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THE FARMER'S PRACTICAL LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST INGERSOLL
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
GEORGE S. BRYAN
The Farmer's Practical Library
EDITED BY ERNEST INGERSOLL
Cloth i6mo Illustrated
From Kitchen to Oarret. By VIRGINIA
TERHUNE VAN DE WATER.
Neighborhood Entertainments. By RENEE
B. STERN, of the Congressional Library.
Home Waterworks. By CARLETON J.
LYNDE, Professor of Physics in Mac-
donald College, Quebec.
Animal Competitors. By ERNEST INGERSOLL.
Health on the Farm. By DR. H. F.
HARRIS, Secretary Georgia State Board
of Health.
Co-operation Among Farmers. By JOHN
LEE COULTER.
Roads, Faths and Bridges. By L. W.
PAGE, Chief of the Office of Public
Roads, U. S. Department of Agriculture.
Foems of Country Life. BY GEORGE
BRYAN.
The Satisfactions of Country Life. By
DR. JAMES W. ROBERTSON, Principal of
Macdonald College, Quebec.
Farm Management. By C. W. PUGSLEY,
Professor of Agronomy and Farm Man-
agement in the University of Nebraska.
Electricity on the Farm.
The Farm Mechanic. By L. W. CHASE,
Professor of Farm Mechanics in the
University of Nebraska.
POEMS OF
COUNTRY LIFE
A Modern Anthology
BY ^
GEORGE sr BRYAN
IM
ILLUSTRATED
STURGIS & WALTON
Copyright, 1912
By STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY
Set up and electotyped. Published September, 1912
INTRODUCTION
BY THE GENEKAL EDITOR
This is the day of the small book. There is
much to be done. Time is short. Information
is earnestly desired, but it is wanted in compact
form, confined directly to the subject in view,
authenticated by real knowledge, and, withal,
gracefully delivered. It is to fulfill these con-
ditions that the present series has been pro-
jected to lend real assistance to those who are
looking about for new tools and fresh ideas.
It is addressed especially to the man and
woman at a distance from the libraries, exhibi-
tions, and daily notes of progress, which are
the main advantage, to a studious mind, of liv-
ing in or near a large city. The editor has had
in view, especially, the farmer and villager
who is striving to make the life of himself and
his family broader and brighter, as well as to
increase his bank account; and it is therefore
in the humane, rather than in a commercial di-
rection, that the Library has been planned.
INTRODUCTION
The average American little needs advice on
the conduct of his farm or business; or, if he
thinks he does, a large supply of such help in
farming and trading as books and periodicals
can give, is available to him. But many a man
who is well to do and knows how to continue
to make money, is ignorant how to spend it in
a way to bring to himself, and confer upon his
wife and children, those conveniences, comforts
and niceties which alone make money worth
acquiring and life worth living. He hardly
realizes that they are within his reach.
For suggestion and guidance in this direction
there is a real call, to which this series is an
answer. It proposes to tell its readers how
they can make work easier, health more secure,
and the home more enjoyable and tenacious
of the whole family. No evil in American rural
life is so great as the tendency of the young
people to leave the farm and the village. The
only way to overcome this evil is to make rural
life less hard and sordid ; more comfortable and
attractive. It is to the solving of that problem
that these books are addressed. Their central
idea is to show how country life may be made
INTRODUCTION
richer in interest, broader in its activities and
its outlook, and sweeter to the taste.
To this end men and women who have given
each a lifetime of study and thought to his or
her speciality, will contribute to the Library,
and it is safe to promise that each volume will
join with its eminently practical information a
still more valuable stimulation of thought.
EBNEST INGEBSOLL.
PREFATORY NOTE
In at least one respect the present compilation is
worthy of attention. It is, so far as the editor is
aware, the first of its kind. The aim has been to
gather in a popular collection verse expressive chiefly
of our American rural life and its environment.
