University of Virginia Library

previous section [Poems by Cary in] The Poetical Works Of Alice and Phoebe Cary
next section
93

BALLADS AND NARRATIVE POEMS.

THE YOUNG SOLDIER.

Into the house ran Lettice,
With hair so long and so bright,
Crying, “Mother! Johnny has 'listed!
He has 'listed into the fight!”
“Don't talk so wild, little Lettice!”
And she smoothed her darling's brow,
“'Tis true you'll see—as true can be—
He told me so just now!”
“Ah, that 's a likely story!
Why, darling, don't you see,
If Johnny had 'listed into the war
He would tell your father and me!”
“But he is going to go, mother,
Whether it 's right or wrong;
He is thinking of it all the while,
And he won't be with us long.”
“Our Johnny going to go to the war!”
“Aye, aye, and the time is near;
He said, when the corn was once in the ground,
We could n't keep him here!”
“Hush, child! your brother Johnny
Meant to give you a fright.”
“Mother, he'll go,—I tell you I know
He 's listed into the fight!
“Plucking a rose from the bush, he said,
Before its leaves were black
He 'd have have a soldier's cap on his head,
And a knapsack on his back!”
“A dream! a dream! little Lettice,
A wild dream of the night;
Go find and fetch your brother in,
And he will set us right.”
So out of the house ran Lettice,
Calling near and far,—
“Johnny, tell me, and tell me true,
Are you going to go to the war?”
At last she came and found him
In the dusty cattle-close,
Whistling Hail Columbia,
And beating time with his rose.
The rose he broke from the bush, when he said,
Before its leaves were black
He 'd have a soldier's cap on his head,
And a knapsack on his back.
Then all in gay mock-anger,
He plucked her by the sleeve,
Saying, “Dear little, sweet little rebel,
I am going, by your leave!”
“O Johnny! Johnny!” low he stooped,
And kissed her wet cheeks dry,
And took her golden head in his hands,
And told her he would not die.
“But, Letty, if anything happens—
There won't!” and he spoke more low—
“But if anything should, you must be twice as good
As you are, to mother, you know!
“Not but that you are good, Letty,
As good as you can be;
94

But then you know it might be so,
You 'd have to be good for me!”
So straight to the house they went, his cheeks
Flushing under his brim;
And his two broad-shouldered oxen
Turned their great eyes after him.
That night in the good old farmstead
Was many a sob of pain;
“O Johnny, stay! if you go away,
It will never be home again!”
But Time its still sure comfort lent,
Crawling, crawling past,
And Johnny's gallant regiment
Was going to march at last.
And steadying up her stricken soul,
The mother turned about,
Took what was Johnny's from the drawer
And shook the rose-leaves out;
And brought the cap she had lined with silk,
And strapped his knapsack on,
And her heart, though it bled, was proud as she said,
“You would hardly know our John!”
Another year, and the roses
Were bright on the bush by the door;
And into the house ran Lettice,
Her pale cheeks glad once more.
“O mother! news has come to-day!
'T is flying all about;
Our John's regiment, they say,
Is all to be mustered out!
“O mother, you must buy me a dress,
And ribbons of blue and buff!
Oh what shall we say to make the day
Merry and mad enough!
“The brightest day that ever yet
The sweet sun looked upon,
When we shall be dressed in our very best,
To welcome home our John!”
So up and down ran Lettice,
And all the farmstead rung
With where he would set his bayonet,
And where his cap would be hung!
And the mother put away her look
Of weary, waiting gloom,
And a feast was set and the neighbors met
To welcome Johnny home.
The good old father silent stood,
With his eager face at the pane,
And Lettice was out at the door to shout
When she saw him in the lane.
And by and by, a soldier
Came o'er the grassy hill;
It was not he they looked to see,
And every heart stood still.
He brought them Johnny's knapsack,
'T was all that he could do,
And the cap he had worn begrimed and torn,
With a bullet-hole straight through!

RUTH AND I.

It was not day, and was not night;
The eve had just begun to light,
Along the lovely west,
His golden candles, one by one,
And girded up with clouds, the sun
Was sunken to his rest.
Between the furrows, brown and dry,
We walked in silence—Ruth and I;
We two had been, since morn
Began her tender tunes to beat
Upon the May-leaves young and sweet,
Together, planting corn.
Homeward the evening cattle went
In patient, slow, full-fed content,
Led by a rough, strong steer,
His forehead all with burs thick set,
His horns of silver tipt with jet,
And shapeless shadow, near.
With timid, half-reluctant grace,
Like lovers in some favored place,
The light and darkness met,
And the air trembled, near and far,
With many a little tuneful jar
Of milk-pans being set.
We heard the house-maids at their cares,
Pouring their hearts out unawares
In some sad poet's ditty,
95

And heard the fluttering echoes round
Reply like souls all softly drowned
In heavenly love and pity.
All sights, all sounds in earth and air
Were of the sweetest; everywhere
Ear, eye, and heart were fed;
The grass with one small burning flower
Blushed bright, as if the elves that hour
Their coats thereon had spread.
One moment, where we crossed the brook
Two little sunburnt hands I took,—
Why did I let them go?
I've been since then in many a land,
Touched, held, kissed many a fairer hand,
But none that thrilled me so.
Why, when the bliss Heaven for us made
Is in our very bosoms laid,
Should we be all unmoved,
And walk, as now do Ruth and I,
'Twixt th' world's furrows, brown and dry,
Unloving and unloved?

HAGEN WALDER.

The day, with a cold, dead color
Was rising over the hill,
When little Hagen Walder
Went out to grind in th' mill.
All vainly the light in zigzags
Fell through the frozen leaves,
And like a broidery of gold
Shone on his ragged sleeves.
No mother had he to brighten
His cheek with a kiss, and say,
“'T is cold for my little Hagen
To grind in the mill to-day.”
And that was why the north winds
Seemed all in his path to meet,
And why the stones were so cruel
And sharp beneath his feet.
And that was why he hid his face
So oft, despite his will.
Against the necks of the oxen
That turned the wheel of th' mill.
And that was why the tear-drops
So oft did fall and stand
Upon their silken coats that were
As white as a lady's hand.
So little Hagen Walder
Looked at the sea and th' sky,
And wished that he were a salmon,
In the silver waves to lie;
And wished that he were an eagle,
Away through th' air to soar,
Where never the groaning mill-wheel
Might vex him any more:
And wished that he were a pirate,
To burn some cottage down,
And warm himself; or that he were
A market-lad in the town,
With bowls of bright red strawberries
Shining on his stall,
And that some gentle maiden
Would come and buy them all!
So little Hagen Walder
Passed, as the story says,
Through dreams, as through a golden gate,
Into realities.
And when the years changed places,
Like the billows, bright and still,
In th' ocean, Hagen Walder
Was the master of the mill.
And all his bowls of strawberries
Were not so fine a show
As are his boys and girls at church
Sitting in a row!

OUR SCHOOL-MASTER.

We used to think it was so queer
To see him, in his thin gray hair,
Sticking our quills behind his ear,
And straight forgetting they were there.
We used to think it was so strange
That he should twist such hair to curls,
And that his wrinkled cheek should change
Its color like a bashful girl's.
96

Our foolish mirth defied all rule,
As glances, each of each, we stole,
The morning that he wore to school
A rose-bud in his button-hole.
And very sagely we agreed
That such a dunce was never known—
Fifty! and trying still to read
Love-verses with a tender tone!
No joyous smile would ever stir
Our sober looks, we often said,
If we were but a School-master,
And had, withal, his old white head.
One day we cut his knotty staff
Nearly in two, and each and all
Of us declared that we should laugh
To see it break and let him fall.
Upon his old pine desk we drew
His picture—pitiful to see,
Wrinkled and bald—half false, half true,
And wrote beneath it, Twenty-three!
Next day came eight o'clock and nine,
But he came not: our pulses quick
With play, we said it would be fine
If the old School-master were sick.
And still the beech-trees bear the scars
Of wounds which we that morning made,
Cutting their silvery bark to stars
Whereon to count the games we played.
At last, as tired as we could be,
Upon a clay-bank, strangely still,
We sat down in a row to see
His worn-out hat come up the hill.
'T was hanging up at home—a quill
Notched down, and sticking in the band,
And leaned against his arm-chair, still
His staff was waiting for his hand.
Across his feet his threadbare coat
Was lying, stuffed with many a roll
Of “copy-plates,” and, sad to note,
A dead rose in the button-hole.
And he no more might take his place
Our lessons and our lives to plan:
Cold Death had kissed the wrinkled face
Of that most gentle gentleman.
Ah me, what bitter tears made blind
Our young eyes, for our thoughtless sin,
As two and two we walked behind
The long black coffin he was in.
And all, sad women now, and men
With wrinkles and gray hairs, can see
How he might wear a rose-bud then,
And read love-verses tenderly.

THE GRAY SWAN.

“Oh tell me, sailor, tell me true,
Is my little lad, my Elihu,
A-sailing with your ship?”
The sailor's eyes were dim with dew,—
“Your little lad, your Elihu?”
He said, with trembling lip,—
“What little lad? what ship?”
“What little lad! as if there could be
Another such an one as he!
What little lad, do you say?
Why, Elihu, that took to the sea
The moment I put him off my knee!
It was just the other day
The Gray Swan sailed away.”
“The other day?” the sailor's eyes
Stood open with a great surprise,—
“The other day? the Swan?”
His heart began in his throat to rise.
“Aye, aye, sir, here in the cupboard lies
The jacket he had on.”
“And so your lad is gone?”
“Gone with the Swan.” “And did she stand
With her anchor clutching hold of the sand,
For a month, and never stir?”
“Why, to be sure! I've seen from the land,
Like a lover kissing his lady's hand,
The wild sea kissing her,—
A sight to remember, sir.”
“But, my good mother, do you know
All this was twenty years ago?
I stood on the Gray Swan's deck,
And to that lad I saw you throw,
Taking it off, as it might be, so!
The kerchief from your neck,”
“Aye, and he'll bring it back!”
97

“And did the little lawless lad
That has made you sick and made you sad,
Sail with the Gray Swan's crew?”
“Lawless! the man is going mad!
The best boy ever mother had,—
Be sure he sailed with the crew!
What would you have him do?”
“And he has never written line,
Nor sent you word, nor made you sign
To say he was alive?”
“Hold! if 't was wrong, the wrong is mine;
Besides, he may be in the brine,
And could he write from the grave?
Tut, man! what would you have?”
“Gone twenty years,—a long, long cruise,—
'T was wicked thus your love to abuse;
But if the lad still live,
And come back home, think you you can
Forgive him?”—“Miserable man,
You 're mad as the sea,—you rave,—
What have I to forgive?”
The sailor twitched his shirt so blue,
And from within his bosom drew
The kerchief. She was wild.
“My God! my Father! is it true?
My little lad, my Elihu!
My blessed boy, my child!
My dead, my living child!”

THE WASHERWOMAN.

At the north end of our village stands,
With gable black and high,
A weather-beaten house,—I 've stopt
Often as I went by,
To see the strip of bleaching grass
Slipped brightly in between
The long straight rows of hollyhocks,
And currant-bushes green;
The clumsy bench beside the door,
And oaken washing-tub,
Where poor old Rachel used to stand,
And rub, and rub, and rub!
Her blue-checked apron speckled with
The suds, so snowy white;
From morning when I went to school
Till I went home at night,
She never took her sunburnt arms
Out of the steaming tub:
We used to say 't was weary work
Only to hear her rub.
With sleeves stretched straight upon the grass
The washed shirts used to lie;
By dozens I have counted them
Some days, as I went by.
The burly blacksmith, battering at
His red-hot iron bands,
Would make a joke of wishing that
He had old Rachel's hands!
And when the sharp and ringing strokes
Had doubled up his shoe,
As crooked as old Rachel's back,
He used to say 't would do.
And every village housewife, with
A conscience clear and light,
Would send for her to come and wash
An hour or two at night!
Her hair beneath her cotton cap
Grew silver white and thin;
And the deep furrows in her face
Ploughed all the roses in.
Yet patiently she kept at work,—
We school-girls used to say
The smile about her sunken mouth
Would quite go out some day.
Nobody ever thought the spark
That in her sad eyes shone,
Burned outward from a living soul
Immortal as their own.
And though a tender flush sometimes
Into her cheek would start,
Nobody dreamed old Rachel had
A woman's loving heart!
At last she left her heaps of clothes
One quiet autumn day,
And stript from off her sunburnt arms
The weary suds away;
98

That night within her moonlit door
She sat alone,—her chin
Sunk in her hand,—her eyes shut up,
As if to look within.
Her face uplifted to the star
That stood so sweet and low
Against old crazy Peter's house—
(He loved her long ago!)
Her heart had worn her body to
A handful of poor dust,—
Her soul was gone to be arrayed
In marriage-robes, I trust.

GROWING RICH.

And why are you pale, my Nora?
And why do you sigh and fret?
The black ewe had twin lambs to-day,
And we shall be rich folk yet.
Do you mind the clover-ridge, Nora,
That slopes to the crooked stream?
The brown cow pastured there this week,
And her milk is sweet as cream.
The old gray mare that last year fell
As thin as any ghost,
Is getting a new white coat, and looks
As young as her colt, almost.
And if the corn-land should do well,
And so, please God, it may,
I'll buy the white-faced bull a bell,
To make the meadows gay.
I know we are growing rich, Johnny,
And that is why I fret,
For my little brother Phil is down
In the dismal coal-pit yet.
And when the sunshine sets in th' corn,
The tassels green and gay,
It will not touch my father's eyes,
That are going blind, they say.
But if I were not sad for him,
Nor yet for little Phil,
Why, darling Molly's hand, last year,
Was cut off in the mill.
And so, nor mare nor brown milch-cow,
Nor lambs can joy impart,
For the blind old man and th' mill and mine
Are all upon my heart.

SANDY MACLEOD.

When I think of the weary nights and days
Of poor, hard-working folk, always
I see, with his head on his bosom bowed,
The luckless shoemaker, Sandy Macleod.
Jeering school-boys used to say
His chimney would never be raked away
By the moon, and you by a jest so rough
May know that his cabin was low enough.
Nothing throve with him; his colt and cow
Got their living, he did n't know how,—
Yokes on their scraggy necks swinging about,
Beating and bruising them year in and out.
Out at the elbow he used to go,—
Alas for him that he did not know
The way to make poverty regal,—not he,
If such way under the sun there be.
Sundays all day in the door he sat,
A string of withered-up crape on his hat,
The crown half fallen against his head,
And half sewed in with a shoemaker's thread.
Sometimes with his hard and toil-worn hand
He would smooth and straighten th' faded band,
Thinking perhaps of a little mound
Black with nettles the long year round.
Blacksmith and carpenter, both were poor,
And there was the school-master who, to be sure,
Had seen rough weather, but after all
When they met Sandy he went to the wall.
99

His wife was a lady, they used to say,
Repenting at leisure her wedding day,
And that she was come of a race too proud
E'er to have mated with Sandy Macleod!
So fretting she sat from December to June,
While Sandy, poor soul, to a funeral tune
Would beat out his hard, heavy leather, until
He set himself up, and got strength to be still.
It was not the full moon that made it so light
In the poor little dwelling of Sandy one night,
It was not the candles all shining around,—
Ah, no! 't was the light of the day he had found.

THE PICTURE-BOOK.

The black walnut-logs in the chimney
Made ruddy the house with their light,
And the pool in the hollow was covered
With ice like a lid,—it was night;
And Roslyn and I were together,—
I know now the pleased look he wore,
And the shapes of the shadows that checkered
The hard yellow planks of the floor;
And how, when the wind stirred the candle,
Affrighted they ran from its gleams,
And crept up the wall to the ceiling
Of cedar, and hid by the beams.
There were books on the mantel-shelf, dusty,
And shut, and I see in my mind,
The pink-colored primer of pictures
We stood on our tiptoes to find.
We opened the leaves where a camel
Was seen on a sand-covered track,
A-snuffing for water, and bearing
A great bag of gold on his back;
And talked of the free flowing rivers
A tithe of his burden would buy,
And said, when the lips of the sunshine
Had sucked his last water-skin dry;
With thick breath and mouth gaping open,
And red eyes a-strain in his head,
His bones would push out as if buzzards
Had picked him before he was dead!
Then turned the leaf over, and finding
A palace that banners made gay,
Forgot the bright splendor of roses
That shone through our windows in May;
And sighed for the great beds of princes,
While pillows for him and for me
Lay soft among ripples of ruffles
As sweet and as white as could be.
And sighed for their valleys, forgetting
How warmly the morning sun kissed
Our hills, as they shrugged their green shoulders
Above the white sheets of the mist.
Their carpets of dyed wool were softer,
We said, than the planks of our floor,
Forgetting the flowers that in summer
Spread out their gold mats at our door.
The storm spit its wrath in the chimney,
And blew the cold ashes aside,
And only one poor little faggot
Hung out its red tongue as it died,
When Roslyn and I through the darkness
Crept off to our shivering beds,
A thousand vague fancies and wishes
Still wildly astir in our heads:
Not guessing that we, too, were straying
In thought on a sand-covered track,
Like the camel a-dying for water,
And bearing the gold on his back.

A WALK THROUGH THE SNOW.

