Seldom does a book of poems appear that is definitely a response to demand and a reflection of readers' preferences. Of this collection that can properly be claimed. For a decade Normal instructor-primary plans has carried monthly a page entitled "Poems Our Readers Have Asked For." The interest in this page has been, and is, phenomenal. Occasionally space considerations or copyright restrictions have prevented compliance with requests, but so far as practicable poems asked for have been printed. Because it has become impossible to furnish many of the earlier issues of the magazine, the publishers decided to select the poems most often requested and, carefully revising these for possible errors, to include them in the present collection. In some cases the desired poems are old favorite dramatic recitations, but many of them are poems that are required or recommended for memorizing in state courses of study. This latter feature will of itself make the book extremely valuable to teachers throughout the country. We are glad to offer here certain poems, often requested, but too long for insertion on our magazine Poetry Page. We are pleased also to be able to include a number of popular copyright poems. Special permission to use these has been granted through arrangement with the authorized publishers, whose courtesy is acknowledged below in detail:
Houghton Mifflin Company—Poems by John G. Whittier, Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, James T. Fields, and Lucy Larcom.
THE PUBLISHERS.
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The breaking waves dashed high
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On a stern and rock-bound coast,
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And the woods against a stormy sky
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Their giant branches tossed;
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And the heavy night hung dark
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The hills and waters o'er,
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When a band of exiles moored their bark
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On the wild New England shore.
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Not as the conqueror comes,
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They, the true-hearted, came,—
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Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
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And the trumpet that sings of fame;
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Not as the flying come,
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In silence and in fear;
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They shook the depths of the desert's gloom
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With their hymns of lofty cheer.
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Amidst the storms they sang;
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And the stars heard, and the sea;
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And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
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To the anthem of the free.
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The ocean eagle soared
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From his nest by the white wave's foam;
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And the rocking pines of the forest roared—
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This was their welcome home!
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There were men with hoary hair
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Amidst that pilgrim band:
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Why had they come to wither there
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Away from their childhood's land?
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There was woman's fearless eye,
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Lit by her deep love's truth;
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There was manhood's brow serenely high,
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And the fiery heart of youth.
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What sought they thus afar?
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Bright jewels of the mine?
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The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
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They sought a faith's pure shrine.
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Ay, call it holy ground,—
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The soil where first they trod!
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They have left unstained what there they found—
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Freedom to worship God!
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Felicia Hemans.
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"Marie, will you marry me?
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For you know how I love thee!
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Tell me, darling, will you be
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The wife of Bobby Shaftoe?"
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"Bobby, pray don't ask me more,
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For you've asked me twice before;
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Let us be good friends, no more,
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No more, Bobby Shaftoe."
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"If you will not marry me,
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I will go away to sea;
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And you ne'er again shall be
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A friend of Bobby Shaftoe."
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"Oh, you will not go away
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For you've said so twice to-day.
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Stop! He's gone! Dear Bobby, stay!
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Dearest Bobby Shaftoe!
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"Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea,
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Silver buckles on his knee,
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But he'll come back and marry me,
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Pretty Bobby Shaftoe.
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"He will soon come back to me,
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And how happy I shall be,
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He'll come back and marry me,
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Dearest Bobby Shaftoe."
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"Bobby Shaftoe's lost at sea,
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He cannot come back to thee.
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And you ne'er again will see
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Your dear Bobby Shaftoe.
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"Oh, we sadly mourn for thee,
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And regret we ne'er shall see
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Our friend Bobby, true and free,
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Dearest Bobby Shaftoe."
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"Bobby Shaftoe's lost at sea.
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And can ne'er come back to me,
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But I'll ever faithful be,
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True to Bobby Shaftoe."
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"Darling, I've come home from sea,
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I've come back to marry thee,
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For I know you're true to me,
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True to Bobby Shaftoe."
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"Yes, I always cared for thee,
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And now you've come back to me,
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And we will always happy be,
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Dearest Bobby Shaftoe."
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"Bobby Shaftoe's come from sea,
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And we will united be,
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Heart and hand in unity,
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Mr. and Mrs. Shaftoe."
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The Kid has gone to the Colors
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And we don't know what to say;
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The Kid we have loved and cuddled
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Stepped out for the Flag to-day.
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We thought him a child, a baby
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With never a care at all,
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But his country called him man-size
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And the Kid has heard the call.
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He paused to watch the recruiting,
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Where, fired by the fife and drum,
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He bowed his head to Old Glory
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And thought that it whispered: "Come!"
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The Kid, not being a slacker,
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Stood forth with patriot-joy
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To add his name to the roster—
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And God, we're proud of the boy!
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The Kid has gone to the Colors;
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It seems but a little while
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Since he drilled a schoolboy army
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In a truly martial style,
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But now he's a man, a soldier,
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And we lend him a listening ear,
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For his heart is a heart all loyal,
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Unscourged by the curse of fear.
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His dad, when he told him, shuddered,
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His mother—God bless her!—cried;
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Yet, blest with a mother-nature,
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She wept with a mother-pride,
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But he whose old shoulders straightened
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Was Granddad—for memory ran
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To years when he, too, a youngster,
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Was changed by the Flag to a man!
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W.M. Herschell.
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Summer of 'sixty-three, sir, and Conrad was gone away—
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Gone to the county-town, sir, to sell our first load of hay—
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We lived in the log house yonder, poor as ever you've seen;
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Roschen there was a baby, and I was only nineteen.
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Conrad, he took the oxen, but he left Kentucky Belle.
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How much we thought of Kentuck, I couldn't begin to tell—
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Came from the Blue-Grass country; my father gave her to me
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When I rode north with Conrad, away from the Tennessee.
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Conrad lived in Ohio—a German he is, you know—
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The house stood in broad cornfields, stretching on, row after row.
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The old folks made me welcome; they were kind as kind could be;
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But I kept longing, longing, for the hills of the Tennessee.
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Oh, for a sight of water, the shadowed slope of a hill!
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Clouds that hang on the summit, a wind that never is still!
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But the level land went stretching away to meet the sky—
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Never a rise, from north to south, to rest the weary eye!
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From east to west, no river to shine out under the moon,
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Nothing to make a shadow in the yellow afternoon:
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Only the breathless sunshine, as I looked out, all forlorn;
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Only the rustle, rustle, as I walked among the corn.
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When I fell sick with pining, we didn't wait any more,
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But moved away from the cornlands, out to this river shore—
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The Tuscarawas it's called, sir—off there's a hill, you see—
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And now I've grown to like it next best to the Tennessee.
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I was at work that morning. Some one came riding like mad
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Over the bridge and up the road—Farmer Rouf's little lad.
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Bareback he rode; he had no hat; he hardly stopped to say,
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"Morgan's men are coming, Frau; they're galloping on this way.
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"I'm sent to warn the neighbors. He isn't a mile behind;
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He sweeps up all the horses—every horse that he can find.
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Morgan, Morgan the raider, and Morgan's terrible men,
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With bowie knives and pistols, are galloping up the glen!"
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The lad rode down the valley, and I stood still at the door;
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The baby laughed and prattled, playing with spools on the floor;
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Kentuck was out in the pasture; Conrad, my man, was gone.
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Nearer, nearer, Morgan's men were galloping, galloping on!
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Sudden I picked up baby, and ran to the pasture bar.
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"Kentuck!" I called—"Kentucky!" She knew me ever so far!
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I led her down the gully that turns off there to the right,
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And tied her to the bushes; her head was just out of sight.
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As I ran back to the log house, at once there came a sound—
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The ring of hoofs, galloping hoofs, trembling over the ground—
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Coming into the turnpike out from the White Woman Glen—
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Morgan, Morgan the raider, and Morgan's terrible men.
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As near they drew and nearer, my heart beat fast in alarm;
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But still I stood in the doorway with baby on my arm.
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They came, they passed; with spur and whip in haste they sped along—
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Morgan, Morgan the raider, and his band, six hundred strong.
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Weary they looked and jaded, riding through night and through day;
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Pushing on east to the river, many long miles away,
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To the border strip where Virginia runs up into the West,
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And fording the Upper Ohio before they could stop to rest.
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On like the wind they hurried, and Morgan rode in advance;
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Bright were his eyes like live coals, as he gave me a sideways glance.
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And I was just breathing freely, after my choking pain,
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When the last one of the troopers suddenly drew his rein.
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Frightened I was to death, sir; I scarce dared look in his face,
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As he asked for a drink of water, and glanced around the place.
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I gave him a cup, and he smiled—'twas only a boy, you see;
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Faint and worn, with dim blue eyes; and he'd sailed on the Tennessee.
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Only sixteen he was, sir—a fond mother's only son—
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Off and away with Morgan before his life had begun!
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The damp drops stood on his temples; drawn was the boyish mouth;
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And I thought me of the mother waiting down in the South.
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Oh! pluck was he to the backbone, and clear grit through and through;
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Boasted and bragged like a trooper; but the big words wouldn't do;—
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The boy was dying, sir, dying as plain as plain could be,
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Worn out by his ride with Morgan up from the Tennessee.
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But when I told the laddie that I too was from the South,
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Water came in his dim eyes, and quivers around his mouth.
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"Do you know the Blue-Grass country?" he wistful began to say;
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Then swayed like a willow sapling, and fainted dead away.
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I had him into the log house, and worked and brought him to;
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I fed him, and I coaxed him, as I thought his mother'd do;
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And when the lad got better, and the noise in his head was gone,
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Morgan's men—were miles; away, galloping, galloping on.
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"Oh, I must go," he muttered; "I must be up and away!
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Morgan—Morgan is waiting for me; Oh, what will Morgan say?"
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But I heard a sound of tramping and kept him back from the door—
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The ringing sound of horses' hoofs that I had heard before.
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And on, on, came the soldiers—the Michigan cavalry—
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And fast they rode, and black they looked, galloping rapidly,—
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They had followed hard on Morgan's track; they had followed day and night;
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But of Morgan and Morgan's raiders they had never caught a sight.
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And rich Ohio sat startled through all those summer days;
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For strange, wild men were galloping over her broad highways—
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Now here, now there, now seen, now gone, now north, now east, now west,
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Through river-valleys and cornland farms, sweeping away her best.
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A bold ride and a long ride; but they were taken at last.
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They almost reached the river by galloping hard and fast;
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But the boys in blue were upon them ere ever they gained the ford,
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And Morgan, Morgan the raider, laid down his terrible sword.
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Well, I kept the boy till evening—kept him against his will—
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But he was too weak to follow, and sat there pale and still.
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When it was cool and dusky—you'll wonder to hear me tell—
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But I stole down to that gully, and brought up Kentucky Belle.
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I kissed the star on her forehead—my pretty gentle lass—
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But I knew that she'd be happy back in the old Blue-Grass.
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A suit of clothes of Conrad's, with all the money I had,
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And Kentuck, pretty Kentuck, I gave to the worn-out lad.
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I guided him to the southward as well as I know how;
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The boy rode off with many thanks, and many a backward bow;
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And then the glow it faded, and my heart began to swell,
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As down the glen away she went, my lost Kentucky Belle!
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When Conrad came in the evening, the moon was shining high;
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Baby and I were both crying—I couldn't tell him why—
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But a battered suit of rebel gray was hanging on the wall,
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And a thin old horse, with drooping head, stood in Kentucky's stall.
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Well, he was kind, and never once said a hard word to me;
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He knew I couldn't help it—'twas all for the Tennessee,
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But, after the war was over, just think what came to pass—
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A letter, sir; and the two were safe back in the old Blue-Grass.
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The lad had got across the border, riding Kentucky Belle;
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And Kentuck, she was thriving, and fat, and hearty, and well;
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He cared for her, and kept her, nor touched her with whip or spur.
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Ah! we've had many horses since, but never a horse like her!
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Constance F. Woolson.
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I remember it all so very well, the first of my married life,
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That I can't believe it was years ago—it doesn't seem true at all;
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Why, I just can see the little church where they made us man and wife,
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And the merry glow of the first wood-fire that danced on our cottage wall.
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We were happy? Yes; and we prospered, too; the house belonged to Joe,
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And then, he worked in the planing mill, and drew the best of pay;
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And our cup was full when Joey came,—our baby-boy, you know;
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So, all went well till that mill burned down and the owner moved away.
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It wasn't long till Joe found work, but 'twas never quite the same,—
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Never steady, with smaller pay; so to make the two ends meet
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He fell to inventin' some machine—I don't recall the name,
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But he'd sit for hours in his little shop that opens toward the street,—
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Sit for hours, bent over his work, his tools all strewn about.
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I used to want to go in there to dust and sweep the floor,
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But 'twas just as if 'twas the parson there, writing his sermon out;
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Even the baby—bless the child!—learned never to slam that door!
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People called him a clever man, and folks from the city came
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To look at his new invention and wish my Joe success;
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And Joe would say, "Little woman,"—for that was my old pet-name,—
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"If my plan succeeds, you shall have a coach and pair, and a fine silk dress!"
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I didn't want 'em, the grand new things, but it made the big tears start
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To see my Joe with his restless eyes, his fingers worn away
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To the skin and bone, for he wouldn't eat; and it almost broke my heart
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When he tossed at night from side to side, till the dawning of the day.
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Of course, with it all he lost his place. I couldn't blame the man,
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The foreman there at the factory, for losing faith in Joe,
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For his mind was never upon his work, but on some invention-plan,
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As with folded arms and his head bent down he wandered to and fro.
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Yet, he kept on workin' at various things, till our little money went
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For wheels and screws and metal casts and things I had never seen;
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And I ceased to ask, "Any pay, my dear?" with the answer, "Not a cent!"
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When his lock and his patent-saw had failed, he clung to that great machine.
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I remember one special thing that year. He had bought some costly tool,
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When we wanted our boy to learn to read—he was five years old, you know;
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He went to his class with cold, bare feet, till at last he came from school
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And gravely said, "Don't send me back; the children tease me so!"
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I hadn't the heart to cross the child, so, while I sat and sewed
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He would rock his little sister in the cradle at my side;
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And when the struggle was hardest and I felt keen hunger's goad
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Driving me almost to despair—the little baby died.
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Her father came to the cradle-side, as she lay, so small and white;
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"Maggie," he said, "I have killed this child, and now I am killing you!
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I swear by heaven, I will give it up!" Yet, like a thief, that night
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He stole to the shop and worked; his brow all wet with a clammy dew.
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I cannot tell how I lived that week, my little boy and I,
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Too proud to beg; too weak to work; and the weather cold and wild.
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I can only think of one dark night when the rain poured from the sky,
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And the wind went wailing round the house, like the ghost of my buried child.
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Joe still toiled in the little shop. Somebody clicked the gate;
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A neighbor-lad brought in the mail and laid it on the floor,
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But I sat half-stunned by my heavy grief crouched over the empty grate,
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Till I heard—the crack of a pistol-shot; and I sprang to the workshop door.
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That door was locked and the bolt shut fast. I could not cry, nor speak,
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But I snatched my boy from the corner there, sick with a sudden dread,
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And carried him out through the garden plot, forgetting my arms were weak,
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Forgetting the rainy torrent that beat on my bare young head;
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The front door yielded to my touch. I staggered faintly in,
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Fearing—what? He stood unharmed, though the wall showed a jagged hole.
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In his trembling hand, his aim had failed, and the great and deadly sin
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Of his own life's blood was not yet laid on the poor man's tortured soul.
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But the pistol held another charge, I knew; and like something mad
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I shook my fist in my poor man's face, and shrieked at him, fierce and wild,
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"How can you dare to rob us so?"—and I seized the little lad;
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"How can you dare to rob your wife and your little helpless child?"
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All of a sudden, he bowed his head, while from his nerveless hand
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That hung so limp, I almost feared to see the pistol fall.
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"Maggie," he said in a low, low voice, "you see me as I stand
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A hopeless man. My plan has failed. That letter tells you all."
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Then for a moment the house was still as ever the house of death;
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Only the drip of the rain outside, for the storm was almost o'er;
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But no;—there followed another sound, and I started, caught my breath;
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As a stalwart man with a heavy step came in at the open door.
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I shall always think him an angel sent from heaven in a human guise;
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He must have guessed our awful state; he couldn't help but see
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There was something wrong; but never a word, never a look in his eyes
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Told what he thought, as in kindly way he talked to Joe and me.
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He was come from a thriving city firm, and they'd sent him here to say
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That one of Joe's inventions was a great, successful thing;
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And which do you think? His window-catch that he'd tinkered up one day;
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And we were to have a good per cent on the sum that each would bring.
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And then the pleasant stranger went, and we wakened as from a dream.
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My man bent down his head and said, "Little woman, you've saved my life!"