Hence the editor has drawn largely upon native au-
thors, and especially upon those so-called minor
bards who have treated this general subject in inti-
mate and often homely fashion. British poesy is also
represented ; and a few pieces from ancient literatures
have been added for both their historic value and
their intrinsic beauty.
Many stock favorites that might be looked for here
have purposely been omitted to make room for ap-
propriate selections less widely known and less ac-
cessible to the general reader. An accurate reading
of texts has been sought, and in a few instances ex-
planatory foot-notes have been supplied. The editor
returns hearty thanks to all those who have by their
cooperation furthered the progress of a work that has
been to himself so great a pleasure.
Special acknowledgment should be made to Dr.
William G. Jordan, secretary of the House of Gov-
PREFATORY NOTE
ernors, who placed at my disposal his unique library
of poetry and his extensive knowledge ; to Mr. Ernest
Ingersoll, who critically examined the manuscript
and freely gave the benefit of his advice ; to Mr. John
H. Clifford, who aided in the choice of several selec-
tions and made, with the cooperation of Mr. D. E.
Wheeler, careful revision of the proof-sheets.
The following firms and individuals have kindly
permitted the use of material controlled by them, and
their courtesy and assistance is hereby recorded:
The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis; The Century
Company, New York; Houghton Miffin Co., Bos-
ton; The John Lane Co., New York; G. P. Put-
nam's Sons, New York; Small, Maynard & Co.,
Boston; Mrs. Adelia P. Branham; Mr. John Bur-
roughs; Miss Sarah N. Cleghorn; Mr. Charles H.
Crandall ; Mrs. Emma G. Curtis ; Mr. Harry Stillwell
Edwards; Mr. E. B. Findlay; Mr. Hamlin Garland;
Mr. Carleton J. Greenleaf; Mr. Julian Harris; Miss
Helen Keller; Mr. Albert Bigelow Paine; Mrs. Ruth
McEnery Stuart.
The illustrations have been chosen from the work
of American artists in the Metropolitan Museum,
New York. For assistance in connection therewith,
the editor is indebted to Mr. A. d'Hervilly of the
Museum staff.
G. S. BRYAN.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
ABBEY, HENRY
Winter Days 246
ADD^EUS
Veteran, The (Trans, by G. S. B.) 288
ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM
Mowers, The 119
ANONYMOUS
Amyntichus 66
Cuckoo Song 126
Egyptian Farm-Songs 99
Old Man in the Wood, The 14
Out in the Fields with God 171
Parson and the Hay, The 197
Preserving-Time 115
Prisoner, The 344
ARNOLD, MATTHEW
From "The Scholar Gipsy " 270
BEARD, J. CARTER
Feller and the Farmah, The 202
BENTON, JOEL
December 222
BLOOMFIELD, ROBERT
From "The Farmer's Boy" 45
BRANHAM, ADELIA POPE
Day We Thresh, The 203
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN
From " Lines on Revisiting the Country " . . .169
Planting of the Apple-Tree, The 81
BURROUGHS, JOHN
Midsummer in the Catskilla 273
ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CABLETON, WILL
From " The Clang of the Yankee Reaper "... 322
CABLYLE, THOMAS
Sower's Song, The 96
CABMAN, BLISS
From " Wayfaring " 172
CAKE, ROBERT V.
Irrigator, The 66
CART, ALICE
Order for a Picture, An 336
GARY, PHCEBE
Homestead, Our 145
Old Pictures 312
CHAPMAN, ARTHUR
Mother West 318
CHENEY, J. VANCE
From " Every One to His Own Way " .... 96
Old Farm Barn, The 251
CLAUDIAN (Trans, by G. S. B.)
Old Man of Verona, The 36
CLEGHOBN, SAB AH N.
Asleep in Union Square 309
Morrice Water 285
Return of the Natives, The 298
COOK, ELIZA
Harvest Song 167
COWPER, WILLIAM
From " The Task " 286
CRAIK, DINAH MARIA (Miss MULOCK)
Green Things Growing 164
CBANDALL, CHARLES H.