I walked from our wild north country once,
In a driving storm of snow;
100

Forty and seven miles in a day—
You smile,—do you think it slow?
You would n't if ever you had ploughed
Through a storm like that, I trow.
There was n't a cloud as big as my hand,
The summer before, in the sky;
The grass in th' meadows was ground to dust,
The springs and wells went dry;
We must have corn, and three stout men
Were picked to go and buy.
Well, I was one; two bags I swung
Across my shoulder, so!
And kissed my wife and boys,—their eyes
Were blind to see me go.
'T was a bitter day, and just as th' sun
Went down, we met the snow!
At first we whistled and laughed and sung,
Our blood so nimbly stirred;
But as the snow-clogs dragged at our feet,
And the air grew black and blurred,
We walked together for miles and miles,
And did not speak a word!
I never saw a wilder storm:
It blew and beat with a will;
Beside me, like two men of sleet,
Walked my two mates, until
They fell asleep in their armor of ice,
And both of them stood still.
I knew that they were warm enough,
And yet I could not bear
To strip them of their cloaks; their eyes
Were open and a-stare;
And so I laid their hands across
Their breasts, and left them there.
And ran,—O Lord, I cannot tell
How fast! in my dismay
I thought the fences and the trees—
The cattle, where they lay
So black against their stacks of snow—
All swam the other way!
And when at dawn I saw a hut,
With smoke upcurling wide,
I thought it must have been my mates
That lived, and I that died;
'T was heaven to see through th' frosty panes
The warm, red cheeks inside!

THE WATER-BEARER.

'T was in the middle of summer,
And burning hot the sun,
That Margaret sat on the low-roofed porch,
A-singing as she spun:
Singing a ditty of slighted love,
That shook with every note
The softly shining hair that fell
In ripples round her throat.
The changeful color of her cheek
At a breath would fall and rise,
And even th' sunny lights of hope
Made shadows in her eyes.
Beneath the snowy petticoat
You guessed the feet were bare,
By the slippers near her on the floor,—
A dainty little pair.
She loved the low and tender tones
The wearied summer yields,
When out of her wheaten leash she slips
And strays into frosty fields.
And better than th' time that all
The air with music fills,
She loved the little sheltered nest
Alive with yellow bills.
But why delay my tale, to make
A poem in her praise?
Enough that truth and virtue shone
In all her modest ways.
'T was noon-day when the housewife said,
“Now, Margaret, leave undone
Your task of spinning-work, and set
Your wheel out of the sun;
“And tie your slippers on, and take
The cedar-pail with bands
Yellow as gold, and bear to the field
Cool water for the hands!”
And Margaret set her wheel aside,
And breaking off her thread,
101

Went forth into the harvest-field
With her pail upon her head,—
Her pail of sweetest cedar-wood,
With shining yellow bands,
Through clover reaching its red tops
Almost into her hands.
Her ditty flowing on the air,
For she did not break her song,
And the water dripping o'er th' grass,
From her pail as she went along,—
Over the grass that said to her,
Trembling through all its leaves,
“A bright rose for some harvester
To bind among his sheaves!”
And clouds of gay green grasshoppers
Flew up the way she went,
And beat their wings against their sides,
And chirped their discontent.
And the blackbird left the piping of
His amorous, airy glee,
And put his head beneath his wing,—
An evil sign to see.
The meadow-herbs, as if they felt
Some secret wound, in showers
Shook down their bright buds till her way
Was ankle-deep with flowers.
But Margaret never heard th' voice
That sighed in th' grassy leaves,
“A bright rose for some harvester
To bind among his sheaves!”
Nor saw the clouds of grasshoppers
Along her path arise,
Nor th' daisy hang her head aside
And shut her golden eyes.
She never saw the blackbird when
He hushed his amorous glee,
And put his head beneath his wing,—
That evil sign to see.
Nor did she know the meadow-herbs
Shook down their buds in showers
To choke her pathway, though her feet
Were ankle-deep in flowers.
But humming still of slighted love,
That shook at every note
The softly shining hair that fell
In ripples round her throat,
She came 'twixt winrows heaped as high,
And higher than her waist,
And under a bush of sassafras
The cedar-pail she placed.
And with the drops like starry rain
A-glittering in her hair,
She gave to every harvester
His cool and grateful share.
But there was one with eyes so sweet
Beneath his shady brim,
That thrice within the cedar-pail
She dipped her cup for him!
What wonder if a young man's heart
Should feel her beauty's charm,
And in his fancy clasp her like
The sheaf within his arm;
What wonder if his tender looks,
That seemed the sweet disguise
Of sweeter things unsaid, should make
A picture in her eyes!
What wonder if the single rose
That graced her cheek erewhile,
Deepened its cloudy crimson, till
It doubled in his smile!
Ah me! the housewife never said,
Again, when Margaret spun,—
“Now leave your task a while, and set
Your wheel out of the sun;
“And tie your slippers on, and take
The pail with yellow bands,
And bear into the harvest-field
Cool water for the hands.”
For every day, and twice a-day,
Did Margaret break her thread,
And singing, hasten to the field,
With her pail upon her head,—
Her pail of sweetest cedar-wood,
And shining yellow bands,—
For all her care was now to bear
Cool water to the hands.
What marvel if the young man's love
Unfolded leaf by leaf,
Until within his arms ere long
He clasped her like a sheaf!
102

What marvel if 't was Margaret's heart
With fondest hopes that beat,
While th' young man's fancy idly lay
As his sickle in the wheat.
That, while her thought flew, maiden-like,
To years of marriage bliss,
His lay like a bee in a flower, shut up
Within the moment's kiss!
What marvel if his love grew cold,
And fell off leaf by leaf,
And that her heart was choked to death,
Like the rose within his sheaf.
When autumn filled her lap with leaves,
Yellow, and cold, and wet,
The bands of th' pail turned black, and th' wheel
On the porch-side, idle set.
And Margaret's hair was combed and tied
Under a cap of lace,
And th' housewife held the baby up
To kiss her quiet face;
And all the sunburnt harvesters
Stood round the door,—each one
Telling of some good word or deed
That she had said or done.
Nay, there was one that pulled about
His face his shady brim,
As if it were his kiss, not Death's,
That made her eyes so dim.
And while the tearful women told
That when they pinned her shroud,
One trees from th' ripples round her neck
Was gone, he wept aloud;
And answered, pulling down his brim
Until he could not see,
It was some ghost that stole the tress,
For that is was not he!
'T is years since on the cedar-pail
The yellow bands grew black,—
'T is years since in the harvest-field
They turned th' green sod back
To give poor Margaret room, and all
Who chance that way to pass,
May see at the head of her narrow bed
A bush of sassafras.
Yet often in the time o' th' year
When the hay is mown and spread,
There walks a maid in th' midnight shade
With a pail upon her head.

THE BEST JUDGMENT.

Get up, my little handmaid,
And see what you will see;
The stubble-fields and all the fields
Are white as they can be.
Put on your crimson cashmere,
And hood so soft and warm,
With all its woolen linings,
And never heed the storm.
For you must find the miller
In the west of Wertburg-town,
And bring me meal to feed my cows,
Before the sun is down.
Then woke the little handmaid,
From sleeping on her arm,
And took her crimson cashmere,
And hood with woolen warm;
And bridle, with its buckles
Of silver, from the wall,
And rode until the golden sun
Was sloping to his fall.
Then on the miller's door-stone,
In the west of Wertburg-town,
She dropt the bridle from her hands,
And quietly slid down.
And when to her sweet face her beast
Turned round, as if he said,
“How cold I am!” she took her hood
And put it on his head.
Soft spoke she to the miller,
“Nine cows are stalled at home,
And hither for three bags of meal,
To feed them, I am come.”
Now when the miller saw the price
She brought was not by half
Enough to buy three bags of meal,
He filled up two with chaff.
The night was wild and windy,
The moon was thin and old,
As home the little handmaid rode
All shivering with the cold,
103

Beside the river, black with ice,
And through the lonesome wood;
The snow upon her hair the while
A-gathering like a hood.
And when beside the roof-tree
Her good beast neighed aloud,
Her pretty crimson cashmere
Was whiter than a shroud.
“Get down, you silly handmaid,”
The old dame cried, “get down,—
You 've been a long time riding
From the west of Wertburg-town!”
And from her oaken settle
Forth hobbled she amain,—
Alas! the slender little hands
Were frozen to the rein.
Then came the neighbors, one and all,
With melancholy brows,
Mourning because the dame had lost
The keeper of her cows.
And cursing the rich miller,
In blind, misguided zeal,
Because he sent two bags of chaff
And only one of meal.
Dear Lord, how little man's award
The right or wrong attest,
And he who judges least, I think,
Is he who judges best.

HUGH THORNDYKE.

Egalton's hills are sunny,
And brave with oak and pine,
And Egalton's sons and daughters
Are tall and straight and fine.
The harvests in the summer
Cover the land like a smile,
For Egalton's men and women
Are busy all the while.
'Tis merry in the mowing
To see the great swath fall,
And the little laughing maidens
Raking, one and all.
Their heads like golden lilies
Shining over the hay,
And every one among them
As sweet as a rose in May.
And yet despite the favor
Which Heaven doth thus alot,
Egalton has its goblin,
As what good land has not?
Hugh Thorndyke—(peace be with him,
He is not living now)—
Was tempted by this creature
One day to leave his plow,
And sit beside the furrow
In a shadow cool and sweet,
For the lying goblin told him
That he would sow his wheat.
And told him this, morever,
That if he would not mind,
His house should burn to ashes,
His children be struck blind!
So, trusting half, half frightened,
Poor Hugh with many a groan
Waited beside the furrow,
But the wheat was never sown.
And when the fields about him
Grew white,—with very shame
He told his story, giving
The goblin all the blame.
Now Hugh's wife loved her husband,
And when he told her this,
She took his brawny hands in hers
And gave them each a kiss,
Saying, we ourselves this goblin
Shall straightway lay to rest,—
The more he does his worst, dear Hugh,
The more we'll do our best!
To work they went, and all turned out
Just as the good wife said,
And Hugh was blest,—his corn that year,
Grew higher than his head.
They sing a song in Egalton
Hugh made there, long ago,
Which says that honest love and work
Are all we need below.

FAITHLESS.

Seven great windows looking seaward,
Seven smooth columns white and high;
104

Here it was we made our bright plans,
Mildred Jocelyn and I.
Soft and sweet the water murmured
By yon stone wall, low and gray,
'T was the moonlight and the midnight
Of the middle of the May.
On the porch, now dark and lonesome,
Sat we as the hours went by,
Fearing nothing, hoping all things,
Mildred Jocelyn and I.
Singing low and pleasant ditties,
Kept the tireless wind his way,
Through the moonlight and the midnight
Of the middle of the May.
Not for sake of pleasant ditties,
Such as winds may sing or sigh,
Sat we on the porch together,
Mildred Jocelyn and I.
Shrilly crew the cock so watchful,
Answering to the watch-dog's bay,
In the moonlight and the midnight
Of the middle of the May.
Had the gates of Heaven been open
We would then have passed them by,
Well content with earthly pleasures,
Mildred Jocelyn and I.
I have seen the bees thick-flying,—
Azure-winged and ringed with gold;
I have seen the sheep from washing
Come back snowy to the fold;
And her hair was bright as bees are,
Bees with shining golden bands;
And no wool was ever whiter
Than her little dimpled hands.
Oft we promised to be lovers,
Howe'er fate our faith should try;
Giving kisses back for kisses,
Mildred Jocelyn and I.
Tears, sad tears, be stayed from falling;
Ye can bring no faintest ray
From the moonlight and the midnight
Of the middle of the May.
If some friend would come and tell me,
“On your Mildred's eyes so blue
Grass has grown, but on her death-bed
She was saying prayers for you;”
Here beside the smooth white columns
I should not so grieve to-day,
For the moonlight and the midnight
Of the middle of the May.

MY FADED SHAWL.

Tell you a story, do you say?
Whatever my wits remember?
Well, going down to the woods one day
Through the winds o' the wild November,
I met a lad, called Charley.
We lived on the crest o' the Krumley ridge,
And I was a farmer's daughter,
And under the hill by the Krumley bridge
Of the crazy Krumley water,
Lived this poor lad, Charley.
Right well I knew his ruddy cheek,
And step as light as a feather,
Although we never were used to speak,
And never to play together,
I and this poor lad Charley.
So, when I saw him hurrying down
My path, will you believe me?
I knit my brow to an ugly frown,—
Forgive me, oh forgive me!
Sweet shade of little Charley.
The dull clouds dropped their skirts of snow
On the hills, and made them colder;
I was only twelve years old, or so,
And may be a twelve-month older
Was Charley, dearest Charley.
A faded shawl, with flowers o' blue,
All tenderly and fairly
Enwrought by his mother's hand, I knew,
He wore that day, my Charley,
My little love, my Charley.
His great glad eyes with light were lit
Like the dewy light o' the morning;
His homespun jacket, not a whit
Less proudly, for my scorning,
He wore, brave-hearted Charley.
105

I bore a pitcher,—'t was our pride,—
At the fair my father won it,
And consciously I turned the side
With the golden lilies on it,
To dazzle the eyes o' Charley.
This pitcher, and a milk-white loaf,
Piping hot from the platter,
When, where the path turned sharply off
To the crazy Krumley water,
I came upon my Charley.
He smiled,—my pulses never stirred
From their still and steady measures,
Till the wind came flapping down like a bird
And caught away my treasures.
“Help me, O Charley! Charley!
My loaf, my golden lilies gone!”
My heart was all a-flutter;
For I saw them whirling on and on
To the frozen Krumley water,
And then I saw my Charley,
The frayed and faded shawl from his neck
Unknot, with a quick, wise cunning,
And speckled with snow-flakes, toss it back,
That he might be free for running.
My good, great-hearted Charley.
I laid it softly on my arm,
I warmed it in my bosom,
And traced each broider-stitch to the form
Of its wilding model blossom,
For sake of my gentle Charley.
Away, away! like a shadow fleet!
The air was thick and blinding;
The icy stones were under his feet,
And the way was steep and winding.
Come back! come back my Charley!
He waved his ragged cap in the air,
My childish fears to scatter;
Dear Lord, was it Charley? Was he there,
On th' treacherous crust o' th' water?
No more! 't is death! my Charley.
The thin blue glittering sheet of ice
Bends, breaks, and falls asunder;
His arms are lifted once, and twice!
My God! he is going under!
He is drowned! he is dead! my Charley.
The wild call stops,—the blood runs chill;
I dash the tears from my lashes,
And strain my gaze to th' foot o' th' hill,—
Who flies so fast through the rushes?
My drownèd love? my Charley?
My brain is wild,—I laugh, I cry,—
The chill blood thaws and rallies;
What holds he thus, so safe and high?
My loaf? and my golden lilies?
Charley! my sweet, sweet Charley!
Across my mad brain word on word
Of tenderness went whirling;
I kissed him, called him my little bird
O' th' woods, my dove, my darling,—
My true, true love, my Charley.
In what sweet phrases he replied
I know not now—no matter—
This only, that he would have died
In the crazy Krumley water
To win my praise,—dear Charley!
He took the frayed and faded shawl,
For his sake warmed all over,
And wrapped me round and round with all
The tenderness of a lover,—
My best, my bravest Charley!
And when his shoes o' the snows were full,—
Aye, full to their tops,—a-smiling
He said they were lined with a fleece o' wool,
The pain o' th' frost beguiling.
Was ever a lad like Charley?
So down the slope o' th' Krumley ridge.
Our hands locked fast together,
And over the crazy Krumley bridge,
We went through the freezing weather,—
I and my drownèd Charley.
The corn fields all of ears were bare;
But the stalks, so bright and brittle,
106

And the black and empty husks were there
For the mouths of the hungry cattle.
We passed them, I and Charley.
And passed the willow-tree that went
With the wind, as light as a feather,
And th' two proud oaks with their shoulders bent
Till their faces came together,—
Whispering, I said to Charley:
The hollow sycamore, so white,
The old gum, straight and solemn,
With never the curve of a root in sight;
But set in the ground like a column,—
I, prattling to my Charley.
We left behind the sumach hedge,
And the waste of stubble crossing,
Came at last to the dusky edge
Of the woods, so wildly tossing,—
I and my quiet Charley.
Ankle-deep in the leaves we stood,—
The leaves that were brown as leather
And saw the choppers chopping the wood,—
Seven rough men together,—
I and my drooping Charley.
I see him now as I saw him stand
With my loaf—he had hardly won it—
And the beautiful pitcher in his hand,
With the golden lilies on it,—
My little saint—my Charley.
The stubs were burning hear and there,
The winds the fierce flames blowing,
And the arms o' th' choppers, brown and bare,
Now up, now down are going,—
I turn to them from Charley.
Right merrily the echoes ring
From the sturdy work a-doing,
And as the woodsmen chop, they sing
Of the girls that they are wooing.
O what a song for Charley!
This way an elm begins to lop,
And that, its balance losing,
And the squirrel comes from his nest in the top,
And sits in the boughs a-musing.
What ails my little Charley?
The loaf from out his hand he drops,
His eyelid flutters, closes;
He tries to speak, he whispers, stops,—
His mouth its rose-red loses,—
One look, just one, my Charley.
And now his white and frozen cheek
Each wild-eyed chopper-fixes,
And never a man is heard to speak
As they set their steel-blue axes,
And haste to the help o' Charley!
Say, what does your beautiful pitcher hold?
Come tell us if you can, sir!
The chopper's question was loud and bold,
But never a sign nor answer:
All fast asleep was Charley.
The stubs are burning low to th' earth,
The winds the fierce flames flaring,
And now to the edge of the crystal hearth
The men in their arms are bearing
The clay-cold body of Charley.
O'er heart, o'er temple those rude hands go,
Each hand as light as a brother's,
As they gather about him in the snow,
Like a company of mothers,—
My dead, my darling Charley.
Before them all (my heart grew bold,)
From off my trembling bosom,
I unwound the mantle, fold by fold,
All for my blighted blossom,
My sweet white flower,—my Charley.
I have tokens large, I have tokens small
Of all my life's lost pleasures,
But that poor frayed and faded shawl
Is the treasure of my treasures,—
The first, last gift of Charley.

OLD CHUMS.