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The worn look gone from his dear gray eyes, and in its place, a gleam
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From the sun that has shone so brightly since, on Joe and his happy wife!
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Jeannie Pendleton Ewing.
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There sat two glasses filled to the brim
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On a rich man's table, rim to rim,
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One was ruddy and red as blood,
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And one was clear as the crystal flood.
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Said the Glass of Wine to his paler brother:
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"Let us tell tales of the past to each other;
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I can tell of banquet and revel and mirth,
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Where I was king, for I ruled in might;
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For the proudest and grandest souls of earth
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Fell under my touch, as though struck with blight.
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From the heads of kings I have torn the crown;
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From the heights of fame I have hurled men down.
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I have blasted many an honored name;
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I have taken virtue and given shame;
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I have tempted youth with a sip, a taste,
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That has made his future a barren waste.
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Far greater than any king am I,
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Or than any army beneath the sky.
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I have made the arm of the driver fail,
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And sent the train from the iron rail.
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I have made good ships go down at sea.
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And the shrieks of the lost were sweet to me.
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Fame, strength, wealth, genius before me fall;
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And my might and power are over all!
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Ho, ho, pale brother," said the Wine,
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"Can you boast of deeds as great as mine?"
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Said the Water Glass: "I cannot boast
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Of a king dethroned, or a murdered host;
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But I can tell of hearts that were sad,
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By my crystal drops made bright and glad;
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Of thirsts I have quenched and brows I have laved,
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Of hands I have cooled, and souls I have saved.
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I have leaped through the valley, dashed down the mountain,
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Slipped from the sunshine, and dripped from the fountain,
|
|
I have burst my cloud-fetters, and dropped from the sky,
|
|
And everywhere gladdened the prospect and eye;
|
|
I have eased the hot forehead of fever and pain,
|
|
I have made the parched meadows grow fertile with grain.
|
|
I can tell of the powerful wheel of the mill,
|
|
That ground out the flour, and turned at my will.
|
|
I can tell of manhood debased by you
|
|
That I have uplifted and crowned anew;
|
|
I cheer, I help, I strengthen and aid,
|
|
I gladden the heart of man and maid;
|
|
|
|
I set the wine-chained captive free,
|
|
And all are better for knowing me."
|
|
|
|
These are the tales they told each other,
|
|
The Glass of Wine, and its paler brother,
|
|
As they sat together, filled to the brim,
|
|
On a rich man's table, rim to rim.
|
|
|
|
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
|
|
You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier!
|
|
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace,
|
|
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,
|
|
His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,
|
|
|
|
His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,
|
|
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,
|
|
His lack of all we prize as debonair,
|
|
Of power or will to shine, of art to please!
|
|
|
|
You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,
|
|
Judging each step, as though the way were plain;
|
|
Reckless, so it could point its paragraph,
|
|
Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain!
|
|
|
|
Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet
|
|
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
|
|
Between the mourners at his head and feet—
|
|
Say, scurril jester, is there room for you?
|
|
|
|
Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer—
|
|
To lame my pencil and confute my pen—
|
|
To make me own this hind, of princes peer,
|
|
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men.
|
|
|
|
My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,
|
|
Noting how to occasion's height he rose;
|
|
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true,
|
|
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows;
|
|
|
|
How humble, yet how hopeful he could be;
|
|
How in good fortune and in ill the same;
|
|
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
|
|
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.
|
|
|
|
He went about his work—such work as few
|
|
Ever had laid on head, and heart, and hand—
|
|
As one who knows where there's a task to do,
|
|
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command;
|
|
|
|
Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
|
|
That God makes instruments to work His will,
|
|
If but that will we can arrive to know,
|
|
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.
|
|
|
|
|
|
So he went forth to battle, on the side
|
|
That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,
|
|
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied
|
|
His warfare with rude nature's thwarting mights;—
|
|
|
|
The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,
|
|
The iron bark that turns the lumberer's axe,
|
|
The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil,
|
|
The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks,
|
|
|
|
The ambushed Indian and the prowling bear—
|
|
Such were the needs that helped his youth to train:
|
|
Rough culture—but such trees large fruit may bear,
|
|
If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.
|
|
|
|
So he grew up, a destined work to do,
|
|
And lived to do it: four long, suffering years
|
|
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through,
|
|
And then he heard the hisses change to cheers,
|
|
|
|
The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
|
|
And took both with the same unwavering mood;
|
|
Till, as he came on light, from darkling days,
|
|
And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,
|
|
|
|
A felon hand, between the goal and him,
|
|
Beached from behind his back, a trigger prest—
|
|
And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim,
|
|
Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest!
|
|
|
|
The words of mercy were upon his lips,
|
|
Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen,
|
|
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
|
|
To thoughts of peace on earth, goodwill to men.
|
|
|
|
The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
|
|
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame!
|
|
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high;
|
|
Sad life, cut short as its triumph came!
|
|
Somewhat back from the village street
|
|
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat;
|
|
Across its antique portico
|
|
Tall poplar trees their shadows throw;
|
|
And, from its station in the hall,
|
|
An ancient timepiece says to all,
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never—forever!"
|
|
|
|
Half-way up the stairs it stands,
|
|
And points and beckons with its hands,
|
|
From its case of massive oak,
|
|
Like a monk who, under his cloak,
|
|
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!
|
|
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never—forever!"
|
|
|
|
By day its voice is low and light;
|
|
But in the silent dead of night,
|
|
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,
|
|
It echoes along the vacant hall,
|
|
Along the ceiling, along the floor,
|
|
And seems to say at each chamber door,
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never—forever!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
|
|
Through days of death and days of birth,
|
|
Through every swift vicissitude
|
|
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
|
|
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
|
|
It calmly repeats those words of awe,
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never—forever!"
|
|
|
|
In that mansion used to be
|
|
Free-hearted Hospitality;
|
|
His great fires up the chimney roared;
|
|
The stranger feasted at his board;
|
|
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
|
|
That warning timepiece never ceased,—
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never—forever!"
|
|
|
|
There groups of merry children played;
|
|
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
|
|
Oh, precious hours! oh, golden prime
|
|
And affluence of love and time!
|
|
Even as a miser counts his gold,
|
|
Those hours the ancient timepiece told,—
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never—forever!"
|
|
|
|
From that chamber, clothed in white,
|
|
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
|
|
There, in that silent room below,
|
|
The dead lay, in his shroud of snow;
|
|
And, in the hush that followed the prayer,
|
|
Was heard the old clock on the stair,—
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never—forever!"
|
|
|
|
All are scattered, now, and fled,—
|
|
Some are married, some are dead;
|
|
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
|
|
"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"
|
|
As in the days long since gone by,
|
|
The ancient timepiece makes reply,—
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never-forever!"
|
|
|
|
Never here, forever there,
|
|
Where all parting, pain, and care,
|
|
And death, and time, shall disappear,—
|
|
Forever there, but never here!
|
|
The horologe of Eternity
|
|
Sayeth this incessantly,—
|
|
"Forever—never!
|
|
Never—forever!"
|
|
|
|
H.W. Longfellow.
|
|
We had forgotten You, or very nearly—
|
|
You did not seem to touch us very nearly—
|
|
Of course we thought about You now and then;
|
|
Especially in any time of trouble—
|
|
We knew that you were good in time of trouble—
|
|
But we were very ordinary men.
|
|
|
|
And there were always other things to think of—
|
|
There's lots of things a man has got to think of—
|
|
His work, his home, his pleasure, and his wife;
|
|
And so we only thought of You on Sunday—
|
|
Sometimes, perhaps, not even on a Sunday—
|
|
Because there's always lots to fill one's life.
|
|
|
|
And, all the while, in street or lane or byway—
|
|
In country lane, in city street, or byway—
|
|
You walked among us, and we did not see.
|
|
Your feet were bleeding as You walked our pavements—
|
|
How did we miss Your footprints on our pavements?—
|
|
Can there be other folk as blind as we?
|
|
|
|
Now we remember; over here in Flanders—
|
|
(It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders)—
|
|
This hideous warfare seems to make things clear.
|
|
We never thought about You much in England—
|
|
But now that we are far away from England—
|
|
We have no doubts, we know that You are here.
|
|
|
|
You helped us pass the jest along the trenches—
|
|
Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches—
|
|
You touched its ribaldry and made it fine.
|
|
You stood beside us in our pain and weakness—
|
|
We're glad to think You understand our weakness—
|
|
Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.
|
|
|
|
We think about You kneeling in the Garden—
|
|
Ah, God, the agony of that dread Garden—
|
|
We know You prayed for us upon the cross.
|
|
If anything could make us glad to bear it—
|
|
'Twould be the knowledge that You willed to bear it—
|
|
Pain—death—the uttermost of human loss.
|
|
|
|
Though we forgot You—You will not forget us—
|
|
We feel so sure that You will not forget us—
|
|
But stay with us until this dream is past.
|
|
And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon—
|
|
Especially, I think, we ask for pardon—
|
|
And that You'll stand beside us to the last.
|
|
|
|
L.W. in London "Spectator."
|
|
—A simple Child,
|
|
That lightly draws its breath,
|
|
And feels its life in every limb,
|
|
What should it know of death?
|
|
|
|
I met a little cottage Girl:
|
|
She was eight years old, she said;
|
|
Her hair was thick with many a curl
|
|
That clustered round her head.
|
|
|
|
She had a rustic, woodland air,
|
|
And she was wildly clad:
|
|
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
|
|
—Her beauty made me glad.
|
|
|
|
"Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
|
|
How many may you be?"
|
|
"How many? Seven in all," she said,
|
|
And wondering looked at me.
|
|
|
|
"And where are they? I pray you tell."
|
|
She answered, "Seven are we;
|
|
And two of us at Conway dwell,
|
|
And two are gone to sea.
|
|
|
|
"Two of us in the church-yard lie,
|
|
My sister and my brother;
|
|
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
|
|
Dwell near them with my mother."
|
|
|
|
"You say that two at Conway dwell,
|
|
And two are gone to sea,
|
|
Yet ye are seven!—I pray you tell,
|
|
Sweet Maid, how this may be."
|
|
|
|
Then did the little Maid reply,
|
|
"Seven boys and girls are we;
|
|
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
|
|
Beneath the church-yard tree."
|
|
|
|
"You run about, my little Maid,
|
|
Your limbs they are alive;
|
|
If two are in the church-yard laid,
|
|
Then ye are only five."
|
|
|
|
"Their graves are green, they may be seen,"
|
|
The little Maid replied,
|
|
"Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,
|
|
And they are side by side.
|
|
|
|
"My stockings there I often knit,
|
|
My kerchief there I hem;
|
|
And there upon the ground I sit,
|
|
And sing a song to them.
|
|
|
|
"And often after sunset, Sir,
|
|
When it is light and fair,
|
|
I take my little porringer,
|
|
And eat my supper there.
|
|
|
|
"The first that died was sister Jane;
|
|
In bed she moaning lay,
|
|
Till God released her of her pain;
|
|
And then she went away.
|
|
|
|
"So in the church-yard she was laid;
|
|
And, when the grass was dry,
|
|
Together round her grave we played,
|
|
My brother John and I.
|
|
|
|
"And when the ground was white with snow,
|
|
And I could run and slide,
|
|
My brother John was forced to go,
|
|
And he lies by her side."
|
|
|
|
"How many are you, then," said I,
|
|
"If they two are in heaven?"
|
|
Quick was the little Maid's reply,
|
|
"O Master! we are seven."
|
|
|
|
"But they are dead; those two are dead!
|
|
Their spirits are in heaven!"
|
|
'T was throwing words away; for still
|
|
The little Maid would have her will,
|
|
And said, "Nay, we are seven!"
|
|
|
|
William Wordsworth.
|
|
"I asked of Echo, t'other day
|
|
(Whose words are often few and funny),
|
|
What to a novice she could say
|
|
Of courtship, love and matrimony.
|
|
Quoth Echo plainly,—'Matter-o'-money!'
|
|
|
|
"Whom should I marry? Should it be
|
|
A dashing damsel, gay and pert,
|
|
A pattern of inconstancy;
|
|
Or selfish, mercenary flirt?
|
|
Quoth Echo, sharply,—'Nary flirt!'
|
|
|
|
"What if, aweary of the strife
|
|
That long has lured the dear deceiver,
|
|
She promise to amend her life,
|
|
And sin no more; can I believe her?
|
|
Quoth Echo, very promptly,—'Leave her!'
|
|
|
|
"But if some maiden with a heart
|
|
On me should venture to bestow it,
|
|
Pray should I act the wiser part
|
|
To take the treasure or forego it?
|
|
Quoth Echo, with decision,—'Go it!'
|
|
|
|
"But what if, seemingly afraid
|
|
To bind her fate in Hymen's fetter,
|
|
She vow she means to die a maid,
|
|
In answer to my loving letter?
|
|
Quoth Echo, rather coolly,-'Let her!'
|
|
|
|
"What if, in spite of her disdain,
|
|
I find my heart entwined about
|
|
With Cupid's dear, delicious chain
|
|
So closely that I can't get out?
|
|
Quoth Echo, laughingly,—'Get out!'
|
|
|
|
"But if some maid with beauty blest,
|
|
As pure and fair as Heaven can make her,
|
|
Will share my labor and my rest
|
|
Till envious Death shall overtake her?
|
|
Quoth Echo (sotto voce),—'Take her!'"
|
|
|
|
John G. Saxe.
|
|
It's noon when Thirty-five is due,
|
|
An' she comes on time like a flash of light,
|
|
An' you hear her whistle "Too-tee-too!"
|
|
Long 'fore the pilot swings in sight.
|
|
Bill Madden's drivin' her in to-day,
|
|
An' he's calling his sweetheart far away—
|
|
Gertrude Hurd lives down by the mill;
|
|
You might see her blushin'; she knows it's Bill.
|
|
"Tudie, tudie! Toot-ee! Tudie, tudie! Tu!"
|
|
|
|
Six-five, A.M. there's a local comes,
|
|
Makes up at Bristol, runnin' east;
|
|
An' the way her whistle sings and hums
|
|
Is a livin' caution to man and beast.
|
|
Every one knows who Jack White calls,—
|
|
Little Lou Woodbury, down by the falls;
|
|
Summer or Winter, always the same,
|
|
She hears her lover callin' her name—
|
|
"Lou-ie! Lou-ie! Lou-iee!"
|
|
|
|
But at one fifty-one, old Sixty-four—
|
|
Boston express, runs east, clear through—
|
|
Drowns her rattle and rumble and roar
|
|
With the softest whistle that ever blew.
|
|
An' away on the furthest edge of town
|
|
Sweet Sue Winthrop's eyes of brown
|
|
Shine like the starlight, bright and clear,
|
|
When she hears the whistle of Abel Gear,
|
|
"You-oo! Su-u-u-u-u-e!"
|
|
|
|
Along at midnight a freight comes in,
|
|
Leaves Berlin sometime—I don't know when;
|
|
But it rumbles along with a fearful din
|
|
Till it reaches the Y-switch there and then
|
|
The clearest notes of the softest bell
|
|
That out of a brazen goblet fell
|
|
Wake Nellie Minton out of her dreams;
|
|
To her like a wedding-bell it seems—
|
|
"Nell, Nell, Nell! Nell, Nell, Nell!"
|
|
|
|
Tom Willson rides on the right-hand side,
|
|
Givin' her steam at every stride;
|
|
An' he touches the whistle, low an' clear,
|
|
For Lulu Gray on the hill, to hear—
|
|
"Lu-Lu! Loo-Loo! Loo-oo!"
|
|
|
|
So it goes all day an' all night
|
|
Till the old folks have voted the thing a bore;
|
|
Old maids and bachelors say it ain't right
|
|
For folks to do courtin' with such a roar.
|
|
But the engineers their kisses will blow
|
|
From a whistle valve to the girls they know,
|
|
An' stokers the name of their sweethearts tell;
|
|
With the "Too-too-too" and the swinging bell.
|
|
|
|
R.J. Burdette.
|
|
She stood at the bar of justice,
|
|
A creature wan and wild,
|
|
In form too small for a woman,
|
|
In features too old for a child;
|
|
For a look so worn and pathetic
|
|
Was stamped on her pale young face,
|
|
It seemed long years of suffering
|
|
Must have left that silent trace.
|
|
|
|
"Your name?" said the judge, as he eyed her
|
|
With kindly look yet keen,—
|
|
"Is Mary McGuire, if you please, sir."
|
|
And your age?"—"I am turned fifteen."
|
|
"Well, Mary," and then from a paper
|
|
He slowly and gravely read,
|
|
"You are charged here—I'm sorry to say it—
|
|
With stealing three loaves of bread.
