Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne :: :: University of Virginia Library

Hugh Falcon learned this happy truth one day;
('Twas a fair noontide in the month of May)—
When, as the chaplain of the convicts' jail,
He passed its glowering archway, sad and pale,
Bearing his tender daughter on his arm.
A five years' darling she! The dewy charm
Of Eden star-dawns glistened in her eyes;
Her dimpled cheeks were rich with sunny dyes.

“Papa!” the child that morn while still abed,
Drawing him close toward her, shyly said:
“Papa! oh, won't you let your Nellie go
To see those naughty men that plague you so,
Down in the ugly prison by the wood?
Papa, I'll beg and pray them to be good.”
“What, you, my child?” he said, with half a sigh.
“Why not, papa? I'll beg them so to try.”

The chaplain, with a father's gentlest grace,
Kissed the small ruffled brow, the pleading face.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings still,
Praise is perfected,” thought he; thus, his will
Blended with hers, and through those gates of sin,
Black, even at noontide, sire and child passed in.

Fancy the foulness of a sulphurous lake,
Wherefrom a lily's snow-white leaves should break,
Flushed by the shadow of an unseen rose!
So, at the iron gate's loud clang and close,
Shone the drear twilight of that place defiled,
Touched by the flower-like sweetness of the child!
O'er many a dismal vault, and stony floor,
The chaplain walked from ponderous door to door,
Till now beneath a stairway's dizzy flight
He stood and looked up the far-circling height;
But risen of late from fever's torture-bed.
How could he trust his faltering limbs and head?

Just then, he saw, next to the mildewed wall,
A man in prisoner's raiment, gaunt and tall,
Of sullen aspect, and wan, downcast face,
Gloomed in the midnight of some deep disgrace;

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He shrank as one who yearned to fade away,
Like a vague shadow on the stone-work gray,
Or die beyond it, like a viewless wind;
He seemed a spirit faithless, passionless, blind
To all fair hopes which light the hearts of men,—
A dull, dead soul, never to wake again!

The chaplain paused, half doubting what to do,
When little Nellie raised her eyes of blue,
And, no wise daunted by the downward stir
Of shaggy brows that glowered askance at her,
Said,—putting by her wealth of sunny hair,—
“Sir, will you kindly take me up the stair?”
Papa is tired, and I'm too small to climb.”
Frankly her eyes in his gazed all the time;
And something to her childhood's instinct known
So worked within her, that her arms were thrown
About his neck. She left her sire's embrace
Near that sad convict-heart to take her place,
Sparkling and trustful!—more she did not speak;
But her quick fingers patted his swart cheek
Caressingly,—in time to some old tune
Hummed by her nurse, in summer's drowsy noon!

Perforce he turned his wild, uncertain gaze
Down on the child! Then stole a tremulous haze
Across his eyes, but rounded not to tears;
Wherethrough he saw faint glimmerings of lost years
And perished loves! A cabin by a rill
Rose through the twilight on a happy hill;
And there were lithe child-figures at their play
That flushed and faded in the dusky ray;
And near the porch a gracious wife who smiled,
Pure as young Eve in Eden, unbeguiled!

Subdued, yet thrilled, 'twas beautiful to see
With what deep reverence, and how tenderly,
He clasped the infant frame so slight and fair,
And safely bore her up the darkening stair!
The landing reached, in her arch, childish ease,
Our Nelly clasped his neck and whispered:
“Please,
Won't you be good, sir? For I like you so,
And you are such a big, strong man, you know—”
With pleading eyes, her sweet face sidewise set.
Then suddenly his furrowed cheeks grew wet
With sacred tears—in whose divine eclipse
Upon her nestling head he pressed his lips
As softly as a dreamy west wind's sigh,
What time a something, undefined but high,
As 'twere a new soul, struggled to the dawn
Through his raised eyelids. Thence, the gloom withdrawn
Of brooding vengeance and unholy pain,
He felt no more the captive's galling chain;
But only knew a little child had come
To smite despair, his taunting demon, dumb;

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A child whose marvellous innocence enticed
All white thoughts back, that from the heart of Christ
Fly dove-like earthward, past our clouded ken,
Child-life to bless, or lives of child-like men!

Thus he went his way,
An altered man from that thrice blessèd day;
His soul tuned ever to the soft refrain
Of words once uttered in a sacred fane:
“The little children, let them come to me,
Of such as these my realm of heaven must be;”
But most he loved of one dear child to tell,
The child whose trust had saved him, tender Nell!

THE CHILDREN.

The children! ah, the children!
Your innocent, joyous ones;
Your daughters, with souls of sunshine;
Your buoyant and laughing sons.

Look long in their happy faces,
Drink love from their sparkling eyes,
For the wonderful charm of childhood,
How soon it withers and dies!

A few fast-vanishing summers,
A season or twain of frost,
And you suddenly ask, bewildered
“What is it my heart hath lost?”

Perhaps you see by the hearth-stone
Some Juno, stately and proud,
Or a Hebe whose softly ambushed eyes
Flash out from the golden cloud

Of lavish and beautiful tresses
That wantonly floating, stray
O'er the white of a throat and bosom
More fair than blossoms in May.

And perhaps you mark their brothers—
Young heroes who spurn the sod
With the fervor of antique knighthood,
And the air of a Grecian god!

But where, ah, where are the children,
Your household fairies of yore?
Alack! they are dead, and their grace has fled
For ever and ever more!

WILL AND I.

I.

We roam the hills together,
In the golden summer weather,
Will and I:
And the glowing sunbeams bless us,
And the winds of heaven caress us,
As we wander hand in hand
Through the blissful summer land
Will and I.

II.

Where the tinkling brooklet passes
Through the heart of dewy grasses,
Will and I
Have heard the mock-bird singing,
And the field-lark seen upspringing
In his happy flight afar,
Like a tiny wingèd star,
Will and I.

III.

Amid cool forest closes
We have plucked the wild wood roses,
Will and I;
And have twined, with tender duty,
Sweet wreaths to crown the beauty
Of the purest brows that shine
With a mother-love divine
Will and I.

IV.

Ah! thus we roam together,
Through the golden summer weather,
Will and I;

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While the glowing sunbeams bless us,
And the winds of heaven caress us—
As we wander hand in hand
O'er the blissful summer land
Will and I.

JAMIE AND HIS MOTHER—IN THE TROPICS.

JAMIE.
O mother, what country is that I see
Far over the stream and the boulders gray,
Where the wind-song pipes, and the curlews flee,
And the little brown squirrels dance and play
Through the boughs all day?

MOTHER.
Why, only a forest dark and wild,
A savage waste you must shum, my child!

JAMIE.
O mother, what shapes are those that sit
In the deep dun heart of the woodland gloom?
And what those creatures that dip and flit,
Each crowned with a golden and scarlet plume,
O'er the tamarind bloom?

MOTHER.
Why, only the monkeys crouched from sight,
And paroquets flashing in gay-hued flight!

JAMIE.

O mother, what children are those that run
So swift and light 'mid the tree-stems bare?
They seem to twinkle from shade to sun,
And beckon me over their sport to share
In the noontide fair!
“Go not,” she cried, with a quivering breath:
“They are Pixies, child, and their sport is death!”

But there came a morn when the mother's words
No longer dwelt in her Jamie's mind;
When he followed the flight of the whirring birds
That circled and soared on the woodland wind,
And mother and home were far behind.

Like one in a golden dream was he,
Far over the stream and the boulders gray;
And the wind-song pipes, and the curlews flee.
And the little brown squirrels dance and play
Through the boughs all day.

But the day grew dim, and the night-shades fell,
And there in the dark, drear, hungry wild,
In the loneliest nook of a mountain dell,
Where never a tender moonbeam smiled,
Lay the weary child!

Like one in an awful trance was he,
In the deep dun heart of the woodland gloom;
But a trance whose shadows can never flee,
Till the mystic trump of the day of doom
Breaks vault and tomb.

And they found him there with his bleeding hands
So humbly crossed o'er the ragged vest,
His spirit had gone to the angel lands,
But his out-worn body they laid to rest
In the last sad smile of the gentle west:
God guard his rest!

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THE THREE COPECKS.

Crouched low in a sordid chamber,
With a cupboard of empty shelves,
Half starved, and, alas, unable
To comfort or help themselves,

Two children were left forsaken,
All orphaned of mortal care;
But with spirits too close to heaven
To be tainted by earth's despair,

Alone in that crowded city,
Which shines like an arctic star,
By the banks of the frozen Neva,
In the realm of the mighty Czar.

Now, Max was an urchin of seven;
But his delicate sister, Leeze,
With the crown of her rippling ringlets,
Could scarcely have reached your knees.

As he looked on his sister weeping,
And tortured by hunger's smart,
A thought like an angel entered
At the door of his opened heart.

