SPIDER-WEBS IN VERSE

A COLLECTION OF

LYRICS FOR LEISURE MOMENTS

SPUN AT IDLE HOURS

BY

CHARLES WILLIAM WALLACE

Professor of Rhetoric and Literature Western Normal College

“The spider’s touch—how exquisitely fine!”

—Pope.

LINCOLN, NEB.:

STATE JOURNAL COMPANY, PRINTERS.

1892.

Copyright 1892

BY

C. W. WALLACE

TO

JUDGE T. D. WALLACE

AND

MRS. OLIVE WALLACE.

My Dear Father and Mother:

No word, no act, no consecrated gift of mine, how great or slight soever it may be, can ever repay the beneficence and love of you to whom I owe life and whatever of prosperity has been granted me.

As my eyes glance in retrospect along the fading perspective of years and lose themselves in the dim days of the cradle, and thence to the present look forwards to the distant peaks of hope that rise above unknown mists and shadows and horizons, I hear the counseling words of a father, and feel the ever-present touch of a mother’s hand, as both guide me with love into the dim unknown of life. Though I pass onwards with a father’s “God-speed,” and a mother’s lingering embrace and loving kiss, and leave you both fondly looking after me, still your presence in my memory is ever a guiding reality that even now directs this good right hand of mine to inscribe these dedicatory words of filial affection.

If in the days agone I ever seemed unheeding of that counsel of a father, and unmindful of that dearest love of a cherished and cherishing mother, I can but say that both that counsel and that love reach through those moulding and shaping years of my life and take hold on my heart with a firmness and a gentleness that nothing else of all the years can boast.

It is but right and just, therefore, that in these your later days I should likewise be your guide and your stay in so far as my hand may let;—that I should reach out my strong young arm and steady the tottering years that throng around you.

Withal, if I can afford you even one slight pleasure, it is my heart’s desire so to do. It is, therefore, with somewhat more than filial love that I dedicate this little volume to you, my Father and my Mother, both together my counselor and guide, still mercifully spared to your children; and in doing so, I can but express the hope that your years may yet be many and happy; that the iris struck by a New Sun from the crystals of the whitened and whitening wintry years may be as full of beauty and joy as were the early spring blossoms of love and hope that you pressed to your bosoms in youth.

Your Son,

CHARLES.

BY THE WAY.

As the presentation of these collected verses in their present printed form has been induced largely by the request of many of my former college students and by the importunities of my most intimate friends, and as this volume has consequently been prepared chiefly for their pleasure, it is hoped that those into whose hands the book may fall are already so well acquainted with the author that the selections themselves need no formal introduction to make them agreeable company and engaging companions.

In justice, I should here say that this collection contains only a few out of the vast number of good, bad, and indifferent pieces of verse that I have been making at odd hours of a busy life, ever since my boyhood, for my own pastime, pleasure, and literary and linguistic improvement, with no thought nor distant dream of ever permitting them thus to invade the domains of the sovereign public.

That the little book that thus modestly goes forth will attain either a large circulation or great popularity I neither expect, nor attempt to bring about; but that men and women with hearts that love and souls that look above may find much quiet pleasure and satisfaction in the following pages I do sincerely hope.

It is neither my desire nor befitting to my work to lay claim to any degree of excellence in the verses herein presented. Quite to the contrary, I see and regret many defects which I can now neither remove nor repair. But, however defective they may be in form or in spirit, I have ever thought that little else than the interpretation of the relations of the human soul to life, here and hereafter, and the presentation of the good, the beautiful, and the true of the human heart is worthy of serious effort.

As a consequence, most of these pieces are dual in meaning—one, in plain view, the reality; the other, less distinct, the finer ideality, the reflection, or mirrored image of the first.

It is this second, this finer and often, at first, obscure meaning that, in my judgment, is the essential—the preserving salt—of any poem. Certainly if not this meaning but the apparent one, the one on the surface, is the basis of judgment on these poems, they will fall far below the estimate accorded that poetry which is deemed worthy of existence.

I wish here to return my thanks for the hearty reception accorded the few selections of the prospectus, and to express the hope that the completed volume will equal whatever expectations the recipients of the prospectus may have.

Also, I cannot pass without noting the fact that a large share of the first edition of this volume was engaged nearly six months before it went to press, even before I had determined what productions I should use, and that, too, upon the mere announcement that the publication was contemplated for the present summer.

I wish, therefore, thus publicly to thank those who have given this substantial earnest of their appreciation.

Any opinion or criticism, favorable or unfavorable, or any suggestion or correction on thought, arrangement, typography, or other point, that the reader may see fit to express, is not only invited and encouraged, but will be most gratefully received and carefully considered.