|
|
|
|
"You look not like an offender,
|
|
And I hope that you can show
|
|
The charge to be false. Now, tell me,
|
|
Are you guilty of this, or no?"
|
|
A passionate burst of weeping
|
|
Was at first her sole reply.
|
|
But she dried her eyes in a moment,
|
|
And looked in the judge's eye.
|
|
|
|
"I will tell you just how it was, sir:
|
|
My father and mother are dead,
|
|
And my little brothers and sisters
|
|
Were hungry and asked me for bread.
|
|
At first I earned it for them
|
|
By working hard all day,
|
|
But somehow, times were bad, sir,
|
|
And the work all fell away.
|
|
|
|
"I could get no more employment.
|
|
The weather was bitter cold,
|
|
The young ones cried and shivered—
|
|
(Little Johnny's but four years old)—
|
|
So what was I to do, sir?
|
|
I am guilty, but do not condemn.
|
|
I took—oh, was it stealing?—
|
|
The bread to give to them."
|
|
|
|
Every man in the court-room—
|
|
Gray-beard and thoughtless youth—
|
|
Knew, as he looked upon her,
|
|
That the prisoner spake the truth;
|
|
Out from their pockets came kerchiefs,
|
|
Out from their eyes sprung tears,
|
|
And out from their old faded wallets
|
|
Treasures hoarded for years.
|
|
|
|
The judge's face was a study,
|
|
The strangest you ever saw,
|
|
As he cleared his throat and murmured
|
|
Something about the law;
|
|
For one so learned in such matters,
|
|
So wise in dealing with men,
|
|
He seemed, on a simple question,
|
|
Sorely puzzled, just then.
|
|
|
|
But no one blamed him or wondered,
|
|
When at last these words he heard,
|
|
"The sentence of this young prisoner
|
|
Is, for the present, deferred."
|
|
And no one blamed him or wondered
|
|
When he went to her and smiled
|
|
And tenderly led from the court-room,
|
|
Himself, the "guilty" child.
|
|
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
|
|
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
|
|
Without a mark, without a bound,
|
|
It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
|
|
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies,
|
|
Or like a cradled creature lies.
|
|
|
|
I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!
|
|
I am where I would ever be;
|
|
With the blue above and the blue below,
|
|
And silence wheresoe'er I go.
|
|
If a storm should come and awake the deep
|
|
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
|
|
|
|
I love, oh, how I love to ride
|
|
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
|
|
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
|
|
Or whistles aloud his tempest tune,
|
|
And tells how goeth the world below,
|
|
And why the southwest blasts do blow.
|
|
|
|
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
|
|
But I loved the great sea more and more,
|
|
And back I flew to her billowy breast,
|
|
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
|
|
And a mother she was, and is, to me,
|
|
For I was born on the open sea!
|
|
|
|
I've lived, since then, in calm and strife,
|
|
Full fifty summers a sailor's life,
|
|
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
|
|
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
|
|
And Death, whenever he comes to me,
|
|
Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea.
|
|
|
|
Barry Cornwall.
|
|
Slowly England's sun was setting o'er the hilltops far away,
|
|
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day,
|
|
And the last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,—
|
|
He with footsteps slow and weary, she with sunny floating hair;
|
|
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she with lips all cold and white,
|
|
Struggling to keep back the murmur, "Curfew must not ring to-night."
|
|
|
|
"Sexton," Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,
|
|
With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp and cold,
|
|
"I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die
|
|
At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh;
|
|
Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her lips grew strangely white
|
|
As she breathed the husky whisper: "Curfew must not ring to-night."
|
|
|
|
"Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton—every word pierced her young heart
|
|
Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart,—
|
|
"Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy shadowed tower;
|
|
Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour;
|
|
I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right;
|
|
Now I'm old I will not falter,—curfew, it must ring to-night."
|
|
|
|
Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow.
|
|
As within her secret bosom Bessie made a solemn vow.
|
|
She had listened while the judges read without a tear or sigh:
|
|
"At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die."
|
|
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright;
|
|
In an undertone she murmured, "Curfew must not ring to-night."
|
|
|
|
With quick step she bounded forward, sprung within the old church door,
|
|
Left the old man treading slowly paths so oft he'd trod before;
|
|
Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow
|
|
Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro,—
|
|
As she climbed the dusty ladder on which fell no ray of light,
|
|
Up and up,—her white lips saying: "Curfew must not ring to-night."
|
|
|
|
She has reached the topmost ladder; o'er her hangs the great, dark bell;
|
|
Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell.
|
|
Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging—'tis the hour of curfew now,
|
|
And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath and paled her brow.
|
|
Shall she let it ring? No, never! flash her eyes with sudden light,
|
|
As she springs and grasps it firmly—"Curfew shall not ring to-night!"
|
|
|
|
Out she swung—far out; the city seemed a speck of light below,
|
|
There 'twixt heaven and earth suspended as the bell swung to and fro;
|
|
And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,
|
|
Sadly thought, "That twilight curfew rang young Basil's funeral knell."
|
|
Still the maiden clung more firmly, and with trembling lips so white,
|
|
Said, to hush her heart's wild throbbing: "Curfew shall not ring to-night."
|
|
|
|
It was o'er; the bell ceased swaying, and the maiden stepped once more
|
|
Firmly on the dark old ladder where, for hundred years before
|
|
Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done
|
|
Should be told long ages after; as the rays of setting sun
|
|
Crimson all the sky with beauty, aged sires with heads of white,
|
|
Tell the eager, listening children, "Curfew did not ring that night."
|
|
|
|
O'er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie sees him, and her brow,
|
|
Lately white with fear and anguish, has no anxious traces now.
|
|
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;
|
|
And her face so sweet and pleading, yet with sorrow pale and worn,
|
|
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light:
|
|
"Go! your lover lives," said Cromwell, "Curfew shall not ring to-night."
|
|
|
|
Wide they flung the massive portal; led the prisoner forth to die,—
|
|
All his bright young life before him. 'Neath the darkening English sky
|
|
Bessie comes with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with love-light sweet;
|
|
Kneeling on the turf beside him, lays his pardon at his feet.
|
|
In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white,
|
|
Whispered, "Darling, you have saved me—curfew will not ring to-night."
|
|
|
|
Rose Hartwick Thorpe.
|
|
Have you heard how a girl saved the lightning express—
|
|
Of Kate Shelly, whose father was killed on the road?
|
|
Were he living to-day, he'd be proud to possess
|
|
Such a daughter as Kate. Ah! 'twas grit that she showed
|
|
On that terrible evening when Donahue's train
|
|
Jumped the bridge and went down, in the darkness and rain.
|
|
|
|
She was only eighteen, but a woman in size,
|
|
With a figure as graceful and lithe as a doe,
|
|
With peach-blossom cheeks, and with violet eyes,
|
|
And teeth and complexion like new-fallen snow;
|
|
With a nature unspoiled and unblemished by art—
|
|
With a generous soul, and a warm, noble heart!
|
|
|
|
'Tis evening—the darkness is dense and profound;
|
|
Men linger at home by their bright-blazing fires;
|
|
The wind wildly howls with a horrible sound,
|
|
And shrieks through the vibrating telegraph wires;
|
|
The fierce lightning flashes along the dark sky;
|
|
The rain falls in torrents; the river rolls by.
|
|
|
|
The scream of a whistle; the rush of a train!
|
|
The sound of a bell! a mysterious light
|
|
That flashes and flares through the fast falling rain!
|
|
A rumble! a roar! shrieks of human affright!
|
|
The falling of timbers! the space of a breath!
|
|
A splash in the river; then darkness and death!
|
|
|
|
Kate Shelly recoils at the terrible crash;
|
|
The sounds of destruction she happens to hear;
|
|
She springs to the window—she throws up the sash,
|
|
And listens and looks with a feeling of fear.
|
|
The tall tree-tops groan, and she hears the faint cry
|
|
Of a drowning man down in the river near by.
|
|
|
|
Her heart feebly flutters, her features grow wan,
|
|
And then through her soul in a moment there flies
|
|
A forethought that gives her the strength of a man—
|
|
She turns to her trembling old mother and cries:
|
|
"I must save the express—'twill be here in an hour!"
|
|
Then out through the door disappears in the shower.
|
|
|
|
She flies down the track through the pitiless rain;
|
|
She reaches the river—the water below
|
|
Whirls and seethes through the timbers. She shudders again;
|
|
"The bridge! To Moingona, God help me to go!"
|
|
Then closely about her she gathers her gown
|
|
And on the wet ties with a shiver sinks down.
|
|
|
|
Then carefully over the timbers she creeps
|
|
On her hands and knees, almost holding her breath.
|
|
The loud thunder peals and the wind wildly sweeps,
|
|
And struggles to hurry her downward to death;
|
|
But the thought of the train to destruction so near
|
|
Removes from her soul every feeling of fear.
|
|
|
|
With the blood dripping down from each torn, bleeding limb,
|
|
Slowly over the timbers her dark way she feels;
|
|
Her fingers grow numb and her head seems to swim;
|
|
Her strength is fast failing—she staggers! she reels!
|
|
She falls—Ah! the danger is over at last,
|
|
Her feet touch the earth, and the long bridge is passed!
|
|
|
|
In an instant new life seems to come to her form;
|
|
She springs to her feet and forgets her despair.
|
|
On, on to Moingona! she faces the storm,
|
|
She reaches the station—the keeper is there,
|
|
"Save the lightning express! No—hang out the red light!
|
|
There's death on the bridge at the river to-night!"
|
|
|
|
Out flashes the signal-light, rosy and red;
|
|
Then sounds the loud roar of the swift-coming train,
|
|
The hissing of steam, and there, brightly ahead,
|
|
The gleam of a headlight illumines the rain.
|
|
"Down brakes!" shrieks the whistle, defiant and shrill;
|
|
She heeds the red signal—she slackens, she's still!
|
|
|
|
Ah! noble Kate Shelly, your mission is done;
|
|
Your deed that dark night will not fade from our gaze;
|
|
An endless renown you have worthily won;
|
|
Let the nation be just, and accord you its praise,
|
|
Let your name, let your fame, and your courage declare
|
|
What a woman can do, and a woman can dare!
|
|
|
|
Eugene J. Hall.
|
|
An old wife sat by her bright fireside,
|
|
Swaying thoughtfully to and fro
|
|
In an easy chair, whose creaky craw
|
|
Told a tale of long ago;
|
|
While down by her side, on the kitchen floor,
|
|
Stood a basket of worsted balls—a score.
|
|
|
|
The good man dozed o'er the latest news
|
|
Till the light in his pipe went out;
|
|
And, unheeded, the kitten with cunning paws
|
|
Rolled and tangled the balls about;
|
|
Yet still sat the wife in the ancient chair,
|
|
Swaying to and fro in the fire-light glare.
|
|
|
|
But anon, a misty teardrop came
|
|
In her eyes of faded blue,
|
|
Then trickled down in a furrow deep
|
|
Like a single drop of dew;
|
|
So deep was the channel—so silent the stream—
|
|
That the good man saw naught but the dimmed eye-beam.
|
|
|
|
Yet marveled he much that the cheerful light
|
|
Of her eye had heavy grown,
|
|
And marveled he more at the tangled balls,
|
|
So he said in a gentle tone:
|
|
"I have shared thy joys since our marriage vow,
|
|
Conceal not from me thy sorrows now."
|
|
|
|
Then she spoke of the time when the basket there
|
|
Was filled to the very brim;
|
|
And now, there remained of the goodly pile
|
|
But a single pair—for him;
|
|
"Then wonder not at the dimmed eye-light,
|
|
There's but one pair of stockings to mend to-night.
|
|
|
|
"I cannot but think of the busy feet
|
|
Whose wrappings were wont to lay
|
|
In the basket, awaiting the needle's time—
|
|
Now wandering so far away;
|
|
How the sprightly steps to a mother dear,
|
|
Unheeded fell on the careless ear.
|
|
|
|
"For each empty nook in the basket old
|
|
By the hearth there's a vacant seat;
|
|
And I miss the shadows from off the wall,
|
|
And the patter of many feet;
|
|
'Tis for this that a tear gathered over my sight,
|
|
At the one pair of stockings to mend to-night.
|
|
|
|
"'Twas said that far through the forest wild,
|
|
And over the mountains bold,
|
|
Was a land whose rivers and darkening caves
|
|
Were gemmed with the rarest gold;
|
|
Then my first-born turned from the oaken door—
|
|
And I knew the shadows were only four.
|
|
|
|
"Another went forth on the foaming wave,
|
|
And diminished the basket's store;
|
|
But his feet grew cold—so weary and cold,
|
|
They'll never be warm any more.
|
|
And this nook, in its emptiness, seemeth to me
|
|
To give forth no voice but the moan of the sea.
|
|
|
|
"Two others have gone toward the setting sun,
|
|
And made them a home in its light,
|
|
And fairy fingers have taken their share,
|
|
To mend by the fireside bright;
|
|
Some other baskets their garments will fill—
|
|
But mine, ah, mine is emptier still.
|
|
|
|
"Another—the dearest, the fairest, the best—
|
|
Was taken by angels away,
|
|
And clad in a garment that waxeth not old,
|
|
In a land of continual day;
|
|
Oh! wonder no more at the dimmed eye-light,
|
|
When I mend the one pair of stockings to-night."
|
|
In the room below the young man sat,
|
|
With an anxious face and a white cravat,
|
|
A throbbing heart and a silken hat,
|
|
And various other things like that
|
|
Which he had accumulated.
|
|
And the maid of his heart was up above
|
|
Surrounded by hat and gown and glove,
|
|
And a thousand things which women love,
|
|
But no man knoweth the names thereof—
|
|
And the young man sat and—waited.
|
|
|
|
You will scarce believe the things I tell,
|
|
But the truth thereof I know full well,
|
|
Though how may not be stated;
|
|
But I swear to you that the maiden took
|
|
A sort of half-breed, thin stove-hook,
|
|
And heated it well in the gaslight there.
|
|
And thrust it into her head, or hair.
|
|
Then she took something off the bed,
|
|
And hooked it onto her hair, or head,
|
|
And piled it high, and piled it higher,
|
|
And drove it home with staples of wire!
|
|
And the young man anxiously—waited.
|
|
|
|
Then she took a thing she called a "puff"
|
|
And some very peculiar whitish stuff,
|
|
And using about a half a peck,
|
|
She spread it over her face and neck,
|
|
(Deceit was a thing she hated!)
|
|
And she looked as fair as a lilied bower,
|
|
Or a pound of lard or a sack of flour;—
|
|
And the young man wearily—waited.
|
|
|
|
Then she took a garment of awful shape
|
|
And it wasn't a waist, nor yet a cape,
|
|
But it looked like a piece of ancient mail,
|
|
Or an instrument from a Russian jail,
|
|
And then with a fearful groan and gasp,
|
|
She squeezed herself in its deathly clasp—
|
|
So fair and yet so fated!
|
|
And then with a move like I don't know what,
|
|
She tied it on with a double knot;—
|
|
And the young man wofully—waited.
|
|
|
|
Then she put on a dozen different things,
|
|
A mixture of buttons and hooks and strings,
|
|
Till she strongly resembled a notion store;
|
|
Then, taking some seventeen pins or more,
|
|
She thrust them into her ruby lips,
|
|
Then stuck them around from waist to hips,
|
|
And never once hesitated.
|
|
And the maiden didn't know, perhaps,
|
|
That the man below had had seven naps,
|
|
And that now he sleepily—waited.
|
|
|
|
And then she tried to put on her hat,
|
|
Ah me, a trying ordeal was that!
|
|
She tipped it high and she tried it low,
|
|
But every way that the thing would go
|
|
Only made her more agitated.
|
|
It wouldn't go straight and it caught her hair,
|
|
And she wished she could hire a man to swear,
|
|
But alas, the only man lingering there
|
|
Was the one who wildly—waited.
|
|
|
|
And then before she could take her leave,
|
|
She had to puff up her monstrous sleeve.
|
|
Then a little dab here and a wee pat there.
|
|
And a touch or two to her hindmost hair,
|
|
Then around the room with the utmost care
|
|
She thoughtfully circulated.
|
|
Then she seized her gloves and a chamoiskin,
|
|
Some breath perfume and a long stickpin,
|
|
A bonbon box and a cloak and some
|
|
Eau-de-cologne and chewing-gum,
|
|
Her opera glass and sealskin muff,
|
|
A fan and a heap of other stuff;
|
|
Then she hurried down, but ere she spoke,
|
|
Something about the maiden broke.
|
|
So she scurried back to the winding stair,
|
|
And the young man looked in wild despair,
|
|
And then he—evaporated.
|
|
|
|
Edmund Vance Cooke.
