If yon truly then believe Him, 
 
 All are Christ's who come to you. 
 
 SILVER THREADS. 
 
 I love these old gray heads 
 
 With hair of silver gray ; 
 Their tangled silver threads, 
 
 Bleached like the meadow hay 
 They bring to me a face 
 
 Out of the shadows deep, 
 And loving lines I trace, 
 
 Like those of one asleep 
 Far away on the hill 
 
 Where my dead lov'd ones lie, 
 And where I hope I will 
 
 Be buried when I die.
 
 26 SOWS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Gray hair, like faded moss, 
 
 Draping the wrinkled brow, 
 Purified from all dross 
 
 No bright, gay colors now. 
 Shroud for the buried past ; 
 
 A rose of death for age ; 
 A flag of truce at last ; 
 
 Of life's book the last page. 
 Dear gray hair, moist with tears 
 
 Of children, whose small hands 
 Cling to it in their fears, 
 
 And hold the silver strands. 
 
 Gray hair, you touch 1113- heart, 
 
 And cause my soul to chide ; 
 Twixt life and death you part, 
 
 Where death and life divide. 
 But yet, when out of place, 
 
 Or in the butter hid, 
 You bring the same disgrace 
 
 As hair from off a "kid." 
 If baked within the bread, 
 
 And swallowed by mistake, 
 We honor not the head 
 
 Of she who did it bake. 
 
 Gray hair, like royal crown, 
 You have your place to shine, 
 
 But, please do not fall down 
 Into this soup of mine. 
 
 I love you on the head 
 
 Where you do nourish thin,
 
 OF THE DESERT. 27 
 
 But, on my buttered bread, 
 I hate you worse than sin. 
 
 Shroud of the buried past, 
 vYou honor any head, 
 
 But don't you get baked fast 
 In gobs of sour bread. 
 
 THE LOST TROOPERS. 
 
 On the plains of Arizona, 
 O'er the parch 'd and burning sands, 
 Slowly rode the squad of troopers, 
 Fighting only thirst's demands. 
 Da}-s and days they saw no water, 
 And their old guide had been lost, 
 For the sand-hills had been shifting, 
 In the winds their atoms toss'd. 
 
 Now they rode on searching water, 
 
 Horses, riders, almost dead ; 
 
 Tongues were parched and half protruding, 
 
 And their eyes were crimson red. 
 
 Some are falling to the rearward, 
 
 Half concluding there to die, 
 
 But their captain cheers them onward, 
 
 And once more the brave men try.
 
 2cS SONGS 01- THE DESERT. 
 
 Softly night is falling on them, 
 And the moon, so full and round. 
 Slowly rises in the Heavens, 
 Casts long shadows on the ground. 
 And they hear the water murmur 
 In imagination's dream, 
 And the>' often mistake shadows 
 In the distance for a stream. 
 
 "Water! water!" cries each trooper, 
 Goaded on by thirst's keen smart ; 
 'Tis the cry of delirium, 
 'Tis a whisper in each heart ; 
 For the}' know that in the morning, 
 When the sun shall rise again, 
 It will add more to their terror, 
 vShining down upon the plain. 
 
 But, joy ! at early morning 
 They all hear a small bird sing, 
 And the old guide then assures them 
 They are nearing some cool spring. 
 "God be praised !" they see its glimmer, 
 And the early-rising sun 
 Is reflected on the water 
 Horse and trooper try to run. 
 
 "Water ! water !" hearts are shouting, 
 But the voice of all is still, 
 For their tongues are parched and swollen, 
 And they cannot speak until
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 29 
 
 They have plunged into the water 
 Blessed water ! clear and deep ;" 
 And the}- drink it in so thankful, 
 Hearts so glad for joy the}- weep. 
 
 Ah, that water poison water \ 
 From the copper, under ground, 
 It is charged with fatal poison. 
 "See the dead coyotes around ! 
 The}- have drank this fatal water, 
 Then have fallen here and died ! 
 We shall soon now all be like them !" 
 Cried the terror-stricken guide. 
 
 Long the fate of these brave troopers 
 Was a myst'ry at the post, 
 But each year a scouting party 
 Searched the desert for the lost. 
 And, at last, two old prospectors 
 This deceptive water found. 
 And were cautioned not to drink it, 
 Seeing dead men on the ground. 
 
 Horses, troopers, lying bleaching, 
 
 Faces upturned to the sun, 
 
 Their sad fate, by pencil written, 
 
 Fluttered in the hand of one : 
 
 "Take this message, who shall find us, 
 
 To my mother far-away. 
 
 Ah, please God, she may have died ere 
 
 She shall tiear of this sad day.
 
 SO.\(,'S OF THE VESEA'T. 
 
 "Touch you not this fatal water, 
 For by God it is accurs'd ; 
 It has death within its bubbles, 
 Oh, be tempted not by thirst. 
 My companions all have perished ; 
 I can see them where they lay ; 
 And I'll be among their number 
 Ere the closing of the day." 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 There's a desert called "Ambition," 
 Where men struggle hard for gain ; 
 Where the barren, parch 'd condition 
 Shows that mercy cannot reign : 
 Where a pool of gold is standing, 
 So inviting to our thirst, 
 And our avarice demanding 
 More and more, until we burst. 
 
 All around this pool are lying 
 Bodies rotting in the sun, 
 And among them are the dying, 
 Who a poisoned drink have won ; 
 For the water, impregnated 
 With that poison "Love of Gold," 
 Makes the drinker, dissipated, 
 Die of agonies untold.
 
 SOJVGS OF THE DESERT. 31 
 
 SMOTHERED THOUGHTS. 
 
 I have thoughts so strange and knowing 
 
 In 1113' heart, 
 And their numbers keep on growing 
 
 Can't depart. 
 
 Tho' the cage is never stout, 
 Still these thought-birds come not out, 
 For there's prejudice about, 
 And there's superstition showing 
 
 Her long dart. 
 
 Could I but send these birds adrift, 
 
 Like the lark, 
 They might create a little rift 
 
 In the dark; 
 
 But grim prejudice would fall 
 On each thought-bird, and they'd all 
 Become smothered in the brawl, 
 And the world reject the gift 
 
 From the start. 
 
 So I'll cage these thoughts securely, 
 
 And I'll try 
 To think thoughts like the purely; 
 
 Even I 
 
 Will not offend the owls, 
 Who look on me with scowls, 
 And stir up savage growls 
 From all those who think so surely 
 
 That I lie.
 
 32 SO.VG'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 And I'll try, with coming age, 
 
 That which smothers 
 
 These thought-birds in their cage, 
 
 And no others 
 
 Of these thought-birds be getting, 
 And keep them there a fretting, 
 Behind this cruel netting, 
 
 Like their brothers. 
 
 Oh, this world is but a cage 
 
 To the mind 
 That would step beyond the age. 
 
 And mankind, 
 
 In a blinded, struggling crowd, 
 Where the humble and the proud, 
 Are crying, long and loud, 
 
 Get behind! 
 
 Trust the preachers, politicians, 
 
 False and true, 
 And let these modern magicians 
 
 Think for you: 
 
 Let them always take the lead, 
 Let them gauge your time and speed, 
 Follow blindly, then, indeed, 
 
 You will do. 
 
 If they say the world is flat, 
 
 Say so, too. 
 Galileo found out that 
 
 So will you.
 
 SONGS <)/' Till-. DIVERT. 
 
 If they say, all men who doubt 
 Do not know what the}- 1 re about. 
 Say so, too. If not right out, 
 Sav "um hoo." 
 
 THE CUFF DWELLERS. 
 
 In the giant sand rock canyon 
 
 Where the stunted cedars grow, 
 And the sunshine in abandon 
 
 Parches dry the earth below ; 
 Far beyond the Mount La Plata, 
 
 In the lower Mancos pass, 
 Where the ancient Soangetaha 
 
 Lov'd the dusky mountain lass. 
 
 From the upper snow clad Mesas, 
 
 When the snows begin to thaw, 
 There's a thousand Minnehahas 
 
 Pouring down the rocky draw ; 
 Ritshing off to meet the river, 
 
 By some subtle power drawn, 
 Where the water flows forever 
 
 Roughly down the swift San Juan. 
 
 Here are traces of a nation, 
 Dead to mem'ry long ago ; 
 
 But from lofty elevation, 
 
 Where the stunted cedars grow,
 
 OF THE DESERT. 
 
 There are castles, long since passing 
 
 Into ruin, and the dust 
 On the rocky floors amassing, 
 
 Slowly ages did adjust. 
 
 No one knows their ancient story, 
 
 And the silence reigning here, 
 Whispers nothing of their glor}-, 
 
 Nothing of their hopes or fear ; 
 But some bones of human creatures, 
 
 Yellow with their age and rust, 
 Skull-bones showing human features, 
 
 Have been found among the dust. 
 
 Here we know in long dead ages 
 
 Hearts did ache and souls did love, 
 Here the youths and older sages 
 
 Watched fair Luna shine above. 
 Here the mother nursed her baby, 
 
 Hugged it to her dusky breast, 
 Sang some woodland ditty, maybe, 
 
 Until it had sank to rest. 
 
 Now the silence, deep and painful, 
 
 Fills your soul with dreadful awe. 
 And the raven's voice disdainful 
 
 Rasps your ear with his shrill "caw." 
 Standing where this nation perished, 
 
 Knowing nothing of their strife 
 For the secrets their hearts cherished 
 
 Pass'd awav with their strange life.
 
 SONG'S OF THE DESERT. 35 
 
 How your soul is filled with wonder, 
 
 And you wish you could be told 
 How long since the crash of thunder 
 
 Shook their bodies into mould. 
 Ah, perhaps 'twas long ere Moses 
 
 Brought the plagues to Pharoah's land, 
 This dead valley bloomed like roses, 
 
 Tilled by a strange human hand. 
 
 Oh, I never dreamed in childhood, 
 
 In my home so far away, 
 There would come a time when I would 
 
 Stand where ages of decay 
 Melts the castles of a nation, 
 
 Crumbles into mouldering dust, 
 And find in the ruination 
 
 Crumbling skulls of 3'ellow dust. 
 
 This poor skull between my fingers, 
 
 Cimmerian darkness now 
 In each eyeless socket lingers 
 
 All is silence, and the brow, 
 Once filled with life's strange mystery, 
 
 Now for ages in repose 
 How I long to know the hist'ry 
 
 None but the Almighty knows.
 
 36 SO.\(,'S OF THE DESKRT. 
 
 Y(>r AND I TOGETHER. 
 
 Down life's curious river we float, 
 
 You and I together; 
 Kach passenger in his little boat, 
 
 You and I together; 
 In some places the channel is deep, 
 With plenty of room for each other's sweep; 
 While in other places great rocks sleep, 
 And their rough heads near the surface peep, 
 
 And stormy is the weather. 
 
 Shall we then crowd our neighbor ashore? 
 
 You and I together; 
 Wrecking his boat and breaking his oar? 
 
 You and I together; 
 
 Shall we crowd him upon the rough rocks, 
 Where the human boat receives great shocks, 
 And the rushing waves his struggle mocks, 
 And famine grim the whole year stalks, 
 
 Searching for our brother? 
 
 Are we brothers, or are we not ? 
 
 You and I together; 
 Should we be sharing each other's lot? 
 
 You and I together; 
 Shall we assist when storm clouds fall, 
 And darkness settles down like a pall ? 
 Or run away when our neighbors call 
 Each one for himself and the devil for all ; 
 
 Is this vour motto, brother?
 
 SO.\G'S OF THE DESERT. 37 
 
 Oh, why not lash together each boat? 
 
 You and I together; 
 Out in the current where all can float ? 
 
 You and I together; 
 Oh, why not lend an oar, or a sail, 
 To our poor brother about to fail ? 
 Why stop our ears to his bitter wail, 
 And let him sink in our own ship's trail ! 
 
 Are we so heartless, brother? 
 
 Great God, in mercy pity our greed ! 
 
 You and I together; 
 And help vis heal the hearts that bleed, 
 
 You and I together; 
 Let us tow our weak brother along 
 Down the stream, and cheer him with song, 
 Pull his frail boat from out among 
 The cruel rocks, where the fierce sharks throng 
 
 And try to eat our brother. 
 
 Oh, life is only a little trip! 
 
 You and I together; 
 And the same God made each little ship, 
 
 You and I together; 
 
 And He launched us all upon this stream, 
 And made our sails of the bright sunbeam ; 
 And there is room for all, but it seems 
 We are all too full of greedy schemes, 
 
 And try to sink our brother.
 
 38 SO.VGS Of THE DESERT. 
 
 LEFT BEHIND. 
 
 "Go back," he said to the mongrel cur. 
 When he made an attempt to follow ; 
 And the dog laid down by the cabin door 
 And licked his paws, while his heart was sore, 
 And watched his master passing o'er 
 The desert sands, hot and mellow. 
 
 This happened out on the West frontier, 
 On the desert of Colorado. 
 The man was a man without love or fear, 
 Who had seen, perhaps, his fiftieth year, 
 Whose eyes ne'er shed a pitying tear 
 He'd the heart of a desperado. 
 
 His mission now was to homestead land 
 On the desert so dry and dreary. 
 His cabin he built with his own strong hand, 
 A rough board shed on the desert sand, 
 And water he brought from the river Grand, 
 And he lived with his dog quite cheery. 
 
 Now he is going to the far-off town 
 On his broncho so lean and bony ; 
 And he cast behind one angry frown 
 At the cringing dog, now lying down, 
 Then cantered away towards the town 
 On his lean and sad-eyed pony.
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 39 
 
 A week pass'd b}-. The dog still lay 
 Where his cruel master had left him ; 
 Looking and longing, da}- after day, 
 Down the trail where his master rode away, 
 Over the dry sand parched and gray, 
 And of his presence bereft him. 
 
 Ah, do you think, had the poor dog known 
 How his master in town was drinking 
 Would he have lain so patiently down, 
 With all that painful silence around, 
 Dying of thirst, and not of a wound ? 
 'Twould have been all the same, I'm thinking. 
 
 "To-morrow he'll come," the dog would say, 
 
 "I will wait until to-morrow." 
 
 The night passed on. The morning gray 
 
 Ushered in one more dreary day, 
 
 And the poor dog could not go away, 
 
 But waited, and waited in sorrow. 
 
 Is there a god to tradition known 
 More faithful to obedience proving? 
 Dying of hunger, and all alone ; 
 Dying without a tear or a groan ; 
 Greater faith by man was never shown ; 
 The equal of gods in loving. 
 
 "To-morrow he'll come," the dog did sigh, 
 
 As darkness obscured the view ; 
 
 But in the night grim death stalked by,
 
 40 .VO.VC/.V O/' THE DESERT. 
 
 And stilled his heart, and glazed each eye. 
 A martyr to love that dog did die 
 Could a god be more faithful and true ? 
 
 His life went out on the desert breath 
 Oh, where did his spirit go ? 
 Could there die a man with stronger faith ? 
 And is there not, above or beneath, 
 Some record kept of this noble death ? 
 And a future reward also ? 
 
 Greater love than this never was known, 
 A love that is strong in death's sorrow. 
 Dying for love's sake, without a moan, 
 For the life he loved giving his own 
 Will this for his master's sins atone 
 In death's mysterious to-morrow ? 
 
 When the wretched man came back at last 
 He found the poor dog laying 
 Beside the door, with his eyes closed fast ; 
 Heart stilled by that silent hand which pass'd 
 And the wretched man stood there aghast, 
 Too guilty even for praying. 
 
 Out of all this mystery, I know, 
 
 We are promised a salvation. 
 
 But we are so thoughtless here below, 
 
 So painfully cruel as we go 
 
 Through this wicked world, to and fro, 
 
 Filling it with damnation.
 
 OF THE DESERT. 41 
 
 LITTLE MAYKRICK. 
 
 It was born in bleak November, 
 When the snow began to fly; 
 
 'Twas a meek-eyed, little bull calf, 
 With the saddest, dreary cr}-; 
 
 And 'twould wag it's tail at strangers 
 While they sauntered slowly by. 
 