He wrote on a fragment of paper,
With quivering hand and soul,
“Please send to me, Christ, three copecks,
To purchase for Leeze a roll!”

Then, rushed to a church, his missive
To drop,—ere the vesper psalms,—
As the surest mail bound Christward,
In the unlocked box for alms!

While he stepped upon tiptoe to reach it,
One passed from the priestly band,
And with smile like a benediction,
Took the note from his eager hand.

Having read it, the good man's bosom
Grew warm with a holy joy;
“Ah! Christ may have heard you already,
Will you come to my house, my boy?”

“But not without Leeze?” “No, surely,
We'll have a rare party of three;
Go, tell her that somebody's waiting
To welcome her home to tea.”

That night in the cosiest cottage,
The orphans were safe at rest,
Each sang as a callow birdling,
In the depths of its downy nest.

And the next Lord's Day, in his pulpit,
The preacher so spake of these,
Stray lambs from the fold, which Jesus
Had blessed by the sacred seas:

So recounted their guileless story,
As he held each child by the hand,
That the hardest there could feel it,
And the dullest could understand.

O'er the eyes of the listening fathers
There floated a gracious mist;
And oh, how the tender mothers
Those desolate darlings kissed!

“You have given your tears,” said the preacher,
“Heart-alms we should none despise;
But the open palm, my children,
Is more than the weeping eyes!”

Then followed a swift collection,
From the altar steps to the door,
Till the sum of two thousand rubles
The vergers had counted o'er.

So you see that the unmailed letter
Had somehow gone to its goal,
And more than three copecks gathered
To purchase for Leeze a roll!

THE REASON WHY.

I'd like, indeed I'd like to know
Why sister Bell, who loved me so,
And used to pet me day and night,
And could not bear me out of sight,

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Now always looks so cross and glum,
If to her side I chance to come,
When that great, gawky man is nigh;
I'd like to know the reason why?

That man! I hate him! yes, I do,
And, in my place, you'd hate him too.
At first, (his common name is John!)
He brought me boxes of bon bons,
With books, and dolls, and tiny rings,
And lots on lots of precious things,
And said, of all Miss Pontoon's girls,
Not one could match my flowing curls,
My rosy cheeks and rounded chin,
With one sly dimple nestling in.
But now, he seems so stern and high,
I scarce may catch his scornful eye,
While as for toys!—he has ceased to buy!
Tell me, who can, the reason why?

It's mean! dear me! I'm sure it's mean!
Did I not run a “go-between”
From him to sister Bell so long,
(Although I feared it might be wrong),
With sweetmeats, flowers, and scented notes,
Sealed by two doves with curving throats?
Of course I thought him kind and nice.
But now, he's cold as arctic ice!
And more than once I've heard him say,
“That chit's forever in the way!”
While Bell—she snaps! till I could cry.
Will no one tell the reason why?

LATER.

Think—Mr. John's my friend again.
('Twas yesternight he made it plain),
For most of our big household gone
To Friday's lecture,—left alone,
But Bell and I; he came to tea,
(As now he's coming constantly,)
And spoke to me quite warmly—quite:
“Lizzie, you are not looking bright;
And since both Bell and I are here,
Take Nurse, and see the circus, dear;
I'll pay, my love! accept of this.”
(A wee gold dollar, and—a kiss!)
“Why don't you come with Bell?”asked I;
He smiled, but would not answer why.

LATER STILL.

Good news! good news! I'm almost mad,
I feel so pleased, so proud and glad.
To-morrow is the wedding-day;
Papa will give our Bell away,
And I'm a bridesmaid!—oh, my dress!
“Soft waves of white silk loveliness,”
Bell says, “with grace in every tuck!”
And isn't Brother John a duck?
(I call him Brother now, you see,)
He gave this dainty dress to me,
And said, his “little friend must look
Fair as a picture in a book.”
I answered gayly, “I shall try!”
What need to ask the reason why?

THE SILKEN SHOE.

“Hie on the holly-tree!”—
Old Ballad.

The firelight danced and wavered
In elvish, twinkling glee
On the leaves and crimson berries
Of the great green Christmas Tree;

And the children who gathered round it
Beheld, with marvelling eyes,
Pendant from trunk and branches
How many a precious prize,

From the shimmer of gold and silver
Through a purse's cunning net,
To the coils of a rippling necklace,
That quivered with beads of jet.

But chiefly they gazed in wonder
Where flickered strangely through
The topmost leaves of the holly
The sheen of a silken shoe!

And the eldest spake to her father:
“I have seen—yes, year by year,
On the crown of our Christmas hollies,
That small shoe glittering clear;

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“But you never have told who owned it,
Nor why so loftily set,
It shines through the fadeless verdure,
You never have told us yet!”

'Twas then that the museful father
In slow sad accents said,
While the firelight hovered eerily
About his downcast head:

“My children—you had a sister;
(It was long, long, long ago),
She came like an Eden rosebud
'Mid the dreariest winter snow,

“And for four sweet seasons blossomed
To cheer our hearts and hearth,
When the song of the Bethlehem angels
Lured her away from earth—

“For again 'twas the time of Christmas,
As the lay with laboring breath;
But—our minds were blinded strangely,
And we did not dream of death.

“A little before she left us,
We had deftly raised to view,
On the topmost branch of the holly
Yon glimmering, tiny shoe;

“We knew that no toy would please her
Like a shoe so fair and neat,
To fold, with its soft caressing
Her delicate, sylph-like feet!

“Truly, a smile like a sunbeam
Brightened her eyes of blue,
And once—twice—thrice—she tested
The charm of her fairy shoe!

“Ah! then the bright smile flickered,
Faded, and drooped away,
As faintly, in tones that faltered,
I heard our darling say:

“‘My shoe, papa, please hang it
Once more on the holly bough,
Just where I am sure to see it,
When I wake—an hour from now.

“But alas! she never wakened!
Close shut were the eyes of blue;
Whose last faint gleam had fondled
The curves of that dainty shoe.

“Ah, children, you understand me;
Your eyes are brimmed with dew,
As they watch on the Christmas holly
The sheen of a silken shoe.”

364

THE BLACK DESTRIER.

A BALLAD OF THE THIRD CRUSADE.

First 'mid the lion Richard's host,
Sir Aymer fought in Holy Land;
And they loved him well for his honest heart,
And they feared, for his stalwart hand.

Once on a glorious battle eve,
The Paynim legions wildly flying,
Sir Aymer paused from his work of blood,
Where an eastern knight lay dying.

He was the latest guard of one,
The Soldan's fair and favorite bride.
And there on the trampled and crimson sod
She moaned by the warrior's side.

No strength had he to shield his charge;
But mild the Christian victor's face;
And the lady knew, as she gazed thereon,
That his mercy would grant her grace.

The Paynim died: “I am thy guide,”
The brave Sir Aymer softly said;
“By my father's faith thou art safe from scaith,
Wheresoever thou would'st be led.”

True to his word, through friend, through foe,
He bore the lady fast and far,
Till the hostile sheen of the Moslem spears
Flashed under the evening star.

The Soldan's self with speechless joy,
With glistening eyes and bated breath,
The queen of his house and heart embraced,
As if claiming his Love from death!

“Now, Christian knight, by this pure light,
No vain nor empty thanks are mine;
So, name thee the guerdon a king may grant,
And believe me, it shall be thine.”

“No guerdon, prince, for simple ruth
The Christian warrior deigns to take;
He has vowed to rescue the lorn and weak,
For his own sweet lady's sake.’

“All proofs of zeal the grateful feel,
Surely, fair knight, thou would'st not shun?
An honored guest, thou wilt tarry and rest,
At least till the morrow's sun?”

Thus, in the Soldan's tent he stayed—
What time the queen with passionate eyes,
Struck blind to the harem's splendor, dreamed
Of his beauty with love-sick sighs:

And ere that morrow's sun had set,
With scarce a blush her love she told;
But Sir Aymer hearkened with haughty mien.
And the words that he spake were cold.

Then flushed the imperious forehead high,
A dark flame glittered in her eyes,
And the hate of the deadly orient quelled
The breath of her tender sighs.

“Sir knight, enough; thou scorn'st my love!
But ere thou goest, take instead
This marvellous steed of the jet-black breed,
In the land of the Magi bred.

“O stern in fight! O swift in flight!
This matchless steed will serve thee well,
Whether thy lure be a lady's bower,
Or the vanward war-trump's swell.”

He took the gift, he bowed him low,
And gained the Christian camp at noon;
“O courser of might in strife or flight!”
Quoth he, “I shall prove thee soon.”

[OMITTED]

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The conflict joins; the hosts are hot;
That gallant Destrier “holds his own;”
Aghast at the rush of his whirlwind course,
Whole legions are overthrown.