|
|
Two brown heads with tossing curls,
|
|
Red lips shutting over pearls,
|
|
Bare feet, white and wet with dew,
|
|
Two eyes black, and two eyes blue;
|
|
Little girl and boy were they,
|
|
Katie Lee and Willie Grey.
|
|
|
|
They were standing where a brook,
|
|
Bending like a shepherd's crook,
|
|
Flashed its silver, and thick ranks
|
|
Of willow fringed its mossy banks;
|
|
Half in thought, and half in play,
|
|
Katie Lee and Willie Grey.
|
|
|
|
They had cheeks like cherries red;
|
|
He was taller—'most a head;
|
|
She, with arms like wreaths of snow,
|
|
Swung a basket to and fro
|
|
As she loitered, half in play,
|
|
Chattering to Willie Grey.
|
|
|
|
"Pretty Katie," Willie said—
|
|
And there came a dash of red
|
|
Through the brownness of his cheek—
|
|
"Boys are strong and girls are weak,
|
|
And I'll carry, so I will,
|
|
Katie's basket up the hill."
|
|
|
|
Katie answered with a laugh,
|
|
"You shall carry only half";
|
|
And then, tossing back her curls,
|
|
"Boys are weak as well as girls."
|
|
Do you think that Katie guessed
|
|
Half the wisdom she expressed?
|
|
|
|
Men are only boys grown tall;
|
|
Hearts don't change much, after all;
|
|
And when, long years from that day,
|
|
Katie Lee and Willie Grey
|
|
Stood again beside the brook,
|
|
Bending like a shepherd's crook,—
|
|
|
|
Is it strange that Willie said,
|
|
While again a dash of red
|
|
Crossed the brownness of his cheek,
|
|
"I am strong and you are weak;
|
|
Life is but a slippery steep,
|
|
Hung with shadows cold and deep.
|
|
|
|
"Will you trust me, Katie dear,—
|
|
Walk beside me without fear?
|
|
May I carry, if I will,
|
|
All your burdens up the hill?"
|
|
And she answered, with a laugh,
|
|
"No, but you may carry half."
|
|
|
|
Close beside the little brook,
|
|
Bending like a shepherd's crook,
|
|
Washing with its silver hands
|
|
Late and early at the sands,
|
|
Is a cottage, where to-day
|
|
Katie lives with Willie Grey.
|
|
|
|
In a porch she sits, and lo!
|
|
Swings a basket to and fro—
|
|
Vastly different from the one
|
|
That she swung in years agone,
|
|
Thisis long and deep and wide,
|
|
And has—rockers at the side.
|
|
Still sits the school-house by the road,
|
|
A ragged beggar sunning;
|
|
Around it still the sumachs grow,
|
|
And blackberry vines are running.
|
|
|
|
Within, the master's desk is seen,
|
|
Deep scarred by raps official;
|
|
The warping floor, the battered seats,
|
|
The jack-knife's carved initial;
|
|
|
|
The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
|
|
Its door's worn sill, betraying
|
|
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
|
|
Went storming out to playing!
|
|
|
|
Long years ago a winter sun
|
|
Shone over it at setting;
|
|
Lit up its western window-panes,
|
|
And low eaves' icy fretting.
|
|
|
|
It touched the tangled golden curls,
|
|
And brown eyes full of grieving,
|
|
Of one who still her steps delayed
|
|
When all the school were leaving.
|
|
|
|
For near her stood the little boy
|
|
Her childish favor singled:
|
|
His cap pulled low upon a face
|
|
Where pride and shame were mingled.
|
|
|
|
Pushing with restless feet the snow
|
|
To right and left, he lingered;—
|
|
As restlessly her tiny hands
|
|
The blue-checked apron fingered.
|
|
|
|
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
|
|
The soft hand's light caressing,
|
|
And heard the tremble of her voice,
|
|
As if a fault confessing.
|
|
|
|
"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
|
|
I hate to go above you,
|
|
Because,"—the brown eyes lower fell,—
|
|
"Because, you see, I love you!"
|
|
|
|
Still memory to a gray-haired man
|
|
That sweet child-face is showing.
|
|
Dear girl: the grasses on her grave
|
|
Have forty years been growing!
|
|
|
|
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
|
|
How few who pass above him
|
|
Lament their triumph and his loss,
|
|
Like her,—because they love him.
|
|
|
|
John Greenleaf Whittier.
|
|
"Tis plain to see," said a farmer's wife,
|
|
"These boys will make their mark in life;
|
|
They were never made to handle a hoe,
|
|
And at once to a college ought to go;
|
|
There's Fred, he's little better than a fool,
|
|
But John and Henry must go to school."
|
|
|
|
"Well, really, wife," quoth Farmer Brown,
|
|
As he set his mug of cider down,
|
|
"Fred does more work in a day for me
|
|
Than both his brothers do in three.
|
|
Book larnin' will never plant one's corn,
|
|
Nor hoe potatoes, sure's you're born;
|
|
Nor mend a rod of broken fence—
|
|
For my part, give me common sense."
|
|
|
|
But his wife was bound the roost to rule,
|
|
And John and Henry were sent to school,
|
|
While Fred, of course, was left behind,
|
|
Because his mother said he had no mind.
|
|
|
|
Five years at school the students spent;
|
|
Then into business each one went.
|
|
John learned to play the flute and fiddle,
|
|
And parted his hair, of course, in the middle;
|
|
While his brother looked rather higher than he,
|
|
And hung out a sign, "H. Brown, M.D."
|
|
|
|
Meanwhile, at home, their brother Fred
|
|
Had taken a notion into his head;
|
|
But he quietly trimmed his apple trees,
|
|
And weeded onions and planted peas,
|
|
While somehow or other, by hook or crook,
|
|
He managed to read full many a book;
|
|
Until at last his father said
|
|
He was getting "book larnin'" into his head;
|
|
"But for all that," added Farmer Brown,
|
|
"He's the smartest boy there is in town."
|
|
|
|
The war broke out, and Captain Fred
|
|
A hundred men to battle led,
|
|
And when the rebel flag came down,
|
|
Went marching home as General Brown.
|
|
But he went to work on the farm again,
|
|
And planted corn and sowed his grain;
|
|
He shingled the barn and mended the fence,
|
|
Till people declared he had common sense.
|
|
|
|
Now common sense was very rare,
|
|
And the State House needed a portion there;
|
|
So the "family dunce" moved into town—
|
|
The people called him Governor Brown;
|
|
And the brothers who went to the city school
|
|
Came home to live with "mother's fool."
|
|
You Wi'yam, cum 'ere, suh, dis instunce.
|
|
Wu' dat you got under dat box?
|
|
I do' want no foolin'—you hear me?
|
|
Wut you say? Ain't nu'h'n but rocks?
|
|
'Peah ter me you's owdashus p'ticler. S'posin' dey's uv a new kine.
|
|
I'll des take a look at dem rocks. Hi yi! der you think dat I's bline?
|
|
|
|
I calls dat a plain water-million, you scamp, en I knows whah it growed;
|
|
It come fum de Jimmerson cawn fiel', dah on ter side er de road.
|
|
You stole it, you rascal—you stole it! I watched you fum down in de lot.
|
|
En time I gets th'ough wid you, nigger, you won't eb'n be a grease spot!
|
|
|
|
I'll fix you. Mirandy! Mirandy! go cut me a hick'ry—make 'ase!
|
|
En cut me de toughes' en keenes' you c'n fine anywhah on de place.
|
|
I'll larn you, Mr. Wi'yam Joe Vetters, ter steal en ter lie, you young sinner,
|
|
Disgracin' yo' ole Christian mammy, en makin' her leave cookin' dinner!
|
|
|
|
Now ain't you ashamed er yo'se'lf sur? I is, I's 'shamed you's my son!
|
|
En de holy accorjan angel he's 'shamed er wut you has done;
|
|
En he's tuk it down up yander in coal-black, blood-red letters—
|
|
"One water-million stoled by Wi'yam Josephus Vetters."
|
|
|
|
|
|
En wut you s'posen Brer Bascom, yo' teacher at Sunday school,
|
|
'Ud say ef he knowed how you's broke de good Lawd's Gol'n Rule?
|
|
Boy, whah's de raisin' I give you? Is you boun' fuh ter be a black villiun?
|
|
I's s'prised dat a chile er yo mammy 'ud steal any man's water-million.
|
|
|
|
En I's now gwinter cut it right open, en you shain't have nary bite,
|
|
Fuh a boy who'll steal water-millions—en dat in de day's broad light—
|
|
Ain't—Lawdy! it's green! Mirandy!
|
|
Mi-ran-dy! come on wi' dat switch!
|
|
Well, stealin' a g-r-e-e-n water-million! who ever yeered tell er des sich?
|
|
|
|
Cain't tell w'en dey's ripe? W'y you thump 'um, en w'en dey go pank dey is green;
|
|
But w'en dey go punk, now you mine me, dey's ripe—en dat's des wut I mean.
|
|
En nex' time you hook water-millions— you heered me, you ign'ant, you hunk,
|
|
Ef you do' want a lickin' all over, be sho dat dey allers go "punk"!
|
|
|
|
Harrison Robertson.
|
|
There's a funny tale 'of a stingy man,
|
|
Who was none too good but might have been worse,
|
|
Who went to his church, on a Sunday night
|
|
And carried along his well-filled purse.
|
|
|
|
When the sexton came with the begging plate,
|
|
The church was but dim with the candle's light;
|
|
The stingy man fumbled all thro' his purse,
|
|
And chose a coin by touch and not by sight.
|
|
|
|
It's an odd thing now that guineas should be
|
|
So like unto pennies in shape and size.
|
|
"I'll gie a penny," the stingy man said:
|
|
"The poor must not gifts of pennies despise."
|
|
|
|
The penny fell down with a clatter and ring!
|
|
And back in his seat leaned the stingy man.
|
|
"The world is full of the poor," he thought,
|
|
"I can't help them all—I give what I can."
|
|
|
|
Ha! ha! how the sexton smiled, to be sure,
|
|
To see the gold guinea fall in the plate;
|
|
Ha! ha! how the stingy man's heart was wrung,
|
|
Perceiving his blunder—but just too late!
|
|
|
|
"No matter," he said; "in the Lord's account
|
|
That guinea of gold is set down to me—
|
|
They lend to him who give to the poor;
|
|
It will not so bad an investment be."
|
|
|
|
"Na, na, mon," the chuckling sexton cried out,
|
|
"The Lord is na cheated—he kens thee well;
|
|
He knew it was only by accident
|
|
That out o' thy fingers the guinea fell!
|
|
|
|
"He keeps an account, na doubt, for the puir;
|
|
But in that account He'll set down to thee
|
|
Na mair o' that golden guinea, my mon,
|
|
Than the one bare penny ye mean to gie!"
|
|
|
|
There's comfort, too, in the little tale—
|
|
A serious side as well as a joke—
|
|
A comfort for all the generous poor
|
|
In the comical words the sexton spoke;
|
|
|
|
A comfort to think that the good Lord knows
|
|
How generous we really desire to be,
|
|
And will give us credit in his account,
|
|
For all the pennies we long "to gie."
|
|
I haf von funny leedle poy
|
|
Vot gomes shust to my knee,—
|
|
Der queerest schap, der createst rogue
|
|
As efer you dit see.
|
|
He runs, und schumps, und schmashes dings
|
|
In all barts off der house.
|
|
But vot off dot? He vas mine son,
|
|
Mine leedle Yawcob Strauss.
|
|
|
|
He gets der measels und der mumbs,
|
|
Und eferyding dot's oudt;
|
|
He sbills mine glass off lager bier,
|
|
Poots schnuff indo mine kraut;
|
|
He fills mine pipe mit Limburg cheese—
|
|
Dot vas der roughest chouse;
|
|
I'd dake dot vrom no oder poy
|
|
But leedle Yawcob Strauss.
|
|
|
|
He dakes der milkban for a dhrum,
|
|
Und cuts mine cane in dwo
|
|
To make der schticks to beat it mit—
|
|
Mine cracious, dot vas drue!
|
|
I dinks mine hed vas schplit abart
|
|
He kicks oup sooch a touse;
|
|
But nefer mind der poys vas few
|
|
Like dot young Yawcob Strauss.
|
|
|
|
He asks me questions sooch as dese:
|
|
Who baints mine nose so red?
|
|
Who vos it cuts dot schmoodth blace oudt
|
|
Vrom der hair ubon mine hed?
|
|
Und vhere der plaze goes vrom der lamp
|
|
Vene'er der glim I douse?
|
|
How gan I all dese dings eggsblain
|
|
To dot schmall Yawcob Strauss?
|
|
|
|
I somedimes dink I schall go vild
|
|
Mit sooch a grazy poy,
|
|
Und vish vonce more I gould haf rest
|
|
Und beaceful dimes enshoy.
|
|
But ven he vas asleep in ped,
|
|
So quiet as a mouse,
|
|
I prays der Lord, "Dake any dings,
|
|
But leaf dot Yawcob Strauss."
|
|
|
|
Charles F. Adams.
|
|
My name is Tommy, an' I hates
|
|
That feller of my sister Kate's,
|
|
He's bigger'n I am an' you see
|
|
He's sorter lookin' down on me,
|
|
An' I resents it with a vim;
|
|
I think I am just as good as him.
|
|
He's older, an' he's mighty fly,
|
|
But's he's a kid, an' so am I.
|
|
|
|
One time he came,—down by the gate,
|
|
I guess it must have been awful late,—
|
|
An' Katie, she was there, an' they
|
|
Was feelin' very nice and gay,
|
|
An' he was talkin' all the while
|
|
About her sweet an' lovin' smile,
|
|
An' everythin' was as nice as pie,
|
|
An' they was there, an' so was I.
|
|
|
|
They didn't see me, 'cause I slid
|
|
Down underneath a bush, an' hid,
|
|
An' he was sayin' that his love
|
|
Was greater'n all the stars above
|
|
Up in the glorious heavens placed;
|
|
An' then His arms got 'round her waist,
|
|
An' clouds were floatin' in the sky,
|
|
And they was there, an' so was I.
|
|
|
|
I didn't hear just all they said,
|
|
But by an' by my sister's head
|
|
Was droopin' on his shoulder, an'
|
|
I seen him holdin' Katie's hand,
|
|
An' then he hugged her closer, some,
|
|
An' then I heerd a kiss—yum, yum;
|
|
An' Katie blushed an' drew a sigh,
|
|
An' sorter coughed,—an' so did I.
|
|
|
|
An' then that feller looked around
|
|
An' seed me there, down on the ground,
|
|
An'—was he mad? well, betcher boots
|
|
I gets right out of there an' scoots.
|
|
An' he just left my sister Kate
|
|
A-standin' right there by the gate;
|
|
An' I seen blood was in his eye,
|
|
An' he runned fast—an' so did I.
|
|
|
|
I runned the very best I could,
|
|
But he cotched up—I's 'fraid he would—
|
|
An' then he said he'd teach me how
|
|
To know my manners, he'd allow;
|
|
An' then he shaked me awful. Gee!
|
|
He jest—he frashed the ground with me.
|
|
An' then he stopped it by and by,
|
|
'Cause he was tired—an' so was I,
|
|
|
|
An' then he went back to the gate
|
|
An' couldn't find my sister Kate
|
|
'Cause she went in to bed, while he
|
|
Was runnin' 'round an' thumpin' me.
|
|
I got round in a shadder dim,
|
|
An' made a face, an' guffed at him;
|
|
An' then the moon larfed, in the sky,
|
|
'Cause he was there, an' so was I.
|
|
|
|
Joseph Bert Smiley.
|
|
A boy drove into the city, his wagon loaded down
|
|
With food to feed the people of the British-governed town;
|
|
And the little black-eyed rebel, so cunning and so sly,
|
|
Was watching for his coming from the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
His face was broad and honest, his hands were brown and tough,
|
|
The clothes he wore upon him were homespun, coarse, and rough;
|
|
But one there was who watched him, who long time lingered nigh,
|
|
And cast at him sweet glances from the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
He drove up to the market, he waited in the line—
|
|
His apples and potatoes were fresh and fair and fine.
|
|
But long and long he waited, and no one came to buy,
|
|
Save the black-eyed rebel, watching from the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
"Now, who will buy my apples?" he shouted, long and loud;
|
|
And, "Who wants my potatoes?" he repeated to the crowd.
|
|
But from all the people round him came no word of reply,
|
|
Save the black-eyed rebel, answering from the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
For she knew that 'neath the lining of the coat he wore that day
|
|
Were long letters from the husbands and the fathers far away,
|
|
Who were fighting for the freedom that they meant to gain, or die;
|
|
And a tear like silver glistened in the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
But the treasures—how to get them? crept the question through her mind,
|
|
Since keen enemies were watching for what prizes they might find;
|
|
And she paused a while and pondered, with a pretty little sigh,
|
|
Then resolve crept through her features, and a shrewdness fired her eye.