 But the weather growing colder 
 Made the little critter jump, 
 
 And the hair stood out like bristles 
 All over its little rump; 
 
 But, in milking its old mother, 
 It did not forget to bump. 
 
 But the louse came in mid-winter 
 To prospect upon that calf; 
 
 Chewed the hair off in great patches, 
 In a way to make you laugh ; 
 
 Soon his tail would hardly wiggle, 
 While his daily milk he'd quaff. 
 
 In the early, balmy springtime 
 When the shadflies filled the air, 
 
 All unbranded and unchristened, 
 And without a doctor there, 
 
 This poor calf, so lean and lousy, 
 Gently climbed the golden stair.
 
 42 SO.Y(7S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Now, the question here uprises: 
 Who this Maverick will own 
 
 In the pasture fields of Helen, 
 Where it's spirit now has flown ? 
 
 For it passed away unbranded, 
 Climbed the golden stair alone. 
 
 Will it find the summer ranges 
 Full of cattle men have slain ? 
 
 Waiting there to greet their butchers 
 And be branded then again ? 
 
 Will they brand this calf in Eden 
 E're a stall it can obtain ? 
 
 DREAMING OF HOME. 
 
 Near the graveyard on the Mesa, 
 
 Where the sun forever shines, 
 Glist'ning on the cold, white tombstones, 
 
 Brought from far-off marble mines ; 
 There I often sit when lonely, 
 
 Near the city of the dead, 
 While the dreams of home and childhood 
 
 Softly come into my head. 
 
 Down the road so long and dust\", 
 Weary horsemen come and go ; 
 
 Each one wears a broad sombrero, 
 But there's scarcely one I know.
 
 SO.\GS OF THE DESERT. 43 
 
 Mexicans so dark and swarthy, 
 Riding ponies lean as death, 
 
 Cowboys dashing by so madly, 
 
 Horse and man both out of breath. 
 
 I can look across the river, 
 
 Far beyond the ragged town, 
 Out among the hills of 'dobe, 
 
 Where no thing of life is found, 
 But a bunch of stunted greasewood, 
 
 Growing in the 'dobe clay, 
 And small bunches of coarse salt sage, 
 
 Faded out like sun-dried hay. 
 
 All the earth seems parch 'd and dreary, 
 
 Xo green hills to rest the eye ; 
 God in Heaven ! must I linger 
 
 In this dreary place and die ? 
 Then I dream of a fair valley 
 
 Where Bald Eagle mountains stand, 
 And where flows the Susquehanna 
 
 Softly through that far-off land ? 
 
 Sometimes on the mesa dreaming, 
 
 Dreams I long and long to tell, 
 Far away my heart goes yearning 
 
 For the water in the well, 
 At the dear old home of childhood, 
 
 'Mong the everlasting hills, 
 Where I used to sit in summer 
 
 List'ning to the whip-poor-wills.
 
 44 SaYf/.S or THE DESERT. 
 
 And sometimes my wife beside me 
 
 Wonders wh}- 1 am so still, 
 Looking o'er the lifeless desert 
 
 Out toward the 'dobe hill ; 
 And sometimes sad tears of longing 
 
 On my lashes she espies, 
 But she thinks I look too eager, 
 
 And the sunlight hurts my eyes. 
 
 There are many poor hearts aching 
 
 On this dry Pacific slope, 
 Toiling in the burning sun rays, 
 
 Cheered alone by this one hope : 
 That some day the wheel of fortune, 
 
 In its slow, xincertain turn, 
 May enable them to journey 
 
 Back to where their poor hearts yearn. 
 
 But each week, out on the Mesa, 
 
 To the graveyard at this place, 
 Slowly moves the hearse and coffin, 
 
 Dragging out a cold, white face ; 
 Some poor heart has ceased its yearning, 
 
 And the dreams of hope have fled ; 
 None but God will know the stor}- 
 
 Of the poor, heart-broken dead.
 
 .V>.Vr;.V OF THE DESERT. 45 
 
 OBLIVION. 
 
 Deep in a Colorado canyon 
 
 So the story goes 
 Two Spaniards bold, 
 Prospecting for gold, 
 
 Near where a small creek flows, 
 Heard the roar of a might}' storm above, 
 
 And the waters rushing, 
 And the mine was filled, 
 The miners killed, 
 
 By the great flushing. 
 
 Great rocks rolled and filled up the canyon, 
 
 And the prospect hole 
 Was hidden from sight, 
 In the storm's great might. 
 
 Now the waters roll 
 And tumble forever above them, 
 
 And none but God knows 
 Each horrified face, 
 In this hiding place, 
 
 Where they now repose. 
 
 And the coyotes howling above them, 
 
 And the eagle's call, 
 And the ravens, high 
 In the azure sky, 
 
 While the cougars crawl
 
 46 SO.VG'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Over the rocks which conceal this tomb 
 
 Where the miners fell. 
 Oblivion deep 
 Oblivious sleep ! 
 
 None their story tell. 
 
 And the howling winds of winter, 
 
 And falling snow; 
 Then comes balmy spring, 
 The summer birds sing 
 
 They all come and go: 
 But under the rocks they are lying, 
 
 Those men so clever; 
 Oblivion deep, 
 Oblivious sleep 
 Sleep on forever ! 
 
 But how much better will be my fate? 
 
 Even tho' my tomb 
 Is bathed with tears 
 Of loved ones, for years. 
 
 There still is gloom; 
 And, tho' my story is known to men. 
 
 How long will it be 
 Until none but God 
 Knows where the sod 
 
 Covers up poor me? 
 
 Oblivion ! 'tis only to be 
 
 Forgotten by all. 
 Whether low or deep 
 The place where we sleep 
 
 Whether great or small
 
 .SO.\<;S OF THE DESERT. 47 
 
 Soon, soon will this great oblivion 
 
 All trace dissever : 
 Sleep on, thou sleeper ! 
 The shadows grow deeper ; 
 
 Sleep on forever ! 
 
 O-XA-WEE-TA. 
 
 NOTE. Many years ago there was a battle fought in Arizona 
 between United States troops and a band of Indian cattle thieves, 
 in which many poor soldiers were killed. One poor fellow was 
 wounded very badly, but he clung to his horse, and was carried 
 many miles from the place before he fell from his saddle. He 
 landed in a dense thicket of manzanita brush, where he was found 
 by an Indian maiden, who nursed him, and even shot and wounded 
 her old father in defense of the poor fellow. The young couple 
 were afterwards married, and also forgiven by the fierce old warrior. 
 
 Down where the water flows, 
 
 Soft music purling, 
 Smoke from the teepee rose, 
 
 In the zephyrs whirling; 
 Songs of the summer birds 
 
 In the manzanita, 
 Mingle with the gentle words 
 
 Of O-na-wee-ta. 
 
 Pride of the warrior's eye, 
 Fierce old Wah-hee-tah, 
 
 Eyes like the midnight sky, 
 vSweet O-na-wee-ta :
 
 48 so.vas or THE DESERT. 
 
 Singing like a summer bird 
 
 In the manzanita, 
 Sweeter voice was never heard 
 
 Than O-na-wee-ta's. 
 
 Out in the chaparral 
 
 Lay a wounded soldier; 
 Found at last where he fell 
 
 By a fair beholder : 
 Hunting for the timid hare 
 
 In the manzanita, 
 She found the soldier there 
 
 Sweet O-na-wee-ta. 
 
 Kindly she dressed his sores, 
 
 Took sweet broth to him, 
 In his wounds some ointment pours, 
 
 Gently did woo him. 
 Father followed her one day 
 
 Fierce old Wah-hee-tah 
 Found where the soldier lay 
 
 In the manzanita. 
 
 Fiercely he draws his knife, 
 
 Eyes shine with murder; 
 Daughter cries, "Spare his life ! " 
 
 But he never heard her : 
 Soon then a pistol flash 'd 
 
 In the manzanita, 
 Through his arm a bullet crash'd 
 
 Brave O-na-wee-ta !
 
 OF THE DESERT. 49 
 
 ' ' Touch not the sick pale-face ! 
 
 I stand above him; 
 Tho' he 's not of my race, 
 
 Father, I love him ! 
 'Twas the Great Spirit led me 
 
 To the manzanita, 
 And soon he'll wedded be 
 
 To his O-na-\vee-ta. ' ' 
 
 Loudly the warrior curs'd, 
 
 Fierce old \Vah-hee-tah; 
 For revenge his heart did thirst 
 
 On O-na-wee-ta; 
 But soon he did relent, 
 
 Fierce old \Vah-hee-tah: 
 There's a marriage in the tent 
 
 Happ\- O-na-wee-ta ! 
 
 MV CHURCH. 
 
 The religion I want is mere}', 
 Love, charity, and justice for all; 
 A church that will welcome the lowly, 
 And stoop to pick up those who fall. 
 But a faith that asks God for mercy, 
 In a world where laboring men call 
 In vain for a share of God's blessings, 
 For shame ! 'Tis no religion at all.
 
 50 SONG'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 ALONE BY THE RIVER. 
 
 The day was so dreary and sober, 
 
 The leaves had turned yellow and sere, 
 
 It was in melancholy October, 
 
 The saddest, sad month of the year 
 The lonesomest month of the year : 
 
 Death comes to nature to disrobe her, 
 To strip her boughs naked and bare. 
 
 And the trees stand solemn and sober, 
 Like images standing in prayer. 
 
 In silence I walk by the river. 
 
 That swift flowing river the Grand, 
 
 Where the sun on the wavelets shiver, 
 As they tumble ashore on the sand 
 Ashore on the gold-bearing sand : 
 
 And the glint of the sunbeams quiver 
 On the pebbles reflecting their rays, 
 
 But my thoughts are ever and ever 
 Flowing back to my childhood days. 
 
 Oh, why am I here by this river 
 Here walking and dreaming alone ? 
 
 And wh}- do I tremble and shiver, 
 And my willing exile bemoan 
 My melancholy exile bemoan? 
 
 Oh, why do these yellow leaves falling 
 From the cotton wood trees on the shore, 
 
 Remind me of childhood friends calling, 
 But drowned by the river's deep roar?
 
 OF THE DESERT. 51 
 
 \Vhy can I not search for bright pebbles 
 As I walk on the beach of the Grand? 
 
 And why are my thoughts such great rebels ? 
 Going back to that far-off land 
 That dear, old, cherished far-off land. 
 
 These shadows on the swift river dancing, 
 Are they the ghosts of my lov'd ones dead ? 
 
 For something my heart is entrancing, 
 And this loneliness fills me with dread. 
 
 Right here on this sand where I'm walking 
 The Indians in past years have trod ; 
 
 They have listened to the Grand river talking, 
 For the voice of the water was God 
 The murmuring water was God : 
 
 While out on the Mesa the jaguar 
 And coyote for venison strove, 
 
 And the beautiful, blood-thirsty cougar 
 Looked down from the crag's peak above. 
 
 But now, in this month of October, 
 
 There's silence and sadness around, 
 And the trees, standing silent and sober, 
 
 Are dropping their leaves on the ground 
 
 The alkali-salt-covered ground : 
 And the Indians have all cross'd the river, 
 
 And gave to the white man their land, 
 And the water has wash'd out forever 
 
 Their tracks from the soft yielding sand.
 
 52 SO.\(,'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 And those of that tribe now still living- 
 May be somewhere walking alone : 
 
 And, instead of heartfelt thanksgiving, 
 Their dreary, forced exile bemoan 
 Their long, compelled exile bemoan : 
 
 And the ghosts of the men fierce and sober 
 Who fought by the side of Onray, 
 
 May have come, like the frosts of October, 
 To carry some new life away. 
 
 Thus dreaming I walk by the river, 
 
 The canyon-walled river the Grand, 
 And I wonder, so sadly, if ever 
 
 I'll walk in that -far-off, dear land? 
 
 'Mongst the hills of that far-off land : 
 And I gaze in the water, so sober, 
 
 While I dig with my heel in the sand, 
 And I wonder if ever October 
 
 Was so sad in that far-off land. 
 
 CASTING BREAD. 
 
 Cast your bread upon the hungry, 
 
 Not on water, as 'tis said, 
 And they'll return to you quite often- 
 
 Those that hunger, not the bread. 
 Bread that's cast upon the water 
 
 Never will return again ; 
 For it soon dissolves to batter, 
 
 Or in sour wads remain.
 
 S OF THE DESERT. 53 
 
 A SLIGHT MISTAKE. 
 
 On the battle field of Gettysburg a wounded soldier lay; 
 
 A cannon ball had come along and torn his leg awa}-. 
 
 A scarred old veteran came that way, cheering himself with 
 
 songs, 
 
 A genuine old soldier boy whose hair stood out in prongs. 
 "Oh carry me from this dreadful place!" the wounded 
 
 soldier moaned; 
 
 The smoky comrade picked him up and lazily he groaned. 
 With the wounded soldier on his back he held him by each 
 
 hand, 
 And, ev'ry step, the poor man's blood stream'd down and 
 
 stained the sand. 
 
 "Where are you hurt?" the comrade ask'd the wounded 
 
 man aloft. 
 "A cannon ball," he made reply, "has torn my right leg 
 
 off." 
 
 "An 1 so it is your laig, comrade," the soldier soothing said. 
 And just then came a cannon ball and took also the head. 
 But the wounded soldier scarcely kicked, so sudden was 
 
 the blow; 
 And, death thus coming like a flash, his comrade did not 
 
 know, 
 But went jogging from the battle field, toting his load 
 
 along; 
 Never thinking of blood or death, but humming low a 
 
 song.
 
 54 so.\r;s OF THE DESERT. 
 
 But a captain met him by and by, who closely scanned his 
 
 load; 
 And when he saw the headless trunk, said, "Drop it in 
 
 the road ! 
 This man is dead as dead can be his head is shot clean 
 
 off!" 
 The comrade dropped his heavy load and gave an angry 
 
 cough. 
 "Wai, dod durn him, when I picked him up, as sure as 
 
 my name's Waig, 
 He told me he was wounded bad, but said it was his leg ! 
 
 BEDTIME. 
 
 Bedtime, and I lay me down to sleep, 
 
 \Yhile the moon shines brightly overhead; 
 
 And the shadows lengthen out and creep 
 In through the window upon my bed; 
 
 But before I sleep I take a peep 
 
 Into the past, where my years have fled. 
 
 I see a dark room with rafters bare, 
 
 And three small beds in the shadows deep; 
 
 And I know the little sleepers there, 
 So very weary and fast asleep. 
 
 And over the hill the whip-poor-will 
 
 Echoes the chirp of the little "knee-deep.'
 
 OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Those happy nights of the long ago ! 
 
 When three little brothers lay awake, 
 Counting the rain drops falling slow, 
 
 Laughing loud at each other's mistake; 
 And the cricket's call in the chimney wall 
 
 Such doleful music all night does make. 
 
 Bedtime happiest hour of all 
 
 To the weary man going to rest, 
 With a conscience clear to rest I fall. 
 
 So like a child on its mother's breast; 
 And while I sleep, the long shadows creep 
 
 Over my face from the moon-lit west. 
 
 Bedtime oh ! when the last night shall come, 
 And the shadows dark around me fall, 
 
 And the gloom of death hangs o'er my home, 
 And I faintly hear my loved ones call; 
 
 Oh ! ma}' I dream, and death but seem 
 A child-like slumber for us all. 
 
 THERE IS NO FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 There is no such thing as friendship. 
 I learned this truth of late ; 
 To the millions we are indifferent, 
 While a few we love and hate.
 
 56 mV(/.S" OF THE DESERT. 
 
 THE CURSE OF COLORADO. 
 
 There's a curse on Colorado, 
 
 There's a Hell at Cripple Creek, 
 Where the golden Eldorado 
 
 Grows more wicked every week ; 
 Where the virgin soil is tainted 
 
 With the murder 'd strikers' blood, 
 And on ev'ry face is painted : 
 
 I am making gold my god. 
 