Is it you, Jack? Old boy, is it really you?
I should n't have known you but that I was told
You might be expected;—pray how do you do?
But what, under heaven, has made you so old?
107

Your hair! why, you 've only a little gray fuzz!
And your beard 's white! but that can be beautifully dyed;
And your legs are n't but just half as long as they was;
And then—stars and garters! your vest is so wide!
Is that your hand? Lord, how I envied you that
In the time of our courting,—so soft and so small,
And now it is callous inside, and so fat,—
Well, you beat the very old deuce, that is all.
Turn round! let me look at you! is n't it odd,
How strange in a few years a fellow's chum grows!
Your eye is shrunk up like a bean in a pod,
And what are these lines branching out from your nose?
Your back has gone up and your shoulders gone down,
And all the old roses are under the plough;
Why, Jack, if we 'd happened to meet about town,
I would n't have known you from Adam, I vow!
You 've had trouble, have you? I'm sorry; but John,
All trouble sits lightly at your time of life.
How's Billy, my namesake? You don't say he 's gone
To the war, John, and that you have buried your wife?
Poor Katharine! so she has left you—ah me!
I thought she would live to be fifty, or more.
What is it you tell me? She was fifty-three!
Oh no, Jack! she was n't so much, by a score!
Well, there 's little Katy,—was that her name, John?
She'll rule your house one of these days like a queen.
That baby! good Lord! is she married and gone?
With a Jack ten years old! and a Katy fourteen!
Then I give it up! Why, you 're younger than I
By ten or twelve years, and to think you 've come back
A sober old graybeard, just ready to die!
I don't understand how it is—do you, Jack?
I 've got all my faculties yet, sound and bright;
Slight failure my eyes are beginning to hint;
But still, with my spectacles on, and a light
'Twixt them and the page, I can read any print.
My hearing is dull, and my leg is more spare,
Perhaps, than it was when I beat you at ball;
My breath gives out, too, if I go up a stair,—
But nothing worth mentioning, nothing at all!
My hair is just turning a little you see,
And lately I 've put on a broader-brimmed hat
Than I wore at your wedding, but you will agree,
Old fellow, I look all the better for that.
I'm sometimes a little rheumatic, 't is true,
And my nose is n't quite on a straight line, they say;
For all that, I don't think I 've changed much, do you?
And I don't feel a day older, Jack, not a day.

THE SHOEMAKER.

Now the hickory with its hum
Cheers the wild and rainy weather,
And the shoemaker has come
With his lapstone, last, and leather.
108

With his head as white as wool,
With the wrinkles getting bolder,
And his heart with news as full
As the wallet on his shoulder.
How the children's hearts will beat,
How their eyes will shine with pleasure
As he sets their little feet,
Bare and rosy, in his measure,
And how, behind his chair,
They will steal grave looks to summon,
As he ties away his hair
From his forehead, like a woman.
When he tells the merry news
How their eyes will laugh and glisten,
While the mother binds the shoes
And they gather round and listen.
But each one, leaning low
On his lapstone, will be crying,
As he tells how little Jo,
With a broken back is dying.
Of the way he came to fall
In the flowery April weather,
Of the new shoes on the wall
That are hanging, tied together.
How the face of little Jo
Has grown white, and they who love him
See the shadows come and go,
As if angels flew above him.
And the old shoemaker, true
To the woe of the disaster,
Will uplift his apron blue
To his eyes, then work the faster.

TO THE WIND.

Steer hither, rough old mariner,
Keeping your jolly crew
Beating about in the seas of life,—
Steer hither, and tell me true
About my little son Maximus,
Who sailed away with you!
Seven and twenty years ago
He came to us,—ah me!
The snow that fell that whistling night
Was not so pure as he,
And I was rich enough, I trow,
When I took him on my knee.
I was rich enough, and when I met
A man, unthrift and lorn,
Whom I a hundred times had met
With less of pity than scorn,
I opened my purse,—it was well for him
That Maximus was born!
We have five boys at home, erect
And straight of limb, and tall,
Gentle, and loving all that God
Has made, or great or small,
But Maximus, our youngest born,
Was the gentlest of them all!
Yet was he brave,—they all are brave,
Not one for favor or frown
That fears to set his strength against
The bravest of the town,
But this, our little Maximus,
Could fight when he was down.
Six darling boys! not one of all,
If we had had to choose,
Could we have singled from the rest
To sail on such a cruise,
But surely little Maximus
Was not the one to lose!
His hair divided into slips,
And tumbled every way,—
His mother always called them curls,
She has one to this day,—
And th' nails of his hands were thin and red
As the leaves of a rose in May.
Steer hither, rough mariner, and bring
Some news of our little lad,—
If he be anywhere out of th' grave
It will make his mother glad,
Tho' he grieved her more with his waywardness
Than all the boys she had.
I know it was against himself,
For he was good and kind,
That he left us, though he saw our eyes
With tears, for his sake, blind,—
Oh how can you give to such as he,
Your nature, willful wind!
109

LITTLE CYRUS.

Emily Mayfield all the day
Sits and rocks her cradle alone,
And never a neighbor comes to say
How pretty little Cyrus has grown.
Meekly Emily's head is hung,
Many a sigh from her bosom breaks,
And ne'er such pitiful tune was sung
As that her lowly lullaby makes.
Near where the village school-house stands,
On the grass by the mossy spring,
Merry children are linking hands,
But little Cyrus is not in the ring.
“They might make room for me, if they tried,”
He thinks as he listens to call and shout,
And his eyes so pretty are open wide,
Wondering why they have left him out.
Nightly hurrying home they go,
Each, of the praise he has had to boast
But never an honor can Cyrus show,
And yet he studies his book the most.
Little Cyrus is out in the hay,—
Not where the clover is sweet and red,
With mates of his tender years at play,
But where the stubble is sharp, instead,
And every flowerless shrub and tree
That takes the twinkling noontide heat,
Is dry and dusty as it can be;
There with his tired, sunburnt feet
Dragging wearily, Cyrus goes,
Trying to sing as the others do,
But never the stoutest hand that mows
Says, “It is work too hard for you,
Little Cyrus, your hands so small
Bleed with straining to keep your place,
And the look that says I must bear it all
Is sadder than tears in your childish face:
So give me your knotty swath to mow,
And rest a while on the shady sward,
Else your body will crooked grow,
Little Cyrus, from working hard.”
If he could listen to words like that,
The stubble would not be half so rough
To his naked feet, and his ragged hat
Would shield him from sunshine well enough.
But ne'er a moment the mowers check
Song or whistle, to think of him,
With blisters burning over his neck,
Under his straw hat's ragged brim.
So, stooping over the field he goes,
With none to pity if he complain,
And so the crook in his body grows,
And he never can stand up straight again.
The cattle lie down in the lane so still,—
The scythes in the apple-tree shine bright,
And Cyrus sits on the ashen sill
Watching the motes, in the streaks of light,
Quietly slanting out of the sky,
Over the hill to the porch so low,
Wondering if in the world on high
There will be any briery fields to mow.
Emily Mayfield, pale and weak,
Steals to his side in the light so dim,
And the single rose in his swarthy cheek
Grows double, the while she says to him,—
Little Cyrus, 't is many a day
Since one with just your own sweet eyes,
And a voice as rich as a bird's in May,
(Gently she kisses the boy and sighs,)
Here on the porch when the work was done,
Sat with a young girl, (not like me,)
Her heart was light as the wool she spun,
And her laughter merry as it could be;
110

Her hair was silken, he used to say,
When they sat on the porch-side, “woeful when,”
And I know the clover you mowed today
Was not more red than her cheeks were then.
He told her many a story wild,
Like this, perhaps, which I tell to you,
And she was a woman less than child,
And thought whatever he said was true.
From home and kindred,—ah me, ah me!
With only her faith in his love, she fled,
'T was all like a dreaming, and when she could see
She owned she was sinful and prayed to be dead.
But always, however long she may live,
Desolate, desolate, she shall repine,
And so with no love to receive or to give,
Her face is as sad and as wrinkled as mine.
Little Cyrus, trembling, lays
His head on his mother's knee to cry,
And kissing his sunburnt cheek, she says,
“Hush, my darling, it was not I.”

FIFTEEN AND FIFTY.

Come, darling, put your frown aside!
I own my fault, 't is true, 't is true,
There is one picture that I hide,
Even away from you!
Why, then, I do not love you? Nay,
You wrong me there, my pretty one:
Remember you are in your May;
My summer days are done,
My autumn days are come, in truth,
And blighting frosts begin to fall;
You are the sunny light of youth,
That glorifies it all.
Even when winter clouds shall break
In storms, I shall not mind, my dear,
For you within my heart shall make
The springtime of the year!
In short, life did its best for me,
When first our paths together ran;
But I had lived, you will agree,
One life, ere yours began.
I must have smiled, I must have wept,
Ere mirth or moan could do you wrong;
But come, and see the picture, kept
Hidden away so long!
The walk will not be strange nor far,—
Across the meadow, toward the tree
From whose thick top one silver star
Uplifting slow, you see.
So darling, we have gained the hight
Where lights and shadows softly meet;
Rest you a moment,—full in sight,
My picture lies complete.
A hill-side dark, with woods behind,
A strip of emerald grass before,—
A homely house; some trees that blind
Window, and wall, and door.
A singing streamlet,—either side
Bordered with flowers, geraniums gay,
And pinks, with red mouths open wide
For sunshine, all the day.
A tasseled corn field on one hand,
And on the other meadows green,
With angles of bright harvest bend
Wedged sunnily between.
A world of smiling ways and walks,
The hop-vines twisting through the pales,
The crimson cups o' the hollyhocks,
The lilies, in white veils;
The porch with morning-glories gay,
And sunken step, the well-sweep tall,
The barn, with roof 'twixt black and gray,
And warpt, wind-shaken wall;
The garden with the fence of stone,
The lane so dusky at the close,
111

The door-yard gate all overgrown
With one wild smothering rose;
The honeysuckle that has blown
His trumpet till his throat is red,
And the wild swallow, mateless flown
Under the lonesome shed;
The corn, with bean-pods showing through,
The fields that to the sunset lean,
The crooked paths along the dew,
Telling of flocks unseen.
The bird in scarlet-colored coat
Flying about the apple-tree;
The new moon in her shallow boat,
Sailing alone, you see;
The aspen at the window-pane,—
The pair of bluebirds on the peach,—
The yellow waves of ripening grain,—
You see them all and each.
The shadows stretching to the door,
From far-off hills, and nearer trees,
I cannot show you any more,—
The landscape holds but these.
And yet, my darling, after all
'T is not my picture you behold;
Your house is ruined near to fall,—
Your flowers are dew and mould.
I wish that you could only see,
While the glad garden shines its best,
The little rose that was to me
The queen of all the rest.
The bluebirds,—he with scarlet wings,—
The silver brook, the sunset glow,
To me are but the signs of things
The landscape cannot show.
That old house was our home—not ours!
You were not born—how could it be?
That window where you see the flowers,
Is where she watched for me,
So pale, so patient, night by night,
Her eyes upon this pathway here,
Until at last I came in sight,—
Nay, do not frown, my dear,
That was another world! and so
Between us there can be no strife;
I was but twenty, you must know,
And she my baby-wife!
Twin violets by a shady brook
Were like her eyes,—their beauteousness
Was in a rainy, moonlight look
Of tears and tenderness.
Her fingers had dewy touch;
Grace was in all her modest ways;
Forgive my praising her so much,—
She cannot hear my praise.
Beneath the window where you see
The trembling, tearful flowers, she lay,
Her arms as if they reached for me,—
Her hair put smooth away.
The closèd mouth still smiling sweet,
The waxen eyelids, drooping low,
The marriage-slippers on the feet,—
The marriage-dress of snow!
And still, as in my dreams, I do,
I kiss the sweet white hands, the eyes;
My heart with pain is broken anew,
My soul with sorrow dies.
It was, they said, her spirit's birth,—
That she was gone, a saint to be;
Alas! a poor, pale piece of earth
Was all that I could see.
In tears, my darling! that fair brow
With jealous shadows overrun?
A score of flowers upon one bough
May bloom as well as one!
This ragged bush, from spring to fall
Stands here with living glories lit;
And every flower a-blush, with all
That doth belong to it!
Look on it! learn the lesson then,—
No more than we evoke, is ours!
The great law holdeth good with men,
The same as with the flowers.
And if that lost, that sweet white hand
Had never blessed me with its light,
You had not been, you understand,
More than you are to-night.
112

This foolish pride that women have
To play upon us,—to enthrall,
To absorb, doth hinder what they crave,—
Their being loved at all!
Never the mistress of the arts
They practice on us, still again
And o'er again, they wring our hearts
With pain that giveth pain!
They make their tyranny a boast,
And in their petulance will not see
That he is always bound the most,
Who in the most is free!
They prize us more for what they screen
From censure, than for what is best;
And you, my darling, at fifteen,
Why, you are like the rest!
Your arms would find me now, though I
Were low as ever guilt can fall;
And that, my little love, is why
I love you, after all!
Smiling! “the pain is worth the cost,
That wins a homily so wise?”
Ah, little tyrant, I am lost,
When thus you tyrannize.

JENNY DUNLEATH.

Jenny Dunleath coming back to the town?
What! coming back here for good, and for all?
Well, that 's the last thing for Jenny to do,—
I 'd go to the ends of the earth,—would n't you?
Before I 'd come back! She'll be pushed to the wall.
Some slips, I can tell her, are never lived down,
And she ought to know it. It 's really true,
You think, that she 's coming? How dreadfully bold!
But one don't know what will be done, nowadays,
And Jenny was never the girl to be moved
By what the world said of her. What she approved,
She would do, in despite of its blame or its praise.
She ought to be wiser by this time—let 's see;
Why, sure as you live, she is forty years old!
The day I was married she stood up with me,
And my Kate is twenty: ah yes, it must be
That Jenny is forty, at least—forty-three,
It may be, or four. She was older, I know,
A good deal, when she was bridesmaid, than I,
And that 's twenty years, now, and longer, ago;
So if she intends to come back and deny
Her age, as 't is likely she will, I can show
The plain honest truth, by the age of my Kate,
And I will, too! To see an old maid tell a lie,
Just to seem to be young, is a thing that I hate.
You thought we were friends? No, my dear, not at all!
'T is true we were friendly, as friendliness goes,
But one gets one's friends as one chooses one's clothes,
And just as the fashion goes out, lets them fall.
I will not deny we were often together
About the time Jenny was in her high feather;
And she was a beauty! No rose of the May
Looked ever so lovely as she on the day
I was married. She, somehow, could grace
Whatever thing touched her. The knots of soft lace
On her little white shoes,—the gay cap that half hid
Her womanly forehead,—the bright hair that slid
Like sunshine adown her bare shoulders,—the gauze
That rippled about her sweet arms, just because
'T was Jenny that wore it,—the flower in her belt,—
No matter what color, 't was fittest, you felt.
113

If she sighed, if she smiled, if she played with her fan,
A sort of religious coquettishness ran
Through it all,—a bewitching and wildering way,
All tearfully tender and graciously gay.
If e'er you were foolish in word or in speech,
The approval she gave with her serious eyes
Would make your own foolishness seem to you wise;
So all from her magical presence, and each,
Went happy away: 't was her art to confer
A self-love, that ended in your loving her.
And so she is coming back here! a mishap
To her friends, if she have any friends, one would say.
Well, well, she can't take her old place in the lap
Of holiday fortune: her head must be gray;
And those dazzling cheeks! I would just like to see
How she looks, if I could without her seeing me.
To think of the Jenny Dunleath that I knew,
A dreary old maid with nobody to love her,—
Her hair silver-white and no roof-tree above her.—
One ought to have pity upon her,—'tis true!
But I never liked her; in truth, I was glad
In my own secret heart when she came to her fall;
When praise of her meekness was ringing the loudest
I always would say she was proud as the proudest;
That meekness was only a trick that she had,—
She was too proud to seem to be proud, that was all.
She stood up with me, I was saying: that day
Was the last of her going abroad for long years;
I never had seen her so bright and so gay,
Yet, spite of the lightness, I had my own fears
That all was not well with her: 't was but her pride
Made her sing the old songs when they asked her to sing,
For when it was done with, and we were aside,
A look wan and weary came over her brow,
And still I can feel just as if it were now,
How she slipped up and down on my finger, the ring,
And so hid her face in my bosom and cried.
When the fiddlers were come, and young Archibald Mill
Was dancing with Hetty, I saw how it was;
Nor was I misled when she said she was ill,
For the dews were not standing so thick in the grass
As the drops on her cheeks. So you never have heard
How she fell in disgrace with young Archibald! No?
I won't be the first, then, to whisper a word,—
Poor thing! if she only repent, let it go!
Let it go! let what go? My good madam, I pray,
Whereof do I stand here accused? I would know,—
I am Jenny Dunleath, that you knew long ago,
A dreary old maid, and unloved, as you say:
God keep you, my sister, from knowing such woe!
Forty years old, madam, that I agree,
The roses washed out of my cheeks by the tears;
And counting my barren and desolate years
By the bright little heads dropping over your knee,
You look on my sorrow with scorn, it appears.
Well, smile, if you can, as you hold up in sight
114

Your matronly honors, for all men to see;
But I cannot discern, madam, what there can be
To move your proud mirth, in the wildness of night
Falling round me; no hearth for my coming alight,—
No rosy-red cheeks at the windows for me.
My love is my shame,—in your love you are crowned,—
But as we are women, our natures are one;
By need of its nature, the dew and the sun
Belong to the poorest, pale flower o' the ground.
And think you that He who created the heart
Has struck it all helpless and hopeless apart
From these lesser works? Nay, I hold He has bound
Our rights with our needs in so sacred a knot,
We cannot undo them with any mere lie;
Nay, more, my proud lady,—the love you have got.
May belong to another as dreary as I!
You have all the world's recognition,—your bond.—
But have you that better right, lying beyond?—
Agreement with Conscience?—that sanction whereby
You can live in the face of the cruelest scorns?
Aye, set your bare bosom against the sharp thorns
Of jealousy, hatred,—against all the harms
Bad fortune can gather,—and say, With these arms
About me, I stand here to live and to die!
I take you to keep for my patron and saint,
And you shall be bound by that sweetest constraint
Of a liberty wide as the love that you give;
And so to the glory of God we will live,
Through health and through sickness, dear lover and friend,
Through light and through darkness,—through all, to the end!
Let it go! Let what go? Make me answer, I pray.
You were speaking just now of some terrible fall,—
My love for young Archibald Mill,—is that all?
I loved him with all my young heart, as you say,—
Nay, what is more, madam, I love him to-day,—
My cheeks thin and wan, and my hair gray on gray!
And so I am bold to come back to the town,
In hope that at last I may lay my bones down,
And have the green grasses blow over my face,
Among the old hills where my love had its birth!
If love were a trifle, the morning to grace,
And fade when the night came, why, what were it worth?
He is married! and I am come hither too late?
Your vision misleads you,—so pray you, untie
That knot from your sweet brow,—I come here to die,
And not make a moan for the chances of fate!
I know that all love that is true is divine,
And when this low incident, Time, shall have sped,
I know the desire of my soul shall be mine,—
That, weary, or wounded, or dying, or dead,
The end is secure, so I bear the estate—
Despised of the world's favored women—and wait.