|
|
|
|
So she resolutely walked up to the wagon old and red—
|
|
"May I have a dozen apples for a kiss?" she sweetly said;
|
|
And the brown face flushed to scarlet, for the boy was somewhat shy,
|
|
And he saw her laughing at him from the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
"You may have them all for nothing, and more, if you want," quoth he.
|
|
"I will have them, my good fellow, but can pay for them," said she.
|
|
And she clambered on the wagon, minding not who all were by,
|
|
With a laugh of reckless romping in the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
Clinging round his brawny neck, she clasped her fingers white and small,
|
|
And then whispered, "Quick! the letters! thrust them underneath my shawl!
|
|
Carry back again this package, and be sure that you are spry!"
|
|
And she sweetly smiled upon him from the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
Loud the motley crowd was laughing at the strange, ungirlish freak;
|
|
And the boy was scared and panting, and so dashed he could not speak.
|
|
And "Miss, I have good apples," a bolder lad did cry;
|
|
But she answered, "No, I thank you," from the corner of her eye.
|
|
|
|
With the news from loved ones absent to the dear friends they would greet,
|
|
Searching them who hungered for them, swift she glided through the street.
|
|
"There is nothing worth the doing that it does not pay to try,"
|
|
Thought the little black-eyed rebel with a twinkle in her eye.
|
|
|
|
Will Carleton.
|
|
Take me back to the days when the old red cradle rocked,
|
|
In the sunshine of the years that are gone;
|
|
To the good old trusty days, when the door was never locked,
|
|
And we slumbered unmolested till the dawn.
|
|
|
|
I remember of my years I had numbered almost seven,
|
|
And the old cradle stood against the wall—
|
|
I was youngest of the five, and two were gone to heaven,
|
|
But the old red cradle rocked us all.
|
|
|
|
And if ever came a day when my cheeks were flushed and hot,
|
|
When I did not mind my porridge or my play,
|
|
I would clamber up its side and the pain would be forgot,
|
|
When the old red cradle rocked away.
|
|
|
|
It has been a hallowed spot where I've turned through all the years,
|
|
Which have brought me the evil with the good,
|
|
And I turn again to-night, aye, and see it through my tears,
|
|
The place where the dear old cradle stood.
|
|
|
|
By its side my father paused with a little time to spare.
|
|
And the care-lines would soften on his brow,
|
|
Ah! 't was but a little while that I knew a father's care,
|
|
But I fancy in my dreams I see him now.
|
|
|
|
By my mother it was rocked when the evening meal was laid,
|
|
And again I seem to see her as she smiled;
|
|
When the rest were all in bed, 'twas there she knelt and prayed,
|
|
By the old red cradle and her child.
|
|
|
|
Aye, it cradled one and all, brothers, sisters in it lay,
|
|
And it gave me the sweetest rest I've known;
|
|
But to-night the tears will flow, and I let them have their way,
|
|
For the passing years are leaving me alone.
|
|
|
|
And it seems of those to come, I would gladly give them all
|
|
For a slumber as free from care as then,
|
|
Just to wake to-morrow morn where the rising sun would fall
|
|
Round the old red cradle once again.
|
|
|
|
But the cradle long has gone and the burdens that it bore,
|
|
One by one, have been gathered to the fold;
|
|
Still the flock is incomplete, for it numbers only four,
|
|
With one left out straying in the cold.
|
|
|
|
Heaven grant again we may in each other's arms be locked,
|
|
Where no sad tears of parting ever fall;
|
|
God forbid that one be lost that the old red cradle rocked;
|
|
And the dear old cradle rocked us all.
|
|
|
|
Annie J. Granniss.
|
|
Oh, good painter, tell me true,
|
|
Has your hand the cunning to draw
|
|
Shapes of things that you never saw?
|
|
Aye? Well, here is an order for you.
|
|
|
|
Woods and cornfields, a little brown,—
|
|
The picture must not be over-bright,—
|
|
Yet all in the golden and gracious light
|
|
Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down.
|
|
Alway and alway, night and morn,
|
|
Woods upon woods, with fields of corn
|
|
Lying between them, not quite sere,
|
|
And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom,
|
|
When the wind can hardly find breathing-room,
|
|
Under their tassels,—cattle near,
|
|
Biting shorter the short green grass,
|
|
And a hedge of sumach and sassafras,
|
|
With bluebirds twittering all around,—
|
|
(Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!)—
|
|
These, and the little house where I was born,
|
|
Low and little, and black and old,
|
|
With children, many as it can hold,
|
|
All at the windows, open wide,—
|
|
Heads and shoulders clear outside,
|
|
And fair young faces all ablush:
|
|
Perhaps you have seen, some day,
|
|
Roses crowding the self-same way,
|
|
Out of a wilding, wayside bush.
|
|
|
|
Listen closer. When you have done
|
|
With woods and cornfields and grazing herds,
|
|
A lady, the loveliest ever the sun
|
|
Looked down upon you must paint for me:
|
|
Oh, if I could only make you see
|
|
The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
|
|
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
|
|
The woman's soul, and the angel's face
|
|
That are beaming on me all the while,
|
|
I need not speak these foolish words:
|
|
Yet one word tells you all I would say,—
|
|
She is my mother: you will agree
|
|
That all the rest may be thrown away.
|
|
|
|
Two little urchins at her knee
|
|
You must paint, sir: one like me,—
|
|
The other with a clearer brow,
|
|
And the light of his adventurous eyes
|
|
Flashing with boldest enterprise:
|
|
At ten years old he went to sea,—
|
|
God knoweth if he be living now;
|
|
He sailed in the good ship "Commodore,"—
|
|
Nobody ever crossed her track
|
|
To bring us news, and she never came back.
|
|
Ah, it is twenty long years and more
|
|
Since that old ship went out of the bay
|
|
With my great-hearted brother on her deck:
|
|
I watched him till he shrank to a speck,
|
|
And his face was toward me all the way.
|
|
Bright his hair was, a golden brown,
|
|
The time we stood at our mother's knee:
|
|
That beauteous head, if it did go down,
|
|
Carried sunshine into the sea!
|
|
|
|
Out in the fields one summer night
|
|
We were together, half afraid
|
|
Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade
|
|
Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,—
|
|
Loitering till after the low little light
|
|
Of the candle shone through the open door,
|
|
And over the hay-stack's pointed top,
|
|
All of a tremble and ready to drop,
|
|
The first half-hoar, the great yellow star,
|
|
That we, with staring, ignorant eyes,
|
|
Had often and often watched to see
|
|
Propped and held in its place in the skies
|
|
By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree,
|
|
Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,—
|
|
Dead at the top, just one branch full
|
|
Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool,
|
|
From which it tenderly shook the dew
|
|
Over our heads, when we came to play
|
|
In its hand-breadth of shadow, day after day.
|
|
Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore
|
|
A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,—
|
|
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,
|
|
Not so big as a straw of wheat:
|
|
The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat,
|
|
But cried and cried, till we held her bill,
|
|
So slim and shining, to keep her still.
|
|
|
|
At last we stood at our mother's knee.
|
|
Do you think, sir, if you try,
|
|
You can paint the look of a lie?
|
|
If you can, pray have the grace
|
|
To put it solely in the face
|
|
Of the urchin that is likest me:
|
|
I think 'twas solely mine, indeed:
|
|
But that's no matter,—paint it so;
|
|
The eyes of our mother—(take good heed)—
|
|
Looking not on the nestful of eggs,
|
|
Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs,
|
|
But straight through our faces down to our lies,
|
|
And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise!
|
|
I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though
|
|
A sharp blade struck through it.
|
|
|
|
You, sir, know
|
|
That you on the canvas are to repeat
|
|
Things that are fairest, things most sweet,—
|
|
Woods and cornfields and mulberry-tree,—
|
|
The mother,—the lads, with their bird at her knee:
|
|
But, oh, that look of reproachful woe!
|
|
High as the heavens your name I'll shout,
|
|
If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.
|
|
|
|
Alice Cary.
|
|
The bravest battle that ever was fought!
|
|
Shall I tell you where and when?
|
|
On the map of the world you will find it not,
|
|
'Twas fought by the mothers of men.
|
|
|
|
Nay, not with cannon or battle shot,
|
|
With sword or nobler pen,
|
|
Nay, not with eloquent words or thought
|
|
From mouths of wonderful men;
|
|
|
|
But deep in the walled-up woman's heart—
|
|
Of woman that would not yield,
|
|
But bravely, silently, bore her part—
|
|
Lo, there is the battle field!
|
|
|
|
No marshaling troup, no bivouac song,
|
|
No banner to gleam or wave,
|
|
But oh, these battles, they last so long—
|
|
From babyhood to the grave.
|
|
|
|
Yet, faithful as a bridge of stars,
|
|
She fights in her walled-up town—
|
|
Fights on and on in the endless wars,
|
|
Then, silent, unseen, goes down.
|
|
|
|
Oh, ye with banner and battle shot,
|
|
And soldiers to shout and praises
|
|
I tell you the kingliest victories fought
|
|
Were fought in those silent ways.
|
|
|
|
Oh, spotless in a world of shame,
|
|
With splendid and silent scorn,
|
|
Go back to God as white as you came—
|
|
The kingliest warrior born!
|
|
|
|
Joaquin Miller.
|
|
Bob went lookin' for a job—
|
|
Didn't want a situation; didn't ask a lofty station:
|
|
Didn't have a special mission for a topnotcher's position;
|
|
Didn't have such fine credentials—but he had the real essentials—
|
|
Had a head that kept on workin' and two hands that were not shirkin';
|
|
Wasn't either shirk or snob;
|
|
Wasn't Mister—just plain Bob,
|
|
Who was lookin' for a job.
|
|
|
|
Bob went lookin' for a job;
|
|
And he wasn't scared or daunted when he saw a sign—"Men Wanted,"
|
|
Walked right in with manner fittin' up to where the Boss was sittin',
|
|
And he said: "My name is Bob, and I'm lookin' for a job;
|
|
And if you're the Boss that hires 'em, starts 'em working and that fires 'em,
|
|
Put my name right down here, Neighbor, as a candidate for labor;
|
|
For my name is just plain 'Bob,
|
|
And my pulses sort o' throb
|
|
For that thing they call a job."
|
|
Bob kept askin' for a job,
|
|
And the Boss, he says: "What kind?" And Bob answered: "Never mind;
|
|
For I am not a bit partic'ler and I never was a stickler
|
|
For proprieties in workin'—if you got some labor lurkin'
|
|
Anywhere around about kindly go and trot it out.
|
|
It's, a job I want, you see—
|
|
Any kind that there may be
|
|
Will be good enough for me."
|
|
|
|
Well, sir, Bob he got a job.
|
|
But the Boss went 'round all day in a dreamy sort of way;
|
|
And he says to me: "By thunder, we have got the world's Eighth Wonder!
|
|
Got a feller name of Bob who just asked me for a job—
|
|
Never asks when he engages about overtime in wages;
|
|
Never asked if he'd get pay by the hour or by the day;
|
|
Never asked me if it's airy work and light and sanitary;
|
|
Never asked me for my notion of the chances of promotion;
|
|
Never asked for the duration of his annual vacation;
|
|
Never asked for Saturday half-a-holiday with pay;
|
|
Never took me on probation till he tried the situation;
|
|
Never asked me if it's sittin' work or standin', or befittin'
|
|
Of his birth and inclination—he just filed his application,
|
|
Hung his coat up on a knob,
|
|
Said his name was just plain Bob—
|
|
And went workin' at a job!"
|
|
|
|
James W. Foley.
|
|
Whatever I do and whatever I say,
|
|
Aunt Tabitha tells me it isn't the way
|
|
When she was a girl (forty summers ago);
|
|
Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.
|
|
|
|
Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice!
|
|
But I like my own way, and I find it so nice!
|
|
And besides, I forget half the things I am told;
|
|
But they all will come back to me—when I am old.
|
|
|
|
If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt,
|
|
He may chance to look in as I chance to look out;
|
|
She would never endure an impertinent stare—
|
|
It is horrid, she says, and I mustn't sit there.
|
|
|
|
A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own,
|
|
But it isn't quite safe to be walking alone;
|
|
So I take a lad's arm—just for safety you know—
|
|
But Aunt Tabitha tells me they didn't do so.
|
|
|
|
How wicked we are, and how good they were then!
|
|
They kept at arm's length those detestable men;
|
|
What an era of virtue she lived in!—But stay—
|
|
Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day?
|
|
|
|
If the men were so wicked, I'll ask my papa
|
|
How he dared to propose to my darling mamma;
|
|
Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! Who knows?
|
|
And what shall I say, if a wretch should propose?
|
|
|
|
I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin,
|
|
What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been!
|
|
And her grand-aunt—it scares me—how shockingly sad
|
|
That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!
|
|
|
|
A martyr will save us, and nothing else can,
|
|
Let me perish —to rescue some wretched young man!
|
|
Though when to the altar a victim I go,
|
|
Aunt Tabitha'll tell me she never did so!
|
|
You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes,
|
|
How many soever they be,
|
|
And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges,
|
|
Come over, come over to me.
|
|
|
|
Yet birds' clearest carol by fall or by swelling
|
|
No magical sense conveys,
|
|
And bells have forgotten their old art of telling
|
|
The fortune of future days.
|
|
|
|
"Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheerily.
|
|
While a boy listened alone;
|
|
Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily
|
|
All by himself on a stone.
|
|
|
|
Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over,
|
|
And mine, they are yet to be;
|
|
No listening, no longing shall aught, aught discover:
|
|
You leave the story to me.
|
|
|
|
The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather,
|
|
Preparing her hoods of snow:
|
|
She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather:
|
|
Oh, children take long to grow.
|
|
|
|
I wish and I wish that the spring would go faster,
|
|
Nor long summer bide so late;
|
|
And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster,
|
|
For some things are ill to wait.
|
|
|
|
I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover,
|
|
While dear hands are laid on my head:
|
|
"The child is a woman, the book may close over,
|
|
For all the lessons are said."
|
|
|
|
I wait for my story—the birds cannot sing it,
|
|
Not one, as he sits on the tree;
|
|
The bells cannot ring it, but long years, oh bring it!
|
|
Such as I wish it to be.
|
|
|
|
Jean Ingelow.
|
|
Ere, in the northern gale,
|
|
The summer tresses of the trees are gone,
|
|
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale,
|
|
Have put their glory on.
|
|
|
|
The mountains that infold,
|
|
In their wide sweep, the colored landscape round,
|
|
Seem groups of giant kings, in purple and gold,
|
|
That guard the enchanted ground.
|
|
|
|
I roam the woods that crown
|
|
The upland, where the mingled splendors glow,
|
|
Where the gay company of trees look down
|
|
On the green fields below.
|
|
|
|
My steps are not alone
|
|
In these bright walks; the sweet southwest, at play,
|
|
Flies, rustling, where the painted leaves are strown
|
|
Along the winding way.
|
|
|
|
And far in heaven, the while,
|
|
The sun, that sends that gale to wander here,
|
|
Pours out on the fair earth his quiet smile,—
|
|
The sweetest of the year.
|
|
|
|
Where now the solemn shade,
|
|
Verdure and gloom where many branches meet;
|
|
So grateful, when the noon of summer made
|
|
The valleys sick with heat?
|
|
|
|
Let in through all the trees
|
|
Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright;
|
|
Their sunny-colored foliage, in the breeze,
|
|
Twinkles, like beams of light.
|
|
|
|
The rivulet, late unseen,
|
|
Where bickering through the shrubs its waters run,
|
|
Shines with the image of its golden screen
|
|
And glimmerings of the sun.
|
|
|
|
But 'neath yon crimson tree,
|
|
Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
|
|
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,
|
|
Her blush of maiden shame.
|
|
|
|
Oh, Autumn! why so soon
|
|
Depart the hues that make thy forests glad;
|
|
Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon,
|
|
And leave thee wild and sad?
|
|
|
|
Ah! 'twere a lot too blessed
|
|
Forever in thy colored shades to stray;
|
|
Amid the kisses of the soft southwest
|
|
To rove and dream for aye;
|
|
|
|
And leave the vain low strife
|
|
That makes men mad—the tug for wealth and power,
|
|
The passions and the cares that wither life,
|
|
And waste its little hour.
|
|
|
|
William Cullen Bryant.
|
|
Did you ever hear of the Drummer Boy of Mission Ridge, who lay
|
|
With his face to the foe, 'neath the enemy's guns, in the charge of that terrible day?