 There are many lone graves hidden 
 
 In the woods, beyond Bull Hill, 
 Where deputies have ridden, 
 
 Who were sworn to slay and kill ; 
 And the thunders cannot waken 
 
 Those who sleep beneath the sod, 
 But each night .some life is taken 
 
 In this place where gold is god. 
 
 Here the lights all night are burning, 
 
 And the game is always on, 
 And bad men to demons turning, 
 
 Through the gold they lost or won ; 
 Here the harlots, thieves and devils, 
 
 Have their coarse hands stained with blood, 
 And a thousand other evils 
 
 Reign where gold alone is god.
 
 SONG'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 One would think the elevation, 
 
 (Ten thousand feet above the sea,) 
 Would bring it in close relation 
 
 To the God of Galilee ; 
 But the sun, from its position, 
 
 Ev'ry morning finds new blood 
 Staining this pocket edition 
 
 Of Hell, where gold reigns as god. 
 
 THE ACCURSED CITIES. 
 
 Accursed cities ! say Nature's laws; 
 
 Where streets stand gaping like mighty jaws, 
 
 And all the glittering scenes within 
 
 Are hiding some dark and bestial sin, 
 
 And luring strangers therein to walk, 
 
 By rash promises and idle talk. 
 
 Too soon those buildings become a wall, 
 
 To drown the groans and dying call 
 
 Of the poor, polluted human beast, 
 
 Who is forced on plunder there to feast; 
 
 And where virtue is as little known 
 
 As saints in hades, and the moan 
 
 Of poverty, and hunger, and death, 
 
 Mingle with the drunken dancer's breath. 
 
 Accursed cities ! say honest priests, 
 Who see their brothers in sinful feasts; 
 For the minister who reads the signs
 
 58 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 On faces where intemperance reigns, 
 Knows of the dark hell raging within 
 The poor soul, drunken to drown its sin. 
 And each pinched face seen on the street, 
 And all the naked, shivering feet, 
 And all the rags and thread-bare clothes, 
 And even- trace of human woes, 
 Speak of poverty and sore distress 
 In words which law cannot suppress, 
 Even tho' the rich would wish it done, 
 And imprison ev'ry pauper's son. 
 
 Accursed cities ! the rivers say, 
 
 Where foul sewers empty ev'ry day, 
 
 And the filth of millions stain the streams, 
 
 Which were created pure as dreams. 
 
 Accursed cities ! whisper the winds, 
 
 Coming laden with the scent of pines; 
 
 But, when passing through the filth}- towns, 
 
 Sobbing and sighing with many frowns, 
 
 Millions of germs they carry away, 
 
 To spread disease for many a day; 
 
 And the smell of filth, and smoke, and gas, 
 
 Are carried over the tender grass; 
 
 And Nature shrinks from the filthy scent, 
 
 Saying, Accursed cities ! you need repent. 
 
 Give me the desert, with barren sand, 
 W T ith desolation on ev'ry hand, 
 W T ith its dreaded silence, bleaching bones, 
 Where the winds sigh in such mournful tones,
 
 SO^'GS OF THE DESERT. 59 
 
 And all is desolation and waste, 
 And even the winds of alkali taste, 
 And the sun shines down with furnace heat, 
 And nowhere grows a spear to eat, 
 (live me this, instead of wicked towns, 
 Where oppression forever abounds; 
 Where men feast on their neighbor's toil, 
 And, in the rush and fierce turmoil, 
 The poor are trampled to the ground, 
 And God's mercy is but seldom found. 
 
 Accursed cities ! where congregate 
 
 Those who by plunder make themselves great; 
 
 The gay and gaudy aristocrat, 
 
 The tyrant and the autocrat, 
 
 The money-lender, rent-collector, 
 
 Sweat-shop owner and slave-director, 
 
 Courtesan, the gambler and thug, 
 
 The libertine with pitfalls dug; 
 
 And all those who do not honest toil, 
 
 But live on the honey and the oil 
 
 Of all the world's best products, and then 
 
 Are posing as fine gentlemen. 
 
 Accursed cities ! ruination 
 
 Of our boasted civilization. 
 
 And I, too writer of these lines, 
 Knowing how well h\-pocrisy shines; 
 Knowing how the rich, by usury, 
 Force the poor into penun,-; 
 Knowing: how the churches hide the men
 
 6o SO.YGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Who rob the poor, then come back again 
 And on the altar some plunder lay; 
 And kneeling before their God, do pray 
 That He ma}- bless the suffering poor, 
 And make their sinful souls quite pure. 
 And the preachers, looking on these men, 
 Accepting their gold, and knowing when 
 And where they get it, as well as you, 
 I sav, Oh, accursed cities! too. 
 
 DON'T FORGET YOUR MOTHER. 
 
 Last week brought a pleading letter 
 
 From a mother whom I know, 
 Asking if I'd seen her Edward, 
 
 Who had left her long ago. 
 "He was in your town, they tell me, 
 
 W T hen the railroad strike was on ; 
 Have you met, among the strangers, 
 
 Edward, 1115- proud, dashing son? 
 
 "'Five long years ago he left me, 
 
 Just because I did object 
 To his going with some young men 
 
 Whom I never could respect. 
 And he cursed me in his anger, 
 
 Fiercely slammed the door behind, 
 But if I could only see him, 
 
 I would treat him, oh, so kind !
 
 SO.V(,'S OF THE DESERT. 61 
 
 "In my dreams I see my Edward, 
 
 And I hear him call for me, 
 And at times I dream of sitting 
 
 With my Edward on my knee. 
 If he knew how I was yearning 
 
 Just to see him once again, 
 He would hasten to his mother, 
 
 And would cure this great heart pain. ' ' 
 
 Tell me, mothers, could I tell her, 
 
 Form the words with pen or tongue, 
 That the son she loved so dearly 
 
 For horse stealing had been hung ? 
 Could I tell her that, through gambling, 
 
 He had often killed for gain, 
 That he was a drunken demon, 
 
 Worse, far worse, than bloody Cain ? 
 
 All I did was simply tell her 
 
 That her son had gone awa\-, 
 And expressed a hope that they would 
 
 Meet again some happy da\'. 
 I have noticed, in most cases, 
 
 And it should be set to song, 
 When a boy forgets his mother, 
 
 There is always something wrong. 
 
 Boys may go the wide world over, 
 Seeking wealth with all their might, 
 
 If their hearts are true and loving, 
 They will not forget to write ;
 
 62 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 But when days are spent in gambling, 
 Nights in drinking and in song, 
 
 When the boy forgets his mother, 
 
 Mother knows there' s something w r rong. 
 
 THE OLD STONE FENCE. 
 
 The old stone fence near the corn shed, 
 
 Where the chipmonks hid their corn, 
 Where the wasp and wicked hornet 
 
 With their nests the stones adorn ; 
 Where the tom-cat sat to listen, 
 
 Watching for the timid mouse : 
 How his cruel eyes would glisten 
 
 When he turned towards the house. 
 
 Eather built the fence one Summer 
 
 To inclose the orchard trees ; 
 It was cheaper, far, than lumber, 
 
 And would last eternities. 
 And beside it grew the thistle, 
 
 Briar-bushes, and the thorn, 
 Where the Summer birds would whistle 
 
 So merrily night and morn. 
 
 On the fence I have been sitting 
 When the bars were opened wide, 
 
 For the cows would leave off picking, 
 And no longer would abide
 
 OF THE DESERT. 63 
 
 In the field, among the bushes, 
 
 Where the thorns and thistles grew, 
 
 But each critter quits, and rushes 
 To the gap, and gazes through. 
 
 Longing for the grass beyond there, 
 
 Growing 'mongst the orchard trees. 
 There they stand all day and wonder 
 
 \Vhy they can't go where they please 
 Exactly like the human creature, 
 
 Looking at the legal wall 
 Which surrounds the gifts of nature, 
 
 Given for the use of all. 
 
 How like cattle we are standing 
 
 We, the toilers, and the poor, 
 By the open gap, demanding 
 
 We shall be fenced out no more. 
 But the gap is watched by giants : 
 
 Oppressors, lawyers, judges, slaves, 
 Soldiers, menials, and tyrants, 
 
 And 'tis money buys these braves. 
 
 And the stone wall near the corn shed 
 
 Father built around the trees, 
 Had its wasp and wicked hornet, 
 
 And the festive bumble bees ; 
 And, like lawyers, they are lying 
 
 For a victim near their nest ; 
 Just so soon as one they're spying 
 
 There's commotion and unrest.
 
 64 SO.VGS OF THE. DESERT. 
 
 Ah, how often in the bosom 
 
 Of my trousers I have found 
 Feeling so unearthly gruesome 
 
 That, with one, great, mighty bound, 
 I have bounded from the stone wall, 
 
 Like a thief pursued by law, 
 And the might}-, awful shrill squall 
 
 Filled the bell-cow's heart with awe. 
 
 Thus the walls of law and bowlders 
 
 For protection were created, 
 But the careless, blind beholders 
 
 Know not these walls are related : 
 But thej-'re both chock full of leeches, 
 
 And scorpions, wasps, and bees, 
 And they'll bite clear through your breeches, 
 
 And just prod you at their ease. 
 
 GOD NEVER WILLED IT SO. 
 
 A million dollar church for God, 
 
 Damp cellars for poor labor, 
 Carpets where the priests have trod, 
 
 Cold stone floors for our neighbor. 
 God has never willed it so, 
 
 By precept or by fable ; 
 When sending Jesus Christ below 
 
 He chose for Him a stable.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 6.5 
 
 THE SHEEP HERDER. 
 
 Out upon the drear}- mesa, 
 
 On the 'dobe plains so bare, 
 I first met poor Casimero, 
 
 Herding sheep in silence there; 
 For the upper range was buried 
 
 Deep beneath the ice and snow, 
 And the bleating sheep were hurried 
 
 To the barren plains below. 
 
 All day long in silence brooding, 
 
 As he walked among the sheep. 
 Watching them the plains denuding, 
 
 Walked he dreaming, half asleep. 
 He 'd not learned the art of reading, 
 
 And his world was very small, 
 And the flock he now was leading 
 
 Was to him his world and all. 
 
 Casimero loved a maiden, 
 
 Senorita Corrillo, 
 And his thoughts were ever laden 
 
 With sweet dreams of Mexico. 
 And the silence helped his dreaming 
 
 As he walked among the sheep, 
 Starting at the raven's screaming, 
 
 Like a child disturbed in sleep.
 
 66 .s-avr/.v OF THE DESERT. 
 
 One day o'er the plains came riding 
 
 On a broncho's weary back, 
 With a broad sombrero hiding 
 
 Kyes like summer midnight black ; 
 Said he: "Is this Casimero, 
 
 Of Chihuahua, Mexico?" 
 And his eyes looked on our hero 
 
 With a yearning love-lit glow. 
 
 vStarted he, and almost fainted, 
 
 For the accent of that voice 
 To his ears was long acquainted, 
 
 And his heart stops to rejoice. 
 Wide he holds his arms, and crying: 
 
 ' ' Senorita Corrillo ! ' ' 
 And into his strong arms flying 
 
 Leaps the maid of Mexico. 
 
 THE WISE BOY. 
 
 There's the bad boy, and the glad boy, 
 
 And the boy with his trousers torn, 
 
 The ready boy, the steady boy, 
 
 And the boy who is all forlorn ; 
 
 But the boy who is bound to succeed in life, 
 
 Wear starched shirt and stand-up collar, 
 
 Is the boy who knows, by the flush on his nose, 
 
 When its best to strike dad for a dollar.
 
 ()F THE DESERT. 67 
 
 THE STRANGER. 
 
 What is life? and who am I? 
 
 What are these strange things one sees? 
 Tho' I try, and try, and try, 
 
 Conscience will not rest at ease. 
 
 All around strange faiths and creeds, 
 
 All around I hear men pray; 
 Shaking in the wind like weeds 
 
 On a dreary autumn da}-. 
 
 Men are pointing overhead 
 
 To the place where great stars shine, 
 Saying it is where the dead 
 
 Wafted are by laws divine. 
 
 This world seems so very cold 
 
 That without love one would freeze; 
 
 Yet my host I ne'er behold, 
 And I feel not at my ease. 
 
 And sometimes I feel adrift 
 
 On some mysterious sea; 
 Clouds of gloom without a rift 
 
 Seem to hover over me. 
 
 Through this world I daily roam, 
 Like a captive, tho' I 'm free; 
 
 Feel a stranger in my home, 
 Watched by eves I cannot sea.
 
 OF THE DESERT. 
 
 All the works of ages do 
 
 Seem to tell me I am small 
 
 That some ruling power, too, 
 Watches sternly over all. 
 
 PLEADING EYEvS. 
 
 Eyes of pale blue, meek and pleading, 
 
 Little faces looking old, 
 Little bare feet chapped and bleeding, 
 
 Little bodies pinched with cold; 
 I was startled by their knocking 
 
 Ere I opened up my door, 
 For I had been sitting, rocking, 
 
 \Yith my eyes upon the floor. 
 
 Two wee little boys were standing 
 
 Just outside the parlor door, 
 And the eldest one demanding: 
 
 "Do you ever help the poor? 
 Would you like to buy some honey ? 
 
 We have nice pound boxes here; 
 And our mamma needs the money 
 
 Papa is much worse this year. 
 
 " Papa he has got consumption, 
 Sits all day among the trees, 
 
 Seldom stops to get a luncheon, 
 For he works among the bees;
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 69 
 
 And we try to sell the honey 
 
 Little brother Tom and me, 
 Giving mamma all the money, 
 
 And it helps her much, you see. 
 
 ' ' We are only four now, mister 
 
 Tom and Jamie, me and Clyde; 
 For we buried little sister 
 
 In the winter, when she died." 
 Looking in those little faces, 
 
 Seeing eyes a-pleading so, 
 There I seemed to see the traces 
 
 Of my own self, years ago. 
 
 When I used to gather berries, 
 
 Peddle them from door to door 
 Ah, great God ! how fast life hurries 
 
 Burdens on the struggling poor. 
 Pale blue eyes look up so pleading, 
 
 Set in faces looking old. 
 For you my poor heart is bleeding, 
 
 For I know your life is cold. 
 
 Oh, there's such a tender feeling 
 
 In my bosom pulls and sways, 
 Mem'ry at my feet is kneeling, 
 
 Pointing back to far-off days; 
 And these little pleading faces 
 
 Bring back thoughts of former years, 
 And, in speaking, there are traces 
 
 In my voice of pensive tears.
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 NOVEMBER. 
 
 Cold, cheerless month of November, 
 
 When clouds are so somber and gray; 
 They bring back always to mem'ry 
 
 The shadows of joys pass'd away. 
 I sit looking into the fire, 
 
 While shadows dance over the floor, 
 And bleak winds outside flowing higher, 
 
 And searching the world for God's poor. 
 
 Just hear it? Shrieking and howling, 
 
 And threaten to break down the door. 
 It seems I can hear it growling : 
 
 "I'm after God's miserable poo-o-o-r!" 
 See it lash the trees into furies, 
 
 Dash the water high on the shore, 
 While shrieking, howling, it hurries 
 
 In search of God's miserable poor. 
 
 " What have they done, these poor people!' 
 
 The chimney-top asks of the wind, 
 As it rushes past the church steeple, 
 
 With dead leaves trailing behind. 
 " Are you the poor people's keeper? 
 
 If I freeze them, what is it to 3-011?" 
 And the wind's hard voice sounds deeper 
 
 As it hurried bv with a " woo-oo-o-o !"
 
 SOWS OF THE DESERT. 71 
 
 "All, the poor people have no keeper!" 
 
 Said the chimney-top with a sigh; 
 "And justice is such a sound sleeper 
 
 He sleeps while the poor people die. 
 And I must see the world suffer, 
 
 And treat the affair as a joke; 
 Just like the millionaire duffer 
 
 Stand back and do nothing but smoke." 
 
 But the wind blew saucy as ever 
 
 Around the chimney so mute, 
 Even reaching down so clever 
 
 And grabbing a handful of soot, 
 And went on shrieking and howling 
 
 And trying at each cottage door, 
 Then off again, wickedly growling : 
 
 "The poo-o-o-r, the miserable poo-o-o-r!' 
 