Little Schoolma'am in the Hills, The 7
CURTIS, EMMA GHENT
Around McDonald's Ranch 73
DAY, HOLMAN F.
Didn't Bust His Fork 24
JFeedin' the Stock
Phebe and Ichabod 212
^ Uncle Tascus and the Deed 197
TABLE OF CONTENTS xi
PAGE
DE VERB, MART AINGE ("MADELINE BRIDGES")
Wind-Swept Wheat, The 234
DINSMORE, SILAS
Churning Song, The 84
DRUMMOND, WILLIAM HENRY
Bell of St. Michel, De 319
DWIGHT, TIMOTHY
Country Schoolmaster, The 39
EASTMAN, CHARLES G.
Farmer Sat in His Easy Chair, The 260
EDWARDS, HARRY STILLWELL
Georgia Philosopher, A 37
ELLSWORTH, D. A.
Shindig in the Country 185
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO
Snow-Storm, The 280
FIELD, EUGENE
My Playmates 341
FINDLAY, E. B.
Apple-Butter Boilin', The 88
FLAGG, WILSON
From " The Cottage and the Palace " 229
Foss, SAM WALTER
Agricultural Editor's Poem, The 210
Milking of the Cow. The 310
Town of Hay, The 303
FOSTER, STEPHEN COLLINS
Old Folks at Home 329
GALE, NORMAN
Country Faith, The 151
GALLAGHER, WILLIAM DAVIS
Harvest Hymn, A 156
On the Banks of the Tennessee 325
GARLAND, HAMLIN
Dakota Wheat Field, A 268
GILDER, RICHARD WATSON
Rhyme of Tyringham, A 131
Song of Early Autumn, A 295
GREENLEAF, CARLETON J.
Where Life is Real 227
xii TABLE OF CONTENTS
PACE
HALL, EUGENE J.
Highway Cow, The 191
From " The House on the Hill " 345
Old Farm-Gate, The 225
HABRIS, JOEL CHANDLER
Plough-Hands' Song, The 189
HAYES, J. RUSSELL
Country Peace 163
Farewell to the Farm 350
HAYNE, PAUL HAMILTON
Farmer's Wife, The 48
HERRICK, ROBERT
Country Life, A 152
Harvest Home 133
HOLDEN, JOHN JARVIS
Orchard, The 247
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL
From " The Ploughman " 109
HOMER (Trans, by Philip S. Worsley)
Garden of King Alcinous, The 140
HOOD, THOMAS
Ruth 43
HORACE
In Praise of Country Life (Trans, by Sir Theodore
Martin) . 157
HORNE, RICHARD HENGIST
Plough, The 90
HOWITT, MARY
Cornfields 288
INGELOW, JEAN
From " The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire " 54
IBVINE, J. P.
August Afternoon on the Farm, An 256
Indian Summer 278
JOHNSON, E. PAULINE
At Husking Time 267
REBLE, JOHN
Seed-Time Hymn 98
KELLER, HELEN
From " The Song of the Stone Wall " 26
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LAMPMAN, ARCHIBALD
Heat 265
LANG, ANDREW
Scythe Song 91
LANYON, HELEN
Hill o' Dreams, The 34
LARCOM, LUCY
Mountain Pastoral, A 30
LELAND, CHARLES G.
Farmer Feedeth All, The 69
LETTS, W. M.
Kerry Cow, The 127
LIPPMANN, JULIE MATHILDE
Stone Walls 236
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTII
From " Evangeline " 248
LOWELL^ JAMES RUSSELL
From "The Biglow Papers" 123
LUNT, GEORGE
Haymakers, The 94
MALONE, WALTER
October in Tennessee 237
MATHER, WALLACE E.
Scarecrow, The 213
MIDDLETON, J. A.
From "Exile" 309
MILES, EMMA BELL
Old House Dreams, The 271
MILLER, JOAQUIN
Song of Peace, The 166
MITCHELL, AGNES E.