|
|
They were firing above him and firing below, and the tempest of shot and shell
|
|
Was raging like death, as he moaned in his pain, by the breastworks where he fell.
|
|
|
|
"Go back with your corps," our colonel had said, but he waited the moment when
|
|
He might follow the ranks and shoulder a gun with the best of us bearded men;
|
|
And so when the signals from old Fort Wood set an army of veterans wild,
|
|
He flung down his drum, which spun down the hill like the ball of a wayward child.
|
|
|
|
And then he fell in with the foremost ranks of brave old company G,
|
|
As we charged by the flank, with our colors ahead, and our columns closed up like a V,
|
|
In the long, swinging lines of that splendid advance, when the flags of our corps floated out,
|
|
Like the ribbons that dance in the jubilant lines of the march of a gala day rout.
|
|
|
|
He charged with the ranks, though he carried no gun, for the colonel had said him nay,
|
|
And he breasted the blast of the bristling guns, and the shock of the sickening fray;
|
|
And when by his side they were falling like hail he sprang to a comrade slain,
|
|
And shouldered his musket and bore it as true as the hand that was dead in pain.
|
|
|
|
'Twas dearly we loved him, our Drummer Boy, with a fire in his bright, black eye,
|
|
That flashed forth a spirit too great for his form—he only was just so high,
|
|
As tall, perhaps, as your little lad who scarcely reaches your shoulder—
|
|
Though his heart was the heart of a veteran then, a trifle, it may be, bolder.
|
|
|
|
He pressed to the front, our lad so leal, and the works were almost won,
|
|
A moment more and our flags had swung o'er the muzzle of murderous gun;
|
|
But a raking fire swept the van, and he fell 'mid the wounded and slain,
|
|
With his wee wan face turned up to Him who feeleth His children's pain.
|
|
|
|
Again and again our lines fell back, and again with shivering shocks
|
|
They flung themselves on the rebels' works as ships are tossed on rocks;
|
|
To be crushed and broken and scattered amain, as the wrecks of the surging storm.
|
|
Where none may rue and none may reck of aught that has human form.
|
|
|
|
So under the ridge we were lying for the order to charge again,
|
|
And we counted our comrades missing, and we counted our comrades slain;
|
|
And one said, "Johnny, our Drummer Boy, is grievously shot and lies
|
|
Just under the enemy's breastwork; if left on the field he dies."
|
|
|
|
Then all the blood that was in me surged up to my aching brow,
|
|
And my heart leaped up like a ball in my throat—I can feel it even now,
|
|
And I said I would bring that boy from the field, if God would spare my breath,
|
|
If all the guns in Mission Ridge should thunder the threat of death.
|
|
|
|
I crept and crept up the ghastly ridge, by the wounded and the dead,
|
|
With the moans of my comrades right and left, behind me and yet ahead,
|
|
Till I came to the form of our Drummer Boy, in his blouse of dusty blue,
|
|
With his face to the foe, 'neath the enemy's guns, where the blast of the battle blew.
|
|
|
|
And his gaze as he met my own just there would have melted a heart of stone,
|
|
As he tried like a wounded bird to rise, and placed his hand in my own;
|
|
And he said in a voice half smothered, though its whispering thrills me yet,
|
|
"I think in a moment more that I would have stood on that parapet.
|
|
|
|
"But now I nevermore will climb, and, Sergeant, when you see
|
|
The men go up those breastworks there, just stop and waken me;
|
|
For though I cannot make the charge and join the cheers that rise,
|
|
I may forget my pain to see the old flag kiss the skies."
|
|
|
|
Well, it was hard to treat him so, his poor limb shattered sore,
|
|
But I raised him on my shoulder and to the surgeon bore;
|
|
And the boys who saw us coming each gave a shout of joy,
|
|
And uttered fervent prayers for him, our valiant Drummer Boy.
|
|
|
|
When sped the news that "Fighting Joe" had saved the Union right,
|
|
With his legions fresh from Lookout; and that Thomas massed his might
|
|
And forced the rebel center; and our cheering ran like wild;
|
|
And Sherman's heart was happy as the heart of a little child;
|
|
|
|
When Grant from his lofty outlook saw our flags by the hundred fly
|
|
Along the slopes of Mission Ridge, where'er he cast his eye;
|
|
And when we heard the thrilling news of the mighty battle done,
|
|
The fearful contest ended, and the glorious victory won;
|
|
|
|
Then his bright black eyes so yearning grew strangely rapt and wide,
|
|
And in that hour of conquest our little hero died.
|
|
But ever in our hearts he dwells, with a grace that ne'er is old,
|
|
For him the heart to duty wed can nevermore grow cold!
|
|
|
|
And when they tell of heroes, and the laurels they have won,
|
|
Of the scars they are doomed to carry, of the deeds that they have done;
|
|
Of the horror to be biding among the ghastly dead,
|
|
The gory sod beneath them, the bursting shell o'erhead,
|
|
|
|
My heart goes back to Mission Ridge and the Drummer Boy who lay
|
|
With his face to the foe, 'neath the enemy's guns, in the charge of that terrible day;
|
|
And I say that the land that bears such sons is crowned and dowered with all
|
|
The dear God giveth nations to stay them lest they fall.
|
|
|
|
Oh, glory of Mission Ridge, stream on, like the roseate light of morn,
|
|
On the sons that now are living, on the sons that are yet unborn!
|
|
And cheers for our comrades living, and tears as they pass away!
|
|
And three times three for the Drummer Boy who fought at the front that day!
|
|
If you can keep your head when all about you
|
|
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
|
|
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
|
|
But make allowance for their doubting too;
|
|
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
|
|
Or being lied about don't deal in lies,
|
|
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
|
|
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
|
|
|
|
If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
|
|
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
|
|
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
|
|
And treat those two impostors just the same;
|
|
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
|
|
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
|
|
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
|
|
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
|
|
|
|
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
|
|
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss.
|
|
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
|
|
And never breathe a word about your loss;
|
|
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
|
|
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
|
|
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
|
|
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
|
|
|
|
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
|
|
Or walk with Kings nor lose the common touch;
|
|
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
|
|
If all men count with you, but none too much;
|
|
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
|
|
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
|
|
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
|
|
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
|
|
|
|
Rudyard Kipling.
|
|
Some boys are mad when comp'ny comes to stay for meals. They hate
|
|
To have the other people eat while boys must wait and wait,
|
|
But I've about made up my mind I'm different from the rest,
|
|
For as for me, I b'lieve I like the second table best.
|
|
|
|
To eat along with comp'ny is so trying, for it's tough
|
|
To sit and watch the victuals when you dassent touch the stuff.
|
|
You see your father serving out the dark meat and the light
|
|
Until a boy is sure he'll starve before he gets a bite.
|
|
|
|
And when, he asks you what you'll have,—you've heard it all before,—
|
|
You know you'll get just what you get and won't get nothing more;
|
|
For, when you want another piece, your mother winks her eye,
|
|
And so you say, "I've plenty, thanks!" and tell a whopping lie.
|
|
|
|
When comp'ny is a-watching you, you've got to be polite,
|
|
And eat your victuals with a fork and take a little bite.
|
|
You can't have nothing till you're asked and, 'cause a boy is small,
|
|
Folks think he isn't hungry, and he's never asked at all.
|
|
|
|
Since I can first remember I've been told that when the cake
|
|
Is passed around, the proper thing is for a boy to take
|
|
The piece that's nearest to him, and so all I ever got,
|
|
When comp'ny's been to our house, was the smallest in the lot.
|
|
|
|
It worries boys like everything to have the comp'ny stay
|
|
A-setting round the table, like they couldn't get away.
|
|
But when they've gone, and left the whole big shooting match to me,
|
|
Say! ain't it fun to just wade in and help myself? Oh, gee!
|
|
|
|
With no one round to notice what you're doing—bet your life!—
|
|
Boys don't use forks to eat with when they'd rather use a knife,
|
|
Nor take such little bites as when they're eating with the rest
|
|
And so, for lots of things, I like the second table best
|
|
|
|
Nixon Waterman.
|
|
When the lessons and tasks are all ended,
|
|
And the school for the day is dismissed,
|
|
And the little ones gather around me,
|
|
To bid me good night and be kissed;
|
|
Oh, the little white arms that encircle
|
|
My neck in their tender embrace!
|
|
Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
|
|
Shedding sunshine of love on my face!
|
|
|
|
And when they are gone, I sit dreaming
|
|
Of my childhood, too lovely to last;
|
|
Of love that my heart will remember
|
|
When it wakes to the pulse of the past,
|
|
Ere the world and its wickedness made me
|
|
A partner of sorrow and sin,—
|
|
When the glory of God was about me,
|
|
And the glory of gladness within.
|
|
|
|
All my heart grows weak as a woman's
|
|
And the fountains of feeling will flow,
|
|
When I think of the paths steep and stony,
|
|
Where the feet of the dear ones must go;
|
|
Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,
|
|
Of the tempest of Fate blowing wild;
|
|
Oh, there's nothing on earth half so holy
|
|
As the innocent heart of a child!
|
|
|
|
They are idols of hearts and of households;
|
|
They are angels of God in disguise;
|
|
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
|
|
His glory still gleams in their eyes;
|
|
Oh, these truants from home and from heaven,—
|
|
They have made me more manly and mild;
|
|
And I know now how Jesus could liken
|
|
The kingdom of God to a child!
|
|
|
|
I ask not a life for the dear ones
|
|
All radiant, as others have done,
|
|
But that life may have just enough shadow
|
|
To temper the glare of the sun;
|
|
I would pray God to guard them from evil,
|
|
But my prayer would bound back to myself;
|
|
Ah! a seraph may pray for a sinner,
|
|
But a sinner must pray for himself.
|
|
|
|
The twig is so easily bended,
|
|
I have banished the rule and the rod;
|
|
I have taught them the goodness of knowledge,
|
|
They have taught me the goodness of God.
|
|
My heart is the dungeon of darkness,
|
|
Where I shut them for breaking a rule;
|
|
My frown is sufficient correction;
|
|
My love is the law of the school.
|
|
|
|
I shall leave the old house in the autumn,
|
|
To traverse its threshold no more;
|
|
Ah! how shall I sigh for the dear ones
|
|
That meet me each morn at the door!
|
|
I shall miss the "good nights" and the kisses,
|
|
And the gush of their innocent glee.
|
|
The group on its green, and the flowers
|
|
That are brought every morning to me.
|
|
|
|
I shall miss them at morn and at even,
|
|
Their song in the school and the street;
|
|
I shall miss the low hum of their voices,
|
|
And the tread of their delicate feet.
|
|
When the lessons of life are all ended,
|
|
And death says, "The school is dismissed!"
|
|
May the little ones gather around me
|
|
To bid me good night and be kissed!
|
|
|
|
Charles M. Dickinson.
|
|
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
|
|
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
|
|
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
|
|
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
|
|
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
|
|
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
|
|
And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
|
|
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,—
|
|
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
|
|
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
|
|
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
|
|
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
|
|
The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
|
|
Gave a luster of midday to objects below:
|
|
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
|
|
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,
|
|
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
|
|
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
|
|
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
|
|
And he whistled and shouted, and called them by name:
|
|
"Now, Dasher! now Dancer! now, Prancer! now Vixen!
|
|
On, Comet, on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!—
|
|
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
|
|
Now, dash away, dash sway, dash away all!"
|
|
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
|
|
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
|
|
So, up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
|
|
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too,
|
|
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof
|
|
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
|
|
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
|
|
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
|
|
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
|
|
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
|
|
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
|
|
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
|
|
His eyes how they twinkled; his dimples how merry!
|
|
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
|
|
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
|
|
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
|
|
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
|
|
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.
|
|
He had a broad face and a little round belly
|
|
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
|
|
He was chubby and plump—a right jolly old elf—
|
|
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
|
|
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
|
|
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
|
|
He spake not a word, but went straight to his work,
|
|
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
|
|
And laying his finger aside of his nose
|
|
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
|
|
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
|
|
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
|
|
But I heard him exclaim, ere they drove out of sight,
|
|
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"
|
|
|
|
Clement C. Moore.
|
|
If you cannot on the ocean
|
|
Sail among the swiftest fleet,
|
|
Rocking on the highest billows,
|
|
Laughing at the storms you meet,
|
|
You can stand among the sailors,
|
|
Anchored yet within the bay,
|
|
You can lend a hand to help them,
|
|
As they launch their boats away.
|
|
|
|
If you are too weak to journey
|
|
Up the mountain steep and high,
|
|
You can stand within the valley,
|
|
While the multitudes go by;
|
|
You can chant in happy measure,
|
|
As they slowly pass along;
|
|
Though they may forget the singer,
|
|
They will not forget the song.
|
|
|
|
If you have not gold and silver
|
|
Ever ready to command,
|
|
If you cannot towards the needy
|
|
Reach an ever-open hand,
|
|
You can visit the afflicted,
|
|
O'er the erring you can weep,
|
|
You can be a true disciple,
|
|
Sitting at the Savior's feet.
|
|
|
|
If you cannot in the conflict,
|
|
Prove yourself a soldier true,
|
|
If where fire and smoke are thickest,
|
|
There's no work for you to do,
|
|
When the battle-field is silent,
|
|
You can go with careful tread,
|
|
You can bear away the wounded,
|
|
You can cover up the dead.
|
|
|
|
Do not then stand idly waiting
|
|
For some greater work to do,
|
|
Fortune is a lazy goddess,
|
|
She will never come to you.
|
|
Go and toil in any vineyard,
|
|
Do not fear to do or dare,
|
|
If you want a field of labor,
|
|
You can find it anywhere.
|
|
|
|
Ellen H. Gates.
|
|
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
|
|
In the peace of their self-content;
|
|
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart,
|
|
In a fellowless firmament;
|
|
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
|
|
Where highways never ran;
|
|
But let me live by the side of the road
|
|
And be a friend to man.
|
|
|
|
Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
|
|
Where the race of men go by,
|
|
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
|
|
As good and as bad as I.
|
|
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
|
|
Or hurl the cynic's ban;
|
|
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
|
|
And be a friend to man.
|
|
|
|
I see from my house by the side of the road,
|
|
By the side of the highway of life,
|
|
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
|
|
The men who are faint with the strife.
|
|
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears,
|
|
Both parts of an infinite plan;
|
|
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
|
|
And be a friend to man.
|
|
|
|
I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
|
|
And mountains of wearisome height;
|
|
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
|
|
And stretches away to the night.
|
|
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
|
|
And weep with the strangers that moan.
|
|
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
|
|
Like a man who dwells alone.
|
|
|
|
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
|
|
Where the race of men go by;
|
|
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
|
|
Wise, foolish—so am I.
|
|
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
|
|
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
|
|
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
|
|
And be a friend to man.
|
|
|
|
Sam Walter Foss.
|
|
The first thing that I remember was Carlo tugging away,
|
|
With the sleeve of my coat fast in his teeth, pulling, as much as to say:
|
|
"Come, master, awake, attend to the switch, lives now depend upon you.
|
|
Think of the souls in the coming train, and the graves you are sending them to.
|
|
Think of the mother and the babe at her breast, think of the father and son,
|
|
Think of the lover and the loved one too, think of them doomed every one
|
|
To fall (as it were by your very hand) into yon fathomless ditch,
|
|
Murdered by one who should guard them from harm, who now lies asleep at the switch."
|
|
|
|
I sprang up amazed—scarce knew where I stood, sleep had o'ermastered me so;
|
|
I could hear the wind hollowly howling, and the deep river dashing below,
|
|
I could hear the forest leaves rustling, as the trees by the tempest were fanned,
|
|
But what was that noise in the distance? That, I could not understand.
|
|
I heard it at first indistinctly, like the rolling of some muffled drum,
|
|
Then nearer and nearer it came to me, till it made my very ears hum;
|
|
What is this light that surrounds me and seems to set fire to my brain?
|
|
What whistle's that, yelling so shrill? Ah! I know now; it's the train.
|
|
|
|
We often stand facing some danger, and seem to take root to the place;
|
|
So I stood—with this demon before me, its heated breath scorching my face;
|
|
Its headlight made day of the darkness, and glared like the eyes of some witch,—
|
|
The train was almost upon me before I remembered the switch.
|
|
I sprang to it, seizing it wildly, the train dashing fast down the track;
|
|
The switch resisted my efforts, some devil seemed holding it back;
|
|
On, on came the fiery-eyed monster, and shot by my face like a flash;
|
|
I swooned to the earth the next moment, and knew nothing after the crash.