 I sit by the fire and shiver 
 
 When I hear the wind's cruel voice, 
 And wonder why the Good Giver 
 
 Allows the cold wind to rejoice. 
 If the rich would only remember, 
 
 And go searching from door to door, 
 Along with the winds of November, 
 
 And temper the winds for the poor!
 
 .SY>.V6'.V OF THE DESERT. 
 
 FLOWERS MY MOTHER LOVED. 
 
 Last night upon my pillow dreaming 
 
 Of scenes so old, 
 Sweet visions of the past came streaming, 
 
 Like the old stories told. 
 One vision lingered there for hours; 
 
 My heart was moved; 
 For then I saw the dear old flowers, 
 
 Flowers that 1113' mother loved. 
 
 All 'round the flower bed I wandered, 
 
 Like when a boy, 
 Where long ago the days I squandered, 
 
 Each hour fill'd with joy. 
 And there again I saw my mother, 
 
 From death removed; 
 And once again we bent together 
 
 Over the flowers she loved. 
 
 Those flowers that are so ungainly 
 
 And out of date, 
 I see them once again so plainh- 
 
 Down at the old garden gate: 
 There's dahlias, and poppies, and locust, 
 
 And yellow rose, 
 Hollyhocks, marigolds, and crocus, 
 
 Down where the sweet pink grows.
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 73 
 
 There's the tiger-lily, and belle-flower, 
 
 In red and blue; 
 Tulips, larkspurs, the snow-drop bower, 
 
 Bright in the morning dew : 
 Morning-glories, sweet pans\ r faces, 
 
 Sent from above ; 
 Clover blossoms in the odd places 
 
 Flowers of my mother's love. 
 
 And there was the daffodil blooming 
 
 Like as of old, 
 And little bach 'lor buttons looming 
 
 Like little stars of gold. 
 There were blue-flags, and lilacs bending 
 
 Where sweet peas roved, 
 And the sweet shrubs their fragrance blend- 
 ing 
 
 With the flowers 1113" mother loved. 
 
 And living thus again with mother, 
 
 Holding her hand, 
 And seeing once again my brother, 
 
 Oh, such a dream is grand ! 
 But soon the vision fades in waking, 
 
 Gone is all joy ; 
 I weep as tho' 1113- heart is breaking, 
 
 Just like a home-sick boy.
 
 74 SOXGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 THE WEARY WANDERER. 
 
 Back in the dear old homestead 
 
 Among the orchard trees, 
 Before I had any friends dead, 
 
 And the lightest Summer breeze 
 Was not so light and jolly 
 
 As that boyish heart of mine, 
 And no thought of melancholy 
 
 Could cause me to repine. 
 
 Bvit all day long went dreaming 
 
 Among the orchard trees, 
 Where light through the leaves came streaming 
 
 As they danced in the Summer breeze. 
 But, after awhile, I tired 
 
 Of living always at home, 
 And more and more desired 
 
 A few brief years to roam. 
 
 I dreamed of towns and cities, 
 
 Of countries far away, 
 And all my songs and ditties, 
 
 As I worked among the hay, 
 Were about the tramp and rover 
 
 Who roam the land and sea ; 
 And I wish'd my boyhood over, 
 
 And I a tramp could be.
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 75 
 
 I pictured the broadest river 
 
 Where steamboats come and go, 
 Where waves in moonlight shiver, 
 
 And the world is all aglow 
 With wealth, and pride, and treasure, 
 
 And the heart of man is free ; 
 And I thought, O, Lord ! such pleasure 
 
 Would be a Heaven to me ! 
 
 But now I'm sadly dreaming 
 
 Of that home among the trees, 
 Where sunlight now is streaming 
 
 Among the dancing leaves ; 
 And I'm tired, oh, and weary ! 
 
 And, if I could only see 
 That old home, once so dreary, 
 
 How happy I would be ! 
 
 For the world, with all its treasures, 
 
 With all its rivers wide, 
 Can never bring the pleasures 
 
 Of that dear old fireside. 
 Oh, for the dear old faces 
 
 Which never again I'll see ! 
 Above all other places, 
 
 Is that dear old home to me.
 
 76 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 WHO SPOILED THE POET. 
 
 Poets write gaily of flowers, 
 
 And slobber and simper of love ; 
 They write of the birds by the hours, 
 
 Sing wild of the stars up above : 
 They call it imagination, 
 
 Or the vivid flight of tme thought ; 
 It would be low degradation 
 
 To write of the kettle or pot. 
 
 To set the angels to chiming, 
 
 Is the true poetical twirl 
 There's nothing at all that's rhyming 
 
 In the name of a working girl. 
 To write of creatures titanic, 
 
 Makes heroic verses, I'm sure, 
 And praise to the name satanic, 
 
 Is better than lauding the poor. 
 
 They write of Kings and Princes, 
 
 Their trials, their hopes, and their pride 
 You ought to see how one winces 
 
 To write of the beggar who died. 
 I'm sick of the modern poet, 
 
 I'm sick of the old masters, too ; 
 They're hypocrites, and you know it 
 
 If you don't, then I'm sick of you.
 
 SOXGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Why sing all the time of Heaven ? 
 
 Forgetting the crude things below. 
 Are eagles to music given 
 
 Far more than the raven or crow ? 
 The loft}" peak of the mountain - 
 
 Is it nearer to God 
 Than the foot-hHs, where the fountain 
 
 Has carpeted earth with a sod ? 
 
 'Tis not the fault of the poet 
 
 'Tis the reader demanding bosh ; 
 The world is silly they know it, 
 
 And they give it pumpkin for squash. 
 They know the world is aesthetic, 
 
 Brought up in the aesthetic school, 
 And pin-sic, or an emetic, 
 
 Has the same effect on a fool. 
 
 MY DOUBTS. 
 
 If our God we cannot please 
 
 By loving our poor neighbor, 
 Need we our Creator tease 
 
 With our love and labor ? 
 Shall God still forgive our sin, 
 
 While we pinch our debtor ? 
 Do these dollars we rake in 
 
 Make our hard hearts better ?
 
 78 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 BACK AGAIN. 
 
 Seventy-five I am to-day, 
 
 My teeth are gone, my hair is gray ; 
 
 But it does seen: the shortest dream 
 
 Since I set sail on life's rough stream. 
 
 I sailed in a circular course away, 
 
 With heart so light, dancing all day, 
 
 And now I trace the starting place 
 
 In ev'ry nook I see a face 
 
 That long ago sailed out with me 
 
 On life's strange, mysterious sea. 
 
 I'm back again to childhood's port, 
 
 My thoughts are all of the old sort, 
 
 And mem'ry seems, with childhood dreams, 
 
 To harmonize the two extremes, 
 
 And only thoughts come back to me 
 
 I gathered at my mother's knee. 
 
 Again I feel I'd love to kneel 
 
 Down at her feet, and there appeal 
 
 For her dear loving hand again 
 
 To lead me through this world of pain. 
 
 Again my father's face I see 
 
 Out through shadows it smiles on me ; 
 
 My brothers, too, come into view, 
 
 All smiling as they use to do ; 
 
 My sisters all smile up to me,
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 79 
 
 Just like the old times use to be, 
 And old dog Gale, with wagging tail, 
 I see him coming down the trail 
 Where the wild rabbits use to run, 
 And gave us boys tremendous fun. 
 
 'Tis three score and ten years ah me ! 
 Since I clung to my mother's knee. 
 The trip is o'er, I'm back on shore 
 Back to the starting place once more. 
 And there's no mem'ry left to me, 
 No faces that I use to see, 
 Except the few around me grew 
 In childhood, now again in view : 
 Only this niem'ry is left to me 
 As I look over life's rough sea. 
 
 THE CONTRAST. 
 
 Little trousers, great big holes, 
 Corporations without souls, 
 Little wages, great big work, 
 Small men suffer, big men shirk, 
 Little feet with great big smell, 
 Little heaven, great big hell : 
 Thus in life I'm finding all 
 The real good things awful small.
 
 8o SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 WHILE BETSEY PLAYED THE ORGAN. 
 
 Betsey at the organ playing 
 
 "Home, sweet HOME," that plaintive song 
 At my feet the old dog staying, 
 
 Stops to listen, sighs ere long. 
 Does he hear my own heart sighing, 
 
 While ni}* thoughts go far away ? 
 For he starts a dismal crying, 
 
 Just as tho' his lips would say : 
 
 "Master, I know how you're thinking 
 
 Of the home of former days, 
 And your heart is softly drinking 
 
 These sad thoughts the organ plays : 
 To your mind it brings a shadow 
 
 Of the old home 'mongst the trees, 
 And you seem to see the meadow, 
 
 Hear the sighing Summer breeze." 
 
 Does he see that home neglected 
 
 On the iris of my eye 
 Picture of that home reflected, 
 
 Which I see myself, and sigh ? 
 Does the music softly ringing 
 
 Both our hearts in mem'ry lave ? 
 Do familiar voices, singing, 
 
 Seem to come back from the grave?
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 81 
 
 Does he see my pale lips quiver ? 
 
 Sad tears from my lashes start ? 
 While dear Betsey, God forgive her, 
 
 Plays "Sweet Home" upon my heart? 
 Cease your moaning, dog or devil, 
 
 For you read my soul too well ! 
 Beast of sympathy, or evil, 
 
 Can you future scenes foretell ? 
 
 Will I see this dear home ever 
 
 Where my childhood mem'ries sleep? 
 Where around the door so clever 
 
 Morning glories use to creep ? 
 But the old dog ceases crying, 
 
 Lays his head upon the floor, 
 Moans in answer to my sighing, 
 
 Seems to say : "Oh, never more !" 
 
 Are your moans commiserate 
 
 For the longings in my breast ? 
 Will I ever leave this desert 
 
 For the old home in the East ? 
 And the organ still is crying 
 
 While the old dog on the floor 
 Seems to answer to my sighing : 
 
 "Never, never, never more !"
 
 82 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 HAPPY! HAPPY NEW YEAR! 
 
 Happy new year, here you are ! 
 You're not welcome, I declare. 
 If you know how sad I am, 
 You would know I'm playing sham. 
 When I say I welcome you 
 Back again, like folks all do. 
 What care you for such as I ? 
 What care you how soon I die ? 
 You are only moving on, 
 Doing work you cannot shun. 
 Ev'ry year you come around, 
 Walking on the frozen ground, 
 Calling me a weakly thing, 
 Caring not if in the spring 
 Pneumonia or consumptive cough 
 Comes and snatches me right off. 
 
 Happy new year ! bah, such bosh ! 
 Hand me down my Mackintosh ; 
 You are bringing rain or snow 
 Ev'ry time your face you show. 
 You are counting wrinkles, too, 
 On my face, were lines you drew ; 
 Stroking down my scanty hair, 
 To observe the silver there ;
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 83 
 
 Patting me on my bald place, 
 Saying I've run all to face ; 
 Bearing on with bad intent, 
 Just to make my body bent : 
 Touch my teeth with foul decay, 
 Take my keen eye-sight away. 
 Happy new year ! bah, such stuff! 
 How we liars play you bluff! 
 
 Happy new year! now that's rum 
 
 Since we hate to see you come : 
 
 Even maidens, old and tough, 
 
 Try to play on you this bluff; 
 
 Treat you in a style so soft, 
 
 But ashamed to tell how oft 
 
 You have pass'd them on the road, 
 
 Since in market they have stood 
 
 Waiting, as their friends all know ; 
 
 Fishing, too, to catch a beau. 
 
 They'd a durn sight rather you 
 
 Never came back into view, 
 
 Unless it should be your plan 
 
 To fetch that long-looked-for man ; 
 
 And each year then, with the snow, 
 
 Bring some fresh heir, don't you know?
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 LOOKING DOWN THE ROAD. 
 
 There's a curious melancholy 
 
 Seems to fall upon the mind, 
 When we remember friends so jolly 
 
 Who are strewed along the line; 
 And it seems to be such folly 
 
 Looking down the road behind; 
 Oh, such melancholy foil}-, 
 
 Looking down the road behind. 
 
 When I look down this road behind me, 
 
 Where the plant of mem'ry blooms, 
 Chains of sorrow come and bind me, 
 
 And then lead me through Death's rooms; 
 Memory's tendrils then entwine me, 
 
 As I walk among the tombs: 
 Oh, sad recollections find me, 
 
 As I walk among the tombs. 
 
 And, all along this road, the living 
 
 Are so swiftly turning gray, 
 And stern nature unforgiving, 
 
 Is carrying them away: 
 It is so melancholy living 
 
 Among gloomy tombs all day 
 Oh, such melancholy living, 
 
 Looking at these graves alwa> r .
 
 OF THE DESERT. 8s 
 
 Looking down this road at sunset, 
 
 Through the opalescent light 
 Far down life's narrow runlet, 
 
 Until lost in mem'ry's night, 
 Where we boys had so much fun, yet 
 
 So much labor in life's fight : 
 Oh, I seem to be the last one left, 
 
 Walking in the tombs to-night. 
 
 Oh, I am sad to-night, don't mind me, 
 
 And I seem no longer brave; 
 For each step down the road behind me 
 
 Seems to be an old friend's grave; 
 And the shadows all remind me 
 
 That the happiness I crave 
 Is not down the road behind me, 
 
 Where each footstep strikes a grave. 
 
 The links of friendship time did sever 
 
 Lay along this road behind, 
 And I see old faces clever 
 
 Beaming on me, loving, kind: 
 Friends are gone from this life forever 
 
 I am weeping never mind; 
 I will try my best endeavor 
 
 To forget this road behind.
 
 86 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 A CHILD OF FATE. 
 
 On the banks of the Bald Eagle, 
 
 Many, many years ago, 
 There was born of humble parents, 
 
 When the skies were filled with snow, 
 A little son, weak and fragile, 
 
 With a slender hold on life ; 
 But he lived and grew to manhood, 
 
 Battled with a world of strife. 
 
 Years of struggles, years of danger, 
 
 Midst them all he lived and grew ; 
 Three times the Bald Eagle water 
 
 Hid his bare-foot form from view. 
 But each time the boy was rescued, 
 
 And brought back again to life ; 
 Child of fate and circumstances, 
 
 Born to hardships and to strife. 
 
 Far across the troubled ocean, 
 
 Where the Danube waters flow, 
 There was born a German maiden, 
 
 Who she was you soon will know ; 
 For her parents were ambitious, 
 
 And a feeling of unrest 
 Filled their souls with a strange longing 
 
 For a land far in the West.
 
 SO.VGS Of THE DESERT. 87 
 
 And this little German maiden 
 
 Cross'd the might}*, trackless sea ; 
 Left behind a narrow kingdom, 
 
 Found this broad land of the free. 
 Fate had, too, prepared a lover 
 
 For the little German maid, 
 And the boy from the Bald Eagle 
 
 In her presence one day strayed. 
 
 What strange law, and what strange reason 
 
 Caused her young heart to beat ? 
 And the boy from the Bald Eagle 
 
 Lays his poor heart at her feet. 
 Why should these two meet as lovers ? 
 
 Why should both hearts palpitate ? 
 What strange law brought them together ? 
 
 If it's not the hand of fate. 
 
 These two strange souls were united ; 
 
 Fate ordained it should be so ; 
 Sons were born, and, of that number, 
 
 There is one GRIT readers know. 
 If the boy from the Bald Eagle, 
 
 And the maid from Danube's shore, 
 Were not brought by fate together, 
 
 And each other to adore ; 
 
 If the waters of Bald Eagle, 
 
 When they swallowed up the lad, 
 Had not been robbed of their viclim, 
 
 Would the maid a lover had ?
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 If they had not met as lovers, 
 And five sturdy sons begat, 
 
 If they ne'er had seen each other, 
 Where, oh, where would I be at ! 
 
 MY CREED. 
 
 Loving man has been my creed, 
 
 With pity for the lowly ; 
 Binding hearts where sorrows bleed, 
 
 This working passage slowly 
 O'er the rugged stream of life, 
 
 Where mortal man is sailing, 
 Ships are sinking in the strife, 
 
 And hearts of Captains failing. 
 If I see my brother's ship 
 
 Crippled beyond sailing, 
 I must help retain his grip, 
 
 And lend a hand at bailing. 
 