In twice three mortal combats more
The same fell ruin marked his path,
Till the Saracens deemed, as their lifeblood streamed,
'Twas a fiend of hell in his wrath.

But once, alas! alas! the day!
The Moslem's sudden war-cry rose,
And the knight his “ Avè” forgot to say,
Ere he hastened to meet his foes.

St. Paul! what wizard spell is this?
The Destrier spurns the hands that guide,
And full on the front of the Christian host
Sweeps back through the battle tide.

Gramercy! 'twas a dreadful sight
Which met the gathering thousands there,
When the war-horse charged like a blazing star,
Through a halo of blood-red air.

With bristling mane, and hot disdain
Against the mail-clad lines he came;
And his red orbs burned with a frenzied ire,
And his nostrils darted flame.

Thus raging from the heathen van,
Strange steed and awful rider rushed,
And the souls of the boldest shrank appalled.
And the wildest voice was hushed;

Till swift towards King Richard's camp
The fiery-fronted portent bore,
From the fetlock firm to the horrent crest
All reeking with Christian gore.

There, on a sudden paused the barb,
Still, as if carved in marble black,
And from silent knight and terrible steed
The pale throng shuddered back:

But now from out the trembling crowd
A priest with holy water passed,
He sprinkled the knight, he sprinkled the steed
With the pure lymph free and fast:

When lo! the fatal charm dissolved—
Prone, with a hollow, rattling sound
In the clasp of his unscathed armor, fell
The knight to the bloody ground:

They loosed his hauberk and his helm,
But dead and wan his eyeballs shone,
As if they had gazed on a nameless dread
Which had frozen their life to stone!

They felt his pulseless heart, his brow
Dim with the death-shade's mystic gloom,
While ruthless and stern are the looks they turn
On the demon that wrought his doom.

But pallid as a waning cloud
Athwart the summer moon-disc blown,
The shadowy form of a demon steed
In the ghost-like eve had grown:

Only—his supernatural eyes
One moment shot a vengeful spark,
Ere the glimmering Syrian twilight closed
On the steps of the sudden dark.

THE ADVENTURES OF LITTLE BOB BONNYFACE.

Little Bob Bonnyface went out one day
Into his father's fields to play;
Twas a morn undarkened by mist or cloud,

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With the thrush and the blackbird piping loud;
The locust, deep in the pine-tree wood,
Shrilled, as only a locust could;
And borne on the waft of a summer breeze,
Swarmed by him an army of honey-bees.
Delighted he saw, delighted he heard
The morn, the bees, and the singing bird;
He also sang, as he roamed through the clover,
Feeling so jolly, and free all over!

But Bob—I must tell you the honest truth—
Was a terribly mischievous thoughtless youth;
Whatever he wanted to do or say,
He did and he said in the boldest way,
Not seeming to ponder, even to care
How naughty his words or his actions were;
For the only aim of this reckless elf
Was—everywhere, always, to please—himself!

'Twas to please himself, without license or leave
Nor a thought how his poor sick mother might grieve,
If she missed too long, on her suffering bed,
The golden gleam of his curly head,
That he left his home through the fields to stray,
On that sunny and beautiful summer's day,
As the air breathed over him, blithe-some, but calm,
All laden with fragrance and meadow-balm,
And the sunshine warmed his young blood through,
While it dazzled and danced from the stainless blue,
Bob felt that a jollity, wholesome and sweet,
Possessed him wholly, from head to feet.
He looked around, and what should his eye
In an open space 'mid the clover spy,
But an ant-hole, wrought in the sandy drouth.
Out of its busy, populous mouth,
The dwarfish tenants—an endless train,
Emerging, covered the tiny plain;
Eastward and westward, north and south,
They toiled, with a constant will, to gain
The fairy stores of their winter's grain;
Yet Bob in his recklessness deemed it fun
The ants and their mansion to overrun.
By millions down in the crumbling sod
The frightened creatures he swiftly trod;
Filled up with dust, and grasses, and stone,
The entrance-ways to their home, o'erthrown
Not one of the innocent horde, not one,
Was left to toil in the laughing sun—
But still Bob shouted, and thought it—fun!

Next on his wandering way he came
To a furze-bush, gleaming like yellow flame;
A spider as ugly and fierce as sin,
Had spread the snares of his web therein;
But—cunning and sly—as Bob rushed up,
He hid himself deep in a thistle's cup,
Leaving above, in his worship's stead,
A bee, caught fast in his poisoned thread!

Now, here was a chance for Bobby to free
From his pain and prison this harmless bee;
But bless you! no! 'twas a finer thing
He thought, to pierce him from wing to wing;
On a pin's keen point to whirl him high.

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And behold the quivering insect die,
This, too, when the barbarous act was done,
Seemed nothing to Bob but a moment's—fun.

More gleeful than ever, Bob onward pressed;
In the wayside thickets he found a nest,
The eggs half hatched; but he took them out,
And with rude hand scattered them all about,
Laughing to see how the egg-shells broke.
But hey! what's this? with a buffeting stroke,
The wings of the outraged mother-bird
(Who down from her neighboring perch had whirred,)
So smartly smote him on forehead and eyes,
That Bobby in his turn trembling—flies!

(Don't you think that his was a wretched plight?
Just picture a boy from a bird in flight!
His heart and his knee-joints weak with fright.)

But soon recovered, he trudged along,
Humming the words of a ballad-song,
Till reaching a place where the grasses bred
Tall “hoppers” in thousands, he staid his tread,
And cunningly crouching, as quick as thought,
A “grandfather hopper” was deftly caught.
Bob squeezed his body, and pulled his thighs,
And poked a straw in his winking eyes;
Then, with shrill laughter, and merry scoff,
He wrenched both legs of the creature off;
And next (could the rascal have had a heart?)
Its head from the body was snatched apart,
Till, a pitiful image of death and dearth,
Its carcass lay on the verdant earth!

I haven't the leisure to stop and tell
What other pains and evils befell
The defenceless tenants of wood and dell;
All wrought by an urchin's uncurbed will,
At length as an evening fair and still,
Shone over the wood, Bob strolled beyond
The wooded glades to a quiet pond,
The home of eels, mud-fishes, and things
Half frog, half fish, all covered with stings,
And scaly armor, as bright as brass;
Then and there, reader, it came to pass
That a terrapin, lazily crawling o'er
The moistened ways of its native shore,
Bob shrewdly captured—he turned his back
Heedfully down on the sandy track,
And—need we say it?—at once began
To practise as ever, his teasing plan.
He pinched the flesh of the terrapin sore
Racked it behind, and racked it before;
And strove—tho' just with a touch of awe,
The reptile's head from its shell to draw.
When hark! the sound of a vicious snap!
And the juvenile's fingers were in a trap
As ruthless as fate, and as sharp as steel;
Then, followed a piteous discord! Squeal,
Bellow, and shriek, the echoes around,
Woke up from the startled wave and ground.
Bob struggled and panted, kicked and cried,
Yet, his enemy's hold all efforts defied;

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He thought to rise, but he would not do it,
For fear that his mangled flesh might rue it;
And still more agonized, angry, and loud,
His yells went up to a whirling cloud,
Which in a moment from out the blue,
(Or such was his fancy), darker grew,
Whence peered a head and a face to fear;
But what shall I say of the monster's leer.
His huge mouth stretching from ear to ear?

“You have tortured,” (it said) “and torn all day
God's helpless creatures in wanton play;
Now, learn, oh! cruel and coward elf!
A useful lesson of pain, yourself!
Does it burn and sting to the deepest nerve?
What less do your brutal deeds deserve?
How! groaning again! for shame! be done!
You only tortured, you know,—in fun!”

When he gained from the terrapin's clutch release
While resting, that night, on his couch in peace,
There softly dawned thro' the twilight gloom,
A face more fair than a white-rose bloom;
And a voice that seemed like the under speech
Of the waters that swoon on a breezeless beach,
Whispered as low as low could be;
“Look up! I charge thee! and worship me;
And yet not me, but the Master—Christ!
“My name is Pity!—I am enticed
From even the Heaven of Heavens to bring
Soft balms for mortal suffering;
And whosoever the frailest thing
With strength within it to feel or love,
Wounds here—he is torturing me above;
And worse—for the pangs of that anguish dart
Through mine, to the tender Saviour's heart!”

Silence!—but just as sleep was won,
And over the boy's bright eyes of brown,
The delicate lashes came drooping down,
Thro' the silvery eddies of moonlight mist,
There stole the shadow of lips that kissed
The stain from the childish soul away,
That sadly sinning, had deemed it—play!

KISS ME, KATIE!

Katie, Katie, little Katie!
Mouth of rose and eyes of blue,
(Eyes that look one frankly through!)
When I'm absent don't you miss me?
Now I'm near you, come and kiss me!
Katie, little Katie, kiss me!
Katie, do!

