Poetry of the Farm and Rural Life :: :: University of Virginia Library

Well met again, old crony queer!
To me you little changed appear
Since first I met you in the year
Forty and one.
Though seven-and-thirty years, 'tis clear,
Since then are gone.

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The same stern face, and nose so Roman;
Its counterpart “Aunt Liz” could show one.
Are you a turtle-man or woman?
Aunt Liz was both,
And not a crawler or a slow one,
I'd take my oath.

Well, well! you seem to take life easy;
No cares oppress or troubles tease ye;
If doubts, misapprehensions seize ye,
In goes your head,
And for as long as it may please ye
You're same as dead.

How different with human kind!
In constant harassment of mind,
And if no real ill he find
To brood and ponder,
Imagination stands behind
All drafts to honor.

Ah, little could the mower tell
The day he carved upon your shell
The letters that begin to spell
His humble name,
What held the Future, fair or fell,
Or praise, or blame!

Of those who wrought with him that day,
Here by the brookside making hay,
All, save himself, are laid away
In their last sleep,
And one brave heart lies in the gray
And solemn deep.

The changes, too, that scarce the tongue
Can tell, or comprehend the young!

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Here where the tool of Time we swung,
The team is mowing;
And where the whetstone's music rung,
The gear is going.

Then news was stale ere we could hear
From the old world, now brought so near
By telegraphic cantrip queer
From Morse we borrow,
That if to-day “Vic” scratch her ear,
We know to-morrow.

And now the telephone, they say,
Will bring a voice that's far away
Close to our ear, so that we may,—
When one may try so,—
Hear old Zip Coon his banjo play
Out in Ohio.

And more than that, so rumor teaches,
We may can up, as one would peaches,
Music and poems, sermons, speeches,
And then let loose
Their softest tones and loudest screeches,
Whene'er we choose.

Since then have politics run mad;
We've sagged to leeward, and the bad;
A bitter dose of war have had,
And still are ailing,—
A war which all the country clad
In weeds of wailing.

Then straight and narrow was the way
Up leading to eternal day;

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At least, our preachers used to say
Such was the case;
It's widened now, and thereon they
Two-forty pace.

New lights have dawned on us benighted;
New creeds are framed, old doctrines slighted;
Credulity thrives well delighted;
The medium sergeant
Now warns up spirits to be sighted,—
(None seen but ardent).

But you seem anxious to be going;
No wonder, after such bestowing;
But who knows what Time will be showing
Four decades on?
When we no more at time of mowing
Shall meet anon.

Good by! Full long you've borne my card;
Long o'er it yet may you keep ward!
I hope that none will use you hard,
But when they meet you,
Respect the feelings of a bard,
And kindly greet you.