TRICKSEY'S RING.

O what a day it was to us,—
My wits were upside down,
115

When cousin Joseph Nicholas
Came visiting from town!
His curls they were so smooth and bright,
His frills they were so fine,
I thought perhaps the stars that night
Would be ashamed to shine.
But when the dews had touched the grass,
They came out, large and small,
As if our cousin Nicholas
Had not been there at all!
Our old house never seemed to me
So poor and mean a thing
As then, and just because that he
Was come a-visiting!
I never thought the sun prolonged
His light a single whit
Too much, till then, nor thought he wronged
My face, by kissing it.
But now I sought to pull my dress
Of faded homespun down,
Because my cousin Nicholas
Would see my feet were brown.
The butterflies—bright airy things—
From off the lilac buds
I scared, for having on their wings
The shadows of the woods.
I thought my straight and jet black hair
Was almost a disgrace,
Since Joseph Nicholas had fair
Smooth curls about his face.
I wished our rosy window sprays
Were laces, dropping down,
That he might think we knew the ways
Of rich folks in the town.
I wished the twittering's swallow had
A finer tune to sing,
Since such a stylish city lad
Was come a-visiting.
I wished the hedges, as they swayed,
Were each a solid wall,
And that our grassy lane were made
A market street withal.
I wished the drooping heads of rye,
Set full of silver dews,
Were silken tassels all to tie
The ribbons of his shoes!
And when, by homely household slight,
They called me Tricksey True,
I thought my cheeks would blaze, in spite
Of all that I could do.
Tricksey!—that name would surely be
A shock to ears polite;
In short I thought that nothing we
Could say or do was right.
For injured pride I could have wept,
Until my heart and I
Fell musing how my mother kept
So equable and high.
She did not cast her eyelids down,
Ashamed of being poor:
To her a gay young man from town,
Was no discomfiture.
She reverenced honor's sacred laws
As much, aye more than he,
And was not put about because
He had more gold than she;
But held her house beneath a hand
As steady and serene,
As though it were a palace, and
As though she were a queen.
And when she set our silver cup
Upon the cloth of snow,
For Nicholas, I lifted up
My timid eyes, I know;
And saw a ring, as needs I must,
Upon his finger shine;
O how I longed to have it just
A minute upon mine!
I thought of fairy folk that led
Their lives in sylvan shades,
And brought fine things, as I had read,
To little rustic maids.
And so I mused within my heart,
How I would search about
The fields and woodlands, for my part,
Till I should spy them out.
And so when down the western sky
The sun had dropped at last,
Right softly and right cunningly
From out the house I passed.
116

It was as if awake I dreamed,
All Nature was so sweet
The small round dandelions seemed
Like stars beneath my feet.
Fresh greenness as I went along
The grass did seem to take,
And birds beyond the time of song
Kept singing for my sake.
The dew o'erran the lily's cup,
The ground-moss shone so well,
That if the sky were down or up,
Was hard for me to tell.
I never felt my heart to sit
So lightly on its throne;
Ah, who knew what would come of it,
With fairy folk alone!
An hour,—another hour went by,
All harmless arts I tried,
And tried in vain, and wearily
My hopes within me died.
No tent of moonshine, and no ring
Of dancers could I find,—
The fairy rich folk and their king
For once would be unkind!
My spirit, nameless fear oppressed;
My courage went adrift,
As all out of the low dark west
The clouds began to lift.
I lost my way within the wood,—
The path I could not guess,
When, Heaven be praised, before me stood
My cousin Nicholas!
Right tenderly within his arm
My shrinking hand he drew;
He spoke so low, “these damps will harm
My little Tricksey True.”
I know not how it was: my shame
In new delight was drowned;
His accent gave my rustic name
Almost a royal sound.
He bent his cheek against my face,—
He whispered in my ear,
“Why came you to this dismal place?
Tell me, my little dear!”
Betwixt the boughs that o'er us hung
The light began to fall;
His praises loosed my silent tongue,—
At last I told him all.
I felt his lips my forehead touch;
I shook and could not stand;
The ring I coveted so much
Was shining on my hand!
We talked about the little elves
And fairies of the grove,
And then we talked about ourselves,
And then we talked of love.
'T was at the ending of the lane,—
The garden yet to pass,
I offered back his ring again
To my good Nicholas.
“Dear Tricksey, don't you understand,
You foolish little thing.”
He said, “that I must have the hand,
As well as have the ring?”
“To-night—just now! I pray you wait!
The hand is little worth!”
“Nay darling—now! we 're at the gate!”
And so he had them both!

CRAZY CHRISTOPHER.

Neighbored by a maple wood,
Dim and dusty, old and low;
Thus our little school-house stood,
Two and twenty years ago.
On the roof of clapboards, dried
Smoothly in the summer heat,
Of the hundred boys that tried,
Never one could keep his feet.
Near the door the cross-roads were,
A stone's throw, perhaps, away,
And to read the sign-board there,
Made a pastime every day.
He who turned the index down,
So it pointed on the sign
To the nearest market-town,
Was, we thought, a painter fine:
And the childish wonder rose,
As we gazed with puzzled looks
117

On the letters, good as those
Printed in our spelling-books.
Near it was a well,—how deep!
With its bucket warped and dry,
Broken curb, and leaning sweep,
And a plum-tree growing by,
Which, with low and tangly top,
Made the grass so bright and cool,
Travelers would sometimes stop,
For a half-hour's rest—in school,
Not an eye could keep the place
Of the lesson then,—intent
Each to con the stranger's face,
And to see the road he went.
Scattered are we far and wide,—
Careless, curious children then;
Wanderers some, and some have died;
Some, thank God, are honest men.
But, as playmates, large or small,
Noisy, thoughtful, or demure,
I can see them, one and all,
The great world in miniature.
Common flowers, with common names,
Filled the woods and meadows round:
Dandelions with their flames
Smothered flat against the ground;
Mullein stocks, with gray braids set
Full of yellow; thistles speared;
Violets, purple near to jet;
Crowfoot, and the old-man's-beard.
And along the dusty way,
Thick as prints of naked feet,
Iron-weeds and fennel gay
Blossomed in the summer heat.
Hedges of wild blackberries,
Pears, and honey-locusts tall,
Spice-wood, and “good apple-trees,”
Well enough we knew them all.
But the ripest blackberries,
Nor the mulleins topped with gold,
Peach nor honey-locust trees,
Nor the flowers, when all are told,
Pleased us like the cabin, near
Which a silver river ran,
And where lived, for many a year,
Christopher, the crazy man.
Hair as white as snow he had,
Mixing with a beard that fell
Down his breast; if he were mad,
Passed our little wits to tell.
In his eyes' unfathomed blue
Burned a ray so clear and bright,
Oftentimes we said we knew
It would shame the candlelight.
Mystic was the life he led;
Picking herbs in secret nooks,—
Finding, as the old folks said,
“Tongues in trees and books in brooks.”
Waking sometimes in the gloom
Of the solemn middle night,
He had seen his narrow room
Full of angels dressed in white;
So he said in all good faith,
And one day, with tearful eye,
Told us that he heard old Death
Sharpening his scythe, close by.
Whether it were prophecy,
Or a dream, I cannot say;
But good little Emily
Died the evening of that day.
In the woods, where up and down
We had searched, and only seen
Adder's-tongue, with dull, dead brown,
Mottled with the heavy green;
May-apples, or wild birds sweet,
Going through the shadows dim,
Spirits, with white, noiseless feet,
Walked, he said, and talked with him.
“What is all the toiling for,
And the spinning?” he would say;
“See the lilies at my door,—
Never dressed a queen as they.
“He who gives the ravens food
For our wants as well will care;
O my children! He is good,—
Better than your fathers are.”
So he lived from year to year,
Never toiling, mystery-clad,—
Spirits, if they did appear,
Being all the friends he had.
118

Alternating seasons sped,
And there fell no night so rough,
But his cabin fire, he said,
Made it light and warm enough.
Soft and slow our steps would be,
As the silver river ran,
Days when we had been to see
Christopher, the crazy man.
Soft and slow, to number o'er
The delights he said he had;
Wondering always, more and more,
Whether he were wise or mad.
On a hill-side next the sun,
Where the school-boys quiet keep,
And to seed the clovers run,
He is lying, fast asleep.
But at last (to Heaven be praise),
Gabriel his bed will find,
Giving love for lonely days,
And for visions, his right mind.
Sometimes, when I think about
How he lived among the flowers,
Gently going in and out,
With no cares nor fretful hours,—
Of the deep serene of light,
In his blue, unfathomed eyes,—
Seems the childish fancy right,
That could half believe him wise.

THE FERRY OF GALLAWAY.

In the stormy waters of Gallaway
My boat had been idle the livelong day,
Tossing and tumbling to and fro,
For the wind was high and the tide was low.
The tide was low and the wind was high,
And we were heavy, my heart and I,
For not a traveler all the day
Had crossed the ferry of Gallaway.
At set o' th' sun, the clouds outspread
Like wings of darkness overhead,
When, out o' th' west, my eyes took heed
Of a lady, riding at full speed.
The hoof-strokes struck on the flinty hill
Like silver ringing on silver, till
I saw the veil in her fair hand float,
And flutter a signal for my boat.
The waves ran backward as if 'ware
Of a presence more than mortal fair,
And my little craft leaned down and lay
With her side to th' sands o' th' Gallaway.
“Haste, good boatman! haste!” she cried,
“And row me over the other side!”
And she stript from her finger the shining ring,
And gave it me for the ferrying.
“Woe 's me! my Lady, I may not go,
For the wind is high and th' tide is low,
And rocks like dragons lie in the wave,—
Slip back on your finger the ring you gave!”
“Nay, nay! for the rocks will be melted down,
And the waters, they never will let me drown,
And the wind a pilot will prove to thee,
For my dying lover, he waits for me!”
Then bridle-ribbon and silver spur
She put in my hand, but I answered her:
“The wind is high and the tide is low,—
I must not, dare not, and will not go!”
Her face grew deadly white with pain,
And she took her champing steed by th' mane,
And bent his neck to th' ribbon and spur
That lay in my hand,—but I answered her:
“Though you should proffer me twice and thrice
Of ring and ribbon and steed, the price,—
The leave of kissing your lily-like hand!
I never could row you safe to th' land.”
119

“Then God have mercy!” she faintly cried,
“For my lover is dying the other side!
O cruel, O cruellest Gallaway,
Be parted, and make me a path, I pray!”
Of a sudden, the sun shone large and bright
As if he were staying away the night,
And the rain on the river fell as sweet
As the pitying tread of an angel's feet.
And spanning the water from edge to edge
A rainbow stretched like a golden bridge,
And I put the rein in her hand so fair,
And she sat in her saddle, th' queen o' th' air.
And over the river, from edge to edge,
She rode on the shifting and shimmering bridge,
And landing safe on the farther side,—
“Love is thy conqueror, Death!” she cried.

REVOLUTIONARY STORY.

“Good mother, what quaint legend are you reading,
In that old-fashioned book?
Beside your door I 've been this half-hour pleading
All vainly for one look.
“About your chair the little birds fly bolder
Than in the woods they fly,
With heads dropt slantwise, as if o'er your shoulder
They read as they went by;
“Each with his glossy collar ruffling double
Around his neck so slim,
Even as with that atmosphere of trouble.
Through which our blessings swim.
“Is it that years throw on us chillier shadows,
The longer time they run,
That, with your sad face fronting yonder meadows,
You creep into the sun?
“I'll sit upon the ground and hear your story.”
Sadly she shook her head,
And, pushing back the thin, white veil of glory
'Twixt her and heaven, she said:
“Ah! wondering child, I knew not of your pleading;
My thoughts were chained, indeed,
Upon my book, and yet what you call reading
I have no skill to read.
“There was a time once when I had a lover;
Why look you in such doubt?
True, I am old now—ninety years and over:”
A crumpled flower fell out
From 'twixt the book-leaves. “Seventy years they 've pressed it:
'T was like a living flame,
When he that plucked it, by the plucking blessed it;”
I knew the smile that came,
And flickered on her lips in wannish splendor,
Was lighted at that flower,
For even yet its radiance, faint and tender,
Reached to its primal hour.
“God bless you! seventy years since it was gathered?”
“Aye, I remember well;”
And in her old hand, palsy-struck, and withered,
She held it up to smell.
“And is it true, as poets say, good mother,
That love can never die?
And that for all it gives unto another
It grows the richer?” “Aye,
“The white wall-brier, from spring till summer closes,
All the great world around,
Hangs by its thorny arms to keep its roses
From off the low, black ground;
“And love is like it: sufferings but try it;
Death but evokes the might
120

That, all, too mighty to be thwarted by it,
Breaks through into the light.”
“Then frosty age may wrap about its bosom
The light of fires long dead?”
Kissing the piece of dust she called a blossom,
She shut the book, and said:
“You see yon ash-tree with its thick leaves, blowing
The blue side out? (Great Power,
Keep its head green!) My sweetheart, in the mowing
Beneath it found my flower.
“A mile off all that day the shots were flying,
And mothers, from the door,
Looked for the sons, who, on their faces lying,
Would come home never more.
“Across the battle-field the dogs went whining;
I saw, from where I stood,
Horses with quivering flanks, and strained eyes, shining
Like thin skins full of blood.
“Brave fellows we had then: there was my neighbor,—
The British lines he saw;
Took his old scythe and ground it to a sabre,
And mowed them down like straw!
“And there were women, then, of giant spirit,—
Nay, though the blushes start,
The garments their degenerate race inherit
Hang loose about the heart.
“Where was I, child? how is my story going?”
“Why, where by yonder tree
With leaves so rough your sweetheart, in the mowing.
Gathered your flower!” “Ah me!
“My poor lad dreamed not of the redcoat devil,
That, just for pastime, drew
To his bright epaulet his musket level,
And shot him through and through.
“Beside him I was kneeling the next minute;
From the red grass he took
The shattered hand up, and the flower was in it
You saw within my book.”
“He died.” “Then you have seen some stormy weather?”
“Aye, more of foul than fair;
And all the snows we should have shared together
Have fallen on my hair.”
“And has your life been worth the living, mother,
With all its sorrows?” “Aye,
I 'd live it o'er again, were there no other,
For this one memory.”
I answered soft,—I felt the place was holy—
One maxim stands approved:
“They know the best of life, however lowly,
Who ever have been loved.”
121

THE MIGHT OF LOVE.

“There is work, good man, for you to-day!”
So the wife of Jamie cried.
“For a ship at Garl'ston, on Solway,
Is beached, and her coal 's to be got away
At the ebbing time of tide.”
“And, lassie, would you have me start,
And make for Solway sands?
You know that I, for my poor part,
To help me, have nor horse nor cart—
I have only just my hands!”
“But, Jamie, be not, till ye try,
Of honest chances balked;
For, mind ye, man, I'll prophesy
That while the old ship 's high and dry
Her master'll have her calked.”
And far and near the men were pressed,
As the wife saw in her dreams.
“Aye,” Jamie said, “she knew the best,”
As he went under with the rest
To calk the open seams.
And while the outward-flowing tide
Moaned like a dirge of woe,
The ship's mate from the beach-belt cried:
“Her hull is heeling toward the side
Where the men are at work below!”
And the cartmen, wild and open-eyed,
Made for the Solway sands—
Men heaving men like coals aside,
For now it was the master cried:
“Run for your lives, all hands!”
Like dead leaves in the sudden swell
Of the storm, upon that shout,
Brown hands went fluttering up and fell,
As, grazed by the sinking planks, pell mell
The men came hurtling out!
Thank God, thank God, the peril's past!
“No! no!” with blanching lip,
The master cries. “One man, the last,
Is caught, drawn in, and grappled fast
Betwixt the sands and the ship!”
“Back, back, all hands! Get what you can—
Or pick, or oar, or stave.”
This way and that they breathless ran,
And came and fell to, every man,
To dig him out of his grave!
“Too slow! too slow! The weight will kill!
Up make your hawsers fast!”
Then every man took hold with a will—
A long pull and a strong pull—still
With never a stir o' th' mast!
“Out with the cargo!” Then they go
At it with might and main.
“Back to the sands! too slow, too slow!
He 's dying, dying! yet, heave ho!
Heave ho! there, once again!”
And now on the beach at Garl'ston stood
A woman whose pale brow wore
Its love like a queenly crown; and the blood
Ran curdled and cold as she watched the flood
That was racing in to the shore.
122

On, on it trampled, stride by stride.
It was death to stand and wait;
And all that were free threw picks aside,
And came up dripping out o' th' tide,
And left the doomed to his fate.
But lo! the great sea trembling stands;
Then, crawling under the ship,
As if for the sake of the two white hands
Reaching over the wild, wet sands,
Slackened that terrible grip.
“Come to me, Jamie! God grants the way,”
She cries, “for lovers to meet.”
And the sea, so cruel, grew kind, they say,
And, wrapping him tenderly round with spray,
Laid him dead at her feet.

“THE GRACE WIFE OF KEITH.”