Katie, Katie, pretty Katie!
Prettier far than Jane or Lu,
Madge or Margaret, Maud or Prue;
Graceful as a spring-born fairy,
Tuneful as your pet canary—
Katie, pretty Katie, kiss me!
Katie, do!

Katie, sly, deceptive Katie!
If you fly me I'll pursue.
(What though corns or gout should rue!)
Then, if I can overmatch you,
Running fast can clasp and catch you,
Captured Katie, won't you kiss me?
Katie, do!

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Katie, mute, day-dreaming Katie,
If I tell your thoughts to you,
Guess your dreams and make them true,
Won't you cease your coy defiance,
Vanquished by such wondrous science—
Won't you kiss me, Katie darling?
Katie, do!

Katie, captious little Katie!
Why that quickly tapping shoe,
Ready shrug and scornful moue?
Can it be you mean to scout me?
Just because I'm grayish, flout me?
Are you muttering, “Kiss HIM! NEVER!
No, I can't! and no, I won't! ”
O, you petulant, changeful Katie!
Katie, don't!

CAGED.

You think he sings a gladsome song!
Ah, well, he sings! but only see
How oft on glossy neck and breast
His bright head droops despondingly;
Or note the restless, eager bird
When a free minstrel's voice is heard.

You think because he pecks his grain
With vigorous mien and active bill,
This long captivity has trained
To tame content his roving will.
But watch, as some wild pinion flies,
Flashed near his cage, from summer skies:

He lifts his crest, his eyes dilate
To yearning orbs of passionate fire;
His whole small body seems to thrill,
And vibrate to the heart's desire:
The deathless wish once more to roam
The broad blue heaven God made his home.

Mark, next, the weary pant, the sigh
Of hope deferred, that follows then;
Perchance your captive's pain is deep
As that which haunts imprisoned men,
Pining behind their cruel bars
For sunlight or the holy stars.

Come! ope the door! he owns a soul
As tender, sensitive and fine
As yours or mine—for aught we know,
And dowered with rights scarce less Divine;
Come! let him choose, at least, between
God's azure and yon gilded screen!

Freed! yet he flies not!—Wait!—his brain
Is dazed!—he comprehends not yet
How earnest is your proffered boon,—
How surely his the glorious debt
Of freedom and all free-born things:
Wait!—ha! he prunes his doubtful wings.

Hops, perch by perch, to gain the door;
Then, as if first conviction came,
Full-faced, and whispered, “thou art free!”
He darts without, a wingèd flame,
And soon from far, fair cloudland floats
The rapture of his grateful notes!

LITTLE LOTTIE'S GRIEVANCE.

Mamma's in heaven! and so, you see
My sister Bet's mamma to me.
Oh! yes, I love her!—that's to say,
I love her well the whole bright day;
For Sis is kind as kind can be,
Until, indeed we've finished tea—
Then (why did God make ugly night?)
She never, never treats me right,
But always says, “Now, sleepy head,
'Tis getting late! come up to bed!”

Just when the others, Fred and Fay,
Dolly and Dick, are keen for play—
Card-houses, puzzles, painted blocks,
Cat-corner, and pert Jack-in-the-box—
I must (it's that bad gas, I think,
That makes me somehow seem to wink!)
Must leave them all to seek the gloom
Of sister Bet's close-curtained room,
Put on that long stiff gown I hate,
And go to bed—oh, dear! at eight!

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Now, is it fair that I who stand
Taller than Dolly by a hand,
(I'll not believe, howe'er 'tis told,
That cousin Doll is ten years old!
And just because I'm only seven,
Should be so teased, yes, almost driven,
Soon as I've supped my milk and bread,
To that old drowsy, frowsy bed?
I've lain between the dusky posts,
And shivered when I thought of ghosts:
Or else have grown so mad, you know,
To hear those laughing romps below,
While there I yawned and stretched (poor me!)
With one dim lamp for company.
I've longed for courage just to dare
Dress softly—then trip down the stair,
And on the parlor pop my head
With “No, I will not stay abed!”

I'll do it yet, all quick and bold,
No matter how our Bet may scold.
For, oh! I'm sure it can't be right,
To keep me here each dismal night,
Half scared by shadows grimly tall
That dance along the cheerless wall,
Or by the wind, with fingers chill,
Shaking the worn-out window-sill
One might as well be sick or dead,
As sent by eight o'clock to bed!

A NEW VERSION OF WHY THE ROBIN'S BREAST IS RED.

Know you why the robin's breast
Gleameth of a dusky red,
Like the lustre mid the stars
Of the potent planet Mars?
'Tis—a monkish myth has said—
Owing to his cordial heart;
For, long since, he took the part
Of those hapless children, sent
Hadean-ward for punishment;
And, to quench the fierce desire,
Bred in them by ruthless fire,
Brought on tiny bill and wing,
Water from some earthly spring,
Which in misty droplets fell
O'er their dwelling of unrest,
While the sufferer's faces grew
Softer 'neath the healing dew!

But, too far within that hell
Venturing, some malicious fiend,
A small devil hardly weaned,
Seized bold Robin in his claw,
Striving thro' the flames to draw
His poor body, until fled
Sight of eyes and sense of head,
Scorched he lay and almost dead!

Then, a child whose tongue and brow,
Robin's help had cooled but now,
Clutched the baby-fiend in ire,
And in gulfs of his own fire
Soused the vile misshapen elf.

Fluttering upwards, scarce himself,
After all the pain and fear
Of his horrid sojourn there
In that realm of flame and smoke,
Lo! earth's happy sunlight broke
On the bird's dazed view at last;
But the ordeal he had passed
Left a flame-spot widely spread
Where the wind-blown feathers part
Just above his loyal heart.
So the robin's breast is red!

THE LITTLE SAINT.

At the calm matin hour
I see her bend in prayer,
As bends a virgin flower
Kissed by the summer air;
Oh, meek her downcast eyes!
But the sweet lips wear a smile;
How hard our little angel tries
To be serious all the while!

I tell her 'tis not right
To be half-grave, half-gay,
Imploring in Heaven's sight
A blessing on the day;

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She hears and looks devout—
Although it gives her pain;
Still, when the ritual's almost out
She's sure—to smile again!

She shocks her maiden aunt,
Who thinks it a disgrace
That, do her best, she can't
Give her a solemn face;
She'll scold and rate and fume,
And lecture hour by hour,
Until she makes the very room
Look passionate and sour!

Alack, 't is all in vain!
Soon as the sermon's done
My fairy blooms again,
Like a rose-bud in the sun.
I cannot damp her mirth!
I will not check her play;
Is guileless joy so rife on earth,
Hers shall not have full sway?

I asked her yester night,
Why, when her prayer was made,
Her brow of cordial light
Scarce caught a serious shade.
“Father,” she said, “you love
Better to meet me glad;
And so I thought the Christ above
Might grieve to see me—sad!”

A NEW PHILOSOPHY; OR, STAR SHOWERS EXPLAINED.

One luminous night in winter,
All crystal clear and still,
A band of wondering children
Were grouped by the window sill.

The window looked out northward,
Where through the tranquil hours
The stars kept falling, falling,
In a ceaseless shine of showers.

Ah! beautiful sight! those children!—
As they gazed on the magic skies,
With their tiny hands uplifted,
And their large, bright, marvelling eyes.

“What is it?” asked curly Alfred,
Of his elder brother, Gus;
“Does you think it is coming nearer?
If it comes, can it fall on us?”

“No, stupid!” (in tones determined,)
But soon he was touched by doubt,
And wished, as the flames waxed brighter,
Somebody would put them out!

For, indeed, the radiant sparkles
Now poured from a grander height:
And filled like a conflagration,
The hollows and gulfs of night!

Till at last they all grew frightened;
And the small dark heads and light
Were in a closer circle,
While still they watched the night!

All but one sturdy urchin,
The smallest and shrewdest there,
Whose eyes like a pert cock robin's,
Turned up on the northward glare,

As he lisped, with an air quite final,
And with somewhat of scorn and scoff:
“It's the Fourth of July up yonder,
And the wockets is whizzing off!”

BABY'S FIRST WORD.

We watched our baby day by day,
With earnest expectation,
To hear his infant lips unclose
In vague articulation.

But weeks, nay weary months, passed on;
His last wee tooth had broken
From rosy gums, yet not a word,
Not one had baby spoken.

“O Rol!” I cried, “it cannot be
A child so quick and clever,
Who hears ('tis plain he hears our talk),
Should thus stay dumb forever!”

372

Rol answered sharply, vexed and red,
“What wretched nonsense, Jenny!
I never could have dreamed, my dear,
You'd prate like such a ninny!”

(Yes, that's the term, I must confess,
By which, with judgment narrow,
He dared for once, just once, you know,
To call his “winsome marrow.”)