|
|
|
|
How long I lay there unconscious 'twas impossible for me to tell;
|
|
My stupor was almost a heaven, my waking almost a hell,—
|
|
For then I heard the piteous moaning and shrieking of husbands and wives,
|
|
And I thought of the day we all shrink from, when I must account for their lives;
|
|
Mothers rushed by me like maniacs, their eyes glaring madly and wild;
|
|
Fathers, losing their courage, gave way to their grief like a child;
|
|
Children searching for parents, I noticed, as by me they sped,
|
|
And lips, that could form naught but "Mamma," were calling for one perhaps dead.
|
|
|
|
My mind was made up in a moment, the river should hide me away,
|
|
When, under the still burning rafters I suddenly noticed there lay
|
|
A little white hand; she who owned it was doubtless an object of love
|
|
To one whom her loss would drive frantic, though she guarded him now from above;
|
|
I tenderly lifted the rafters and quietly laid them one side;
|
|
How little she thought of her journey when she left for this dark, fatal ride!
|
|
I lifted the last log from off her, and while searching for some spark of life,
|
|
Turned her little face up in the starlight, and recognized—Maggie, my wife!
|
|
|
|
O Lord! my scourge is a hard one, at a blow thou hast shattered my pride;
|
|
My life will be one endless nightmare, with Maggie away from my side.
|
|
How often I'd sat down and pictured the scenes in our long, happy life;
|
|
How I'd strive through all my lifetime, to build up a home for my wife;
|
|
How people would envy us always in our cozy and neat little nest;
|
|
How I should do all the labor, and Maggie should all the day rest;
|
|
How one of God's blessings might cheer us, how some day I perhaps should be rich:—
|
|
But all of my dreams had been shattered, while I lay there asleep at the switch!
|
|
|
|
I fancied I stood on my trial, the jury and judge I could see;
|
|
And every eye in the court room was steadily fixed upon me;
|
|
And fingers were pointed in scorn, till I felt my face blushing blood-red,
|
|
And the next thing I heard were the words, "Hanged by the neck until dead."
|
|
Then I felt myself pulled once again, and my hand caught tight hold of a dress,
|
|
And I heard, "What's the matter, dear Jim? You've had a bad nightmare, I guess!"
|
|
And there stood Maggie, my wife, with never a scar from the ditch,
|
|
I'd been taking a nap in my bed, and had not been "asleep at the switch."
|
|
|
|
George Hoey.
|
|
Come, listen all unto my song;
|
|
It is no silly fable;
|
|
'Tis all about the mighty cord
|
|
They call the Atlantic Cable.
|
|
|
|
Bold Cyrus Field he said, says he,
|
|
I have a pretty notion
|
|
That I can run the telegraph
|
|
Across the Atlantic Ocean.
|
|
|
|
Then all the people laughed, and said
|
|
They'd like to see him do it;
|
|
He might get half-seas over, but
|
|
He never could go through it;
|
|
|
|
To carry out his foolish plan
|
|
He never would be able;
|
|
He might as well go hang himself
|
|
With his Atlantic Cable.
|
|
|
|
But Cyrus was a valiant man,
|
|
A fellow of decision;
|
|
And heeded not their mocking words,
|
|
Their laughter and derision.
|
|
|
|
Twice did his bravest efforts fail,
|
|
And yet his mind was stable;
|
|
He wa'n't the man to break his heart
|
|
Because he broke his cable.
|
|
|
|
"Once more, my gallant boys!" he cried;
|
|
"Three times!—you know the fable,—
|
|
(I'll make it thirty," muttered he,
|
|
"But I will lay this cable!")
|
|
|
|
Once more they tried—hurrah! hurrah!
|
|
What means this great commotion?
|
|
The Lord be praised! the cable's laid
|
|
Across the Atlantic Ocean.
|
|
|
|
Loud ring the bells,—for, flashing through
|
|
Six hundred leagues of water,
|
|
Old Mother England's benison
|
|
Salutes her eldest daughter.
|
|
|
|
O'er all the land the tidings speed,
|
|
And soon, in every nation,
|
|
They'll hear about the cable with
|
|
Profoundest admiration!
|
|
|
|
And may we honor evermore
|
|
The manly, bold, and stable;
|
|
And tell our sons, to make them brave,
|
|
How Cyrus laid the cable.
|
|
|
|
John G. Saxe.
|
|
Jane Jones keeps talkin' to me all the time,
|
|
An' says you must make it a rule
|
|
To study your lessons 'nd work hard 'nd learn,
|
|
An' never be absent from school.
|
|
Remember the story of Elihu Burritt,
|
|
An' how he clum up to the top,
|
|
Got all the knowledge 'at he ever had
|
|
Down in a blacksmithing shop?
|
|
Jane Jones she honestly said it was so!
|
|
Mebbe he did—
|
|
I dunno!
|
|
O' course what's a-keepin' me 'way from the top,
|
|
Is not never havin' no blacksmithing shop.
|
|
|
|
She said 'at Ben Franklin was awfully poor,
|
|
But full of ambition an' brains;
|
|
An' studied philosophy all his hull life,
|
|
An' see what he got for his pains!
|
|
He brought electricity out of the sky,
|
|
With a kite an' a bottle an' key,
|
|
An' we're owing him more'n any one else
|
|
For all the bright lights 'at we see.
|
|
Jane Jones she honestly said it was so!
|
|
Mebbe he did—
|
|
I dunno!
|
|
O' course what's allers been hinderin' me
|
|
Is not havin' any kite, lightning er key.
|
|
|
|
Jane Jones said Abe Lincoln had no books at all,
|
|
An' used to split rails when a boy;
|
|
An' General Grant was a tanner by trade
|
|
An' lived 'way out in Illinois.
|
|
So when the great war in the South first broke out
|
|
He stood on the side o' the right,
|
|
An' when Lincoln called him to take charge o' things,
|
|
He won nearly every blamed fight.
|
|
Jane Jones she honestly said it was so!
|
|
Mebbe he did—
|
|
I dunno!
|
|
Still I ain't to blame, not by a big sight,
|
|
For I ain't never had any battles to fight.
|
|
|
|
She said 'at Columbus was out at the knees
|
|
When he first thought up his big scheme,
|
|
An' told all the Spaniards 'nd Italians, too,
|
|
An' all of 'em said 'twas a dream.
|
|
But Queen Isabella jest listened to him,
|
|
'Nd pawned all her jewels o' worth,
|
|
'Nd bought him the Santa Maria 'nd said,
|
|
"Go hunt up the rest o' the earth!"
|
|
Mebbe he did—
|
|
I dunno!
|
|
O' course that may be, but then you must allow
|
|
They ain't no land to discover jest now!
|
|
|
|
Ben King.
|
|
Mounted on Kyrat strong and fleet,
|
|
His chestnut steed with four white feet,
|
|
Roushan Beg, called Kurroglou,
|
|
Son of the road and bandit chief,
|
|
Seeking refuge and relief,
|
|
Up the mountain pathway flew.
|
|
|
|
Such was Kyrat's wondrous speed,
|
|
Never yet could any steed
|
|
Reach the dust-cloud in his course.
|
|
More than maiden, more than wife,
|
|
More than gold and next to life
|
|
Roushan the Robber loved his horse.
|
|
|
|
In the land that lies beyond
|
|
Erzeroum and Trebizond,
|
|
Garden-girt his fortress stood;
|
|
Plundered khan, or caravan
|
|
Journeying north from Koordistan,
|
|
Gave him wealth and wine and food.
|
|
|
|
Seven hundred and fourscore
|
|
Men at arms his livery wore,
|
|
Did his bidding night and day,
|
|
Now, through regions all unknown,
|
|
He was wandering, lost, alone,
|
|
Seeking without guide his way.
|
|
|
|
Suddenly the pathway ends,
|
|
Sheer the precipice descends,
|
|
Loud the torrent roars unseen;
|
|
Thirty feet from side to side
|
|
Yawns the chasm; on air must ride
|
|
He who crosses this ravine,
|
|
|
|
Following close in his pursuit,
|
|
At the precipice's foot
|
|
Reyhan the Arab of Orfah
|
|
Halted with his hundred men,
|
|
Shouting upward from the glen,
|
|
"La Illah illa Allah!"
|
|
|
|
Gently Roushan Beg caressed
|
|
Kyrat's forehead, neck, and breast,
|
|
Kissed him upon both his eyes;
|
|
Sang to him in his wild way,
|
|
As upon the topmost spray
|
|
Sings a bird before it flies.
|
|
|
|
"O my Kyrat, O my steed,
|
|
Round and slender as a reed,
|
|
Carry me this peril through!
|
|
Satin housings shall be thine,
|
|
Shoes of gold, O Kyrat mine,
|
|
O thou soul of Kurroglou!
|
|
|
|
"Soft thy skin as silken skein,
|
|
Soft as woman's hair thy mane,
|
|
Tender are thine eyes and true;
|
|
All thy hoofs like ivory shine,
|
|
Polished bright; O life of mine,
|
|
Leap, and rescue Kurroglou!"
|
|
|
|
Kyrat, then, the strong and fleet,
|
|
Drew together his four white feet,
|
|
Paused a moment on the verge,
|
|
Measured with his eye the space,
|
|
And into the air's embrace
|
|
Leaped, as leaps the ocean surge.
|
|
|
|
As the ocean surge o'er sand
|
|
Bears a swimmer safe to land,
|
|
Kyrat safe his rider bore;
|
|
Rattling down the deep abyss,
|
|
Fragments of the precipice
|
|
Rolled like pebbles on a shore.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Roushan's tasseled cap of red
|
|
Trembled not upon his head,
|
|
Careless sat he and upright;
|
|
Neither hand nor bridle shook,
|
|
Nor his head he turned to look,
|
|
As he galloped out of sight.
|
|
|
|
Flash of harness in the air,
|
|
Seen a moment like the glare
|
|
Of a sword drawn from its sheath;
|
|
Thus the phantom horseman passed,
|
|
And the shadow that he cast
|
|
Leaped the cataract underneath.
|
|
|
|
Reyhan the Arab held his breath
|
|
While this vision of life and death
|
|
Passed above him. "Allahu!"
|
|
Cried he. "In all Koordistan
|
|
Lives there not so brave a man
|
|
As this Robber Kurroglou!"
|
|
|
|
Henry W. Longfellow.
|
|
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
|
|
"Life is but an empty dream!"
|
|
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
|
|
And things are not what they seem.
|
|
|
|
Life is real! Life is earnest!
|
|
And the grave is not its goal;
|
|
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
|
|
Was not spoken of the soul.
|
|
|
|
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
|
|
Is our destined end or way;
|
|
But to act that each to-morrow
|
|
Finds us farther than to-day.
|
|
|
|
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
|
|
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
|
|
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
|
|
Funeral marches to the grave.
|
|
|
|
In the world's broad field of battle,
|
|
In the bivouac of Life,
|
|
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
|
|
Be a hero in the strife!
|
|
|
|
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
|
|
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
|
|
Act, act in the living Present!
|
|
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
|
|
|
|
Lives of great men all remind us
|
|
We can make our lives sublime,
|
|
And, departing, leave behind us
|
|
Footprints on the sands of time;
|
|
|
|
Footprints, that perhaps another,
|
|
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
|
|
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
|
|
Seeing, shall take heart again.
|
|
|
|
Let us, then, be up and doing,
|
|
With a heart for any fate;
|
|
Still achieving, still pursuing,
|
|
Learn to labor and to wait.
|
|
|
|
Henry W. Longfellow.
|
|
I think, of all the things at school
|
|
A boy has got to do,
|
|
That studyin' hist'ry, as a rule,
|
|
Is worst of all, don't you?
|
|
Of dates there are an awful sight,
|
|
An' though I study day an' night,
|
|
There's only one I've got just right—
|
|
That's fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
|
|
Columbus crossed the Delaware
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two;
|
|
We whipped the British, fair an' square,
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
At Concord an' at Lexington.
|
|
We kept the redcoats on the run,
|
|
While the band played Johnny Get Your Gun,
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
|
|
Pat Henry, with his dyin' breath—
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two—
|
|
Said, "Gimme liberty or death!"
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
An' Barbara Frietchie, so 'tis said,
|
|
Cried, "Shoot if you must this old, gray head,
|
|
But I'd rather 'twould be your own instead!"
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
|
|
The Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two,
|
|
An' the Indians standin' on the dock
|
|
Asked, "What are you goin' to do?"
|
|
An' they said, "We seek your harbor drear
|
|
That our children's children's children dear
|
|
May boast that their forefathers landed here
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two."
|
|
|
|
Miss Pocahontas saved the life—
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two—
|
|
Of John Smith, an' became his wife
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
An' the Smith tribe started then an' there,
|
|
An' now there are John Smiths ev'rywhere,
|
|
But they didn't have any Smiths to spare
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
|
|
Kentucky was settled by Daniel Boone
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two,
|
|
An' I think the cow jumped over the moon
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
Ben Franklin flew his kite so high
|
|
He drew the lightnin' from the sky,
|
|
An' Washington couldn't tell a lie,
|
|
In fourteen ninety-two.
|
|
|
|
Nixon Waterman.
|
|
Singing through the forests, rattling over ridges,
|
|
Shooting under arches, rumbling over bridges,
|
|
Whizzing through the mountains, buzzing o'er the vale,—
|
|
Bless me! this is pleasant, riding on the rail!
|
|
|
|
Men of different stations in the eye of Fame,
|
|
Here are very quickly coming to the same;
|
|
High and lowly people, birds of every feather,
|
|
On a common level, traveling together!
|
|
|
|
Gentlemen in shorts, blooming very tall;
|
|
Gentlemen at large, talking very small;
|
|
Gentlemen in tights, with a loosish mien;
|
|
Gentlemen in gray, looking very green!
|
|
|
|
Gentlemen quite old, asking for the news;
|
|
Gentlemen in black, with a fit of blues;
|
|
Gentlemen in claret, sober as a vicar;
|
|
Gentlemen in tweed, dreadfully in liquor!
|
|
|
|
Stranger on the right looking very sunny,
|
|
Obviously reading something very funny.
|
|
Now the smiles are thicker—wonder what they mean?
|
|
Faith, he's got the Knickerbocker Magazine!
|
|
|
|
Stranger on the left, closing up his peepers;
|
|
Now he snores again, like the Seven Sleepers;
|
|
At his feet a volume gives the explanation,
|
|
How the man grew stupid from "association"!
|
|
|
|
Ancient maiden lady anxiously remarks
|
|
That there must be peril 'mong so many sparks;
|
|
Roguish-looking fellow, turning to the stranger,
|
|
Says 'tis his opinion she is out of danger!
|
|
|
|
Woman with her baby, sitting vis a vis;
|
|
Baby keeps a-squalling, woman looks at me;
|
|
Asks about the distance—says 'tis tiresome talking,
|
|
Noises of the cars are so very shocking!
|
|
|
|
Market woman, careful of the precious casket,
|
|
Knowing eggs are eggs, tightly holds her basket;
|
|
Feeling that a smash, if it came, would surely
|
|
Send her eggs to pot rather prematurely.
|
|
|
|
Singing through the forests, rattling over ridges,
|
|
Shooting under arches, rumbling over bridges,
|
|
Whizzing through the mountains, buzzing o'er the vale,—
|
|
Bless me! this is pleasant, riding on the rail!
|
|
|
|
J.G. Saxe.
|
|
"Who stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop;
|
|
The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop;
|
|
The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading
|
|
The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding
|
|
The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
|
|
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;
|
|
And the barber kept on shaving.
|
|
|
|
"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
|
|
Cried the youth, with a frown,
|
|
"How wrong the whole thing is,
|
|
How preposterous each wing is.
|
|
How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is—
|
|
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis!
|
|
I make no apology; I've learned owleology.
|
|
I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
|
|
And cannot be blinded to any deflections
|
|
Arising from unskilful fingers that fail
|
|
To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
|
|
Mister Brown! Mister Brown! Do take that bird down,
|
|
Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!"
|
|
And the barber kept on shaving.
|
|
|
|
"I've studied owls,
|
|
And other night fowls,
|
|
And I tell you
|
|
What I know to be true:
|
|
An owl cannot roost
|
|
With his limbs so unloosed;
|
|
No owl in this world
|
|
Ever had his claws curled,
|
|
Ever had his legs slanted,
|
|
Ever had his bill canted,
|
|
Ever had his neck screwed
|
|
Into that attitude.
|
|
He can't do it, because
|
|
'Tis against all bird laws.
|
|
Anatomy teaches,
|
|
Ornithology preaches,
|
|
An owl has a toe
|
|
That can't turn out so!
|
|
I've made the white owl my study for years,
|
|
And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!
|
|
Mister Brown, I'm amazed
|
|
You should be so gone crazed
|
|
As to put up a bird
|
|
In that posture absurd!