No whit is gained, do you say to me,
In a hundred years, nor in two nor three,
In wise things, nor in holy—
No whit since Bacon trod his ways,
And William Shakespeare wrote his plays!
Aye, aye, the world moves slowly.
But here is a lesson, man, to heed;
I have marked the pages, open and read;
We are yet enough unloving,
Given to evil and prone to fall,
But the record will show you, after all,
That still the world keeps moving.
All in the times of the good King James—
I have marked the deeds and their doers' names.
And over my pencil drawing—
One Geillis Duncan standeth the first
For helping of “anie kinde sick” accursed,
And doomed, without trial, to “thrawing.”
Read of her torturers given their scope
Of wrenching and binding her head with a rope,
Of taunting her word and her honor,
And of searching her body sae pure and fair
From the lady-white feet to the gouden hair
For the wizard's mark upon her!
Of how through fair coaxings and agonies' dread
She came to acknowledge whatever they said,
And, lastly, her shaken wits losing,
To prattle from nonsense and blasphemies wild
To the silly entreaties and tears of a child,
And then to the fatal accusing.
First naming Euphemia Macalzean,
A lord's young daughter, and fair as a queen;
Then Agnes, whose wisdom surpassed her;
“Grace Wyff of Keith,” so her sentence lies,
“Adjudged at Holyrood under the eyes
Of the King, her royal master.”
Oh, think of this Grace wife, fine and tall,
With a witch's bridle tied to the wall!
Her peril and pain enhancing
With owning the lie that on Hallowmas Eve
She with a witch crew sailed in a sieve
To Berwick Church, for a dancing!
Think of her owning, through brain-sick fright
How Geillis a Jew's-harp played that night,
And of Majesty sending speady
Across the border and far away
For that same Geillis to dance and play,
Of infernal news made greedy!
Think of her true tongue made to tell
How she had raised a dog from a well
To conjure a Lady's daughters:
And how she had gript him neck and skin.
And, growling, thrust him down and in
To his hiding under the waters!
How Rob the Rower, so stout and brave,
Helped her rifle a dead man's grave,
And how, with enchantments arming,
Husbands false she had put in chains,
123

And gone to the beds of women in pains
And brought them through by charming!
Think of her owning that out at sea
The Devil had marked her on the knee,
And think of the prelates round her
Twitching backward their old gray hairs
And bowing themselves to their awful prayers
Before they took her and bound her!
The world moves! Witch-fires, say what you will
Are lighted no more on the Castle Hill
By the breath of a crazy story;
Nor are men riven at horses' tails,
Or done to death through pincered nails,
In the name of God and his glory.
The world moves on! Say what you can,
No more may a maiden's love for a man,
Into scorn and hatred turning,
Wrap him in rosin stiff and stark,
And roll him along like a log in its bark
To the place of fiery burning.
And such like things were done in the days
When one Will Shakespeare wrote his plays;
And when Bacon thought, for a wonder:
And when Luther had hurled, at the spirit's call,
Inkstand, Bible, himself, and all
At the head of the Papal thunder.

JOHNNY RIGHT.

Johnny Right, his hand was brown,
And so was his honest, open face,
For the sunshine kissed him up and down,
But Johnny counted all for grace;
And when he looked in the glass at night
He said that brown was as good as white!
A little farm our Johnny owned,
Some pasture-fields, both green and good,
A bit of pleasant garden ground,
A meadow, and a strip of wood.
“Enough for any man,” said John,
“To earn his livelihood upon!”
Two oxen, speckled red and white,
And a cow that gave him a pail of milk,
He combed and curried morn and night
Until their coats were as soft as silk.
“Cattle on all the hills,” said he,
“Could give no more of joy to me.”
He never thought the world was wrong
Because rough weather chanced a day;
“The night is always hedged along
With daybreak roses, he would say;
He did not ask for manna, but said,
“Give me but strength—I will get the bread!”
Kindly he took for good and all
Whatever fortune chanced to bring,
And he never wished that spring were fall,
And he never wished that fall were spring;
But set the plough with a joy akin
To the joy of putting the sickle in.
He never stopped to sigh “Oho!”
Because of the ground he needs must till,
For he knew right well that a man must sow
Before he can reap, and he sowed with a will;
And still as he went to his rye-straw bed,
“Work brings the sweetest of rest,” he said.
Johnny's house was little and low,
And his fare was hard; and that was why
He used to say, with his cheeks aglow,
That he must keep his heart up high:
Aye, keep it high, and keep it light!
He used to say—wise Johnny Right!
He never fancied one was two;
But according to his strength he planned,
And oft to his Meggy would say he knew
That gold was gold, and sand was sand;
124

And that each was good and best in its place,
For he counted everything for grace.
Now Meggy Right was Meggy Wrong,
For things with her went all awry;
She always found the day too long
Or the day too short, and would mope and sigh;
For, somehow, the time and place that were,
Were never the time and place for her!
“O Johnny, Johnny!” she used to say,
If she saw a cloud in the sky at morn,
“There will be a hurricane to-day;”
Or, “The rain will come and drench the corn!”
And Johnny would answer with a smile,
“Wait, dear Meggy, wait for a while!”
And often before an ear was lost,
Or a single hope of the harvest gone,
She would cry, “Suppose there should fall a frost,
What should we do then, John, O John!”
And Johnny would answer, rubbing his thumbs,
“Wait, dear Meggy, wait till it comes!”
But when she saw the first gray hair,
Her hands together she wrung and wrung.
And cried, in her wicked and weak despair,
“Ah, for the day when we both were young!”
And Johnny answered, kissing her brow.
“Then was then, Meg—now is now!”
And when he spectacles put on,
And read at ease the paper through,
She whimpered, “Oh, hard-hearted John.
It is n't the way you used to do!”
And Johnny, wiser than wiser men,
Said, “Now is now, Meg—then was then!”
So night and day, with this and that,
She gave a bitter to all the bliss,
Now for Johnny to give her a hat,
And now for Johnny to give her a kiss,
Till, patience failing, he cried, “Peg, Peg!
You 're enough to turn a man's head, Meg!”
Oh, then she fell into despair—
No coaxing could her temper mend;
For her part now she did n't care
How soon her sad life had an end.
And Johnny, sneering, made reply,
“Well, Meg, don't die before you die!”
Then foolish Meg began to scold,
And call her Johnny ugly names;
She wished the little farm was sold,
And that she had no household claims,
So that she might go and starve or beg,
And Johnny answered, “O Meg, Meg!”
Ah, yes, she did—she did n't care!
That were a living to prefer;
What had she left to save despair?
A man that did n't care for her!
Indeed, in truth she 'd rather go!
“Don't, Meg,” says Johnny, “don't say so!”
She left his stockings all undarned,
She set his supper for him cold;
And every day she said she yearned
To have the hateful homestead sold.
She could n't live, and would n't try!
John only answered with a sigh.
Passing the tavern one cold night,
Says Johnny, “I 've a mind to stop,
It looks so cheery and so bright
Within, and take a little drop,
And then I'll go straight home to Meg.”
There was the serpent in the egg.
He stopped, alas, alas for John.
That careless step foredoomed his fall.
Next year the little farm was gone,—
Corn fields and cattle, house and all;
And Meggy learned too late, too late,
Her own self had evoked her fate.

THE SETTLER'S CHRISTMAS EVE.

In a patch of clearing, scarcely more
Than his brawny double hands,
125

With woods behind and woods before,
The Settler's cabin stands;
A little, low, and lonesome shed,
With a roof of clapboards overhead.
Aye, low, so low the wind-warped eave
Hangs close against the door;
You might almost stretch a bishop's sleeve
From the rafter to the floor;
And the window is not too large, a whit,
For a lady's veil to curtain it.
The roof-tree's bent and knotty knees
By the Settler's axe are braced,
And the door-yard fence is three felled trees
With their bare arms interlaced;
And a grape-vine, shaggy and rough and red,
Swings from the well-sweep's high, sharp head.
And among the stubs, all charred and black,
Away to the distant huts,
Winds in and out the wagon-track,
Cut full of zigzag ruts:
And down and down to the sluggish pond,
And through and up to the swamps beyond.
And do you ask beneath such thatch
What heart or hope may be?
Just pull the string of the wooden latch,
And see what you shall see:
A hearth-stone broad and warm and wide,
With master and mistress either side.
And 'twixt them, in the radiant glow,
Prattling of Christmas joys,
With faces in a shining row,
Six children, girls and boys;
And in the cradle a head half-hid
By the shaggy wolf-skin coverlid.
For the baby sleeps in the shaded light
As gently as a lamb,
And two little stockings, scarlet bright,
Are hanging 'gainst the jamb;
And the yellow cat lies all of a curl
In the lap of a two-years' blue-eyed girl.
On the dresser, saved for weeks and weeks,
A hamper of apples stands,
And some are red as the children's cheeks,
And some are brown as their hands;
For cakes and apples must stead, you see,
The rich man's costlier Christmas-tree.
A clock that looks like a skeleton,
From the corner ticks out bold;
And that never was such a clock to run
You would hardly need be told,
If you were to see the glances proud
Drawn toward it when it strikes so loud.
The Settler's rifle, bright and brown,
Hangs high on the rafter-hooks.
And swinging a hand's breadth lower down
Is a modest shelf of books;
Bible and Hymn-book, thumbed all through,
“Baxter's Call,” and a novel or two.
“Peter Wilkins,” “The Bloody Hand,”
“The Sailor's Bride and Bark,”
“Jerusalem and the Holy Land,”
“The Travels of Lewis and Clarke;”
Some tracts: among them, “The Milkmaid's Fall,”
“Pleasure Punished,” and “Death at a Ball.”
A branch of sumach, shining bright,
And a stag-horn, deck the wall,
With a string of birds'-eggs, blue and white,
Beneath. But after all,
You will say the six little heads in a row
By the hearth-stone make the prettiest show.
The boldest urchin dares not stir;
But each heart, be sure, rebels
As the father taps on the newspaper
With his brass-bowed spectacles;
And knitting-needle with needle clicks
As the mother waits for the politics.
He has rubbed the glass and rubbed the bow,
And now is a fearful pause:
126

“Come, Molly!” he says, “come Sue, come Joe,
And I'll tell you of Santa Claus!”
How the faces shine with glad surprise,
As if the souls looked out of the eyes.
In a trice the dozen ruddy legs
Are bare; and speckled and brown
And blue and gray, from the wall-side peg
The stockings dangle down;
And the baby with wondering eyes, looks out
To see what the clatter is all about.
“And what will Santa Claus bring?” they tease,
“And, say, is he tall and fair?”
While the younger climb the good man's knees.
And the elder scale his chair;
And the mother jogs the cradle, and tries
The charm of the dear old lullabies.
So happily the hours fly past,
'T is pity to have them o'er;
But the rusty weights of the clock, at last
Are dragging near the floor;
And the knitting-needles, one and all,
Are stuck in the round, red knitting-ball.
Now, all of a sudden the father twirls
The empty apple-plate;
“Old Santa Claus don't like his girls
And boys to be up so late!”
He says, “And I'll warrant our star-faced cow.
He 's waiting astride o' the chimney now.”
Down the back of his chair they slide,
They slide down arm and knee:
“If Santa Claus is indeed outside,
He sha'n't be kept for me!”
Cry one and all: and away they go,
Hurrying, flurrying, six in a row.
In the mother's eyes are happy tears
As she sees them flutter away;
“My man,” she says, “it is sixteen years
Since our blessed wedding-day;
And I would n't think it but just a year
If it was n't for all these children here.”
And then they talk of what they will do
As the years shall come and go;
Of schooling for little Molly and Sue,
And of land for John and Joe;
And Dick is so wise, and Dolly so fair,
“They,” says the mother, “will have luck to spare!”
“Aye, aye, good wife, that 's clear, that 's clear!”
Then, with eyes on the cradle bent,
“And what if he in the wolf-skin here
Turned out to be President?
Just think! Oh, would n't it be fine,—
Such fortune for your boy and mine!”
She stopped—her heart with hope elate—
And kissed the golden head:
Then, with the brawny hand of her mate
Folded in hers, she said:
“Walls as narrow, and a roof as low,
Have sheltered a President, you know.”
And then they said they would work and wait,
The good, sweet-hearted pair—
You must have pulled the latch-string straight,
Had you in truth been there,
Feeling that you were not by leave
At the Settler's hearth that Christmas Eve.

THE OLD STORY.

The waiting-women wait at her feet,
And the day is fading into the night,
And close at her pillow, and round and sweet,
The red rose burns like a lamp alight,
And under and over the gray mists fold;
And down and down from the mossy eaves,
And down from the sycamore's long wild leaves
The slow rain droppeth so cold, so cold.
127

Ah! never had sleeper a sleep so fair;
And the waiting-women that weep around,
Have taken the combs from her golden hair,
And it slideth over her face to the ground.
They have hidden the light from her lovely eyes;
And down from the eaves where the mosses grow
The rain is dripping so slow, so slow,
And the night wind cries and cries and cries.
From her hand they have taken the shining ring,
They have brought the linen her shroud to make:
Oh, the lark she was never so loath to sing,
And the morn she was never so loath to awake!
And at their sewing they hear the rain,—
Drip-drop, drip-drop over the eaves,
And drip-drop over the sycamore leaves,
As if there would never be sunshine again.
The mourning train to the grave have gone,
And the waiting women are here and are there,
With birds at the windows, and gleams of the sun,
Making the chamber of death to be fair.
And under and over the mist unlaps,
And ruby and amethyst burn through the gray,
And driest bushes grow green with spray,
And the dimpled water its glad hands claps.
The leaves of the sycamore dance and wave.
And the mourners put off the mourning shows:
And over the pathway down to the grave
The long grass blows and blows and blows.
And every drip-drop rounds to a flower,
And love in the heart of the young man springs,
And the hands of the maidens shine with rings,
As if all life were a festival hour.

BALDER'S WIFE.

Her casement like a watchful eye
From the face of the wall looks down,
Lashed round with ivy vines so dry,
And with ivy leaves so brown.
Her golden head in her lily hand
Like a star in the spray o' th' sea,
And wearily rocking to and fro,
She sings so sweet and she sings so low
To the little babe on her knee.
But let her sing what tune she may,
Never so light and never so gay,
It slips and slides and dies away
To the moan of the willow water.
Like some bright honey-hearted rose
That the wild wind rudely mocks,
She blooms from the dawn to the day's sweet close
Hemmed in with a world of rocks.
The livelong night she doth not stir,
But keeps at her casement lorn,
And the skirts of the darkness shine with her
As they shine with the light o' the morn
And all who pass may hear her lay,
But let it be what tune it may,
It slips and slides and dies away
To the moan of the willow water.
And there, within that one-eyed tower,
Lashed round with the ivy brown.
She droops like some unpitied flower
That the rain-fall washes down:
The damp o' th' dew in her golden hair,
Her cheek like the spray o' th' sea,
And wearily rocking to and fro
She sings so sweet and she sings so low
To the little babe on her knee.
But let her sing what tune she may,
Never so glad and never so gay,
It slips and slides and dies away
To the moan of the willow water.
128

AT REHEARSAL.

O Cousin Kit MacDonald,
I 've been all the day among
The places and the faces
That we knew when we were young;
And, like a hope that shineth down
The shadow of its fears,
I found this bit of color on
The groundwork of the years.
So with words I tried to paint it,
All so merry and so bright—
And here, my Kit MacDonald,
Is the picture light on light.
It was night—the cows were stabled,
And the sheep were in their fold,
And our garret had a double roof—
Pearl all across the gold.
The winds were gay as dancers—
We could hear them waltz and whirl
Above the roof of yellow pine,
And the other roof of pearl.
We had gathered sticks from the snow-drift,
And now that the fire was lit,
We made a ring about the hearth
And watched for you, dear Kit.
We planned our pleasant pastimes,
But never a game begun—
For Cousin Kit was the leader
Of all the frolic and fun.
With moss and with bark, for his sake,
The fire we strove to mend—
For the fore-stick, blazing at middle,
Was frosty at either end;
But after all of the blowing
Till our cheeks were puffed and red,
No warm glow lighted the umber
Of the rafters overhead;
And after all of the mending,
We could not choose but see
That the little low, square window
Was as dark as dark could be.
The chill crept in from our fingers
Till our hearts grew fairly numb—
Oh, what if he should n't see the light,
And what if he should n't come!
Then pale-cheeked little Annie,
With a hand behind her ear
Slipt out of the ring and listened
To learn if his step were near;
And Philip followed, striding
Through the garret to and fro—
To show us that our Cousin Kit
Was marching through the snow;
While Rose stood all a-tiptoe,
With face to the window pressed,
To spy him, haply, over the hill,
And tell the news to the rest.
And at last there was shout and laughter,
And the watching all was done—
For Kit came limping and whimpering,
And the playing was begun.
“A poor old man, good neighbors,
Who has nearly lost his sight,
Has come,” he said, “to eat your bread,
And lodge by your fire to-night.
“I have no wife nor children,
And the night is bitter cold;
And you see (he showed the snow on his hair)—
You see I am very old!”
“We have seen your face too often,
Old Mr. Kit,” we said;
“How comes it that you 're houseless—
And why are you starved for bread?
“Because you were thriftless and lazy,
And would not plough nor sow;
And because you drank at the tavern—
Ah! that is why, you know!
“We don't give beggars lodging,
And we want our fire and bread;
And so good-day, and go your way,
Old Mr. Kit,” we said.
Then showing his ragged jacket,
He said that his money was spent—
And said he was old, and the night was cold,
And with body doubly bent
He reached his empty hat to us,
And then he wiped his eye,
And said he had n't a friend in the world
That would give him room to die.
129

“But it was n't for you,” we answered,
“That our hearth to-night was lit.”
And so we turned him out o' the house—
O Kit, my Cousin Kit!
As I sit here painting over
The night, and the fire, and the snow,
And all your boyish make-believe
In that garret rude and low,
My heart is broken within me,
For my love must needs allow
That you were at the rehearsal then
Of the part you are playing now.