But what cared I? since as I live,
True as my name is Jenny,
From out the cradle clear and loud,
Came back the bad word “Ninny!”

Thence uprose baby all aglee;
His peaceful slumbers routed,
And thrice that naughty, naughty word
He spoke, nay, almost shouted!

Rol, glancing at my startled eyes,
His mirth could scarcely smother.
But oh! to think the rogue's first word
Should thus abuse his mother!

THE CHAMELEON.

I know that I'm like, yet I am not, a snake!
'Tis true that I glisten by boll and by brake,
That I dart out and in, can glide, quiver and coil
As swift as the lightning, but softer than oil,
Yet a creature more innocent never was drawn
From the gray of cool shadows to bask in the dawn!

If I pause by a brook the rock-currents divide,
I grow silvery-white as the foam of its tide;
If 'mid dew-freshened meadows at sunrise I pass,
There's a shaft of pure emerald shot through the grass.
When to gay garden-closes I joyfully turn,
'Tis mine with all hues, of their roses to burn;
I reflect each bright blush that the petals have won
Of their young virgin-flowers from the kiss of the sun.
My skin's a clear mirror, a glass of the elves,
In which all lovely tints can smile back on themselves!
Stranger still! for on ugliness mirrored therein,
Though it tarnish a moment, this magical skin,
On the dark and uncouth some slight beauty's bestowed;
Why, even that dull little hunchback, the toad,
I endow with faint outlines of sweetness and grace,
While the newt, glancing down on his lop-sided face,
Reflected,—in pity,—by softened degrees,
Almost dreams he was formed by kind Nature to please!

Ah, therefore, sweet maiden, shrink not when you see
My lithe body reposing by streamlet or tree;
But kneel down where I rest, and all mellowed behold
Your eyes of deep blue, and your ringlets of gold,
In my miniature mirror, my glass of the elves,
Wherein all lovely things can smile back on themselves!

FLYING FURZE.

Airily, fairily, over the meadows,
Over the broom-grasses waving and gay,
O! see how it shimmers,
How wavers and glimmers,
Flying, and flying away.

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Hastefully, wastefully, over the copses,
Over the hedge-rows in scattered array,
See, see how 'tis curling
And twinkling and whirling,
Ever and ever away!

Merrily, cheerily, down the far verges,
Verges of fields growing misty and gray,
Still, still how it shimmers,
Grows fainter and glimmers,
Shimmers, and glimmers away!

THE NEW SISTER.

Phil.
Say, Pete, do you like her?

Pete.
Like! love her you mean!

Phil.
Ain't she jolly and red?

Pete.
And hurrah for her! just think of her head!

Phil.
As big as a pippin, and round as a bullet!

Pete.
And bald! oh! as bald as a newly-plucked pullet!

Phil.
Did you look at her eyes too?

Pete.
Of course; they are blue.

Phil.
Not a bit of it—black!

Pete.
Blue, I tell you—ask Jack!

Phil.
Jack! I've eyes of my own that see better than his!

Pete.
Brag on! but for once they have led you amiss.
Baby's eyes are blue—very!

Phil.
As black as a berry!

Pete.
Blue, you ninny! but s'pose we come down to her nose!
It's as funny and fat with an end like—

Phil.
Like a rose?

Pete.
No! a small dab of putty just tinted with pink!

Phil.
Now, stoo-pid! how can you! I'm sure that I think
Nothing nicer than roses so dumpy and smug—

Pete.
Pshaw! you mean it's a boo-ti-ful, boo-ti-ful pug!

Phil.
Well, you naughty old Pete! you can't laugh at her chin!

Pete.
Oh, no, it's the nattiest, sauciest, sweetest—

Phil.
The nicest, completest,
Of arch little chins, with a dimple put in,
That winks up like a sunbeam,

Pete.
And then her wee throat!

Phil.
Her throat like egg-foam, or a syllabub boat
On a lake of clear cream!

Pete.
And her arms; they are nice now; there's nothing can beat them!

Phil.
So plump, round, and soft! I'm most ready to eat them!

Pete.
Of course, Phil, you kissed her?

Phil.
Oh, didn't I!

Pete.
Well!

Phil.
Well, I put my mouth down; I had something to tell;
Ah! close whispered close in the shy little ear,
That seemed to turn up, Pete, half coyly to hear,
And again, as I kissed her—

Pete.
You blessed the good Lord for so jolly a sister!

Phil.
Yes, I did!

Pete.
So did I!

Phil.
And now, Pete, 'tis but right We should go in once more and bid “Baby” good night!

HOP, SKIP, AND JUMP: A QUEER TRIO PERSONIFIED.

O! Hop is a sailor used up in the war,
With a single good leg to stand on;
And a face as dingy almost as the tar
He was wont to rest his hand on;
And he grumbles strange oaths in his hairy throat
Whenever he sees a fair vessel afloat,
Especially one with those staring round eye
(Port-holes, you know)
Whence the hot shot flies
At a quaking foe;
For then his anger, it fizzles up

374

(Like the sputtering foam in a lager-beer cup),
And he hoarsely cries,
“May witches fly off with that fellow by whom
I'm reduced to the cruel, contemptible doom
Of tottering all day,
In an imbecile way,
'Twixt a single good leg
And this base wooden peg,
Far, far from the spume
Of the gay ocean-spray!
So, seize him, and scorch him, and fry him, I say!”

But Skip is a mincing lady fine;
She never was seen to breakfast or dine;
And how she lives, none knoweth;
Her waist is so very slender and thin,
You fear it must snap, and topple in,
At the first slight wind that bloweth.
Her favorite motion's an airy jerk,
With her eyeballs raised, and her chin a-perk,
And her little red ringlets bobbing,
Bobbing and hobnobbing,
In a friendly fashion, each to each;
And her cheek is the hue of a delicate peach
(That never a shade can vary);
“Perpetual motion” she's sometimes called,
And really, truly one feels appalled
To view her galvanized skipping,
Her dancing, wriggling, whipping
Of one skirt in and one skirt out,
Her general manner of going about,
Which lies, I ween,
Half pitched between
The twittering, fussy, old-maidish way
Of the restless jay.
And the airs of a sprightly canary!

Jump is a long-limbed sturdy boy,
With such strong muscles to back him,
That I hardly could wish the creature joy
Who should ever dare to attack him;
A four-foot fence he clears in a minute;
And if you bet from the cottage eave
(And a very tall cottage it is in sooth),
With your leave, or without your leave,
That he cannot jump
With a dauntless thump,
And a thundering bump,—
Be sure that he'll quickly win it!
And, to whisper the truth,—the fearful truth,
I believe if whale or dragon,
The one on sea, and t'other on land,
(The biggest that either could brag on),
Came floating, or crawling nigh,
That this marvellous boy,
With a ringing cry
Of fierce, exuberant, reckless joy,
Would, just for the fun of it,
Make a swift run of it
Right down the jaws of whichever dread vermin
The turn of chance or a thought should determine!

So here my song ends,
And ye, charming young friends!
Don't endeavor to pump
My dry fancy again;
'Tis enough I've made plain
As Tommy's big nose
Looming red o'er the snows,
Those impalpable ideas of Hop, Skip, and Jump!

DANCING.

Dancing! I love it, night or day:
There's nought on earth so jolly,
Whether you straightly glide with May,
Or madly whirl with Molly,
The country dance is smooth and sleek;
But waltzes (some call vicious!)
Bring one so near a rosy cheek,
That, Jack, they're just delicious!

375

At every chance, I'm bound to go,
And join our “West End” classes,
With all about me comme il faut,
To captivate the lasses.
I think they rather like me, Jack,—
(Oh, dear! the pretty creatures!)—
One shyly praised—behind my back—
She did—my Roman features!
Yet somehow, Jack, the loveliest she
(I mean sweet Mary Whimple)
Has never, never turned on me
A single charming dimple:
But when I try the least advance,
Her smile is changed to sneering;
Three times she has snubbed me in the dance
To please that odious Speering!
Ah! Jack, it makes my bosom swell,
And all my life forlorner,
To think (while others like me well)
She, she should be a scorner!
I cannot be revenged on her,
Nor would, if able even;
But, oh! that long-legged Speering cur
I wish he was—in heaven!

376

He has given my hopes a blighting touch
Though lank as any mummy;
And as for mind,—I've seen as much
In some poor pasteboard dummy:
But then the best of girls are queer—
Titania loved a donkey;
So Mary airs her charms to snare
This awkward ball-room flunkey!

Ha! now my steam is all blown off,
Once more I'm pleased and placid;
If Mary Whimple still will scoff,
Why should I too grow acid?
With jovial smile and heart in tune
(Ill humor's best disarmers,)
See, Jack, if I don't figure soon—
Adonis 'mid the charmers!

