Songs of two centuries :: :: University of Virginia Library

From the city's constant clatter,
I have come, with purpose deep
Not to healthy grow, or fatter,
But to sleep, and sleep, and sleep.
Not so much in hours of night-time
(City habits capture them!)
For I rather think the right time
Is from two to eight A. M.
Oh the comfort and completeness
Of these balmy morning naps!
'Tis because they hold the sweetness
Found in stolen goods, perhaps.
(Steal the golden locks one may,
From the foretop of the day.)

Scarce could words contrive the shaping
Of the noise that I'm escaping!—
Town utilities and follies:
Steam-cars, horse-cars, air-cars, trollies,
Butcher-boys, the distance spurning,
Strewing flesh the city o'er;
Bottle-milkmen, fiercely churning
Their white wares from door to door;
Cats through garden-jungles prowling,
Dogs with death-notes in their howling,
All the highways' crash and clatter—
All the byways' clash and chatter;
Postman's whistle, iceman's yelling,
Huckster's plea for double-selling;
Door-bells, school-bells, fire-bells—every

Kind of bell's acoustic slavery:
All these helped me toward obeying
Solomon's most lively saying,
While I wondered at his prizing
Of the old ant's early rising,
So as in soft words to coddle
Her, and pose her as a model!

Early Morning.

How we miss the bliss we aim for!
Surely 'tis not this I came for:
Hear the rooster's trumpet, shaming
All who do not greet the morn!
Hear the hen's wild song, proclaiming
That another hope is born!
Hear the wakeful cattle lowing
For the gardens of the herds;
Hear on air the maids bestowing
Lexicons of damaged words;
Hear the robins' notes inspiring
You to drink those rills of sound;
Hear the sparrows, loud inquiring
Where the early worm is found!
Then back to your covert creeping,
Try again the art of sleeping,
With such critics grouped around.

I can stand the fitful walker,
Oft he comes—but oft he goes;
But that everlasting talker
Underneath the window's nose!
Words, and words, without endeavor,
Speech-brook, flowing on forever!
Talking every subject weary,
Till it wilts—a phantom dreary;
Pauseless he—this rural Solon;
Comma, period, semicolon,
None of these will he set free.

Oh what blessedness, if he
Would cut loose those pauses' tether,
And like old Lord Timothy,
Let them all appear together!

From the country's clash and chatter,
Creep I, not by half so merry,
And, to try and mend the matter,
Seek the silent cemetery.
There, where sleeping is the fashion,
I, by some lone grave, mayhap,
Can indulge my silent passion,
And secure a morning nap.
Even then, some early-rising
Bug may see me, I suppose,
And begin the day by sizing
The compartments of my nose.
Only dead folks, buried deep,
They can sleep, and sleep, and sleep.

University of Virginia Library

SOME COUNTRY SOLACE. This poem was written “in the mind” one morning while in a hotel in the Catskill Mountains. The author was trying to get an early morning nap—and was cheated out of it by some of the sounds which he mentions.

Late Evening.

Early Morning.

SOME COUNTRY SOLACE.

This poem was written “in the mind” one morning while in a hotel in the Catskill Mountains. The author was trying to get an early morning nap—and was cheated out of it by some of the sounds which he mentions.