 ART. 
 
 The dog with the sa wed-off tail, 
 And the dudelet, so awfully smart, 
 
 And the summer girl dressed like a male- 
 They are all a poor work of art.
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 THOUGHTS ON THEOSOPHY. 
 
 Why do I dream of things 
 Shadows of unknown wings 
 Sleep to my mem'ry brings 
 
 While in repose ? 
 
 Whence come these thought-light beams, 
 Even in mid-day dreams? 
 Life a strange myst'ry seems 
 
 Only God knows. 
 
 Thoughts I ne'er heard before 
 Knock at my memory door. 
 Pass away, come no more 
 
 To me again; 
 Then, on some other day, 
 Stranger thoughts come to stay, 
 Burdens upon me lay, 
 
 Where joy has lain. 
 
 Has my soul, all unknown, 
 From an existence flown, 
 Where it has slowly grown, 
 
 Beyond our ken ? 
 Has this soul I hold dear 
 Passing through trials here 
 Lived on this mundane sphere 
 
 In other men ?
 
 90 .SY>:\Y7.S- OF THE DESERT. 
 
 And, in the years to come, 
 Must this world be its home, 
 Go back into the womb, 
 
 Be born again ? 
 Must it this cold world trod, 
 And, ere it goes abroad, 
 Become as pure as God 
 
 Free from all stain ? 
 
 If this soul is to live 
 With its God, I believe 
 We our poor souls deceive 
 
 With death and pain; 
 For death is but a rest, 
 Soul freed from mortal breast: 
 When God knows it is best, 
 
 We live again. 
 
 If God created all 
 
 Long ere poor Adam's fall, 
 
 All He needs is to call 
 
 Souls from the air; 
 And, at a new child's birth, 
 Souls that belong to earth 
 Send a companion forth, 
 
 Child-life to share. 
 
 So may it ever be, 
 Until each soul is free ; 
 All of God's love to see, 
 And be His own :
 
 SO.\GS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Life here is but a day, 
 Death but a night, they say; 
 Ages must pass away 
 
 Ere we're full grown. 
 
 What do we know of life 
 Outside its pain and strife? 
 All sorts of faith is rife 
 
 Who knows the right? 
 Better far not to know, 
 Else God would tell us so, 
 And we must groping go 
 
 Out in the night. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 Proudly marching, dainty feet, 
 
 Hands too soft for using ; 
 Blood wrung from poor hearts they eat- 
 
 Ah, 'tis so amusing 
 Walking on the upturned face 
 
 Of a starving neighbor, 
 Crushing hands at ev'ry pace, 
 
 Crushing hearts with labor. 
 Lordly castles dripping blood, 
 
 Where sighs, like zephyrs, blowing ; 
 Silks and satin steeped in flood 
 
 Of widow's tears, while sewing.
 
 92 SO\GS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 Oh, Life, you are the strangest thing ! 
 
 Poets of your mystery sing. 
 
 None know the place whence you have come, 
 
 Or why you left your far-off home. 
 
 In my own body you did creep 
 
 At some time while I lay asleep. 
 
 I do not know where we first met; 
 
 I try to think it out, but yet 
 
 I cannot think of any time, 
 
 Of such oblivion sublime, 
 
 When you and I were set apart. 
 
 And there was silence in my heart; 
 
 When these two eyes were closed and blind, 
 
 And no thought lived within my mind, 
 
 When I could neither feel nor think 
 
 Without a thought or bare instinct 
 
 When I was scattered in the air, 
 
 In the earth, and everywhere, 
 
 Now where did you exist, ere we 
 
 Were joined in this strange mystery? 
 
 Oh, was it in the day or night 
 When first we met? and was it right 
 That you should dwell within my skin 
 Without permission to move in ?
 
 SOXG'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 And when 3-011 forced my heart to move, 
 Was it selfishness or love? 
 And all these little aches and pains 
 Of which a mem'ry still remains 
 Within my little body frail, 
 When doctors tried, without avail, 
 To make you live more at your ease, 
 And not so much my body tease, 
 Were you then of Death afraid ? 
 And were calling loud for aid? 
 Were then each pain and ache your cry, 
 To warn me that, if you should die, 
 The air would me dissolve again, 
 And put me back where I had lain 
 Before you came in search of me, 
 And brought me out of mystery ? 
 
 Oh, Life, tell me, are we true friends? 
 Since nature sometime soon intends 
 To part us, and drive you away, 
 And turn my bod}- to decay, 
 Why don't you let me speak to you? 
 Why don't we meet in friendship true? 
 Why don't you tell me all you know, 
 And what you think of things below ? 
 Why can't you tell me, out of love, 
 If there is a great world above ? 
 Where you will go when you depart, 
 And leave but silence in my heart. 
 Are you immortal do you know?
 
 94 SONGS Of THE DESERT. 
 
 Oh, tell me all this ere you go. 
 
 Tell me, tell me, oh, tell me true ! 
 
 What relation am I to you ? 
 
 And why this silence, oh, my friend? 
 
 Or do you cruelly intend 
 
 To go off some sad, dreary da}-, 
 
 And leave my body to decay? 
 
 Ah, Life, are you but part of me? 
 Is it with my dim eyes you see ? 
 Is it with my weak heart you feel, 
 And in like mortal weakness kneel 
 Down at the feet of myst'ry deep 
 Where all the tongues of knowledge sleep, 
 And will not answer those who ask 
 The gods of mystery to unmask; 
 And show us mortals all we crave 
 To know of things beyond the grave ? 
 Ah, Life, you may be asking me 
 Concerning these strange things \ve see: 
 You may imagine that 'tis I 
 God has intended shall not die; 
 And you may wonder where I go, 
 When I have disappeared below. 
 Oh, if we had a language known 
 To both of us, how very soon 
 At loggerheads we both would be, 
 Discussing immortality.
 
 SO.YGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 95 
 
 LIFE'S BLOODY BATTLE. 
 
 Oh, life is only a battle, 
 
 With poverty and disease ; 
 I hear all around the rattle 
 
 Of the falling yellow leaves : 
 Yellow leaves that fought all summer 
 
 Against the hail and the frost ; 
 The}- fall now without a murmur ; 
 
 They fought to the death and lost. 
 
 The storms beat down on the mountains, 
 
 The ocean lashes the shore, 
 The streams charge down from the fountains 
 
 Like gladiators at war : 
 There's no time for words or praying, 
 
 There is no time for remorse : 
 Hold fast where the great rocks are laying, 
 
 And onl}- be moved by force. 
 
 The birds and the beasts are fighting, 
 
 The big fish eat the small ; 
 But, true as I am writing, 
 
 There's only defeat for all. 
 In life's fight there is no quarter, 
 
 So brace your back to the wall ; 
 Your blood will mix with the mortar, 
 
 And stain the earth where you fall.
 
 96 SO.VGS Of THE DESERT. 
 
 Are you weary fighting, brother ? 
 
 Do you wish the battle o'er? 
 Would you swop this world for another, 
 
 Where mortals never explore? 
 Ah, you dare not shirk this battle, 
 
 Or refuse a warrior's grave ; 
 You must fear not death's harsh rattle, 
 
 For the world loves only the brave. 
 
 A BAD COUGH. 
 
 There's the whooping cough, 
 
 And consumption cough, 
 But the very worst cough, I declare, 
 
 Is to take your mash, 
 
 And cough up your cash 
 For the heathen, at a church fair. 
 
 There's the whisky cough, 
 
 And dyspeptic cough, 
 But the cough that will Christians surprise, 
 
 Is to never shirk, 
 
 But cough up good work 
 Until you land in Paradise.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 97 
 
 MYSELF. 
 
 I wonder if some writer, in future years, 
 
 Will write a biography of me. 
 And will he know of my struggles, and my tears, 
 
 And how ambitious I use to be? 
 No ; no one will know the secrets of my soul, 
 
 Xo one will know my longings and strife, 
 No one will know how I tried to reach the goal, 
 
 No one will know my most secret life. 
 
 Will he call me by the name I long have known, 
 
 And say to the world : "He was a man 
 Who never had inspirations of his own 
 
 His soul was of the prosaic plan ?' ' 
 And will the world then think it knows my story, 
 
 After reading those few careless lines ? 
 Believing that I simply wrote for glory ? 
 
 And not for paltr}- dollars and dimes ? 
 
 Are they onh- noble who write for glory 
 
 Who have large fortunes alread}- won, 
 Whose ancestors have always lived in story 
 
 Who ask praise only for all they've done? 
 And shall I, because I have written for bread, 
 
 Be despised for my lowly labor ? 
 Spoken of in pity after I am dead, 
 
 By my aristocratic neighbor ?
 
 98 SONGS OF THE DPLSERT. 
 
 They will never know my history never ! 
 
 There is a world within me unknown, 
 Even to myseff, and this world forever 
 
 Shall be a desert when life has flown. 
 For even I am yet a total stranger 
 
 Within these strange walls of flesh and bone ; 
 Trembling so often at some unknown danger, 
 
 And fearing to meet grim Death alone. 
 
 No ! nobody will ever tell my secrets, 
 
 For no one can read my secret mind ; 
 They will know not my longings, sorrows, regrets, 
 
 And these are the life of all mankind. 
 Even could my own eyes look back and see, 
 
 From that strange dreamland beyond the tomb, 
 Ah, they might drop a pitying tear for me, 
 
 Knowing how blindly I met my doom. 
 
 Even my dearest friends, who daily see me, 
 
 Know not the strange secrets of my mind : 
 And do you think, when death at last shall free me, 
 
 All my secrets will be left behind ? 
 No ; when I leave this world of pain and sorrow, 
 
 My longings shall melt into the air, 
 And the whole world, after death's to-morrow, 
 
 Will forget that I was ever here.
 
 OF THE DESERT. 99 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HAT. 
 
 The man who wears his hat on the back of his head, 
 With his hair pasted down on his forehead, 
 
 You can make up your mind that his pride is not dead, 
 Tho' his looks may be utterly horrid. 
 
 If he wears his beaver down over his ear, 
 
 And then tilted his one eye quite over, 
 He feels good enough to have thousands a year, 
 
 And is up to his crupper in clover. 
 
 If he tilts the brim downward square over his eyes, 
 
 And cocked up behind like a feather, 
 Oh, you'll find him a trickster then, to your surprise; 
 
 And you'll not be long trav'ling together. 
 
 If he wears his new hat square on top of his head, 
 
 And it looks as tho' it was too small, 
 You may make up your mind that he's genteelly bred, 
 
 But no good to the big world at all. 
 
 If he wears his hat firmly, and squarely, and straight, 
 
 Neither cocked up in front nor behind, 
 He may carry a brain that is moving the state, 
 
 With a heart that is loving and kind.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 But, if it seems crowded far down on his ears, 
 And they look so lopped-over and flabby, 
 
 He's either a skinflint, grown harder with years, 
 Or, he may be half-witted and shabby. 
 
 So be careful, young man, how you're wearing your hat, 
 For your character shines out from under; 
 
 And the people who see you will put you down pat, 
 For a man, or a nuisance, by thunder. 
 
 MY FARM. 
 
 When a bo\- I use to labor 
 
 Ev'ry summer on the farm, 
 For 1113- richest, nearest neighbor, 
 
 Doing work of ev'ry form. 
 In the hot sun, weak and weary, 
 
 How I often longed for shade ! 
 How I envied farmer deary, 
 
 And positions longed to trade. 
 
 How I wished to be the owner 
 
 Of a farm with such broad fields, 
 For I thought I 'd ten times sooner 
 
 Live on what the rich soil yields, 
 Than to work for such small money 
 
 Fourteen hours ev'ry day, 
 Like the poor bee storing hone3" 
 
 For some one to take away.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 One day my old father, guessing 
 
 What was passing in my mind. 
 Said, "There is no use thus distressing 
 
 Your head with thoughts of this kind; 
 For you own a territory 
 
 Richer than these fields are here, 
 Where you can win cash and glory, 
 
 If you go to plowing there. 
 
 You've a casket filled with treasure 
 
 That will each year profit yield; 
 In the shade, and at your pleasure, 
 
 You can cultivate this field. 
 And it needs no fertilizer, 
 
 If you cultivate with care, 
 And ev'ry year be growing wiser, 
 
 If you do }-our plowing there. ' ' 
 
 Since that day I have been toiling 
 
 In the field of which he spoke, 
 But at first it seemed hard moiling 
 
 Aching heart at every stroke. 
 Bitter weeds in corners growing 
 
 Weeds of envy and disdain; 
 These I pulled up, so well knowing 
 
 The}- would smother golden grain. 
 
 Now that field is paying profit 
 More than Clean,-' s whole estate, 
 
 And its fruit a sample of it 
 Is in this tale I relate.
 
 SONGS Or THE DESERT. 
 
 'Twas my think-pot I've been plowing, 
 Raising nonsense for the press. 
 
 "Small potatoes," you're avowing 
 Well, they '11 pa}- to dig, I guess. 
 
 DEvSERT HEART. 
 
 Out on the desert the scorching heat 
 Down on the barren gray sand does beat, 
 So hot that it burns the trav'ler's feet, 
 
 And the earth is crying for rain : 
 Far in the distance the whirl -winds dance, 
 Over the sand hills they gaily prance, 
 While the great silence our souls entrance, 
 
 And our heart sings this sad refrain : 
 
 Where are the flowers which bloom in spring, 
 And to the desert their fragrance bring ? 
 Here is the dry stem, poor withered thing, 
 
 Left bleaching since touched by Death. 
 Ah, where are the joys, of my soul a part, 
 Joys of life's spring time, before the smart 
 Of sorrows left their stems in my heart; 
 
 How they rattle in mem'ry's breath !
 
 SO.VGS Of THE DESERT. 103 
 
 Now life is but withered stems to me, 
 Death is the desert Eternity; 
 After I cross it what will there be? 
 
 Is there water beyond the range? 
 Plodding along in the desert sand, 
 Passively holding to Hope's frail hand, 
 Shall we cross over to some fair land ? 
 
 Ah, neighbor, this journey seems strange. 
 
 Hand-boards erected along the way 
 Speak of a country where endless day 
 Reigns forever, and there, too, the} 1 say, 
 
 Sweet flowers forever will bloom. 
 This land, they say, is beyond our ken, 
 Never beheld by the eyes of men; 
 "Tis only a dream land ah, then, 
 
 It leaves us so much to presume. 
 
 Alone I 'm walking the desert sand, 
 Even unclasped from hope's frail hand, 
 Going blindly to that unknown land, 
 
 Simply going because I must. 
 With all the pain from sun's heat severe, 
 While all the flowers begin to sear, 
 I would rather stay forever here, 
 
 Than go back to the desert dust.
 
 104 SOJ\'GS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 MY LOVE STORY. 
 
 Oh, wasn't it strange to you and me, 
 
 When we sat in the parlor long ago; 
 
 Both hearts as loving as love could be, 
 And we said that through all eternity 
 I belonged to you, and you to me, 
 
 And your eyes were bright with love's sweet glow. 
 
 We knew of a parting soon to come 
 That would take you thousands of miles away, 
 
 And we thought of it like creatures dumb ; 
 
 It seemed so hard to be parted from 
 
 The one we loved, and the dear old home 
 Seemed full of sadness that autumn day. 
 
 Oh, how we lingered that autumn day, 
 And my hand, unthinking, your hand sought; 
 Your drooping head on my shoulder lay, 
 And we thought of you going far away, 
 And the only words of hope we could say : 
 Our love is too pure to come to naught. 
 
 I slipped a ring on your passive hand, 
 And kissed the lips upturned to mine, 
 
 And thought to myself, oh, love is grand ! 
 
 No sweeter blessing could gods demand ; 
 
 So tender, yet such a mighty band, 
 Stronger than chains our hearts entwine.
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 105 
 
 For two long years, yes, almost three, 
 After you wandered from that spot, 
 
 Only in mem'ry I lived with thee, 
 
 And in my dreams your face could see; 
 
 But these old, old words came back to me : 
 Our love is too pure to come to naught. 
 