MOTES.

Up and down, up and down,
In the air the sunshine mellows—
Green or yellow, gold or brown,
See those gay capricious fellows!
Sparkling, glittering, frisking, dancing,
Now retreating, now advancing,
Livelier than the jolliest clown,
Tinier than the tiniest fairy
That e'er robbed a farmer's dairy
Of the luscious cream which floats
Round his frothed and brimming bowls
Buoyant, tireless little souls!
Who can fold them,
Catch or hold them?
Evanescent,
Omnipresent,
Shy eluders,
Bold obtruders,
Past all joking, most provoking,
Tricksy, whisky, frisky
Motes.

Up and down, up and down,
Light in sunshine, lost in shadow—
Green or yellow, gold or brown,
Over hill and over meadow,
Swiftly over
Rock-ribbed height and billowy clover,
Still advancing,
Still retreating,
Glittering, fleeting,
Never dozing, nor reposing,
But forever dancing, dancing;
And in numberless quaint fusions,
And eye-dazzling convolutions,
Deftly sped
Overhead—
See (where happy sunshine mellows
All the air) those jovial fellows!
Ah! ye tricksome waifs and tiny,
Who may circumvent and bind ye?
Can it be such creatures antic,
Unrestrained, grotesquely frantic,
Are but small nymphs out of school,
Laughing at all graver rule?
Or loose sylphides, bent on sowing,
Sowing,
Sowing,
In their thoughtless mirth o'erflowing,
Naughty crops of wildish oats?
How they jostle, whirl and hustle,
Up and down, up and down,
Through the air the sunshine mellows!
Green or yellow, gold or brown,
All those gay, capricious fellows,
Evanescent,
Omnipresent.
Shy eluders,
Bold obtruders,
Past all joking, most provoking,
Tricksy, whisky, frisky,
Motes!

THE GROUND SQUIRREL.

Bless us, and save us! What's here?
Pop!
At a bound,
A tiny brown creature, grotesque in his grace,
Is sitting before us, and washing his face
With his little fat paws overlapping;
Where does he hail from? Where?
Why, there,
Underground,

377

From a nook just as cosy,
And tranquil, and dozy,
As e'er wooed to Sybarite napping
(But none ever caught him a-napping).
“Don't you see his soft burrow so quaint, lad! and queer?”

Gone! like the flash of a gun!
This oddest of chaps,
Mercurial,
Disappears
Head and ears!
Then, sly as a fox,
Swift as Jack in his box,
Pops up boldly again!
What does he mean by this frisking about,
Now up and now down, and now in and now out,
And all done quicker than winking?
What does it mean? Why, 'tis plain, fun!
Only fun! or, perhaps,
The pert little rascal's been drinking?
There's a cider press yonder all day on the run!

Capture him! no, we won't do it,
Or, be sure in due time we would rue it!

Such a piece of perpetual motion,
Full of bother
And pother,
Would make paralytic old Bridget
A fidget.
So you see (to my notion),
Better leave our downy
Diminutive browny
Alone near his “diggings”;
Ever free to pursue,
Rush round, and renew
His loved vaulting
Unhalting,
His whirling,
And curling,
And twirling,
And swirling,
And his ways, on the whole,
So unsteady!
'Pon my soul,
Having gazed
Quite amazed,
On each wonderful antic
And summersault frantic,
For just a bare minute,
My head, it feels whizzing;
My eyesight's grown dizzy;
And both legs, unstable
As a ghost's tipping table,
Seem waltzing, already!

Capture him! no, we won't do it,
Or in less than no time, how we'd rue it!

ARTIE'S “AMEN.”

They were Methodists twain, of the ancient school,
Who always followed the wholesome rule
That whenever the preacher in meeting said
Aught that was good for the heart or head
His hearers should pour their feelings out
In a loud “Amen” or a godly shout.

Three children had they, all honest boys,
Whose youthful sorrows and youthful joys
They shared, as your loving parents will,
While tending them ever through good and ill.

One day—'twas a bleak, cold Sabbath morn,
When the sky was dark and the earth forlorn—
These boys, with a caution not to roam.
Were left by the elder folk at home.

But scarce had they gone when the wooded frame
Was seen by the tall stove pipe aflame;

378

And out of their reach, high, high, and higher,
Rose the red coils of the serpent fire.

With startled sight for a while they gazed,
As the pipe grew hot and the wood-work blazed:
Then up, though his heart beat wild with dread,
The eldest climbed to a shelf o'erhead,
And soon, with a sputter and hiss of steam.
The flame died out like an angry dream.

When the father and mother came back that day—
They had gone to a neighboring church to pray—
Each looked, but with half-averted eye,
On the awful doom which had just passed by.

And then the father began to praise
His boys with a tender and sweet amaze.
“Why, how did you manage, Tom, to climb
And quench the threatening flames in time
To save your brothers, and save yourself?”
“Well, father, I mounted the strong oak shelf
By help of the table standing nigh.”
“And what,” quoth the father, suddenly,
Turning to Jemmy, the next in age,
“Did you to quiet the fiery rage?”
“I brought the pail, and the dipper too,
And so it was that the water flew
All over the flames, and quenched them quite.”

A mist came over the father's sight,
A mist of pride and of righteous joy,
As he turned at last to his youngest boy,
A gleeful urchin scarce three years old,
With his dimpling cheeks and his hair of gold.
“Come, Artie, I'm sure you weren't afraid:
Now tell in what way you tried to aid
This fight with the fire.” “Too small am I,”
Artie replied, with a half-drawn sigh,
“To fetch like Jemmy, and work like Tom;
So I stood just here for a minute dumb,
Because, papa, I was frightened some:
But I prayed, ‘Our Father,’ and then, and then
I shouted as loud as I could, ‘Amen.’”

THREE PORTRAITS OF BOYS.

Sturdy little form, of true
Saxon pattern, through and through;
Face as purely Saxon, too,
With a smile demure and sly,
Dimpled cheek and twinkling eye;
Robin head, with sideway perk,
O'er some cunning ruse at work;
Welcome, lad! of wholesome ways,
And true juvenile displays;
Now progressing at full speed
On your gay velocipede,
(Yet where'er it deftly goes,
Wronging no one's dress or toes);
Now, beneath the basement hid,
On a dwarfish pyramid
Toiling, with scarred bricks and stone,
After methods, all your own;
A small Cheops! scarce less shrewd
In your purpose and your mood,
Than that king of mobs and mud,
By the old Nilotic flood!
Or with flying scarf and hat,
Coursing some half-frantic cat,
Fraught with wrath, and words that rail,
Should poor Tabby save his tail!
For the “old Adam's” sometimes seen
In your actions and your mien,
But no more than must appear
In his undegenerate heir.

Grown from what seems nature's plan,
What will Henry be as man?
One of healthful, mental range,
Honored at the doors of 'Change?

379

Of a quick and eager mind,
At the rise of fortune's wind;
Shrewd! perchance with scores of friends,
And productive dividends?

On life's middle pathway still,
By extremes of good and ill.
Evermore unvisited,
Shall we see him safely tread?
Not ambitious of grand things,
Or the scope of eagle's wings;
But within the limits meet
Of his unpretentious feet,
A good man, perhaps a wise,
Who—(in ledger of the skies),
May—unsmutched by blots of blame,
Find, at last, his honest name?

MARION.

Urchin of the Syrian face,
And half melancholy grace,
With a look in your dark eyes,
Sometimes deep and overwise;
What shall be your mortal doom?
Desert blight, or healthful bloom?
Shall the lily, Virtue, shine
On your life, made thus divine;
Or Corinthian roses shed
Poisoned petals on your head?
Ah! the soul that dwells in you,
Heaven hath blent of flame and dew
Mixed by subtlest art together
In your nature's changeful weather,
Whence a lightning-glitter warm,
Now and then, portends a storm;
Such a storm of tropic strain,
Scathed by fire and big with rain;
All your being o'er and under,
Thrilled as if by spirit-thunder;
Till, exhausted at the source
Of its wild imperious course
Passion—like a blast that dies
Down the slowly brightening skies,
Thro' loud sob and weary moan
Falls to plaintive monotone!

Strange child-soul, but half unfurled,
Who shall scan its complex world?
Glimpsed 'twixt light and shadow dim,
Dare I prophesy of him?
Subtle, mystical, refined,
Seem the thoughts that haunt his mind,
While large forces play their part
On the boy's embattled heart,

Stubborn will—it irks to yield,
Always watchful—under shield;
Scorn of all who do him wrong,
Keen, implacable and strong;
Yet—toward the fair and just,
Love, that's crowned with generous trust;
And those graces, pure and high,
Born of tender loyalty!