One word more. If a selection will not bear a second reading, or a third, a fourth, or a fiftieth reading; if it does not grow better and better at each reading; if it does not lift the soul to a higher plane, a nobler aim, a purer life, and a grander view; if at each successive reading something does not come out of it and enter the heart, and then pass back into the poem again, and thus again and again, each beautifying and ennobling the other, like a sunset halo among the clouds and the liquid, translucent image thereof in the mirroring lake, then it is no true poem, and should be cast aside.

The only proof of the excellence of a poem is that it makes the heart larger and the soul nobler for having read it, and that at each successive reading both the poem and the reader grow better and better.

Believing, as I do, that poetry is nothing less than the interpretation of the Divine in the human heart (whether in the mood of tears or of laughter), I can but hope, in entrusting these “children of the brain” to the care of others, that in the heart of each little waif some good may be found, some song may be heard, some beauty be revealed, some experience be verified.

C. W. W.

Lincoln, 22 June, 1892.

CONTENTS.

SPIDER-WEBS IN VERSE.

A CHORAL OF SUNSET.

I’ve a notion the clouds at sunset

Sing chorals in the sky

As they let down their billowy tresses

And kiss

The sun

“Good-bye!”

And the music comes in at the portals

That Heaven has left in the heart,

As the shine gets into the flower

Where the leaves

Have slipped

Apart.

THE POET’S PRAYER.

Sweet Zephyr from celestial isles

That all the earth with joy beguiles,

I would that thou wouldst blow to me,

And blow to me thy purest breathing song;

I would that thou wouldst come to me

And tell to me whate’er is right and wrong;

I would that thou wouldst lay thy hand

And rest thy hand upon my throbbing brow,

And that the words thou giv’st to me

And tak’st from me would be received as thou.

UPS AND DOWNS.

The world is like a coach and four,

And men as there you find ’em:

For some must ride and some must drive

And some hang on behind ’em.

Or like the farmer’s ’tater cart,—

The best on top to brag on:

For some must rise and some must fall

Like ’taters in the wagon.

THE OLD BENONI TREE.

Brother Grant, do you remember

Days and years we spent together

Thro’ the summer’s shiny weather

Till apples dropped in late September?

Nurtured where the warm suns shine in,

We were dreamers then, my brother,

As we lisped to one another,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Guess you haven’t forgotten that yet,

Have you? I can shut my eyes and

See the old tree where we sat yet,—

Hear the rhythm of that thing rise and

Fall like echoes of the distant brine in

Some fair shell; and like it clinging

To the past, my heart keeps singing,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

I’ll be plagued if I can tell yet

What that hitching nonsense jingle

Meant, can you? I can smell yet,

Tho’, the blossoms;—hear the lingle

Of the bells of lolling kine in

Slaughter’s grove;—see the pink of

Fruit above us when I think of

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

I can taste those old Benoni

Apples yet—(fall apples—mellow

As the winds that kissed the bony

Branches into blossom; yellow—

Butter-yellow—and as fine in

Taste as Flemish Beauty pears were)—

For our burdensomest cares were,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Ah, my boy, you haven’t forgotten

How with wooden men we pounded

Them when green till almost rotten

Just to get the juice out? Sounded

Mighty tempting with that wine in

There just squushing for the skin to

Burst and let us both fall into

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Ha! ha! ha! what little scheming

Rascals we were then, my laddie!—

Knock off apples just half-dreaming

Ripeness, stain the stems that had a

Fresh look with some dirt—divine in

Innocence!—then run to mother,

Each one chuckling to the other,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Tell her then we’d found them lying

On the ground (we had, too!) asking

If we might not have them, trying

Every childish art, nor masking

Mouths just watering to dine in

Glory on them. When we’d got our

“Yes!” all earth I’m certain, caught our

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Oh the days and days together

In the lazy days of childhood

Through the shade and shiny weather

Of the Long Agone’s deep wildwood

When we clad our men of pine in

Every phase of human action,

Sang to them the old “attraction,”

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een”!

Through my hazing, half-closed lashes

As I watch the steady blazing

Of my fangled oil-stove, plashes

Of that olden rhythm come lazing

From the lethy mists, and shine in

Irised splendors where the tilting

Timid Robin still is lilting,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

Oh the golden old Benonis

With a heart as rich and yellow

As the moon, no apple known is

Half so high or half so mellow,

For they’ve drunk the sun’s whole shine in

And preserved our boyhood’s story

With it’s olden, golden glory,

“Ine-een tor-I fert-hi mine-een.”

A SLUMBER RHAPSODY.

Sleep, sleep, sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

The wind is in the west

And night is on the deep,—

Sleep and rest, rest and sleep,

Sleep, sleep.

