Brand-New Ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

MISS MILES, THE TELEGRAPH GIRL.

Thy heart is like some icy lake,
On whose cold brink I stand;
Oh, buckle on my spirit's skate,
And take me by the hand!

And lead, thou living saint, the way
To where the ice is thin,
That it may break beneath my feet,
And let a lover in.

Spiritualistic Poetry.

Since Soul first basked in Passion's sun,
I always ran to seed
In seeking One who'd gone and done
Some great heroic deed;
And deemed I'd find Life's Earnest Truth
In Gloriana Clarke,
Whose eyes were like two carriage lamps
Advancing through the dark.

But as the rose of morning fades
Before the fire of noon,
Or sparrows yield in sylvan glades
To mocking-birds in June,

My Gloriana's stock went down—
Its wheat all turned to chaff—
When I got in with Mary Miles,
Who ran the telegraph.

Her brow betokened serious life;
I knew my final queen;
A soul divine in gaiter-boots,
A Dream in crinoline.
Her parasol a glory seemed
Around a vivid saint,
The whole one spirit-photograph
Illumed with heavenly paint.

And thus she lifted up her voice,
That mission-mantled maid;
And thus she spoke with golden grace,
And sacredly she said—
A-pointing at me all the time
With that same parasol,
The light which gleams from silent lands
Around her seemed to fall—

“You've told of great and holy deeds—
I s'pose they all are true—
But in our telegraphic line
We've some adventures, too;

And though I do not like to boast
Of what I ever done,
One thing my Moral Consciousness
Declares was Number One.

“Last Fall I was in Tennessee
A-travelling might and main,
When all at once the engine broke—
They couldn't run the train;
And if another train should come
'T would rather make us scream.”
List to the glorious deed she did,
This angel of my dream.

“I saw a telegraphic line
Was running by our rout,
Though not a house or a machine
Was anywhere about.
And the conductor said, said he,
With his wild eyes of light.
‘Miss Miles, if we'd a battery,
I'd fix this scrape all right.

“‘I'd send 'em down a telegram
Some twenty miles below,
And ask for help.’ I looked at him—
‘I'll fix the business, Joe.

Is there a pair of nippers here?
If so, those nippers bring;
And if you can't, a sharp-edged file
Would be a heaven-sent thing.’”

“Unshadowed girl! I see the dodge;”
I cried in rapturous joy;
“And didst thou climb the post thyself?”
Said she, “I did, my boy.
A higher law of moral truth
Gave courage to my soul;
I did not show my garters once
In going up the pole.

“No poet ever felt such thrills
In touching of his lyre
As I did when I found there came
A message through the wire.
That wire I cut, and 'tween my teeth
I held it—ay, with pride—
And with my tongue the current clicked
To the wire on t' other side.

“On one side came the message in
From some man in New York:
‘But if you can, at ninety-five,
Five thousand sides of pork.’

And this same electricity
I changed as in a flash:
‘Send down an engine right away,
Or we shall go to smash.’

“The engine came, and all were saved—
Yet life is but a Dream.
I live—thou livest in a cloud:
We are not what we seem.
Still craving for the Infinite
In Time's ideal lodge,
I grasped a Truth—yet after all
'T was but an earthly dodge.”

I gazed upon that spirit grand,
Upon my knees I sank,
And from mine eyes the burning sand
The scalding tear-drops drank.
Then soft she smiled: “If deeds like this
Can yield such victory,
And I am in your line, my love,
Then, love, I yield to thee.”

Ho, maidens of Vienna's show!
Ho, matrons of Lucerne!
Look out for us next summer, when
We give your shop a turn.

I have won my soul's ideal,
I have booked her for a wife;
And the Fancy and the Real
Are united in my life.