THE FISHERMAN'S WIFE.

Peace! for my brain is on the rack!
Peace of your idle prattling, John!
Ere peep o' daylight he was gone:
And my thoughts they run as wild and black
As the clouds in the sky, from fear to fear.
Mother o' mercy! would he were here—
Oh! would that he only were safely here—
Would that I knew he would ever come back!
Yet surely he will come anon;
Let's see—the clock is almost on
The stroke o' ten. Even ere it strike,
His hand will be at the latch belike.
Set up his chair in the corner, John,
Add a fresh log, and stir the coals:
We can afford it. I reckon, yet.
The night is chilly and wild and wet,
And all the fishers' wives, poor souls,
Must watch and wait! There are otherwhere
Burdens heavy as mine to bear,
Though not so bitter. It was my fret
And worry that sent him to his boat.
Here, Johnny, come kneel down by me,
And pray the best man keep afloat
That ever trusted his life at sea!
So: let your pretty head be bowed,
Like a stricken flower, upon my knee;
And when you come to the sweet, sweet word
Of best, my little one—my bird,
Say it over twice, and say it loud.
I do not dare to lift my eyes
To our meek Master in the skies;
For it was my wicked pride, alas!
That brought me to the heavy pass
Of weary waiting and listening sad
To the winds as they drearily drift and drive.
So pray in your praying for me, my lad!
Oh! if he were there in the chair you set,
With never a silvery fish in his net,
I 'd be the happiest woman alive!
But he will come ere long, I know:
Here, Johnny, put your hand in mine,
And climb up to my shoulder—so:
Upon the cupboard's highest shelf
You'll see a bottle of good old wine—
I pressed the berry-juice myself.
Ah! how it sparkles in the light,
To make us loath to break the seal;
But though its warm red life could feel,
We would not spare it—not to-night!
Another hour! and he comes not yet:
And I hear the long waves wash the beach,
With the moan of a drowning man in each,
And the star of hope is near to set.
The proudest lady in all the land
That sits in her chamber fine and high,
That sits in her chamber large and grand,
I would not envy to-night—not I—
If I had his cold wet locks in my hand,
To make them warm and to make them dry,
And to comb them with my fingers free
From the clinging sea-weed and the sand
Washing over them, it may be.
Ah! how should I envy the lady fair
With white arms hidden in folds of lace,
If my dear old fisher were sitting there,
His pipe in his hand, and his sun-brown face
Turning this way and that to me,
As I broiled the salmon and steeped the tea.
O empty heart! and O empty chair!
My boy, my Johnny, say over your prayer;
And straight to the words I told you keep,
Till you pass the best man out on the deep,
130

And then say this: If thou grantest, Lord,
That he come back alive, and with fish in his net,
The church shall have them for her reward,
And we, of our thankfulness, will set
A day for fasting and scourge and pain.
Hark! hark to the crazy winds again!
The tide is high as high can be,
The waters are boiling over the bar,
And drawing under them near and far
The low black land. Ah me! ah me!
I can only think of the mad, mad sea;
I can only think, and think, and think
How quickly a foundered boat would sink,
And how soon the stoutest arms would fail.
'T is all of my worry and all of my fret,
For I brewed the bitter draught I drink:
I teased for a foolish, flimsy veil.
And teased and teased for a spangled gown,
And to have a holiday in the town.
There was only just one way, one way,
And he mended his net and trimmed his sail,
And trusted his life to the pitiless sea,
My dear old fisher, for love of me,
When a better wife would have said him nay;
And so my folly forlorn I bewail.
Hark! Midnight! All the hearth is dim
And cold; but sure we need not strive
To keep it warm and bright for him—
He never will come back alive.
I hear the creak of masts a-strain,
As the mad winds rush madly on.
Kneel down and say yet once again
The prayer I told you a while ago;
And be not loud, my boy, my John—
Nay, it befits us to be low—
Nor yet so straight to the wording keep,
As I did give you charge before:
The best man ever was on the deep
Pray for; and say the best twice o'er.
But when through our blessèd Redeemer you say
The sweet supplication for him that 's away,
That saints bring him back to us savèd from ill,
Add this to the Father: If so be Thy will.
And I, lest again my temptation assail,
Will yield to my chast'ning, and cover up head
With blackness of darkness, instead of the veil
I pined for in worry and pined for in fret,
Till my good man was fain to be gone with his net
Where but the winds scolded. Now get from your knees,
For I, from the depths of contrition, have said
The Amen before you. And we'll to the seas:
Belike some kind wave may be washing ashore,
With coils of rope and salt sea-weed, some sign
To be as a letter sent out of the brine
To tell us the last news—to say if he struck
On the rocks and went down—but hush! breathe not, my lad.
O sweet Lord of Mercy! my brain is gone mad!
Or that was the tune that he whistles for luck!
Run! run to the door! open wide—wider yet!
He is there!—he is here! and my arms are outspread
I am clasping and kissing his hands rough and brown.
Are you living? or are you the ghost of my dead?
'T is all of my worry and all of my fret;
Ashamed in his bosom I hung down my head.
He has been with his fishes to sell in the town,
For I see, snugly wrapt in the folds of his net,
The hindering veil and the spangled new gown.

MAID AND MAN.

All in the gay and golden weather,
Two fair travelers, maid and man,
Sailed in a birchen boat together,
And sailed the way that the river ran:
The sun was low, not set, and the west
Was colored like a robin's breast.
131

The moon was moving sweetly o'er them,
And her shadow, in the waves afloat,
Moved softly on and on before them
Like a silver swan, that drew their boat;
And they were lovers, and well content,
Sailing the way the river went.
And these two saw in her grassy bower
As they sailed the way the river run,
A little, modest, slim-necked flower
Nodding and nodding up to the sun,
And they made about her a little song
And sung it as they sailed along:
“Pull down the grass about your bosom,
Nor look at the sun in the royal sky,
'T is dangerous, dangerous, little blossom,
You are so low, and he is so high—
'T is dangerous nodding up to him,
He is so bright, and you are so dim!”
Sweetly over, and sadly under,
They turned the tune as they sailed along,
And they did not see the cloud, for a wonder,
Break in the water, the shape of the swan;
Nor yet, for a wonder, see at all
The river narrowing toward the fall.
“Be warned, my beauty—'t is not the fashion
Of the king to wed with the waiting-maid—
Make not from sleep his fiery passion,
But turn your red cheek into the shade—
The dew is a-tremble to kiss your eyes—
And there is but danger in the skies!”
Close on the precipice rang the ditty,
But they looked behind them, and not before,
And went down singing their doleful pity
About the blossom safe on the shore—
“There is danger, danger! frail one, list!”
Backward whirled in the whirling mist.

THE DOUBLE SKEIN.

Up ere the throstle is out of the thorn,
Or the east a-blush with a rosy break,
For she wakens earlier now of a morn;
Earlier now than she used to wake,
Such troublous moanings the sea-waves make.
She leans to her distaff a weary brow,
And her cheeks seem ready the flax to burn,
And the wheel in her hand turns heavier now;
Heavier now than it used to turn,
When strong hands helped her the bread to earn.
She lists to the school-boy's laugh and shout,
And her eyes have the old expectant gleam;
And she draws the fine thread out and out,
Till it drags her back from her tender dream,
And wide and homeless the world doth seem.
Over the fields to the sands so brown,
And over the sands to the restless tides
She looks, and her heart tilts up and down;
Up and down with the boat as it rides,
And she cries, “God steady the hand that guides!”
She watches the lights from the sea-cliffs go,
Bedazed with a wonder of vague surprise,
For the sun seems now to be always low,
And never to rise as he used to rise—
The gracious glory of land and skies.
She shrinks from the pattered plash of the rain,
For it taps not now as it used to do,
Like a tearful Spirit of Love at the pane,
132

And the gray mist sweeping across the blue
Never so lightly, chills her through.
So spins she ever a double skein,
And the thread on her finger all eyes may see,
But the other is spun in her whirling brain
And out of the sea-fog over the sea,
For still with its treasure the heart will be.

SELFISH SORROW.

The house lay snug as a robin's nest
Beneath its sheltering tree,
And a field of flowers was toward the west,
And toward the east the sea,
Where a belt of weedy and wet black sand
Was always pushing in to the land,
And with her face away from the sun
And toward the sea so wild,
The grandam sat, and spun and spun,
And never heeded the child,
So wistfully waiting beside her chair,
More than she heeded the bird of the air.
Fret and fret, and spin and spin,
With her face the way of the sea:
And whether the tide were out or in,
A-sighing, “Woe is me!”
In spite of the waiting and wistful eyes
Pleading so sweetly against the sighs.
And spin, spin, and fret, fret,
And at last the day was done,
And the light of the fire went out and met
The light o' the setting sun.
“It will be a stormy night—ah me!”
Sighed the grandam, looking at the sea.
“Oh no, it is n't a-going to rain!”
Cries the dove-eyed little girl,
Pressing her cheek to the window-pane
And pulling her hair out of curl.
But the grandam answered with a sigh,
Just as she answered the cricket's cry,
“If it rains, let it rain; we shall not drown!”
Says the child, so glad and gay;
“The leaves of the aspen are blowing down;
A sign of fair weather, they say!”
And the grandam moaned, as if the sea
Were beating her life out, “Woe is me!”
The heart of the dove-eyed little girl
Began in her throat to rise,
And she says, pulling golden curl upon curl
All over her face and her eyes,
“I wish we were out of sight of the sea!”
And the grandam answered, “Woe is me!”
The sun in a sudden darkness slid,
The winds began to plain,
And all the flowery field was hid
With the cold gray mist and the rain.
Then knelt the child on the hearth so low,
And blew the embers all aglow.
On one small hand so lily white
She propped her golden head,
And lying along the rosy light
She took her book and read:
And the grandam heard her laughter low,
As she rocked in the shadows to and fro.
At length she put her spectacles on
And drew the book to her knee:
“And does it tell,” she said, “about John,
My lad, who was lost at sea?”
“Why, no,” says the child, turning face about,
“'T is a fairy tale: shall I read it out?”
The grandam lowlier bent upon
The page as it lay on her knee:
“No, not if it does n't tell about John,”
She says, “who was lost at sea.”
And the little girl, with a saddened face,
Shut her hair in the leaves to keep the place.
133

And climbing up and over the chair,
The way that her sweet heart led,
She put one arm, so round and fair,
Like a crown, on the old gray head.
“So, child,” says the grandam—keeping on
With her thoughts—“your book does n't tell about John?”
“No, ma'am, it tells of a fairy old
Who lived in a daffodil bell,
And who had a heart so hard and cold
That she kept the dews to sell;
And when a butterfly wanted a drink,
How much did she ask him, do you think?”
“O foolish child, I cannot tell,
May be a crown, or so.”
“But the fairy lived in a daffodil bell,
And could n't hoard crowns, you know!”
And the grandam answered—her thought joined on
To the old thought—“Not a word about John?”
“But grandam”—“Nay, for pity's sake
Don't vex me about your crown,
But say if the ribs of a ship should break
And the ship's crew all go down
Of a night like this, how long it would take
For a strong-limbed lad to drown!”
“But, grandam,”—Nay, have done,” she said,
“With your fairy and her crown!
Besides, your arm upon my head
Is heavy; get you down!”
“O ma'am, I'm so sorry to give you a pain!”
And the child kissed the wrinkled face time and again.
And then she told the story through
Of the fairy of the dell,
Who sold God's blessed gift of the dew
When it was n't hers to sell,
And who shut the sweet light all away
With her thick black wings, and pined all day.
And how at last God struck her blind.
The grandam wiped a tear,
And then she said, “I should n't mind
If you read to me now, my dear!”
And the little girl, with a wondering look,
Slipped her golden hair from the leaves of the book.
As the grandam pulled her down to her knee,
And pressed her close in her arm,
And kissing her, said, “Run out and see
If there is n't a lull in the storm!
I think the moon, or at least some star,
Must shine, and the wind grows faint and far.”
Next day again the grandam spun,
And oh, how sweet were the hours!
For she sat at the window toward the sun,
And next the field of flowers,
And never looked at the long gray sea,
Nor sighed for her lad that was lost, “Ah, me!”

THE EDGE OF DOOM.

Heart-sick, homeless, weak, and weary,
On the edge of doom she stands,
Fighting back the wily Tempter
With her trembling woman's hands.
On her lip a moan of pleading,
In her eyes a look of pain,
Men and women, men and women,
Shall her cry go up in vain?
On the edge of doom and darkness—
Darker, deeper than the grave—
Off with pride, that devil's virtue!
While there yet is time to save,
Clinging for her life, and shrinking
Lower, lower from your frown:
Men and women, men and women,
Will you, can you, crowd her down?
On that head, so early faded,
Pitiless the rains have beat;
Famine down the pavements tracked her
By her bruised and bleeding feet.
Through the years, sweet old Naomi,
Lead her in the gleaners' way;
Boaz, oh, command your young men
To reproach her not, I pray.
134

Face to face with shame and insult
Since she drew her baby-breath,
Were it strange to find her knocking
At the cruel door of death?
Were it strange if she should parley
With the great arch-fiend of sin?
Open wide, O gates of mercy,
Wider, wider!—let her in!
Ah! my proud and scornful lady,
Lapped in laces fair and fine,
But for God's good grace and mercy
Such a fate as hers were thine.
Therefore, breaking combs of honey,
Breaking loaves of snowy bread,
If she ask a crumb, I charge you
Give her not a stone instead.
Never lullaby, sung softly,
Made her silken cradle stir;
Never ring of gay young playmates
Opened to make room for her!
Therefore, winds, sing up your sweetest,
Rocking lightly on the leaves;
And, O reapers, careless reapers,
Let her glean among your sheaves!
Never mother, by her pillow,
Knelt and taught her how to say,
Lead me not into temptation,
Give me daily bread this day.
Therefore, reapers, while the cornstalks
To your shining sickles lean,
Drop, oh drop some golden handfuls—
Let her freely come and glean!
Never mellow furrows crumbled
Softly to her childish tread—
She but sowed in stony places,
And the seed is choked and dead.
Therefore, let her rest among you
When the sunbeams fiercely shine—
Barley reapers, let her with you
Dip her morsel in the wine!
And entreat her not to leave you
When the harvest week is o'er,
Nor depart from following after,
Even to the threshing-floor.
But when stars through fields of shadow
Shepherd in the evening gray,
Fill her veil with beaten measures,
Send her empty not away.
Then the city round about her,
As she moveth by, shall stir
As it moved to meet Naomi
Home from famine—yea, for her!
And the Lord, whose name is Mercy,
Steadfast by your deed shall stand,
And shall make her even as Rachel,
Even as Leah, to the land.

THE CHOPPER'S CHILD.

A STORY FOR THANKSGIVING DAY.

The smoke of the Indian Summer
Darkened and doubled the rills,
And the ripe corn, like a sunset,
Shimmered along the hills;
Like a gracious glowing sunset,
Interlaced with the rainbow light
Of vanishing wings a-trailing
And trembling out of sight;
As, with the brier-buds gleaming
In her darling, dimpled hands,
Toddling slow adown the sheep-paths
Of the yellow stubble-lands—
Her sweet eyes full of the shadows
Of the woodland, darkly brown—
Came the chopper's little daughter,
In her simple hood and gown.
Behind her streamed the splendors
Of the oaks and elms so grand,
Before her gleamed the gardens
Of the rich man of the land;
Gardens about whose gateways
The gloomy ivy swayed,
Setting all her heart a-tremble
As she struck within their shade.
Now the chopper's lowly cabin
It lay nestled in the wood,
And the dwelling of the rich man
By the open highway stood,
With its pleasant porches facing
All against the morning hills,
And each separate window shining
Like a bed of daffodils.
Up above the tallest poplars
In its stateliness it rose,
With its carved and curious gables,
And its marble porticoes:
But she did not see the grandeur,
And she thought her father's oaks
Were finer than the cedars
Clipt so close along the walks.
135

So, in that full confiding
The unworldly only know,
Through the gateway, down the garden,
Up the marble portico,
Her bare feet brown as bees' wings,
And her hands of brier-buds full,
On, along the fleecy crimson
Of the carpets of dyed wool,
With a modest glance uplifted
Through the lashes drooping down,
Came the chopper's little daughter,
In her simple hood and gown;
Still and steady, like a shadow
Sliding inward from the wood,
Till before the lady-mistress
Of the house, at last, she stood.
Oh, as sweet as summer sunshine
Was that lady-dame to see,
With the chopper's little daughter,
Like a shadow at her knee!
Oh, green as leaves of clover
Were the broideries of her train,
And her hand it shone with jewels
Like a lily with the rain.
And the priest before the altar,
As she swam along the aisle,
Reading out the sacred lesson,
Read it consciously, the while;
The long roll of the organ
Drew across a silken stir,
And when he named a saint, it was
As if he named but her.
But the chopper's child undazzled
In her lady-presence stood—
(She was born amid the spendors
Of the glorious autumn wood)—
And so sweetly and serenely
Met the cold and careless face,
Her own alive with blushes,
E'en as one who gives a grace;
As she said, the accents falling
In a pretty, childish way:
“To-morrow, then to-morrow
Will have brought Thanksgiving day;
And my mother will be happy,
And be honored, so she said,
To have the landlord's lady
Taste her honey and her bread.”
Then slowly spake the lady,
As disdainfully she smiled,
“Live you not in yonder cabin?
Are you not the chopper's child?
And your foolish mother bids me
To Thanksgiving, do you say?
What is it, little starveling,
That you give your thanks for, pray?”
One bashful moment's silence—
Then hushing up her pain,
And sweetness growing out of it
As the rose does out of rain—
She stript the woolen kerchief
From off her shining head.
As one might strip the outer husk
From the golden ear, and said:
“What have we to give thanks for?
Why, just for daily bread!”
And then, with all her little pride
A-blushing out so red—
“Perhaps, too, that the sunshine
Can come and lie on our floor,
With none of your icy columns
To shut it from the door!”
“What have we to give thanks for?”
And a smile illumed her tears,
As a star the broken vapors,
When it suddenly appears;
And she answered, all her bosom
Throbbing up and down so fast:
“Because my poor sick brother
Is asleep at last, at last.
“Asleep beneath the daisies:
But when the drenching rain
Has put them out, we know the dew
Will light them up again;
And we make and keep Thanksgiving
With the best the house affords,
Since, if we live, or if we die,
We know we are the Lord's:
“That out his hands of mercy
Not the least of us can fall;
But we have ten thousand blessings,
And I cannot name them all!
Oh, see them yourself, good madam—
I will come and show you the way—
After the morrow, the morrow again
Will be the great, glad day.”
And, tucking up her tresses
In the kerchief of gray wool,
Where they gleamed like golden woodlights
In the autumn mists so dull,
She crossed the crimson carpets,
With her rose-buds in her hands,
136

And, climbing up the sheep-paths
Of the yellow stubble-lands,
Passed the marsh wherein the starlings
Shut so close their horny bills,
And lighted with her loveliness
The gateway of the hills.
Oh, the eagle has the sunshine,
And his way is grand and still;
But the lark can turn the cloud into
A temple when she will!
That evening, when the corn fields
Had lost the rainbow light
Of vanishing wings a-trailing
And trembling out of sight,
Apart from her great possessions
And from all the world apart,
Knelt the lady-wife and mistress
Of the rich man's house and heart.
Knelt she, all her spirit broken,
And the shame she could not speak,
Burning out upon the darkness
From the fires upon her cheek;
And prayed the Lord of the harvest
To make her meek and mild,
And as faithful in Thanksgiving
As the chopper's little child.