Dream, dream, dream and sleep, dream and sleep,

The stars their vigils keep

And skies with glories gleam.

Dream and sleep, sleep and dream,

Dream, dream.

Sleep, rest, dream and rest, sleep and dream,

The morning sun will beam

And cares thy day infest,—

Rest and sleep, sleep and rest,

Rest, rest.

BAREFOOT AFTER THE COWS.

I am plodding down the little lane again

With my trousers rolled above my sunburnt knees;

And I whistle with the mocking-bird and wren

As they chatter in the hedging willow-trees.

And my foot as light and nimble as the airy wings they wear

Trips along the little lane again to-day;

And my bare feet catch the tinkle thro’ the silent summer air

Of the jingle-langle-ingle far away.—

Klangle-ling ke-langle,

Klingle-lang ke-lingle

Dingle-lingle-langle down the dell;

Jingle-langle lingle,

Langle-lingle r-r-angle,

Ringle-langle-lingle of the bell.

From the lane across the prairie o’er the hill

Down a winding little path the cows have made,

In my thought to-night I’m going, going still,—

For the sinking Sun is lengthening its Shade!

And I find them in the hollows—the hollows of the dell

And I find the drowsy cattle in the dell,

By the ringle-rangle-jingle,—the jangle of the bell,

By the ringle and the jangle of the bell.—

Klang-ke-link ge-lingle,

Jangle-ling ke-langle,

Klink ke-langle-lingle down the dell;

Klangle-link ke-langle,

K-link ke-lank ke-lingle,

Lingle-link ke-langle of the bell.

As the cows across the prairie homeward wind

O’er the hill and toward the broadened sinking sun,

Steals a silence o’er the wooded vale behind

Where their shadows, lengthened, darken into one.

And I whistle back the echoes,—the echoes left behind,

That are wand’ring in the tangles of the dell;

And in answer to the message—the message that I wind,

Call the echoes of the klangle of the bell:—

Langle-langle lingle,

Lingle-langle lingle,

Lingle-lingle-langle down the dell;

D-r-r-ingle-langle-langle,

R-r-angle-ringle-langle,

Langle-lingle-r-r-angle of the bell.

At the lighting of the Candles of the Night

When my tangled locks have found the pillow’s rest,

I can hear the langle-lingle, soft and light,

Like the cradle-rocking lulling of the blest.

And upon the ear of Fancy—of Fancy born of Sleep,

Comes the klangle from a distant dreamy Dell;

For the angels lull me dreaming—dreaming in their keep,

To the klingle-langle-lingle of the bell.—

Kling-ge-lang-ge-lingle,

Klangle-lingle-langle,

Langle-lingle-lingle from the dell;

Kling-ge-ling-ge-langle,

Ling-ge-lang-ge-lingle,

Lingle-lingle-langle of the bell.

GIFT AND GIVER.

Not what we give, but what we share.—Lowell.

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.—Shakespeare.

Not the binding of this book

Nor its leaves with marble edge;

But the poet’s heart and soul

In each thought upon the page

Makes the book of worth,

Lifts us from the earth,

From the common sod

Nearer unto God.

Not the gold that’s in the gift

Nor the sense of doing duty;

But the giver in the gold

With a heart that’s full of beauty

Makes the gift of worth,

Lifts us from the earth,

From the common sod

Nearer unto God.

A SORTO’ PLAYED-OUT OL’ BOUQUET.

They’re withered—sorto’ withered now,

They’ve got a musty smell;

So I must shet the book up tight

An’ set an’ wait a spell.

They’re withered—sorto’ withered now,

They’ve lost their red an’ green,

An’ the leaves are crushed an’ crumpled up

With crinkled buds atween.

They’ve got a sorto’ musty smell

That almost makes me sick,

For they ’mind me o’ the days in June

We got ’m ’long the crick.

They wan’t no style about them tho’,

Like city flowers is—

They’s jist the good ol’-time Wil’-Rose

That God set out fer His.

I stuck ’em in this Good Ol’ Book

Long ’fore they drooped an’ died,

An’ here each day they’ve smiled at me

When I have only cried.

I touch ’em—an’ I touch her hand

That put ’em here in mine!

I see ’em—an’ I see her lips

More temptin’er ’an wine.

’T’s a sorto’ played-out ol’ bouquet,

Ol’-fashion’ roses too;

But then it’s beautif’ler to me

Than fresher ones to you.

Jist let me look agin—’y jing!

I see her smile there yet!

Somehow it sorto’ all comes back,

An’ I see her smile there yet.

They’re withered—sorto’ withered now,

They’ve got a musty smell;

So I must shet the book up tight

An’ set an’ wait a spell.