 How strange it seems to me and mine 
 
 To meet again far from that spot ; 
 To feel our loving arms entwine, 
 To kiss those lips upturned to mine, 
 To see those eyes so loving shine, 
 
 With a love too pure to come to naught. 
 
 POOR FARMER BOY. 
 
 What makes the sky so blue, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy? 
 Why sing the birds for you, 
 
 Poor, farmer boy ? 
 Why are the fields so green ? 
 Fairer than ever seen ; 
 There is a cause, I ween, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy. 
 
 All your clothes are so coarse, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy ; 
 And shoes even worse, 
 
 Poor farmer boy ;
 
 io6 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Coarse is the food you eat, 
 Tho' it may taste so sweet, 
 Back in your lone retreat. 
 Poor farmer boy. 
 
 Go whistling to your plow, 
 
 Oh, fanner boy ; 
 I know your secret now, 
 
 Poor farmer boy : 
 All you love are near to 3'ou, 
 Friends, and all dear to you; 
 There comes no fear to you, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy. 
 
 Over the fields, I know, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy, 
 Tripping gaily to and fro, 
 
 Poor farmer boy ; 
 There is a maiden fair, 
 With country beaut}' rare 
 Your heart is always there, 
 
 Poor farmer boy. 
 
 What care you for the strife, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy ; 
 Or for another life, 
 
 Poor farmer boy : 
 Home is the world to you, 
 Where all the friends are true, 
 Sweet' ning your work for you, 
 
 Oh, farmer bo}'.
 
 SO.V<;S OF THE DESERT. 107 
 
 Build castles in the air, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy, 
 And put your sweetheart there, 
 
 Poor farmer boy ; 
 Long not for other joys, 
 Like the proud city boys, 
 Who fill their life with toys, 
 
 Poor farmer boy. 
 
 Here is where great men grow\ 
 
 Oh, farmer bov, 
 Some time you, too, may go, 
 
 Poor farmer boy ; 
 Far above the city man, 
 Who lives to scheme and plan, 
 But seldom leads the van, 
 
 Poor farmer boy. 
 
 Go whistling to your plow, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy ; 
 I know your secret now, 
 
 Poor farmer boy: 
 You love the sky so blue, 
 And all the green fields, too, 
 And some one who loves you, 
 
 Oh, farmer boy.
 
 io8 SOA'GS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 WHEN DADDY SAID THE 
 BLESSING. 
 
 I am sitting by the window 
 
 In my far-off western home, 
 But my mind goes off a dreaming, 
 
 And refuses back to come; 
 For I love to dwell on events 
 
 That occurred so long ago, 
 When we were all boys together, 
 
 And were bent on mischief so: 
 The faces we made at table, 
 
 When our mother felt so shocked, 
 While our daddy said the blessing 
 
 With his eyes half cocked. 
 
 We boys were never so pious 
 
 That we could sit still, and wait 
 Until the blessing was finished, 
 
 \Vith our eyes upon the plate; 
 But we'd pinch each other slyly, 
 
 Or pull at the old dog's tail, 
 And make faces at the baby, 
 
 Who would then set up a wail; 
 But at times we felt dad's knuckles 
 
 Just where our bangs were docked, 
 For he sometimes said the blessing 
 
 With his eyes half cocked.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 109 
 
 But mother seemed to love us, so 
 
 She kept our secrets well, 
 And all our deeds must be quite mean 
 
 To make her up and tell; 
 And we had lots of fun always 
 
 When our daddy's eyes were shut, 
 And when his dear old back was turned 
 
 We dropped in the noisy rut; 
 And, even at the table, we 
 
 All decent manners shocked, 
 While our daddy said the blessing 
 
 With his eyes half cocked. 
 
 Oh, that dear old, kind old daddy ! 
 
 And that sweet old mother dear ! 
 How often I have wished of late 
 
 I could have them with me here; 
 But life is, oh, so very short ! 
 
 And our joys so weak and frail, 
 That even when we laugh too loud, 
 
 We wind up with a wail; 
 And old grim Fate seems to watch us 
 
 With his hands before him locked, 
 Like when daddy said the blessings 
 
 With his eyes half cocked.
 
 SO.\GS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 DREAMLAND FACES. 
 
 "Sweet dreamland faces, dancing to and fro, 
 Bring back to mem'ry days of long ago." 
 So sang the stranger, gazing in the stream, 
 Seeing lov'd faces pictured in his dream: 
 Down where the waters turn to deepest blue, 
 Where cluster faces who once lov'd him true. 
 But these dear faces quickly disappear, 
 For on the water drops a bitter tear. 
 
 Sweet dreamland faces, come to me again ! 
 Tho' you give heart-ache and such homesick pain , 
 No more my teardrops shall obscure its view 
 While looking tenderly on faces true. 
 Down in the bosom of the flowing stream, 
 Come back the faces of mem'ry's dream 
 Home of my childhood pictured in the deep, 
 Even the bed-room where I used to sleep. 
 
 There stands my father with his aged form, 
 His long hair frosted in life's chilly storm; 
 And my old mother standing by his side, 
 Seems to look on me with the same old pride. 
 See her smile gently, while her tender eyes 
 Light up so loving with glad surprise. 
 Dear God in heaven, Father of the stream ! 
 Will the resurrection be like this dream ?
 
 SO.YGS Of THE DESEKT. 
 
 There stand my brothers looking in my face, 
 Each line familiar, easily to trace ! 
 Some of them living, some of them asleep, 
 But all seem wakened, pictured in the deep: 
 They all seem life-like in their worldly homes, 
 For here in dreamland grim death never comes. 
 But my heart is aching with silent pain, 
 Dear God in heaven ! shall we meet again ? 
 
 Sweet dreamland faces, speak, oh, speak to me ! 
 
 Will you all meet me in eternity? 
 
 Are thoughts of heaven only like a dream 
 
 Only a picture shadowed on life's stream ! 
 
 Will death make ripples, blotting out the view 
 
 Hiding forever these pictures of you ? 
 
 Dear God in heaven, let, oh let me know, 
 
 When ends this dreamland, whither shall I go? 
 
 Ah, there is but one love true 
 Love so deep that it is blind, 
 
 Giving the whole world up for you 
 And leaving home and friends behind. 
 
 THE BULLY. 
 
 The man who wants to slap your face 
 For disputing things not true, 
 
 Would shoot you down within your place, 
 If caught burglarizing you.
 
 SONGS Of THE DESERT. 
 
 THE CRIES GO UP TO HEAVEN. 
 
 Last night I dreamed that I sat up in heaven, 
 And very close to the celestial throne, 
 
 Where I could hear, every day of the seven, 
 The prayer of the world and its bitter moan, 
 Crying for mercy in beseeching tone. 
 
 "Lord, thou hast forsaken us ! " cried the starving ; 
 "Our strong brothers rob us of all we get ; 
 
 We do all the digging, delving and carving, 
 Exposed to the snow, the frost and the wet, 
 And still we have never seen justice yet. 
 
 "O, Lord, I am weary ! Lord, I am dying ! 
 Oh, so hungry and cold ! and do you care ? 
 
 Have you turned a deaf ear unto our crying, 
 And forsaken the poor everywhere 
 Paying no heed to their bitter prayer? 
 
 "Lord, did you make us in days of creation 
 To be poor slaves to be never satisfied, 
 
 To bear the heavy burdens of this nation, 
 While the proud aristocrats us deride? 
 Did you intend Justice in wealth's divide?" 
 
 And I dreamed I looked on the struggling masses, 
 As they writhed and twisted in their greed for gold 
 
 And I saw the pride of the haughty classes, 
 
 While the hungry masses were bought and sold, 
 And the orphan suffered hunger and cold.
 
 SOJVGS OF THE DESERT. 113 
 
 And I noticed that, one day out of seven, 
 
 They went to their churches to offer up prayer ; 
 
 Expecting that words would take them to heaven, 
 From the hell of man's own creation here 
 From the hunger and pain felt ev'ry where. 
 
 And the angels whispered to one another : 
 "How the poor suffer under greed's rod ! 
 
 For the rich won't own the poor man his brother. 
 How hardly shall they see the Kingdom of God 
 As Jesus had said when this earth he trod." 
 
 READY TO GO. 
 
 I useter look on death an' dyin' 
 
 As a dretful, orful thing, 
 An' I couldn't keep from cryin', 
 
 An' my hands I useter wring, 
 When grim Death 'u'd come an' cany 
 
 Dear old frien's right from my side, 
 An' I'd feel so orful sorry 
 
 While behint the hearse I'd ride. 
 
 But so many hev gone over 
 To that place they talk about 
 
 In the meetin', an' where clover 
 
 Grows knee-high, an' there, no doubt,
 
 U4 SOXGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 They are happy doin' nuthin' 
 But a playin' harps ov gold, 
 
 An' their angel stomachs stuffin' 
 Jist as full as they kin hold. 
 
 An' this world is not so jolly 
 
 As it was when I was young, 
 An' at times a melancholy 
 
 Over my poor heart is sprung; 
 An' at ev'nin', settin' smokin', 
 
 Thinkin' ov these frien's .so true, 
 Sumthin' in my breast comes chokin', 
 
 An' I wanter be dead, too. 
 
 Even if death is but sleepin' 
 
 That beats this world, at its best, 
 For there' d be no hunger creepin' 
 
 Jist a lazyin' at rest. 
 While I'm settin' smokin', weary, 
 
 Lis'nin' to the wind's soft "woo-oo !' 
 This here world seems growin' dreary, 
 
 An' I wanter be dead, too. 
 
 If these frien's that has gone over 
 
 To this world ov joy an' peace, 
 Are a wallowin' in clover 
 
 Where the noon-spells never cease; 
 An' such sights as they are seein' ! 
 
 An' there's nuthin' else ter do 
 But jist everlastin' bein' 
 
 Jolly, an' a singin', too.
 
 SONGS Of THE DESERT. 115 
 
 What's the use ov me a missin' 
 
 All the good times over there ? 
 Where the summer winds is kissin' 
 
 An' a blowin' through your hair. 
 All ni}- best Men's hev departed, 
 
 An' there's nuthin' else ter do 
 But ter die, an' then be carted 
 
 Over to the boneyard, too. 
 
 HE SHOCKED THE WORLD. 
 
 Onc't there was a little boy who wanted to be seen ; 
 
 He was very tall and slender, and freckle-faced, and lean. 
 
 He longed to become famous, and win praise and renown, 
 
 And be the one admired boy of all the boys in town. 
 
 He longed to be a hero, and have people at his feet, 
 
 To select the best of all things, and give him just the sweet. 
 
 When he was told to do the chores, he'd only laugh and 
 
 mock , 
 
 And give his folks and relatives the meanest kind of shock. 
 But he had great ambitions to become, oh, very rich, 
 To be president, or gov'nor, he didn't care just which ; 
 But he wanted things to come to him of their own accord, 
 And all he'd hafter do would be to just set down and board. 
 He only wish't to set all day in the shade and dream, 
 And have the good things come to him, like bubbles on a 
 
 stream ;
 
 n6 SO.VGS Of THE DESERT. 
 
 But if you'd speak of study, he'd only laugh and mock, 
 And say, if he could not win fame, he'd give the world a 
 
 shock. 
 
 Long before he was a man, all his people knew 
 There was no kind of honest work this boy would do ; 
 So they prayed for him in meetin', when he was there, 
 But he'd set and make faces durin' the hull pray'r. 
 But he thought, somehow, that fortune was bound to come, 
 Just because he wish't it, and knew more than some 
 People gave him credit for, and some day, by jocks, 
 He'd give the world and neighbors some gee-menshly 
 
 shocks. 
 
 I know lots of boys like him, dear reader, don't you? 
 So in love with themselves that there's nothin' they 
 
 will do ; 
 
 But will set and build castles all the day long, 
 And picture themselves like the man in the song ; 
 The owner of horses, fine houses and land, 
 And just lay on the divan, and never turn their hand 
 To do toilin', or s'pinnin', or darnin' of socks, 
 But just have successes that'll give the world shocks. 
 Well, this boy that I mentioned, he grew to manhood, 
 And never was known to do one stroke of good ; 
 But kept longin' for glory, for fame and renown, 
 And to be the biggest mogul in the hull town ; 
 So he soon took to stealin', then robbin' a store 
 Was 'rested for murder, and for sheddin' of gore. 
 And, even on the gallows, he set there and mocked ; 
 But his neck was soon broken the world it was shocked.
 
 SO^VGS Of THE DESERT. 117 
 
 LIFE IS ALL GUESS-WORK. 
 
 This life is a thing uncertain, 
 
 Begins and ends like a dream; 
 It starts from behind a curtain, 
 
 Then flows to an unknown stream. 
 The future is merely guessing, 
 
 The past a struggle severe; 
 We call ev'rything a blessing 
 
 That keeps us existing here. 
 
 In childhood we dream of conquest, 
 
 Of things we'll do when full grown; 
 Our friends will be ev'ryone blest 
 
 With riches that's all our own. 
 We'll marry the fairest creature, 
 
 Who will own half of this sphere; 
 Her other redeeming feature 
 
 Will be, calling us her ' ' dear. ' ' 
 
 We make ourself a liar, 
 
 A boaster, and thing so vain ; 
 In secret we do aspire 
 
 To see all our rivals slain, 
 We picture ourself in battle, 
 
 With blood dripping from our sword- 
 Voice sounding above the rattle, 
 
 Defiance in ev'ry word.
 
 u8 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 But soon all these castles vanish 
 
 We wed a maid with cold feet; 
 All sleep from our eyes she'll banish, 
 
 And make our mis'ry complete. 
 She'll double up on the pillow 
 
 Like an Irish peddler's pack, 
 And, worse than a North sea billow, 
 
 Are her cold feet to our back. 
 
 And then will^the rent collector, 
 
 And the money-lending shark, 
 And the social-line inspector 
 
 Be making this old world dark. 
 Our future is now uncertain, 
 
 We know not the date or da}-, 
 When Death will hoist the curtain, 
 
 And move us out of the way. 
 
 It 's all sheer nonesense for preachers 
 
 Marking out a path in life, 
 For even the best of teachers 
 
 Are meeting with unseen strife : 
 It is all groping and guessing, 
 
 From the hour we are born, 
 And we only get the blessing 
 
 Like the blind pig got the corn.
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 119 
 
 LITTLE NELL. 
 
 Of my earl}- childhood dreaming, 
 Sitting on the vine-clad stoop, 
 Where the moonlight comes in streaming, 
 And the climbing roses droop; 
 Sitting musing, 
 Scenes confusing 
 Come back, niem'ry disabusing; 
 And dear childhood faces beaming 
 
 Through the shadows on the stoop, 
 Where the climbing roses, seeming 
 Like the heads of children, droop. 
 
 Away back in the shadows mist}' 
 Hanging o'er the days of yore, 
 I see myself and Nellie Listlie 
 Sliding down the cellar door. 
 Ma's prediction 
 Of the friction, 
 
 Beyond doubt or contradiction 
 Said she, as she stooped and kissed me: 
 
 "You must not slide any more; 
 For no cloth can ever resist the 
 Friction of the cellar door. ' ' 
 
 But we kept on gently sliding, 
 For such joys the soul enchants. 
 
 Says I, "Nell," as we went gliding, 
 
 " You can't strike matches on your pants! ' '
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Says she, grinning, 
 Sweetly winning, 
 "I tould do it at bedinnin', 
 But dis slidin', an' dis glidin' 
 
 Wif you on dis door each day, 
 (Dere's no use de setret hidin'), 
 I haint no more built dat way." 
 
 Drooping head and sweetly blushing 
 
 As we climbed the door so steep, 
 And we heard my mother hushing 
 Little brother back to sleep; 
 Says Nell, turning, 
 With face burning, 
 
 And with one hand me she's spurning: 
 "Do away, an' don't you tease me, 
 
 Tause you don't know what I see. 
 Did you spile your pants ter please me ? 
 You're edzactly built like me! " 
 
 Little Nellie! long years sleeping 
 
 In the church-yard over there; 
 And the years so surely creeping, 
 Scatter silver in my hair. 
 