With a firm and wise control,
Guide the currents of his soul!
Forceful are they, and must ride
Ever, with impetuous tide,
If to duty's strand they flow,
Fraught with all pure flowers that blow,
Or, the Syren's lotus-lea,
Fronting death's unfathomed sea!

HERBERT.

Ah! you tricksy little elf,
How you idolize yourself!
And believe the world was made
Like a gay-hued masquerade,
Just for you to sport and dance,
Ever, in a happy trance!
How I envy you the joy
Of such bright abandon, boy!
All your buoyant veins are rife
With the sunniest wine of life!
And if e'er a shadow strays
O'er your glad, elysian ways,
'Tis but like the doubtful mote
In the morning's eye afloat;
At the slightest breeze of fun,
Cloudless is your spirit's sun!

Still, my tricksy little elf,
Idolize your blissful self;
Dream you'll always be a boy,
And that life's a painted toy,

380

Just for you to hasten after,
Full of thoughtless mirth and laughter;
Soon, alack! how grim and grum,
Disenchantment's sure to come!
Life, with which you loved to play,
Slowly turns from gold to gray;
All its splendid tints are lost,
For, experience, cold as frost,
Dims the hues which undefiled,
Blessed the outlook of the child;
And we learn in mournful wise,
Earth's no longer—Paradise!

BIRDS.

That's the dove, my darling!
Murmurous, soft and tender;
There! she's mooning, crooning,
On a pine-branch slender.
And ah! it's the dove, the dove, dove, dove,
That never can coo, but she pleads of love,
Of love, love, love,
In the shadows fair and tender.

That's the wren, my fairy!
With her wee love-pledges;
See her playing, straying
Underneath the hedges.
And oh! it's the wren, the wren, wren, wren,
That is never contented too far from men,
But lives, lives, lives
Secure in the field-side hedges.

That's the thrush, my beauty!
Hark! and let us hear her,
Yonder swinging, singing,
Higher, bolder, clearer,
And oh! it's the thrush, the thrush, thrush, thrush,
Whose loud song wakens the noon-tide hush,
The deep, deep hush
Of the meadows and wolds, to hear her!

That's the mockbird, sweetheart!
To all tones beholden,
Which are thrilling, filling
Glades of woodland golden,
And ah! it's a bird, a bird, bird, bird,
The sweetest that ever a mortal heard.
Ah! sweet, sweet, sweet,
In the sunshine, fresh and golden!

THE DEAD CHILD AND THE MOCKING-BIRD.

Once in a land of balm and flowers,
Of rich fruit-laden trees,
Where the wild wreaths from jasmine bowers
Trail o'er Floridian seas;

We marked our Jeannie's footsteps run
Athwart the twinkling glade;
She seemed a Hebe in the sun,
A Dryad in the shade!

And all day long her winsome song,
Her trebles and soft trills,
Would wave-like flow or silvery low
Die down the tinkling rills.

One morn, midmost the foliage dim,
A dark-gray pinion stirs;
And hark! along the vine-clad limb,
What strange voice blends with hers?

It blends with hers which soon is stilled!
Braver the mock-bird's note
Than all the strains that ever filled
The queenliest human throat:

As Jeannie heard, she loved the bird,
And sought thenceforth to share
With her new favorite dawn by dawn,
Her daintiest morning cheer!

But ah! a blight beyond our ken,
From some far feverous wild,
Brought that dark shadow feared of men,
Across the fated child!

381

It chilled her drooping curls of brown,
It dimmed her violet eyes,
And like an awful cloud stole down
From vague mysterious skies!

At last, one day our Jeannie lay,
All pulseless, pale, forlorn;
The sole sweet breath on lips of death.
The mocking breath of morn!

When just beyond the o'ercurtained room,
(How tender yet how strong!)
Rose through the misty morning gloom,
The mock-bird's sudden song!

Dear Christ! those notes of golden peal,
Seem caught from heavenly spheres;
Yet through their marvellous cadence, steal
Tones soft as chastened tears!

Is it an angel's voice that throbs
Within the brown bird's breast?
Whose rhythmic magic soars, or sobs,
Above our darling's rest?

The fancy passed, but came once more,
When stolen, from Jeannie's bed,
That eve along the porchway floor,
I found our minstrel ... dead!

The fervor of the angelic strain
His life-chords burned apart,
And blent with sorrow's earthlier pain,
Broke the o'erburdened heart!

Maiden and bird! the self-same grave
Their wedded dust shall keep,
While the long low Floridian wave
Moans round their place of sleep!

THE LITTLE GRAND DUCHESS.

What a pure and chastened splendor,
What a grace of joyance tender,
Like to starlight or to moonlight,
Melting into fairy Junelight,
Sleeps my little lady sweetly,—
In the air that answers meetly
With each soul-illumined feature,
Which the lovely, winsome creature
Lifts toward us so demurely,
That despite their candor, surely
Something of an elfish slyness
Sparkles 'round their shadowed shyness,
Though a pose that's sometimes stately,
(Baby brows thrown back sedately,)
Charms us by a look that such is,
She might be a wee Grand Duchess!

But anon that aspect changes,
Through all moods her spirit ranges,
Free and far as Ariel pinions
O'er a warlock's weird dominions;
Happy fields of dim romances:
Woods wherein an elve-troop dances
'Neath a noon of splendid trances,
Culling flowers, or chanting lowly
Songs of golden melancholy;
Or in stretch of wildest dreamings,
(Holding true their gracious seemings,)
Wafted into blissful vision
Of some rarer realm Elysian.

Well I know that mark the yearning
Through her snowy eyelids burning,
Shadowed by those midnight lashes,
(Quickly closed when aught abashes,
And as quickly flashed asunder,
When swift anger lightens under,)
How supreme the hidden forces
Blindly struggling at their sources
In her depths of nascent being:
Insight, but half-born to seeing,
Faint perceptions, intuitions,
And soft-murmuring admonitions,
Toned and mellowed down so finely
That their voices breathe divinely.

Ha! but see, our dainty fairy
Freed from thought, or dreamings airy,
All an embryo flirt's beguiling,
Wooes us in her roguish smiling,
Rippled into silvery laughter,
With arch glances levelled after,
Coy, coquettish, gay, capricious
Sprite! thy every mood's delicious;

382

Yet amid these spirit-phases
Whereupon thy poet gazes,
There is one that steals above thee;
Dewy pure from heavens that love thee.
'Tis not when thy heart is lightest,
'Tis not when thy glance is brightest,
But when sober Contemplation
Near thee takes her pensive station,
While a strange ecstatic quiet
Follows on thy childish riot.

Lo! her trifling fancies vanished,—
Lo! her baby bearing banished,
She has grown so sweetly earnest
That I'm sure the harshest, sternest
Cynic who should chance to meet her,
Must with fond caresses greet her!
Introspective, deep surmising,
Glow her eyes like moonbeams rising,
And across her face, where wonder
Seems with tremulous awe to ponder,
Smiles a glory, as if angels
Whispered her their soft evangels!

So that for the moment losing
Time and place while on her musing,
One might say, this eerie creature
Hardly owns our earth-born nature,
For she's changeling, fay and fairy,
In a word, all things that vary
Most in wizard transformations,
And the round of weird creations!

ROLY POLY.

Roly Poly's just awakened,
Wakened in his cosy bed;
All his dainty ringlets tumbled
O'er his shoulders, and his head:
Roly Poly's cheeks are rounder
Than a dumpling duly done,
While they look as rich and ruddy,
As a freshly-dawning sun.

Roly Poly's keen for breakfast;
Ah! he stays, he tarries not,
But as soon as mother's breeched him,
Rushes for his “hot and hot”;
Such huge sups of oatmeal porridge
Swallows he at lordly ease,
That I'm sure in stout digestion,
He's an infant—Hercules!

Roly Poly rises briskly
(When repletion bids him stop),
Shall he take his kite for flying,
Or, go out with cord and top?
Not the faintest breeze is blowing,
So, of course, the top's preferred;
Eagerly he hastes to spin it,
Almost flying—like a bird!

But unlucky Roly Poly
Chooses—since the ground is hard—
As the fittest place for spinning,
Mother's well-stocked poultry-yard;
So, what time his mammoth “hummer”
Circles on its nimble pegs,
Roly feels a rearward something
Dabbing, stabbing at his legs!

Round he turns in vast amazement,
Round, to find erect and free,
Ruffled, ireful, a great gander,
Quite as tall ('twould seem), as he;
But brave Roly Poly battles,
Knight-like, on his sturdy thighs,
Battles, till the treacherous monster
Leaves his legs, to smite his eyes!

Then, must Roly fly affrighted,
Fly, the sudden wrath beyond,
Of that ruthless, base aggressor,—
But to tumble in—a pond!
Over head and ears to tumble
In a dark, unsavory flood,
Bubbling, doubling, kicking fiercely,
Plucking weeds, and grasping mud!

