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 | The poetical writings of the late Willis Gaylord Clark |  |
My fragrant tube is out—and objects swim
Like coming dreams before my drowsy eyes;
Yet one more pair of boots, ere I retire,
I fain,in thoughtful mood, would scrutinize,
A dapper pair, yet gaudy not, but neat,
As if they needed neither brush nor shine,
For marks of both they bear. He who inserts
His understanding in them, comes to town
A merchant, trafficking and getting gain:
He hath a wife and pleasant babes at home,
To whom the squeak of those familiar soles
Is like to heavenly music. That wife delights,
What time she sweetly “plies her evening care,”
To hear that squeak, and see the infant smile,
Tilted on parent knee. He lives and trades
In a fair village “throned by the West,”
Embowered in trees, and reached by rural roads,
All variously diverging, where in throngs,
The wealthy farmers come. He leads the choir
At church, andsets the quaint, old-fashioned tune—
The pitch-pipe blows, and is, in all respects,
The magnate of the village.
Like coming dreams before my drowsy eyes;
Yet one more pair of boots, ere I retire,
I fain,in thoughtful mood, would scrutinize,
A dapper pair, yet gaudy not, but neat,
As if they needed neither brush nor shine,
For marks of both they bear. He who inserts
His understanding in them, comes to town
A merchant, trafficking and getting gain:
He hath a wife and pleasant babes at home,
89
Is like to heavenly music. That wife delights,
What time she sweetly “plies her evening care,”
To hear that squeak, and see the infant smile,
Tilted on parent knee. He lives and trades
In a fair village “throned by the West,”
Embowered in trees, and reached by rural roads,
All variously diverging, where in throngs,
The wealthy farmers come. He leads the choir
At church, andsets the quaint, old-fashioned tune—
The pitch-pipe blows, and is, in all respects,
The magnate of the village.
| The poetical writings of the late Willis Gaylord Clark | |