 Soon I'll meet her, 
 And will greet her, 
 In a world more fair and sweeter, 
 And I hope to find her sliding 
 
 Down the door eternity; 
 Whisp'ring to the Lord, confiding: 
 "He's edzactly built like me."
 
 SO.\GS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 IONE. 
 
 There's a lone grave far out on the silent prairie, 
 
 Where only the sighing winds and the coyote's howl is 
 
 heard. 
 Here sleeps lone, once as beautiful as a fairy, 
 
 And whose song was once sweeter than the song of a 
 bird. 
 
 The great sand storms in the summer soriietimes sweep 
 over 
 
 The deep-sunken grave where the Indian maiden sleeps, 
 And the snow in winter falls deep enough to cover 
 
 The devil-tongue cactus, where the primrose creeps. 
 
 There's a silence in the air that makes one feel dreary, 
 Broken only now and then by the crow overhead; 
 
 And while you stand alone, your mind debates the query, 
 If such solitude is not even felt by the dead. 
 
 lone was but a dark -eyed, dusky half-breed maiden, 
 Her father a white trader, and her mother a Ute. 
 
 She fell in love with a hunter, dashing Dick Hayden, 
 Who returned her true affections, and soon won his suit. 
 
 But there was an Indian lover for the maiden, 
 
 The wily hunter and trailer, the big, brave Ahmeek; 
 
 And he had sworn to kill the bold hunter, Dick Hayden, 
 And for a chance to slav him the Indian did seek.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 So, lone and her lover, at the midnight hour, 
 Stole silently away from her grandfather's tepee; 
 
 And each took a horse, saying it was Tone's dower, 
 
 And rode away in the darkness, with hearts light and 
 free. 
 
 Over mountains, down canons they rode, silence keeping; 
 
 Down deep gulches, across arroyos, onward the}- ride, 
 While the old grandfather in his tepee is sleeping, 
 
 Never dreaming that the hunter has stolen his bride. 
 
 But the Indian, Ahmeek, soon discovers 
 
 That the maiden he loved with the white hunter has fled; 
 He is soon mounted and in pursuit of the lovers, 
 
 And each leap of the horse nods the gay plumes on his 
 head. 
 
 Away on the lonely prairie, two days after, 
 
 He overtakes the truants, and his keen blade leaps out; 
 Goaded on to madness by hearing their gay laughter, 
 
 He holds aloft his knife and gives an exultant shout. 
 
 They meet, the rivals and the maiden; no word is spoken; 
 
 But the lovers spur their horses and at each other dart; 
 The maiden rides between them, and both blows are broken, 
 
 With the blades, aimed at each other, buried in her heart. 
 
 They pause, and, with great horror, the}' glance at each 
 
 other. 
 
 "The great spirit has decided," the Indian said. 
 "We will bury our love in sorrow, now, 1113- brother, 
 And with our own wicked hands dig a grave for our 
 dead. ' '
 
 SONGS Of THE DESERT. 123 
 
 Two days they sat there fasting; they are foes no longer; 
 
 Now they both love the maiden in the spirit land; 
 They must be good friends now, for their hatred would 
 wrong her; 
 
 And over Tone's grave they grasp each other's hand. 
 
 Then they both ride away, across the dreary prairie, 
 The hunter to the east, the Indian to the west, 
 
 And left lone sleeping lone, the dusk}- fairy 
 lone, the half-breed maiden, now forever at rest. 
 
 RURAL MELODIES.. 
 
 There is music in the meadows, 
 
 There is music in the brush, 
 But exceptin' when it thunders, 
 
 When there seems to be a hush. 
 Yes, but in the morning early 
 
 When the sun begins to rise, 
 There's a thousand trills of music 
 
 Goes ascending to the skies: 
 When the pigs cry for their breakfast 
 
 In their little round log pen, 
 There's the "Kuck, kuck, kuck, chee-kaw-kuck!' 
 
 Of the early lay in' hen.
 
 124 XOXG'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 There's the robin on the pear tree 
 
 Singin' "Purt, purt, purt, purt, purt!" 
 And the guinea in the meadow 
 
 Yellin' jist as tho' 'twas hurt; 
 And the pee- wee on the stable 
 
 Calls his wife, "My dear Phoebe," 
 And the chick-a-dee is there, top, 
 
 Singin' "Chick-a-dee, dee dee! " 
 And the swallows skim the heavens, 
 
 And don't seem to care a darn 
 For the "Kuck, kuck, kuck, chee-kaw-kuck! 
 
 Of the rooster in the barn. 
 
 And the farmer boy goes whistlin' 
 
 On his way to start the plow, 
 And there's no fog horn to equal 
 
 The loud bellow of the cow; 
 And the old black crow and raven 
 
 That go soarin' over head 
 Send us down a caw so dismal, 
 
 While they look for somethin' dead; 
 And there's the brown thrush, and jay bird, 
 
 And the little Jennie wren, 
 And the "Kuck, kuck, kuck, chee-kaw-kuck!' 
 
 Of the cross old hatchin' hen. 
 
 Oh, there's music in the country, 
 
 When the city's got the blues, 
 And the fields all over flowers 
 
 In a thousand brilliant hues; 
 And the happy songs of nature 
 
 Can be heard on ev'r}- hill,
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 125 
 
 Minglin' with the gurglin' music 
 
 Of the little ripplin' rill; 
 And the housewife saves the onions 
 
 With some cuss words and with sticks, 
 Midst the "Kuck, kuck, kuck, chee-kaw-kuck! " 
 
 Of the old hen with her chicks. 
 
 EBB AND FLOW. 
 
 Ebb and flow, come and go. 
 
 Just like the tide is our life below : 
 
 High-tide comes in, child life begins, 
 
 Roll on the shore in a frolicsome din. 
 
 Flow back tide, the old man died, 
 
 Swept to the ocean so deep and wide : 
 
 Come once more, leave a child at our door, 
 
 Take a grandfather with you when you leave the shore. 
 
 The waves come in, and the waves go back, ^ 
 
 And the new come in on the old wave's track ; 
 
 Come and go, ebb and flow, 
 
 Youth comes in and age must go. 
 
 High on the wave child life does flow, 
 
 While age goes out in the under-tow. 
 
 Ships sail o'er midst the ocean's roar, 
 Just like our hopes sail evermore. 
 Hopes of to-day sail down the bay, 
 Out on the ocean and fade away ;
 
 126 SOJVGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Toss'd on the deep where cruel rocks sleep, 
 Dashed to pieces there's no time to weep. 
 Hopes good and stout, like ships, go out 
 Freighted with pleasure, sailing about ; 
 Some survive and come back again, 
 Some are lost on the raging main. 
 Some are wrecked within sight of land, 
 Like hopes that perish within our hand : 
 Come and go, ebb and flow, 
 We all go out in the under-tow. 
 
 Birds fly high in the summer sky, 
 
 Like our ambition when first we try ; 
 
 But, in the storm, they take alarm, 
 
 And fly to the shore to escape from harm ; 
 
 But next day, when storms clear away, 
 
 Birds and ambition fly over the bay : 
 
 Off and away in youth's fair day, 
 
 Never once resting no delay : 
 
 On land and in sky, below and on high, 
 
 Sailing forever until we die : 
 
 Come and go, ebb and flow, 
 
 Back and forth we ever go : 
 
 What is beyond we do not know, 
 
 But we all go out in the under-tow.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 127 
 
 AFTER MANY YEARS. 
 
 After years of journey, 
 
 After many years, 
 I am back at home again 
 
 Shedding glad, glad tears; 
 Friends are here to meet me, 
 Neighbors here to greet me, 
 Yet these seem sad, sad dreams, 
 
 After many years. 
 
 When I went away, some friends 
 
 Were just in their prime, 
 Now they are old and wrinkled, 
 
 Showing tracks of time; 
 And here I meet again, 
 Down in the shady lane, 
 Some dear one I lov'd when young 
 
 Ah, is love a crime? 
 
 Shame-faced we meet again 
 
 And hold out our hands; 
 Often I had thought of her 
 
 While in other lands; 
 Holding her hand so tight, 
 
 On this calm summer night, 
 Standing so meek neither can speak, 
 
 Make no demands.
 
 128 SO.VGS OF THE 'DESERT. 
 
 She is another's wife, 
 
 And never again 
 Will she be my own sweetheart, 
 
 Why do I remain ? 
 One look into her eyes, 
 Find only there surprise 
 So we part. At my heart 
 
 A queer, sad pain. 
 
 Passing on down the lane 
 
 One last look I take, 
 Some impulse had caused her, too, 
 
 The same move to make; 
 Tho' I am married, too, 
 And love my wife so true, 
 In some way all that day 
 
 My heart did ache. 
 
 FROST BITES. 
 
 Oh, the leaves are turning yellow 
 
 And are looking pale and sere, 
 And remind one of the gray hairs 
 
 On the head of the old year ; 
 The}- are trembling in the breezes, 
 
 And so hopelessly they fall 
 To old mother earth's cold bosom- 
 
 The last resting place for all.
 
 .V().V(/.V OF THE DESERT. 129 
 
 One by one the leaves are dropping, 
 
 Like the mother's silent tears 
 On the grave of some beloved 
 
 Of the long-past, happy years ; 
 They are falling, falling, falling, 
 
 Soon the trees will all be bare, 
 And their arms, so long and naked, 
 
 Stand like beggars ev'rywhere. 
 
 I have seen the western farmer 
 
 Stripped as bare, or even worse, 
 By the frosty money-lender 
 
 And his cruel mortgage curse ; 
 I have seen bare limbs of children 
 
 In poverty's exposure, 
 When the homestead was frost-bitten 
 
 By the mortgage's foreclosure. 
 
 And the farmer s hard-earned dollars, 
 
 Like the sered and yellow leaf, 
 Keep on dropping, dropping, dropping, 
 
 On the legal mortgage thief. 
 There's no hope for the poor farmer ; 
 
 There are no warm winds to bring 
 Back a bran-new suit of clothing, 
 
 Like the trees get in the spring. 
 
 Oh, Jehovah's frosts are cruel, 
 And no mercy do they show ; 
 
 They delight to kill and slaughter, 
 Spreading death where e'er they go ;
 
 130 SO.VGS OF THE. DESERT. 
 
 But the yellow leaves now falling 
 
 Are not victims of a curse, 
 Like the blood-stained, hard-earned dollars 
 
 Squeezed from out the fanner's purse. 
 
 QUOTIN' SKRIPTOOR. 
 
 "Blessed are the poor in spirit" read the preacher from 
 
 the book, 
 And the poor old mortgaged farmer raised up with a startled 
 
 look. 
 
 "That means you and me, Samantha; fur our speerits's 
 
 mighty low: 
 Since we signed that dad-bin mortgage we hain't got half 
 
 a show." 
 
 " For theirs is the kingdom of heav'n " read the preacher 
 then again. 
 
 "That's all right fur us, Samantha, that's the promise, 
 
 plump and plain; 
 But our children, dog-gone-nation ! what do they get in 
 
 the deal ? 
 If there's not some explanation, don't you think they otter 
 
 squeal ?
 
 SONY'S OF THE DESERT. 131 
 
 The hairs of your head are numbered ' ' read the preacher 
 
 then aloud, 
 And again the mortgaged farmer's face appeared above the 
 
 crowd : 
 
 "Silas Cruncher, don't 3^0' hear him hear what the good 
 
 book has said ? 
 A 'most anny one could count them scatterin' hairs upon 
 
 yo'r head. 
 But what I 'd like ter know partic'lar, when old Cruncher's 
 
 debt falls due, 
 When he goes up with low speerits, will St. Peter pass him 
 
 through ? 
 If he then presents the number of the hairs to heaven 
 
 due, 
 And demands a full collection, what will we poor bald 
 
 heads do? 
 
 "By its fruit the tree is known " read the preacher louder 
 still , 
 
 But the mortgaged fanner said, "You have gotter wait 
 
 until 
 The fruit is ripe and full matoord, and jist redd3 - fur to 
 
 fall, 
 Before you judge it right and square, and give justice 
 
 plump ter all. 
 
 But that early apple tree in the corner of my lot, 
 I've been thinkin' all along is the best tree I have got; 
 But the duced gaul-darn boys, long before the fruit is ripe, 
 Come at night when I'm in bed and ev'ry dad-bim apple 
 
 swipe.
 
 SOJVGS Of THE DESERT. 
 
 " The wind bloweth where it listeth " read the preacher 
 
 louder yet, 
 And up jumped the mortgaged farmer: "That's the gospel 
 
 truth, you bet ! 
 Sometimes it blows through my whiskers in the gayest, 
 
 wildest glee ! 
 And right through my week-day trousers where the patches 
 
 otter be. 
 Wind has got more dad-bim freedom than the people ever 
 
 wish , 
 For it blows through Jones' barn yard, then right inter my 
 
 soup dish." 
 
 Then the preacher closed the Bible, he was mad for a 
 
 divine, 
 Quoting once more in conclusion, "Cast not pearls before 
 
 the swine !" 
 
 THE CHIEF END OF MAN. 
 
 There's only one life to endure of, 
 And only one death that we're sure of, 
 But we try to obtain the whole earth for gain, 
 And shove God's miserable poor off.
 
 Of THE DESERT. 133 
 
 THE SILENT SOMEWHERE. 
 
 See the man pose as a villain, 
 
 So drunken, brutal, coarse and mean ; 
 He has murdered a civilian, 
 
 Stained with blood the grass so green. 
 See him wave his knife so gory, 
 
 While the moon shines bright above him : 
 Ah, if we only knew his story, 
 
 Somewhere, sometime, some one loved him. 
 
 He was once a smiling baby, 
 
 Pressed against a mother's breast, 
 And that mother somewhere, maybe, 
 
 In her heart loves him still best. 
 See, he now beholds his victim ; 
 
 No thought of remorse can move him, 
 Will that mother's heart convict him ? 
 
 Somewhere, sometime then un-love him ? 
 
 And that woman, low and fallen. 
 
 Reeling drunken through the street, 
 Somewhere some poor heart is calling 
 
 God to stop her wandering feet. 
 Whisky will her conscience smother, 
 
 Drown the thoughts that come to move her, 
 But she knows there is a mother 
 
 Somewhere who will always love her.
 
 134 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Even in her sin and folly, 
 
 When her thoughts go back to home, 
 In her sober melancholy, 
 
 She knows that she still may come 
 Back to home, and back to mother, 
 
 With the dear old roof above her. 
 Oh, this thought she cannot smother, 
 
 Somehow she will always love her. 
 
 After this frail life has hurried 
 
 Past us, like a fleeting breath, 
 And we all are dead and buried 
 
 In the silent sleep of death, 
 Will these mothers in the somewhere, 
 
 Un-like earthly mothers prove? 
 Will they, somehow, sometime find there 
 
 They have lost their mother-love? 
 
 Oh, this something, sometime, somehow, 
 
 Something we are hoping for ! 
 Sometime something cannot come now 
 
 On this side death's open door. 
 Somehow we hope to be found there 
 
 In this somewhere up above ; 
 Somehow- joys will then abound there, 
 
 Tho' in hell are some we love.
 
 SOA'GS OF THE DESERT. 135 
 
 SHE NEVER KNEW. 
 
 When I close my eyes in dreaming 
 
 Of the dreary long ago, 
 There 's a little face conies beaming, 
 
 Fills my heart with warmest glow; 
 For I knew her when a maiden, 
 
 Saw her growing day by day, 
 When her soul with joj- was laden, 
 
 And she stole my heart away. 
 
 In my dreams and castles airy, 
 And all hopes I held in view, 
 
 She was my sweet little fairy, 
 But she never, never knew. 
 
 Long I used to sit and wonder 
 
 How to win her little heart, 
 Dream all night, and all day ponder, 
 
 Until love became a smart: 
 But she seemed so far above me, 
 
 Fading daily from my view; 
 Still I prayed that she might love me, 
 
 But she never, never knew. 
 