While—as pitiless fate would have it—
Ponto, panting on the run,
Thinks that Master Roly Poly's
Only sought the pond in fun;
So, he dashes in, exultant,
Paws the boy, with bark and bound,
And instead of gallant rescue,
Madly rolls him round and round:—

383

When a gasping groan and sputter
Prove to Ponto, shrewd and true,
What is now the sacred duty
That a faithful dog should do;
See, he tugs at Roly's trowsers,
Tugs with steadfast might and main,
Till he brings our dripping urchin
Safely to the shore again.

Ponto's teeth are sharp and potent,
And impelled by need to speed,
They have made poor Roly Poly
In no stinted measure bleed!
Therefore, with his gory garments,
And his mud-bespattered knees,
He is like a dwarfish Sindbad,
Sorrow-laden, by the seas!

Oh! to mark our roguish Roly
Throw his fright and trouble off!
How he laughs at dangers vanished,
With his merriest boyish scoff.
Decked once more in spotless trowsers
How he makes the household ring:
Scours and scampers, shouts and dances,
Domineering like a king.

Doubt not that at lunch and dinner,
Fervid is the fork he plies;
Presto, how the mutton dwindles!
Gone are sweetmeats; melted pies!
Not one drop of bygone trouble
Bitter makes his cup, or can;
Roly! let us change our places—
I, the boy; and you, the man!

THE IMPRISONED INNOCENTS.

[Or the Complaint of a Philosopher of Family!]

One morning I said to my wife,
Near the time when the heavens are rife
With the Equinoctial strife,
“Arabella, the weather looks ugly as sin!
Observe, how those mists from the ocean begin
To creep eastward and blend
With the sickly street vapors fantastic and thin;
So, (won't you attend?) keep the children within,
Safe-housed from these damps of September!
For myself—as I'm studying ‘Barret
On Drainage’ just now—I'll go up to the garret,
And thus will be barred from all noises,
And tumults of infantile voices!
(Please listen, my dear! I am speaking, I think,
And put down your baby! he'll drink, and he'll drink
Warm tea till he pops!) so again let me say,
Keep the juveniles housed on this treacherous day,
May I trust you, for once, to remember?”

Then, with pain (for my limbs are rheumatic),
I slowly climbed up to the attic;
And all the 'mid-stories o'er passed,
Reached the dismal old garret at last!
“Now,” thought I, “no echoes of riot
Can break my philosopher's quiet;
Thank heaven! all luxuries scorning
Of stuffed couch or sofa,—I'll settle just here—
(Though perhaps I would like a less imbecile chair)
And be deep in research the whole morning!”

Alack! for all bright expectation!
While safe, as I fancied, from worry,
For below me I heard,
Ere my choler was stirred
First, a faint indefinable flurry,
Then, a deep roll, and thunder-like rumble,
With the shock of some terrible tumble,
Which shook the whole house to its basis!
In a trice from my foolish elation
I emerged with the blankest of faces,

384

And, well, I confess as a Christian I erred
But who, my good sir, or good madam!
Could have throttled, (just then), the “old Adam”?
I'm afraid that I muttered a something
That ought to have rested a dumb thing!
Yet before your stern censure you urge on,
Bethink you! the same term 's been uttered
Quite roundly, not stammered or stuttered,
By good men from Edwards to Spurgeon!
So, pray don't confuse me,
But kindly excuse me.
If once in a justified passion,
I followed their clerical fashion,
(Albeit much modified too!)
And whispered, not shouted, a d---n!

Of course, to the doorway I scurried,
And down the old stairs from the attic
(In spite of my twinges rheumatic),
Incontent hurried!
Having reached the back parlor, I trembled,
Alack! now, with fear undissembled,
For Jacky all spattered with gore,
Lay flabby and flat on the floor!
A pestilent urchin,
Who stood much in need of promiscuous ‘birchin’
With his tricks and his manners unstable,
He had taken to tipping the table,
(A rickety table, though heavy as lead),
And succeeded, the mischievous elf!
In tremendously tipping himself!
And then the big board like an unloosened rafter,
Came sundering, blundering, thundering after,
Gave his pert shanks a majestical rap,
And one fat little thumb,
Round as a plum,
Caught—as in spite,
And held on to it tight,
As a new patent trap!
But worst of all, he had thumped his head,
Thumped his head and maltreated his nose,
(Hence, the sanguine stains that disfigured his clothes!)
And yet after all the ado,
We managed to rescue, and bring him to,
On his pipe-like pegs
Of ridiculous legs,
To set him up in the general view,
No longer flecked by a crimson hue,
But, a trifle black and a trifle blue!

Behold me, once more in the garret!
This time with the door barred fast,
And locked by a rusty key,
(As if one could banish trouble,
By making one's fastenings double!
“Here's peace,” quoth I, “at last!
One row, and a row of such degree,
Is surely enough 'till twilight!”
And so, 'neath the garret sky-light,
Again I pored o'er my “Barret”
(“Barret on Drainage,” I've said),
With calmer nerves and a cooler head;
Determined to compass the topic,
In a mode most philosophic,
And launching a sudden shot,
Lightning-swift, and fiery hot,
Through an article terse and satirical,
Those foolish savants to bring down,
Who with theories basely empirical,
Had so startled and shocked the town!

Ah! soon in order beautiful,
To a masterly logic dutiful,
My thoughts were ranged for fight;
I was making here and there,
A note on the fly-leaves bare,
When horribly higher and higher,
Uprose the shout of “Fire!”
In a monstrous dumb affright,
I hardly walked, but fell,

385

(As it seemed), from the garret's height,
(Though how, I could never tell!)
I alighted beneath to find
In the parlor a spark half out,
Which the feeblest puff of wind
From the chimney had blown about,
But the children still would shout,
And dance, and prance, and bellow,
In a deafening, demonish rout.
While as for their mother, low and limp,
She lay, in a faint, by the opened door,
With her eighteenth-monther, a restless imp,
Drawing and pawing o'er and o'er
The folds of her rumpled dress!
Somebody in years gone by,
Had pronounced her fainting pose
The ne plus ultra of loveliness,
As she lay like a sweet white rose;
But now! perchance, perchance,
I have lost my young romance,
For, unadmiring quite,
I gazed on the touching sight,
And (I'm a brute no doubt!)
But I let the syren lie.

Ah me, the vexations,
Exasperations,
And tribulations,
Confusions,
Obtrusions,
And endless affrays,
Which marked with dark tracing that blackest of days!
Don't tell me that children are angels,
All fraught with pure heaven's evangels,
And trailing—what is it!—from some mystic star
Bright cloudlets of glory. I know what mine are,
Not a whit worse I'm sure than the rest of young “fry,”
Whose natures are thoughtless and spirits are high;
But as for your “angels!” all that's “in my eye!”
To enter again
On that morning of pain:
I should wretchedly blunder
In counting the number
Of times I was harried
(My thoughts all miscarried!)
By yells of shrill laughter
Or dread cries thereafter,
By accidents seen or invisible,
And mishaps high tragic, or risible;
Young Tommy three window-panes shattered,
And, of course, cut his head in the process,
And an old silver heir-loom
That oft held the rare bloom
Of vintages mellow and lusciously fine
From the banks of Moselle or the banks of the Rhine,
A tankard four centuries old and no less,
By wee Janet was battered,
Disgraced,
And defaced,
Till the Bacchus Cellini had graven thereon,
Was broken and wan,
And the sweep of the vine, and the curve of the grape,
Were twisted hopelessly out of shape.

Then Harry fell down in the cistern!
With yells to be heard for a mile,
And in striving to fish him out,
(For the boy is portly, puffy, and stout)
Back would he slip, and slip, and slip,
E'en from the cistern's utmost lip,
Until with a wrench swift-handed,
The human gudgeon was landed,
Who made with a ghastly smile
The half-inarticulate pledge,
That never more would he tempt the edge
Of well or cistern, fount or river,
Although upon earth he should dwell forever!

386

And lastly, Cornelia, aged five,
(I marvel the child is still alive!)
Contrived in the subtlest, deftest way,
From the surgery shelf, to steal, in play,
A box of my pills cathartic;
Enough (if swallowed at once) to slay
A bear of the regions Arctic!
How many she took I cannot say,
But thereafter for many and many a day,
Supine the suffering maiden lay,
And I scarce believe that her blood has set
To the shore of health that is perfect, yet!
What is the moral of this, my masters?
(To you that are fathers, I mean,
Fathers, and students as well?)
Tis easy enough to tell:
Would you 'scape all household disasters?
And be cosy, sweet-tempered, serene?
Then never, never, never,
Make the absurd endeavor,
Because the sky's not bluish
And the wind seems somewhat shrewish,
To pen a young regiment in,
Of heirs to Adam's sin!