THE DEAD-HOUSE.

In the dead of night to the Dead-house,
She cometh—a maiden fair—
By the feet so slight and slender,
By the hand so white and tender,
And by the silken and shining lengths
Of the girlish, golden hair,
Dragging under and over
The arms of the men that bear.
Oh! make of your pity a cover,
And softly, silently bear:
Perhaps for the sake of a lover,
Loved all too well she is there!
In the dead of night to the Dead-house!
So lovely and so lorn—
Straighten the tangled tresses,
They have known a mother's kisses,
And hide with their shining veil of grace
The sightless eyes and the pale, sad face
From men and women's scorn.
Aye, veil the poor face over,
And softly, silently bear:
Perhaps for the sake of a lover,
Loved all too well, she is there.
In the dead of night to the Dead-house!
Bear her in from the street:
The watch at his watching found her—
Ah! say it low nor wound her,
For though the heart in the bosom
Has ceased to throb and beat,
Speak low, when you say how they found her
Buried alive in the sleet.
Speak low, and make her a cover
All out of her shining hair:
Perhaps for the sake of a lover,
Loved all too well, she was there.
Desolate left in the Dead-house!
Your cruel judgments spare,
Ye know not why she is there:
Be slow to pronounce your “mene,”
Remember the Magdalene;
Be slow with your harsh award—
Remember the Magdalene;
Remember the dear, dear Lord!
Holy, and high above her,
By the length of her sin and shame,
He could take her and love her—
Praise to his precious name.
With oil of gentle mercy
The tide of your censure stem;
Have ye no scarlet sinning?
No need for yourselves of winning
Those sweetest words man ever spake
In all the world for pity's sake,
Those words the heardest heart that break:
“Neither do I condemn.”
In the light of morn to the Dead-house
There cometh a man so old—
“My child!” he cries; “I will wake her;
Close, close in my arms I will take her,
And bear her back on my shoulder,
My poor stray lamb to the fold!
How came she in this dreadful place?”
And he stoops and puts away from the face
The queenly cover of gold.
“No, no!” he says, “it is not my girl!”
As he lifts the tresses curl by curl,
“She was never so pale and cold!”
137

In the light of morn in the Dead-house,
He prattleth like a child—
“No, no!” he says, “it cannot be—
Her sweet eyes would have answered me,
And her sweet mouth must have smiled—
She would have asked for her mother,
And for the good little brother
That thought it pastime and pleasure
To be up and at work for her.
And she doth not smile nor stir.”
And then, with his arms outspread
From the slender feet to the head,
He taketh the fearful measure.
“No, no!” he says, “she would wake and smile”—
But he listens breathless all the while
If haply the heart may beat,
And tenderly with trembling hands
Out of the shining silken bands
Combs the frozen sleet.
In the light of morn in the Dead-house,
He prattleth on and on—
“As like her mother's as can be
These two white hands; but if 'twere she
Who out of our house is gone,
I must have found here by her side
He to whom she was promised bride:
And yet this way along the sleet
We tracked the little wandering feet.
And yesterday, her mother said,
When she waked and called her from her bed,
She looked like one a dream had crazed—
Her mother thought the sunshine dazed,
And thought it childish passion
That made her, when she knelt to pray,
Falter, and be afraid to say,
Lord, keep us from temptation.
And I bethink, the mother said—
(What puts such thoughts into my head?)
That never once the live-long day
Her darling sung the old love-lay
That 't was her use to sing and hum
As hums the bee to the blossom;
And that when night was nearly come
She took from its place in her bosom
The picture worn and cherished long,
And as if that had done her wrong,
Or, as if in sudden ire,
And it were something to abhor,
She laid it, not as she used at night
Among the rose-leaves in the drawer,
But out of her bosom and out of sight
With its face against the fire.
“But why should I torment my heart
(And the tear from his cheek he dashes)
As if such thoughts had any part
With these pale, piteous ashes?”
He opens the lids, and the eyes are blue,
“But these are frost and my child's were dew!
No, no! it is not my poor lost girl.”
And he takes the tresses curl by curl
And tenderly feels them over.
“If it were she, the watch I know
Would never have dragged her out of the snow—
Why, where should be her lover!”
And down the face and bosom fair
He spread the long loose flood of hair,
And left her in the Dead-house there,
All under her queenly cover.

ONE MOMENT.

One moment, to strictly run out by the sands—
Time, in the old way just to say the old saying—
Enough for your giving—enough for my playing
The hope of a life in your sinless white hands—
To call you my sweetheart, and ask you to be
My fond little fairy and live by the sea!
Five minutes—ten—twenty! but little to spare,
Yet enough to repeat, in the homely old fashion,
A story of true love, unfrenzied with passion—
To say, “Will you make my rough weather be fair,
And give me each day your red cheek to be kissed?
My dear one, my darling, my rose of the mist?”
An half hour!—would I dare say longer yet—
And the time (is so much you will yield to my wishes).
138

When luck-thriven fishermen draw their last fishes,
Whose silver sleek sides in the sea dripping net,
And speckles of red gold, and scales thin and crisp,
Through the fog-drizzle shine like a Will-o'-the-wisp.
An hour! nay more—until star after star
Takes his watch while the west-wind through shadows thick falling,
Holds parley, in moans, with the tide, outward crawling,
And licking the long shaggy back of the bar,
As if in lamenting some ship gone aground,
Or sailor, love-lorn, in the dead waters drowned.
Two hours! and not a hair's breadth from the grace
Of your innocent trust would I any more vary
Than rob of her lilies the virginal Mary;
But just in my two hands would hold your fair face,
And look in your dove-eyes, and ask you to be
My good little housewife, and live by the sea!
Till midnight! till morning! old Time has fleet wings,
And the space will be brief, so my courage to steady,
As say, “Who weds me may not be a fine lady
With silk gowns to wear, and twenty gold rings,
But with only a nest in the rocks, leaving me
Her praises to sing as I sail on the sea.”
I would buy her a wheel, and some flax-wisps, and wool,
So when the wild gusts of the winter were blowing.
And poor little bird-nest half hid in the snowing.
The time never need to be dreary nor dull—
But smiling the brighter, the darker the day,
Her sunshine would scatter the shadows away.
At eve, when the mist, like a shawl of fine lace,
Wrapt her softly about, like a queen in her splendor,
She still would sing over old sea-songs, so tender,
To keep her in mind of her sailor's brown face—
Of his distance and danger, and make her to be
His good little housewife content by the sea.
Believe me, sweet sweetheart, they have but hard lives
Who go down to sea in great ships, never knowing
How soon cruel waves o'er their heads will be flowing
And fatherless children, and true-hearted wives,
The place of their dead never see, never know—
But the nest waits, my darling, ah! say, will you go?

THE FLAX-BEATER.

“Now give me your burden if burden you bear,”
So the flax-beater said,
“And press out and wring out the rain from your hair,
And come into my shed;
The sweetest sweet-milk you shall have for your fare,
And the whitest white-bread,
With a sheaf of the goldenest straw for your bed;
Then give me your burden, if burden you bear,
And come into my shed!
“I make bold to press my poor lodging and fare,
For the wood-path is lone,
Aye, lonely and dark as a dungeon-house stair,
And jagged with stone.
Sheer down the wild hills, and with thorn-brush o'ergrown,
I have lost it myself in despite of my care,
139

Though I'm used to rough ways and have courage to spare;
And then, my good friend, if the truth must be known,
The huts of the settlers that stand here and there
Are as rude as my own.
“The night will be black when the day shall have gone;
'T is the old of the moon,
And the winds will blow stiff, and more stiffly right on,
By the cry of the loon;
Those terrible storm-harps, the oaks, are in tune.
That creaking will fall to a crashing anon;
For the sake of your pitiful, poor little one,
You cannot, good woman, have lodging too soon!
“Hark! thunder! and see how the waters are piled,
Cloud on cloud, overhead;
Mayhap I'm too bold, but I once had a child—
Sweet lady, she's dead—
The daffodil growing so bright and so wild
At the door of my shed
Is not yet so bright as her glad golden head,
And her smile! ah, if you could have seen how she smiled
But what need of praises—you too have a child!”
So the flax-beater said.
“Ah, the soft summer-days, they were all just as one,
And how swiftly they sped;
When the daisy scarce bent to her fairy-like tread,
And the wife, as she sat at her wheel in the sun,
Sang sea-songs and ditties of true-love that run
All as smooth as her thread;
When her darling was gone then the singing was done,
And she sewed her a shroud of the flax she had spun,
And a cap for her head.
“See, that cloud running over the last little star,
Like a great inky blot,
And now, in the low river hollows afar,
You can hear the wild waters through driftwood and bar,
Boil up like a pot;
It is as if the wide world was at war,
So give me your burden, if such you have got,
And come to my shed, for you must, will or not.”
“Get gone you old man! I 've no burden to bear;
You at best are misled!
And as for the rain, let it fall on my hair;
Is that so much to dread,
That I should be begging for lodging and fare
At a flax-beater's shed?
Get gone, and have done with your insolent stare,
And keep your gold straw, if you leave me instead
But the ground for my bed!”
'T was thus the strange woman with wringing wet hair
In her wretchedness said.
“No burden! and what is it then that I trace
Wrapt so close in your shawl?
I remember the look of the dear little face,
And remember the look of the head, round and small,
That I saw once for all
Under thin, filmy folds, like the folds of your shawl!”
“Why, then, 't is my bride-veil and gown, have the grace
To believe—they are rolled in my kerchief of lace;
And that, old man, is all!”
“Woman! woman! bethink what it is that you say,
Lest it bring you to harm.
A bride-veil and gown are not hid such a way
As the thing in your arm!”
“My good man, my dear man, remember, I pray,
What trifles were sacred your own wedding day,
And leave me my bride-veil and gown hid away
140

From the fret of the storm.
Oh, soften your heart to accept what I say—
It is these, only these that I have in my arm!”
“Only these! just a touch of this thing, and I know
That my thoughts were misled!
But why turn you pale? and why tremble you so?
If it be as you said,
You have nothing from me nor from mortal to dread.”
Her voice fell to sobs, and she hung down her head,
Hugged his knees, kissed his hands, kissed his feet as she said:
“Now spare me, oh spare me this death-dealing blow,
And give me your cold, coldest pity, instead;
I was crazed, and I spake you a lie in my woe;
I am bearing my dead,
To bury it out of my sight, you must know;
But, good and sweet sir, I am wed, I am wed!”
“Unswathe you the corpse, then, and give it to me,
If that all be so well;
But what are these slender blue marks that I see
At the throat? Can you tell?”
“The kisses I gave it as it lay on my knee!”
“And dare you, false woman, to lie so to me?”
“Why, then 't was the spell
And work of a demon that came out of hell.”
“Now God give you mercy, if mercy there be,
For the angels that fell,
Because, if there came up a demon from hell,
That demon was thee!”

COTTAGE AND HALL.

With eyes to her sewing-work dropped down,
And with hair in a tangled shower,
And with roses kissed by the sun, so brown,
Young Janey sat in her bower—
A garden nook with work and book;
And the bars that crossed her girlish gown
Were as blue as the flaxen flower.
And her little heart it beat and beat,
Till the work shook on her knee,
For the golden combs are not so sweet
To the honey-fasting bee
As to her thoughts of Alexis.
And across a good green piece of wood,
And across a field of flowers,
A modest, lowly house there stood
That held her eyes for hours—
A cottage low, hid under the snow
Of cherry and bean-vine flowers.
Sometimes it held her all day long,
For there at her distaff bent,
And spinning a double thread of song
And of wool, in her sweet content,
Sat the mother of young Alexis.
And Janey turned things in and out,
As foolish maids will do.
What could the song be all about?
Yet well enough she knew
That while the fingers drew the wool
As fine as fine could be,
The loving mother-heart was full
Of her boy gone to sea—
Her blue-eyed boy, her pride and joy,
On the cold and cruel sea—
Her darling boy, Alexis.
And beyond the good green piece of wood,
And the field of flowers so gay,
Among its ancient oaks there stood,
With gables high and gray,
A lofty hall, where mistress of all
She might dance the night away.
And as she sat and sewed her seam
In the garden bower that day
Alike from seam and alike from dream
Her truant thoughts would stray;
It would be so fine like a lady to shine,
And to dance the night away!
And oh, and alas for Alexis!
And suns have risen and suns gone down
On cherry and bean-vine bowers,
And the tangled curls o'er the eyes dove-brown
They fall no more in showers;
141

Nor are there bars in the homespun gown
As blue as the flaxen flowers.
Aye, winter wind and winter rain
Have beaten away the bowers,
And little Janey is Lady Jane,
And dances away the hours!
Maidens she hath to play and sing,
And her mother's house and land
Could never buy the jeweled ring
She wears on her lily hand—
The hand that is false to Alexis!
Ah, bright were the sweet young cheeks and eyes,
And the silken gown was gay,
When first to the hall as mistress of all
She came on her wedding-day.
“Now where, my bride,” says the groom in pride—
“Now where will your chamber be?”
And from wall to wall she praises all,
But chooses the one by the sea!
And the suns they rise and the suns they set.
But she rarely sees their gleam,
For often her eyes with tears are wet.
And the sewing-work is unfinished yet,
And so is the girlish dream.
For when her ladies gird at her,
And her lord is cold and stern,
Old memories in her heart must stir,
And she cannot choose but mourn
For the gentle boy, Alexis!
And alway, when the dance is done,
And her weary feet are free,
She sits in her chamber all alone
At the window next the sea,
And combs her shining tresses down
By the light of the fading stars,
And may be thinks of her homespun gown
With the pretty flax-flower bars.
For when the foam of wintry gales
Runs white along the blue,
Hearing the rattle of stiffened sails,
She trembles through and through,
And may be thinks of Alexis.

THE MINES OF AVONDALE.

Old Death proclaims a holocaust—
Two hundred men must die!
And he cometh not like a thief in the night,
But with banners lifted high.
He calleth the North wind out o' th' North
To blow him a signal blast,
And to plough the air with a fiery share,
And to sow the sparks, broadcast.
No fear hath he of the arm of flesh,
And he maketh the winds to cry,
Let come who will to this awful hill
And his strength against me try!
So quick those sparks along the land
Into blades of flame have sprung;
So quick the piteous face of Heaven
With a veil of black is hung:
And men are telling the news with words,
And women with tears and sighs,
And the children with the frightened souls
That are staring from their eyes.
“Death, death is holding a holocaust!
And never was seen such pyre—
Head packed to head and above them spread
Full forty feet of fire!”
From hill to hill-top runs the cry.
Through farm and village and town,
And high and higher—“The mine 's on fire!
Two hundred men sealed down!
And not with the dewy hand o' th' earth,
And not with the leaves of the trees—
Nor is it the waves that roof their graves—
Oh no, it is none of these—
From sight and sound walled round and round—
For God's sake haste to the pyre!
In the black coal-beds, and above their heads
Full forty feet of fire!”
And now the villages swarm like bees,
And the miners catch the sound,
And climb to the land with their picks in hand
From their chambers in the ground.
For high and low and rich and poor,
To a holy instinct true,
Stand forth as if all hearts were one
And a-tremble through and through.
142

On, side by side they roll like a tide,
And the voice grows high and higher,
“Come woe, come weal, we must break the seal
Of that forty feet of fire.”
Now cries of fear, shrill, far and near,
And a palsy shakes the hands,
And the blood runs cold, for behold, behold
The gap where the enemy stands!
Oh, never had painter scenes to paint
So ghastly and grim as these—
Mothers that comfortless sit on the ground
With their babies on their knees;
The brown-cheeked lad and the maid as sad
As the grandame and the sire,
And 'twixt them all and their loved, that wall—
That terrible wall of fire!
And the grapple begins and the foremost set
Their lives against death's laws,
And the blazing timbers catch in their arms
And bear them off like straws.
They have lowered the flaunting flag from its place—
They will die in the gap, or save;
For this they have done, whate'er be won—
They have conquered fear of the grave.
They have baffled—have driven the enemy,
And with better courage strive;
“Who knoweth,” they say, “God's mercy to-day,
And the souls He may save alive!”
So now the hands have digged through the brands—
They can see the awful stairs,
And there falls a hush that is only stirred
By the weeping women's prayers.
“Now who will peril his limb and life,
In the damps of the dreadful mine?”
“I, I, and I!” a dozen cry,
As they forward step from line!
And down from the light and out o' th' sight,
Man after man they go,
And now arise th' unanswered cries
As they beat on the doors below.
And night came down—what a woeful night!
To the youths and maidens fair,
What a night in the lives of the miners' wives
At the gate of a dumb despair.
And the stars have set their solemn watch
In silence o'er the hill,
And the children sleep and the women weep,
And the workers work with a will.
And so the hours drag on and on,
And so the night goes by,
And at last the east is gray with dawn,
And the sun is in the sky.
Hark, hark! the barricades are down,
The torchlights farther spread,
The doubt is past—they are found at last—
Dead, dead! two hundred dead!
Face, close to face, in a long embrace,
And the young and the faded hair—
Gold over the snow as if meant to show
Love stayed beyond despair.
Two hundred men at yester morn
With the work of the world to strive;
Two hundred yet when the day was set,
And not a soul alive!
Oh, long the brawny Plymouth men,
As they sit by their winter fires,
Shall tell the tale of Avondale
And its awful pyre of pyres.
Shall hush their breath and tell how Death
His flag did wildly wave,
And how in shrouds of smoky clouds
The miners fought in their graves.
And how in a still procession
They passed from that fearful glen,
And there shall be wail in Avondale,
For the brave two hundred men.