 When I thought she'd gone forever, 
 Loved some one of wealth and fame, 
 
 Still 'twas useless to endeavor 
 To forget her face and name.
 
 136 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Then I wrote her my sad letter, 
 Told her how I loved her true, 
 
 But would go off and forget her, 
 Since I'd told her all she knew. 
 
 Years have passed, and still I'm roaming, 
 
 But to-day a letter came, 
 Asking when to her I'm coming, 
 
 And was signed by her dear name. 
 She had lately found my letter, 
 
 It was lost all these years through: 
 I was trying to forget her, 
 
 And she never, never knew. 
 
 And she told me in her letter 
 
 How her hair was turning gray, 
 Biit there is no bar or fetter 
 
 That would drive my love away. 
 And she told me how she ever 
 
 Loved me with a love so true, 
 And we should not grieve forever 
 
 Over what she never knew. 
 
 Oh, the hearts that now are aching, 
 
 Roaming far by land and sea, 
 Leaving other fond hearts breaking, 
 
 All because they could not see. 
 And when old age comes on creeping, 
 
 They may meet, these lovers true, 
 And they '11 cry, midst all their weeping: 
 
 Oh, I never, never knew !
 
 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 137 
 
 CHANGES. 
 
 The flowers are blooming as sweetly 
 
 As they did in the long ago, 
 And the birds are feathered as neatly, 
 
 The cock has the same boastful crow; 
 But the songs of the birds seem older, 
 
 And more commonplace to me; 
 The winds of the winter seem colder 
 
 Nothing seems like it used to be. 
 
 When the world was stranger and newer, 
 
 And I was then only a boy, 
 When sorrows were lighter and fewer, 
 
 And ev'rything filled me with joy, 
 The da} T s seemed much longer and merry, 
 
 And all nature seemed filled with glee; 
 Now the world seems changed in a flurry, 
 
 But the changes are all in me. 
 
 The boys who are now in the meadows, 
 
 Who are playing the games of old, 
 There's none of them heeding the shadows, 
 
 There 's none of them heeding the cold; 
 And they 're just as happy as we were, 
 
 And the days are as long and free, 
 And I'd give all the world to be there, 
 
 Without all these changes in me.
 
 138 SOA T GS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 Life seems like a cord unwinding 
 
 From a turn-stile fast to the ground, 
 And each year new scenes we are finding, 
 
 As we keep on walking around; 
 We get farther out in the shadows, 
 
 With our life-chord trailed on the ground, 
 Till at length we have crossed life's meadows, 
 
 And the strange chord is all unwound. 
 
 WHAT THE SPIRITS TOLD ME. 
 
 NOTE. This poem was written in the old home in Hardscrabble, 
 ten years ago, and while I was living a bachelor life among the 
 dear old hills where first I saw the greedy world. I have followed 
 the spirit's advice. 
 
 Last night sitting weak and wear}-, 
 In my home, so lone and drear}- 
 
 Where the voice of gentle woman never falls upon my ear. 
 By the dim light on the table, I was writing a strange 
 
 fable, 
 
 Hoping thereby to be able to make life less cold and drear. 
 Ah, the world knows not the struggles, nor the sad dis- 
 couraged tear 
 
 Dropping on the hopes I bury 
 Every day throughout the year.
 
 SOWGS OF THE DESERT. 139 
 
 All my loved ones death has taken, 
 And my heart by grief is shaken, 
 And the old house seems as lonely, sad and gloomy as the 
 
 tomb; 
 And, while I am sitting napping, all around I hear 
 
 strange tapping, 
 
 And some unseen power rapping all around the dismal room ; 
 And outside I hear strange noises, 
 Mingling with the midnight gloom. 
 
 "Gentle spirit, if you know me, 
 Rap in answer, please, and show me 
 What to write to please the public; for, in truth, I do not 
 
 know. 
 Shall I write of wealth and treasure, worldly sports and 
 
 earthly pleasure, 
 
 Men of money without measure, dressed in diamonds for 
 vain show?" 
 
 This I asked, and all the spirits 
 With loud rapping answered, "No!" 
 
 "Shall I write of war and plunder, 
 Battles fierce and cannon's thunder, 
 Where the nations meet in battle, and the blood of soldiers 
 
 flow? 
 Where rulers fight to gain possession, or seek revenge 
 
 for some transgression, 
 
 Or to crush men for secession, laying forms of traitors low ?' ' 
 This I asked those midnight spirits 
 And again they answered, "No! "
 
 140 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 ' 'Shall I write of the oppression 
 By the men who hold possession 
 Of this world, which God has given, leaving many in 
 
 distress ? 
 
 Shall I ridicule the powers tyrants in this world of ours, 
 Raining wealth on some in showers, while the poor they 
 sore oppress ? ' ' 
 
 Scarcely had these words been uttered 
 When the spirits answered, "yes! " 
 
 "Shall I defend the babes of cities, 
 Born in slums, where no heart pities? 
 All the world seems closed against them, and their hopes 
 
 are dark as night. 
 Christian men, 'tis true, deplore them, but argue, there 
 
 is no room for them, 
 
 Shall I write, tyrants, restore them to the place the}' own 
 by right ? ' ' 
 
 And the spirits quickly answered, 
 "Of these wrongs we bid you write! " 
 
 Now the morning winds were blowing, 
 And the barn-yard cocks were crowing, 
 When the spirits ceased their rapping, vanished with the 
 
 shade of night. 
 Soon the sun o'er the hills came peeping, and into my 
 
 room came creeping, 
 
 Shone on me as I sat sleeping, 'woke me with its brilliant 
 light; 
 
 Remembering all the spirits told fne: 
 "Of these wrongs we bid you write! "
 
 SONG'S OF THE DESERT. 
 
 WHO LIES HERE. 
 
 "Here lies" the cold tombstone said, 
 In the garden of the dead, 
 Underneath the angel's head, 
 
 Carved neatly on the stone 
 "Here lies honored William Jones; 
 Peace to his ashes and bones; 
 Christ for his sins now atones 
 
 To heaven he has gone." 
 
 Says I to myself says I, 
 While reading and passing by, 
 "How easy it is to lie; 
 
 But who is lying here ? 
 If the tombstone man knew Jones 
 When carving these marble stones 
 To mark the place where his bones 
 
 Lie, he lied himself, I fear." 
 
 I seldom speak ill of the dead, 
 But Jones is the man who said 
 The laborers can be fed 
 
 On one dollar a week; 
 But it cost him ten to dine, 
 And pay for his costly wine; 
 But then he could pray, and shine 
 
 In the church he had cheek.
 
 142 SONGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 The stone carving man, I know, 
 Has quite a mission below, 
 In telling where people go, 
 
 Who leave in a doubtful state. 
 Why don't his conscience rebel? 
 And, sometimes, just up and tell 
 That some people go to well, 
 
 It's called sheol of late. 
 
 When I am dead and buried, 
 And to the grave-yard hurried, 
 I don't want strangers flurried 
 
 By reading this to fag 'em: 
 "Faraway Moses lies here;" 
 Because the} ? 'll believe it, I fear, 
 And say to themselves, ''Oh, dear, 
 
 Satan will surely gag him! " 
 
 GRANDPA'S BABY. 
 
 Good land of goshen, our Jennie's got a kid! 
 
 Named him after his granddad, so she did, 
 
 Like a dutiful daughter; Jennie is that, 
 
 Gentle, like her mother, and big and fat, 
 
 With her great round eyes that move so slow and true; 
 
 I tell you, Jane's equals are very few. 
 
 But, good lands, just to think how fast time flies;
 
 SOXGS OF THE DESERT. 143 
 
 Baby, childhood, whiskers then the man dies. 
 It seems but yesterday since I went to school, 
 To parse grammar accordin' to the rule, 
 And now I'm a granddaddy good lands of joy! 
 To think our Jane has a baby boy! 
 Why, it seems but a week past over my head 
 Since my sweetheart, Betsey, and I were wed, 
 And now she's a grandma! and I'm a granddad ! 
 And I'm as lean as the last run of shad, 
 And my knees wobble when I go out to walk, 
 And these old snags of teeth bother my talk; 
 And already the neighbors call me old man, 
 Tho' I try to be as brisk as I can. 
 And, good lands of goshen, it seems that I have 
 One foot in childhood, and one in the grave; 
 And the rest of life has slip'd through my legs, 
 Like swift water running between two pegs. 
 And life seems to be gettin' so awful cold 
 Since Betsey and I are growing so old; 
 But I'll sing to our grand-child, nevertheless, 
 And forget all life's worry and distress: 
 Hip-per-ty Hop-per-ty, up and down we go! 
 Toots-el-ly woots-el-ly here we stop whoa! 
 Old ginger snap on horseback, here we trot so! 
 Baby's glad, grandpa's sad no one will know.
 
 .SY>AY;V or THE DESERT. 
 
 WE ARK BLIND. 
 
 No one knows the secret sighing, 
 Sobbing, in a neighbor's heart; 
 
 No one knows the fond hopes dying, 
 No one knows the crnel smart. 
 
 No one knows the hungry yearning 
 Of a neighbor's cheerless soul; 
 
 No one knows how grief is burning 
 In the heart where hope grows cold. 
 
 None but God knows each desire; 
 
 He knows all things in our mind: 
 Sees hope fanned by passion's fire, 
 
 Knows that love and hope are blind. 
 
 When from loved ones we do sever, 
 And to far-off countries go, 
 
 If we knew we'd see them never 
 Oh, 'tis better not to know! 
 
 If we knew the day and minute 
 Death would strike the fatal blow, 
 
 Life would have less pleasure in it, 
 And 'tis better not to know. 
 
 Thus, in darkness, hope is ever 
 Building castles in our mind, 
 
 Cheering soul with visions clever, 
 For, like love, our hope is blind.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESSERT. 
 
 In our youth what bright creations 
 Hope will picture in our mind, 
 
 Lift us to some lofty station 
 But alas! our hope is blind. 
 
 Hope grows dim as we grow older, 
 Castles crumble in our mind; 
 
 Youthful loves grow colder, colder! 
 God have mercy we are blind! 
 
 JILTED. 
 
 All I ever loved I lost, 
 
 All I lost who once loved me; 
 
 Life is hardly worth the cost; 
 Win- not set this poor soul free ? 
 
 Friends I had, but thus I proved them: 
 
 They were friendly until I 
 Proved by actions that I loved them, 
 
 When all friendships seemed to die. 
 
 The choicest flowers of creation 
 
 Seem to flourish until I 
 Give to them my admiration, 
 
 Then they wither up and die. 
 
 So with flowers, so with friends 
 Other hearts with joy they fill; 
 
 Where I love all friendship ends, 
 My affections seem to kill.
 
 146 SO1VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. 
 
 There's the oddest sort of feelin' a bedoozlin' at one's 
 
 heart, 
 When the pray'r meetin' is over, an' the girls begin to 
 
 start 
 Towards the church door, a fussin' an' a fixin' on their 
 
 hats ; 
 An' your heart begins to flutter in sich orful pittipats. 
 
 'Cause there's the girl you're lovin' jist as hard as you 
 
 kin love, 
 Edgin' up towards your rival, an' you haven't gall to 
 
 move, 
 An' crowd yourself in between 'em an' jist offer her your 
 
 arm, 
 'Cause you're not so deuced certain of the love of the 
 
 school inarm. 
 
 An' so, there you stand a waitin' jist outside the church 
 
 front door, 
 With your heart a pitti-pattin' 'till your ribs are feelin' 
 
 sore, 
 An' when the school marm comes at last, an' you're most 
 
 half dead with fright, 
 Your rival scoops her up an' goes off triumphant in the 
 
 night.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 147 
 
 Oh, that orful jealous feelin' that keeps gnawin' at your 
 
 soul ! 
 As you walk along behint 'em with your blood a runnin' 
 
 cold ; 
 How you hate that stuck-up rival, an' wish you was big 
 
 an' stout 
 Anuff to throw him down an' pound him, and gouge his 
 
 both eyes out. 
 
 Oh, I know just what I'msayin', 'cause I've been there 
 
 once myself, 
 An' I know that orful feelin' when you git laid on the 
 
 shelf; 
 When your heart feels so bedoozled that you hardly sleep 
 
 or eat, 
 An' you don't know if your brains are in your gizzard or 
 
 your feet. 
 
 An' you go around a mopin' with your eyes a lookin' down, 
 An' the o'ny thought that's in }-our head is Mary Ida 
 
 Brown ; 
 An' in the spring-time, when the birds all come back again 
 
 to nest, 
 Your mother buys a liver pad for to strengthen up your 
 
 chest.
 
 SO.VGS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 RETROSPECT. 
 
 Somehow I never had a wish to be a boy again, 
 To suffer with stone bruises and little stomach pain; 
 But if I could go back again and live my childhood o'er, 
 I'd want to be a little cuss just like I was before; 
 To be the same old boy I was some thirty years ago, 
 The little harum scarum the neighbors used to know; 
 To hunt for squirrels on Sunday, and fish for horned chubs, 
 To climb the trees for chestnut burs, like little hungry cubs; 
 But of all the boyish joys and delightful happy moods, 
 There's none like stealing roasting ears and cook them in 
 the woods. 
 
 I never shall forget the gang who joined me in the feast, 
 Who went along to steal the corn, and never cared the least 
 About the sin committed in the middle of the night, 
 For we thought that boys could never do anything that's 
 
 right 
 
 And good and pious, like Sunday school girls would do, 
 So we went in for a good time, roast corn and chicken stew; 
 And some would steal the pots and salt from off the kitchen 
 
 shelf, 
 
 And others to the cornfield hie, and each one help himself 
 To neighbor Crawford's early corn, that dear, delicious food, 
 Then roast the ears like cannibals, on top of burning wood. 
 
 Then after the feast was over, and cobs were gnawed off 
 
 clean, 
 Would begin the story telling while lolling on the green;
 
 OF THE DESERT. 
 
 149 
 
 And while one boy was spinning a legend or home-made 
 
 He, 
 
 We'd lay on our backs so dreamy and look towards the sky. 
 When Eli Johnson's turn came he'd tell such an awful tale, 
 We'd all snug up together and lie in a bunch and quail; 
 He'd tell of the ghosts his father saw 'way beyond the sea, 
 And headless spooks his mother saw over in Germany; 
 And there we'd lay and tremble with a tingling in our 
 
 blood, 
 When we used to steal the roasting ears and cook them in 
 
 the wood. 
 
 Where, oh, where, are these boys to-day? Scattered from 
 
 sea to sea; 
 And some are mouldering in the grave, from every pain set 
 
 free. 
 
 Eli is down in Florida with flowers every day; 
 Jeff. Farley at Pomona in California; 
 Will Langdon, and little Sammy, and grumbling old Sie 
 
 Fink, 
 Frank Haslett, Buck Bryan and Skip all scattered, just 
 
 to think ! 
 And I am scattered some, too, from the scenes of childhood's 
 
 day, 
 
 And the faces of that dear old crowd seem so far away; 
 But, with closed eyes, I see the spot where Eli Johnson 
 
 stood, 
 The nights we stole the roasting ears and cooked them in 
 
 the wood.
 
 150 SOA'GS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 GOING TO MILL. 
 
 Man is like an old tow sack, 
 
 Full of little seeds; 
 Each variety represents 
 
 His good or wicked deeds. 
 
 Time is like a reaper, 
 
 Mowing down life's leaves; 
 Memory is the gleaner, 
 
 Gathering up the sheaves. 
 
 All the sheaves are garnered 
 
 Within the busy brain ; 
 When old age comes to thresh them, 
 
 Memory brings them forth again. 
 
 Threshed and winnowed out by pain, 
 
 In nature's mill the}' fall; 
 Death will pulverize each grain, 
 
 Then claim the sack and all. 
 
 Then let us all be neighborly, 
 
 Climbing life's rough hill; 
 The rich will ride, the poor must walk, 
 
 But all are going to mill.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 APR 20 1990 
 
 UH. MAY 
 APR ^
 
 00132533