|
|
To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness;
|
|
The man who stuffed him don't half know his business!"
|
|
And the barber kept on shaving.
|
|
|
|
"Examine those eyes.
|
|
I'm filled with surprise
|
|
Taxidermists should pass
|
|
Off on you such poor glass;
|
|
So unnatural they seem
|
|
They'd make Audubon scream,
|
|
And John Burroughs laugh
|
|
To encounter such chaff.
|
|
Do take that bird down;
|
|
Have him stuffed again, Brown!"
|
|
And the barber kept on shaving.
|
|
|
|
"With some sawdust and bark
|
|
I could stuff in the dark
|
|
An owl better than that.
|
|
I could make an old hat
|
|
Look more like an owl
|
|
Than that horrid fowl,
|
|
Stuck up here so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
|
|
In fact, about him there's not one natural feather."
|
|
Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
|
|
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
|
|
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
|
|
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
|
|
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say:
|
|
"Your learning's at fault this time, anyway;
|
|
Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray.
|
|
I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good-day!"
|
|
And the barber kept on shaving.
|
|
|
|
James T. Fields.
|
|
The end has come, as come it must
|
|
To all things; in these sweet June days
|
|
The teacher and the scholar trust
|
|
Their parting feet to separate ways.
|
|
|
|
They part: but in the years to be
|
|
Shall pleasant memories cling to each,
|
|
As shells bear inland from the sea
|
|
The murmur of the rhythmic beach.
|
|
|
|
One knew the joys the sculptor knows
|
|
When, plastic to his lightest touch,
|
|
His clay-wrought model slowly grows
|
|
To that fine grace desired so much.
|
|
|
|
So daily grew before her eyes
|
|
The living shapes whereon she wrought,
|
|
Strong, tender, innocently wise,
|
|
The child's heart with the woman's thought.
|
|
|
|
And one shall never quite forget
|
|
The voice that called from dream and play,
|
|
The firm but kindly hand that set
|
|
Her feet in learning's pleasant way,—
|
|
|
|
The joy of Undine soul-possessed,
|
|
The wakening sense, the strange delight
|
|
That swelled the fabled statue's breast
|
|
And filled its clouded eyes with sight!
|
|
|
|
O Youth and Beauty, loved of all!
|
|
Ye pass from girlhood's gate of dreams;
|
|
In broader ways your footsteps fall,
|
|
Ye test the truth of all that seems.
|
|
|
|
Her little realm the teacher leaves,
|
|
She breaks her wand of power apart,
|
|
While, for your love and trust, she gives
|
|
The warm thanks of a grateful heart.
|
|
|
|
Hers is the sober summer noon
|
|
Contrasted with your morn of spring;
|
|
The waning with the waxing moon,
|
|
The folded with the outspread wing.
|
|
|
|
Across the distance of the years
|
|
She sends her God-speed back to you;
|
|
She has no thought of doubts or fears;
|
|
Be but yourselves, be pure, be true,
|
|
|
|
And prompt in duty; heed the deep,
|
|
Low voice of conscience; through the ill
|
|
And discord round about you, keep
|
|
Your faith in human nature still.
|
|
|
|
Be gentle: unto griefs and needs
|
|
Be pitiful as woman should,
|
|
And, spite of all the lies of creeds,
|
|
Hold fast the truth that God is good.
|
|
|
|
Give and receive; go forth and bless
|
|
The world that needs the hand and heart
|
|
Of Martha's helpful carefulness
|
|
No less than Mary's better part.
|
|
|
|
So shall the stream of time flow by
|
|
And leave each year a richer good,
|
|
And matron loveliness outvie
|
|
The nameless charm of maidenhood.
|
|
|
|
And, when the world shall link your names
|
|
With gracious lives and manners fine,
|
|
The teacher shall assert her claims,
|
|
And proudly whisper, "These were mine!"
|
|
|
|
John G. Whittier.
|
|
You're surprised that I ever should say so?
|
|
Just wait till the reason I've given
|
|
Why I say I sha'n't care for the music,
|
|
Unless there is whistling in heaven.
|
|
Then you'll think it no very great wonder,
|
|
Nor so strange, nor so bold a conceit,
|
|
That unless there's a boy there a-whistling,
|
|
Its music will not be complete.
|
|
|
|
It was late in the autumn of '40;
|
|
We had come from our far Eastern home
|
|
Just in season to build us a cabin,
|
|
Ere the cold of the winter should come;
|
|
And we lived all the while in our wagon
|
|
That husband was clearing the place
|
|
Where the house was to stand; and the clearing
|
|
And building it took many days.
|
|
|
|
So that our heads were scarce sheltered
|
|
In under its roof when our store
|
|
Of provisions was almost exhausted,
|
|
And husband must journey for more;
|
|
And the nearest place where he could get them
|
|
Was yet such a distance away,
|
|
That it forced him from home to be absent
|
|
At least a whole night and a day.
|
|
|
|
You see, we'd but two or three neighbors,
|
|
And the nearest was more than a mile;
|
|
And we hadn't found time yet to know them,
|
|
For we had been busy the while.
|
|
And the man who had helped at the raising
|
|
Just staid till the job was well done;
|
|
And as soon as his money was paid him
|
|
Had shouldered his axe and had gone.
|
|
|
|
Well, husband just kissed me and started—
|
|
I could scarcely suppress a deep groan
|
|
At the thought of remaining with baby
|
|
So long in the house alone;
|
|
For, my dear, I was childish and timid,
|
|
And braver ones might well have feared,
|
|
For the wild wolf was often heard howling.
|
|
And savages sometimes appeared.
|
|
|
|
But I smothered my grief and my terror
|
|
Till husband was off on his ride,
|
|
And then in my arms I took Josey,
|
|
And all the day long sat and cried,
|
|
As I thought of the long, dreary hours
|
|
When the darkness of night should fall,
|
|
And I was so utterly helpless,
|
|
With no one in reach of my call.
|
|
|
|
And when the night came with its terrors,
|
|
To hide ev'ry ray of light,
|
|
I hung up a quilt by the window,
|
|
And, almost dead with affright,
|
|
I kneeled by the side of the cradle,
|
|
Scarce daring to draw a full breath,
|
|
Lest the baby should wake, and its crying
|
|
Should bring us a horrible death.
|
|
|
|
There I knelt until late in the evening
|
|
And scarcely an inch had I stirred,
|
|
When suddenly, far in the distance,
|
|
A sound as of whistling I heard.
|
|
I started up dreadfully frightened,
|
|
For fear 'twas an Indian's call;
|
|
And then very soon I remembered
|
|
The red man ne'er whistles at all.
|
|
|
|
And when I was sure 'twas a white man,
|
|
I thought, were he coming for ill,
|
|
He'd surely approach with more caution—
|
|
Would come without warning, and still.
|
|
Then the sound, coming nearer and nearer,
|
|
Took the form of a tune light and gay,
|
|
And I knew I needn't fear evil
|
|
From one who could whistle that way.
|
|
|
|
Very soon I heard footsteps approaching,
|
|
Then came a peculiar dull thump,
|
|
As if some one was heavily striking
|
|
An ax in the top of a stump;
|
|
And then, in another brief moment,
|
|
There came a light tap on the door,
|
|
When quickly I undid the fast'ning,
|
|
And in stepped a boy, and before
|
|
|
|
There was either a question or answer
|
|
Or either had time to speak,
|
|
I just threw my glad arms around him,
|
|
And gave him a kiss on the cheek.
|
|
Then I started back, scared at my boldness.
|
|
But he only smiled at my fright,
|
|
As he said, "I'm your neighbor's boy, Ellick,
|
|
Come to tarry with you through the night.
|
|
|
|
|
|
"We saw your husband go eastward,
|
|
And made up our minds where he'd gone,
|
|
And I said to the rest of our people,
|
|
'That woman is there all alone,
|
|
And I venture she's awfully lonesome,
|
|
And though she may have no great fear,
|
|
I think she would feel a bit safer
|
|
If only a boy were but near.'
|
|
|
|
"So, taking my axe on my shoulder,
|
|
For fear that a savage might stray
|
|
Across my path and need scalping,
|
|
I started right down this way;
|
|
And coming in sight of the cabin,
|
|
And thinking to save you alarm,
|
|
I whistled a tune, just to show you
|
|
I didn't intend any harm.
|
|
|
|
"And so here I am, at your service;
|
|
But if you don't want me to stay,
|
|
Why, all you need do is to say so,
|
|
And should'ring my axe, I'll away."
|
|
I dropped in a chair and near fainted,
|
|
Just at thought of his leaving me then,
|
|
And his eye gave a knowing bright twinkle
|
|
As he said, "I guess I'll remain."
|
|
|
|
And then I just sat there and told him
|
|
How terribly frightened I'd been,
|
|
How his face was to me the most welcome
|
|
Of any I ever had seen;
|
|
And then I lay down with the baby,
|
|
And slept all the blessed night through,
|
|
For I felt I was safe from all danger
|
|
Near so brave a young fellow, and true.
|
|
|
|
So now, my dear friend, do you wonder,
|
|
Since such a good reason I've given,
|
|
Why I say I sha'n't care for the music,
|
|
Unless there is whistling in heaven?
|
|
Yes, often I've said so in earnest,
|
|
And now what I've said I repeat,
|
|
That unless there's a boy there a-whistling,
|
|
Its music will not be complete.
|
|
Between the dark and the daylight,
|
|
When the night is beginning to lower,
|
|
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
|
|
That is known as the Children's Hour.
|
|
|
|
I hear in the chamber above me
|
|
The patter of little feet,
|
|
The sound of a door that is opened,
|
|
And voices soft and sweet.
|
|
|
|
From my study I see in the lamplight,
|
|
Descending the broad hall stair,
|
|
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
|
|
And Edith with golden hair.
|
|
|
|
A whisper, and then a silence:
|
|
Yet I know by their merry eyes
|
|
They are plotting and planning together
|
|
To take me by surprise.
|
|
|
|
A sudden rush from the stairway,
|
|
A sudden raid from the hall!
|
|
By three doors left unguarded
|
|
They enter my castle wall!
|
|
|
|
They climb up into my turret
|
|
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
|
|
If I try to escape, they surround me;
|
|
They seem to be everywhere.
|
|
|
|
They almost devour me with kisses,
|
|
Their arms about me entwine,
|
|
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
|
|
In his Mouse-tower on the Rhine!
|
|
|
|
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
|
|
Because you have scaled the wall,
|
|
Such an old mustache as I am
|
|
Is not a match for you all!
|
|
|
|
I have you fast in my fortress,
|
|
And will not let you depart,
|
|
But put you down into the dungeon
|
|
In the round-tower of my heart.
|
|
|
|
And there will I keep you forever,
|
|
Yes, forever and a day,
|
|
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
|
|
And moulder in dust away!
|
|
|
|
Henry W. Longfellow.
|
|
They drive home the cows from the pasture,
|
|
Up through the long shady lane,
|
|
Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat-fields,
|
|
That are yellow with ripening grain.
|
|
They find, in the thick waving grasses,
|
|
Where the scarlet-lipped strawberry grows.
|
|
They gather the earliest snowdrops,
|
|
And the first crimson buds of the rose.
|
|
|
|
They toss the new hay in the meadow,
|
|
They gather the elder-bloom white,
|
|
They find where the dusky grapes purple
|
|
In the soft-tinted October light.
|
|
They know where the apples hang ripest,
|
|
And are sweeter than Italy's wines;
|
|
They know where the fruit hangs the thickest
|
|
On the long, thorny blackberry vines.
|
|
|
|
They gather the delicate sea-weeds,
|
|
And build tiny castles of sand;
|
|
They pick up the beautiful sea shells—
|
|
Fairy barks that have drifted to land.
|
|
They wave from the tall, rocking tree-tops,
|
|
Where the oriole's hammock-nest swings,
|
|
And at night time are folded in slumber
|
|
By a song that a fond mother sings.
|
|
|
|
Those who toil bravely are strongest;
|
|
The humble and poor become great;
|
|
And so from these brown-handed children
|
|
Shall grow mighty rulers of state.
|
|
The pen of the author and statesman,—
|
|
The noble and wise of the land,—
|
|
The sword, and the chisel, and palette,
|
|
Shall be held in the little brown hand.
|
|
|
|
Mary H. Krout.
|
|
Up from the meadows rich with corn
|
|
Clear in the cool September morn,
|
|
|
|
The clustered spires of Frederick stand
|
|
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
|
|
|
|
Round about them orchards sweep,
|
|
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,
|
|
|
|
Fair as the garden of the Lord
|
|
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
|
|
|
|
On that pleasant morn of the early fall
|
|
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,—
|
|
|
|
Over the mountains winding down,
|
|
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
|
|
|
|
Forty flags with their silver stars,
|
|
Forty flags with their crimson bars,
|
|
|
|
Flapped in the morning wind; the sun
|
|
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
|
|
|
|
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
|
|
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
|
|
|
|
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
|
|
She took up the flag the men hauled down;
|
|
|
|
In her attic window the staff she set,
|
|
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
|
|
|
|
Up the street came the rebel tread,
|
|
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
|
|
|
|
Under his slouched hat left and right
|
|
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.
|
|
|
|
"Halt!"—the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
|
|
"Fire!"—out blazed the rifle-blast.
|
|
|
|
It shivered the window, pane and sash;
|
|
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
|
|
|
|
Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
|
|
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;
|
|
|
|
She leaned far out on the window-sill,
|
|
And shook it forth with a royal will.
|
|
|
|
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
|
|
But spare your country's flag," she said.
|
|
|
|
A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
|
|
Over the face of the leader came;
|
|
|
|
The nobler nature within him stirred
|
|
To life at that woman's deed and word:
|
|
|
|
"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
|
|
Dies like a dog; march on!" he said.
|
|
|
|
All day long through Frederick street
|
|
Sounded the tread of marching feet;
|
|
|
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All day long that free flag tost
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Over the heads of the rebel host.
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Ever its torn folds rose and fell
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On the loyal winds that loved it well;
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And through the hill-gaps sunset light
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Shone over it a warm good night.
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Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er.
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And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.
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Honor to her! and let a tear
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Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.
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Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
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Flag of freedom and Union wave!
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Peace and order and beauty draw
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Round thy symbol of light and law;
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And ever the stars above look down
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On thy stars below in Frederick town.
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John G. Whittier.
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I started on a journey just about a week ago,
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For the little town of Morrow, in the State of Ohio.
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I never was a traveler, and really didn't know
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That Morrow had been ridiculed a century or so.
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I went down to the depot for my ticket and applied
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For the tips regarding Morrow, not expecting to be guyed.
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Said I, "My friend, I want to go to Morrow and return
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Not later than to-morrow, for I haven't time to burn."
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Said he to me, "Now let me see if I have heard you right,
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You want to go to Morrow and come back to-morrow night.
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You should have gone to Morrow yesterday and back to-day,
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For if you started yesterday to Morrow, don't you see,
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You could have got to Morrow and returned to-day at three.
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The train that started yesterday—now understand me right—
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To-day it gets to Morrow, and returns to-morrow night."
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Said I, "My boy, it seems to me you're talking through your hat,
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Is there a town named Morrow on your line? Now tell me that."
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"There is," said he, "and take from me a quiet little tip—
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To go from here to Morrow is a fourteen-hour trip.
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The train that goes to Morrow leaves to-day eight-thirty-five;
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Half after ten to-morrow is the time it should arrive.
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Now if from here to Morrow is a fourteen-hour jump,
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Can you go to-day to Morrow and come back to-day, you chump?"
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Said I, "I want to go to Morrow; can I go to-day
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And get to Morrow by to-night, if there is no delay?"
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"Well, well," said he, "explain to me and I've no more to say;
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Can you go anywhere to-morrow and come back from there to-day?"
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For if to-day you'd get to Morrow, surely you'll agree
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You should have started not to-day, but yesterday, you see.
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So if you start to Morrow, leaving here to-day, you're flat,
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You won't get to Morrow till the day that follows that.
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"Now if you start to-day to Morrow, it's a cinch you'll land
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To-morrow into Morrow, not to-day, you understand.
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For the train to-day to Morrow, if the schedule is right,
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Will get you into Morrow by about to-morrow night."
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Said I, "I guess you know it all, but kindly let me say,
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How can I go to Morrow, if I leave the town to-day?"
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Said he, "You cannot go to Morrow any more to-day,
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For the train that goes to Morrow is a mile upon its way."
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FINALE
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I was so disappointed I was mad enough to swear;
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The train had gone to Morrow and had left me standing there.
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The man was right in telling me I was a howling jay;
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I didn't go to Morrow, so I guess I'll go to-day.
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