THE VICTORY OF PERRY.

SEPTEMBER 10TH, 1813.

Lift up the years! lift up the years,
Whose shadows around us spread;
Let us tribute pay to the brave to-day
Who are half a century dead.
Oh, not with tears—no, not with tears,
The grateful nation comes,
143

But with flags out-thrown, and bugles blown,
And the martial roll of drums!
Beat up, beat up! till memory glows
And sets our hearts aflame!
Ah, they did well in the fight who fell,
And we leave them to their fame;
Their fame, that larger, grander grows
As time runs into the past,
For the Erie-waves chant over their graves,
And shall, while the world shall last.
O beautiful cities of the Lake,
As ye sit by your peaceful shore,
Make glad and sing till the echoes ring,
For our brave young Commodore!
He knew your stormy oaks to take
And their ribs into ships contrive,
And to set them so fine in battle line,
With their timbers yet alive.
We see our squadron lie in the Bay
Where it lay so long ago,
And hear the cry from the mast-head high,
Three times, and three, “Sail ho!”
Through half a century to-day
We hear the signal of fight—
“Get under way! Get under way!
The enemy is in sight!”
Our hearts leap up—our pulses thrill,
As the boatswains' pipes of joy
So loudly play o'er the dash o' the spray,
“All hands up anchor ahoy!”
Now all is still, aye, deathly still;
The enemy's guns are in view!
“To the royal fore!” cries the Commodore,
And up run the lilies and blue.
And hark to the cry, the great glad cry,—
All a-tremble the squadron stands—
From lip to lip, “Don't give up the ship!”
And then “To quarters, all hands!”
An hour, an awful hour drags by—
There 's a shot from the enemy's gun!
“More sail! More sail! Let the canister hail!”
Cries Perry, and forward, as one,
Caledonia, Lawrence, and Scorpion, all
Bear down and stand fast, till the flood
Away from their track sends the scared billows back
With their faces bedabbled in blood.
The Queen and her allies their broadsides let fall—
Oh, the Lawrence is riddled with storms—
Where is Perry? afloat! he is safe in his boat,
And his battle-flag up in his arms!
The bullets they hiss and the Englishmen shout—
Oh, the Lawrence is sinking, a wreck—
But with flag yet a-swing like a great bloody wing
Perry treads the Niagara's deck!
With a wave of his hand he has wheeled her about—
Oh, the nation is holding its breath—
Headforemost he goes in the midst of his foes
And breaks them and rakes them to death!
And lo, the enemy, after the fray,
On the deck that his dead have lined,
With his sword-hilt before to our Commodore,
And his war-dogs in leash behind!
And well, the nation does well to-day,
Setting her bugles to blow,
And her drums to beat for the glorious fleet
That humbled her haughty foe.
Ah, well to come with her autumn flowers,
A tribute for the brave
144

Who died to make our Erie Lake
Echo through every wave—
“We 've met the enemy and they 're ours!”
And who died, that we might stand,
A country free and mistress at Sea
As well as on the Land.
 

Perry, it will be remembered, cut down the trees, built and launched the ships of his fleet, all within three months.

The famous fighting flag was inscribed with the immortal words of the dying Lawrence, in large white letters on a blue ground, legible throughout the squadron.

Queen Charlotte of the British line.

THE WINDOW JUST OVER THE STREET.

I sit in my sorrow a-weary, alone;
I have nothing sweet to hope or remember,
For the spring o' th' year and of life has flown;
'T is the wildest night o' the wild December,
And dark in my spirit and dark in my chamber.
I sit and list to the steps in the street,
Going and coming, and coming and going,
And the winds at my shutter they blow and beat;
'T is the middle of night and the clouds are snowing;
And the winds are bitterly beating and blowing.
I list to the steps as they come and go,
And list to the winds that are beating and blowing,
And my heart sinks down so low, so low;
No step is stayed from me by the snowing,
Nor stayed by the wind so bitterly blowing.
I think of the ships that are out at sea,
Of the wheels in th' cold, black waters turning:
Not one of the ships beareth news to me,
And my head is sick, and my heart is yearning.
As I think of the wheels in the black waters turning.
Of the mother I think, by her sick baby's bed,
Away in her cabin as lonesome and dreary,
And little and low as the flax-breaker's shed;
Of her patience so sweet, and her silence so weary,
With cries of the hungry wolf hid in the prairie.
I think of all things in the world that are sad;
Of children in homesick and comfortless places;
Of prisons, of dungeons, of men that are mad;
Of wicked, unwomanly light in the faces
Of women that fortune has wronged with disgraces.
I think of a dear little sun-lighted head,
That came where no hand of us all could deliver;
And crazed with the cruelest pain went to bed
Where the sheets were the foam-fretted waves of the river;
Poor darling! may God in his mercy forgive her.
The footsteps grow faint and more faint in the snow;
I put back the curtain in very despairing;
The masts creak and groan as th' winds come and go;
And the light in the light-house all weirdly is flaring;
But what glory is this, in the gloom of despairing!
I see at the window just over the street,
A maid in the lamplight her love-letter reading.
Her red mouth is smiling, her news is so sweet;
And the heart in my bosom is cured of its bleeding,
As I look on the maiden her love-letter reading.
She has finished the letter, and folding it, kisses,
And hides it—a secret too sacred to know;
And now in the hearth-light she softly undresses:
145

A vision of grace in the roseate glow,
I see her unbinding the braids of her tresses.
And now as she stoops to the ribbon that fastens
Her slipper, they tumble o'er shoulder and face;
And now, as she patters in bare feet, she hastens
To gather them up in a fillet of lace;
And now she is gone, but in fancy I trace
The lavendered linen updrawn, the round arm
Half sunk in the counterpane's broidered roses.,
Revealing the exquisite outline of form;
A willowy wonder of grace that reposes
Beneath the white counterpane, fleecy with roses.
I see the small hand lying over the heart,
Where the passionate dreams are so sweet in their sally;
The fair little fingers they tremble and part,
As part to th' warm waves the leaves of the lily,
And they play with her hand like the waves with the lily.
In white fleecy flowers, the queen o' the flowers!
What to her is the world with its bad, bitter weather?
Wide she opens her arms—ah, her world is not ours!
And now she has closed them and clasped them together—
What to her is our world, with its clouds and rough weather?
Hark! midnight! the winds and the snows blow and beat;
I drop down the curtain and say to my sorrow,
Thank God for the window just over the street;
Thank God there is always a light whence to borrow
When darkness is darkest, and sorrow most sorrow.

A FABLE OF CLOUD-LAND

Two clouds in the early morning
Came sailing up the sky—
'T was summer, and the meadow-lands
Were brown and baked and dry.
And the higher cloud was large and black,
And of a scornful mind,
And he sailed as though he turned his back
On the smaller one behind.
At length, in a voice of thunder,
He said to his mate so small,
“If I was n't a bigger cloud than you,
I would n't be one at all!”
And the little cloud that held her place
So low along the sky,
Grew red, then purple, in the face,
And then she began to cry!
And the great cloud thundered out again
As loud as loud could be,
“Lag lowly still, and cry if you will,
I'm going to go to sea!
“The land don't give me back a smile,
I will leave it to the sun,
And will show you something worth your while,
Before the day is done!”
So off he ran, without a stop,
Upon his sea voyage bent,
And he never shed a single drop
On the dry land as he went.
And directly came a rumble
Along the air so dim;
And then a crash, and then a dash,
And the sea had swallowed him!
“I don't make any stir at all,”
Said the little cloud, with a sigh,
And her tears began like rain to fall
On the meadows parched and dry.
And over the rye and the barley
They fell and fell all day,
And soft and sweet on the fields of wheat,
Till she wept her heart away.
146

And the bean-flowers and the buck-wheat,
They scented all the air,
And in the time of the harvest
There was bread enough and to spare.
I know a man like that great cloud
As much as he can live,
And he gives his alms with thunder-cloud
Where there is no need to give.
And I know a woman who doth keep
Where praise comes not at all,
Like the modest cloud that could but weep
Because she was so small.
The name of the one the poor will bless
When her day shall cease to be,
And the other will fall as profitless
As the cloud did in the sea.

BARBARA AT THE WINDOW.

Close at the window-pane Barbara stands;
The walls o' th' dingy old house are aglow;
Pressing her cheeks are her two little hands,
Drooping her eyelids so meek and so low.
What do you see little Barbara? Say!
The walls o' th' dingy old house are aglow;
The leaves they are down, and the birds are away,
And lilac and rosebush are white with the snow.
An hour the sun has been out o' th' west;
The walls o' th' poor little house are aglow;
Come, Barbara, come to th' hearth with th' rest,
Right gayly she tosses her curls for a “No!”
The grandmother sits in her strawbottom chair;
And rafter and wall they are brightly aglow;
The dear little mother is knitting a pair
Of scarlet-wool stockings tipt white at th' toe.
A glad girl and boy are at play by her knee;
The walls o' th' poor little house are aglow!
Now driving th' crickets, for cows, in their glee,
Now rolling the yarn-balls o' scarlet and snow.
And now they are fishers, with nets in the stream;
And rafter and wall o' the house are aglow;
Or sleeping, or waking, their lives are a dream;
But what seeth Barbara, there in the snow?
And th' voice of Barbara ringeth out clear;
The walls, the rough rafters, how brightly they glow;
If you will believe me, I see you all here!
Our dear little room seemeth double, you know.
The fire, the tea-kettle swung on the crane;
And rafter and wall with the candle aglow;
Grandmother and mother, right over again!
And Peter, and Katharine, all in the snow.
Sweet Barbara, standing so close to th' pane,
With the walls o' th' little house brightly aglow;
You will only see everything over again,
Whatever you see, and wherever you go!

BARBARA IN THE MEADOW.

The morn is hanging her fire-fringed veil,
Made of the mist, o'er the walnut boughs,
And Barbara, with her cedar pail,
Comes to the meadow to call the cows.
147

“The little people that live in the air
Are not for my human hands to wrong,”
Says Barbara, and her loving prayer
Takes them up as it goes along.
Gay sings the miller, and Barbara's mouth
Purses with echoes it will not repeat,
And the rose on her cheek hath a Mayday's growth
In the line with the ending, “I love you, sweet.”
Yonder the mill is, small and white,
Hung like a vapor among the rocks—
Good spirits say to her morn and night,
“Barbara, Barbara! stay with your flocks.”
Stay for the treasures you have to keep,
Cherish the love that you know is true;
Though stars should shine in the tears you weep,
They never would come out of heaven to you.
And were you to follow the violet veins
Over the hills—to the ends of the earth,
Barbara, what would you get for your pains,
More than your true-love's love is worth?
So, never a thought about braver mills,
Of prouder lovers your dreaming cease;
A world is shut in among these hills—
Stay in it, Barbara, stay, for your peace!

BALLAD OF UNCLE JOE.

When I was young—it seems as though
There never were such when—
There lived a man that now I know
Was just the best of men;
I'll name him to you, “Uncle Joe,”
For so we called him then.
A poor man he, that for his bread
Must work with might and main.
The humble roof above his head
Scarce kept him from the rain;
But so his dog and he were fed,
He sought no other gain.
His steel-blue axe, it was his pride,
And over wood and wave
Its music rang out far and wide,
His strokes they were so brave;
Excepting that some neighbor died,
And then he dug his grave.
And whether it were wife or child,
An old man, or a maid,
An infant that had hardly smiled,
Or youth, so lowly laid,
The yellow earth was always piled
Above them by his spade.
For spade he had, and grubbing-hoe,
And hence the people said
It was not much that Uncle Joe
Should bury all the dead;
So rich and poor, and high and low,
He made them each a bed.
The funeral-bell was like a jog
Upon his wits, they say,
That made him leave his half-cut log
At any time of day,
And whistle to his brindle dog
And light his pipe of clay.
When winter winds around him drave
And made the snow-flakes spin,
I 've seen him—for he did not save
His strength, for thick nor thin—
His bare head just above the grave
That he was standing in.
His simple mind was almost dark
To school-lore, that is true;
The wisdom he had gained at work
Was nearly all he knew;
But ah, the way he made his mark
Was honest, through and through.
'T was not among the rulers then
That he in council sat;
They used to say that with his pen
His fingers were not pat;
But he was still a gentleman
For all and all of that.
The preacher in his silken gown
Was not so well at ease
As he, with collar lopping down
And patches at his knees,
The envy of our little town,
He had n't a soul to please;
148

Nor wife nor brother, chick nor child,
Nor any kith nor kin.
Perhaps the townsfolk were beguiled
And the envy was a sin,
But his look of sweetness when he smiled
Betokened joy within.
He sometimes took his holiday,
And 't was a pleasant sight
To see him smoke his pipe of clay,
As if all the world went right,
While his brindle dog beside him lay
A-winking at the light.
He took his holiday, and so
His face with gladness shone;
But, ah! I cannot make you know
One bliss he held alone,
Unless the heart of Uncle Joe
Were beating in your own!
He had an old cracked violin,
And I just may whisper you
The music was so weak and thin
'T was like to an ado,
As he drew the long bow out and in
To all the tune he knew.
From January on till June,
And back again to snow,
Or in the tender light o' the moon,
Or by the hearth-fire's glow,
To that old-fashioned, crazy tune
He made his elbow go!
Ah! then his smile would come so sweet
It brightened all the air,
And heel and toe would beat and beat
Till the ground of grass was bare,
As if that little lady feet
Were dancing with him there!
His finger nails, so bruised and flat,
Would grow in this employ
To such a rosy roundness that
He almost seemed a boy,
And even the old crape on his hat
Would tremble as with joy.
So, digging graves, and chopping wood,
He spent the busy day,
And always, as a wise man should,
Kept evil thoughts at bay;
For when he could not speak the good,
He had n't a word to say.
And so the years in shine and storm
Went by, as years will go,
Until at last his palsied arm
Could hardly draw the bow;
Until he crooked through all his form,
Much like his grubbing-hoe.
And then his axe he deeply set,
And on the wall-side pegs
Hung hoe and spade; no fear nor fret
That life was at the dregs,
But walked about of a warm day yet,
With his dog between his legs.
Sometimes, as one who almost grieves,
His memory would recall
The merry-making Christmas Eves,
The frolic, and the ball,
Till his hands would shake like withered leaves
And his pipe go out and fall.
Then all his face would grow as bright—
So I have oft heard say—
As if that, being lost in the night,
He saw the dawn o' the day;
As if from a churlish, chilling height
He saw the light o' the May.
One winter night the fiddle-bow
His fingers ceased to tease,
And they found him by the morning glow
Beneath his door-yard trees,
Wrapt in the ermine of the snow,
And royally at ease.
What matter that the winds were wild!
He did not hear their din,
But hugging, as it were his child,
Against his grizzly chin,
The treasure of his life, he smiled,
For all was peace within.
And when they drew the vest apart
To fold the hands away,
They found a picture past all art
Of painting, so they say;
And they turned the face upon the heart,
And left it where it lay.
And one, a boy with golden head,
Made haste and strung full soon
The crazy viol; for he said,
Mayhap beneath the moon
149

They danced sometime a merry tread
To the belovèd tune.
And many an eye with tears was dim
The while his corse they bore;
No hands had ever worked for him
Since he was born before;
Nor could there come an hour so grim
That he should need them more.
The viol, ready tuned to play,
The sadly-silent bow,
The axe, the pipe of yellow clay,
Are in his grave so low;
And there is nothing more to say
Of poor old Uncle Joe.

THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER.

Her voice was tender as a lullaby,
Making you think of milk-white dews that creep
Among th' mid-May violets, when they lie,
All in yellow moonlight fast asleep.
Aye, tender as that most melodious tone
The lark has, when within some covert dim
With leaves, he talks with morning all alone,
Persuading her to rise and come to him.
Shy in her ways; her father's cattle knew—
No neighbor half so well—her footstep light,
For by the pond where mint and mallows grew
Always she came and called them home at night.
A sad, low pond that cut the field in two
Wherein they ran, and never billow sent
To play with any breeze, but still withdrew
Into itself, in wrinkled, dull content.
And here, through mint and mallows she would stray,
Musing the while she called, as it might be
On th' cold clouds, or winds that with rough gray
Shingled the landward slope of the near sea.
God knows! not I, on what she mused o' nights
Straying about the pond: she had no woe
To think upon, they said, nor such delights
As maids are wont to hide. I only know
We do not know the weakness or the worth
Of any one: th' Sun as he will may trim
His golden lights; he cannot see the earth
He loves, but on the side she turns to him.
I only know that when this lonesome pond
Lifted the buried lilies from its breast
One warm, wet day (I nothing know beyond),
It lifted her white face up with the rest.
previous section [Poems by Cary in] The Poetical Works Of Alice and Phoebe Cary
next section