When the Cows Come Home 85
MORRELL, CHARLES B.
Red Ear, The 209
MUNBY, ARTHUR JOSEPH
From "Dorothy: A Country Story" . . . .51
MUNKITTRICK, RICHARD KENDALL
Country Road, A 259
Snake Fence, A 217
xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS
__ fnuct
NABBES, THOMAS
Milkmaid, The 36
NEALEY, MARY E.
When the Cows Come Home 101
NICHOLSON, MEREDITH
In the Great Pastures 298
NOTES, ALFRED
In the Cool of the Evening 296
OGILVIE, WILL
Plough, The 116
OLDHAM, EDWARD A.
Jingle ob de Bells, De 136
OSGOOD, KATE PUTNAM
Driving Home the Cows 32
PAINE, ALBERT BIGELOW
Why Sammy Left the Farm 70
PALMER, WILLIAM PITT
PECK, SAMUEL MINTURN
Grapevine Swing, The 129
PIATT, JOHN JAMES
Mower in Ohio, The 10
POPE, ALEXANDER
Ode on Solitude 151
PRATT, F. E.
Up Berkshire Way 343
READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN
Country Church, The 217
REESE, LIZETTE W.
Haunting Memory, A 335
RILEY, JAMES WHCTCOMB
^r Griggsby's .Station 315
Old Winters on the Farm 115
Thinkin' Back 323
ROBERTS, CHARLES G. D.
Farm at Dusk, The 275
ROBINSON, ANNIE DOUGLAS ("MARIAN DOUGLAS")
Two Pictures 348
RYDER, T. P.
Huskin' Bee, The 63
TABLE OF CONTENTS xv
SCOLLARD, CLINTON
Storm, The 264
SCOTT, F. N.
Miller and the Maid, The 184
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
When Icicles Hang by the Wall 261
SILL, LOUISE MORGAN
Grainstack, The 257
SMITH, CARL
Mother's Posies 224
SMITH, HORACE
.Milkmaid and ^the Banker^ Jfap 194
STANTON,"FT TIT "**
He Whistled 3
Idle Fellow, An 25
Jones's Cotton Planter 40
Old Rail Fence, The 249
To the Fields 165
Winter's Comin' 208
STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE
Country Sleighing 180
STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY
Old Mill, The 262
STREET, ALFRED BILLINGS
From " Nightfall : A Picture " 240
STUART, RUTH MCENERY
Plantation Hoe Song 99
TAYLOR, BENJAMIN F.
Farmer One Hundred Years Ago, The 16
From " Life on the Farm " 92, 239
Massachusetts Sends Greeting 59
From " The Old Barn " 105, 144
Old Village Choir, The 331
THEOCRITUS
Song of Milo, the Farm-Hand, The (Trans, by E. C.
Stedman) 57
THOMSON, JAMES
From "Winter" 281
TIMROD, HENRY
From " The Cotton Boll " 300
xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
TROWBRIDGE, JOHN T.
Corn Harvest Ill
Farmer John 4
Farm- Yard Song 270
Idyl of Harvest Time, An 141
Watching the Crows 177
TYNAN, KATHARINE
Call, The 328
Sheep and the Lambs, The 293
UHLAND, LUDWIG (Trans, by G. S. B.)
On the Death of a Country Parson 59
Shepherd's Sabbath Hymn 171
VERGIL
Dead Ox, The 223
From "Georgia III" 80
WALTON, IZAAK
Coridon's Song 160
WHITMAN, WALT
Ox-Tamer, The 44
Selections 290
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF
From " Among the Hills " 242
Barefoot Boy, The 20
Corn-Song, The 1
Husking, The 133
In School-Days 333
/ Pumpkin, The 137
avkjSnaRgiuiC 252
YEATS, W. B.
Lake Isle of Innisfree, The 327
( ( T71ROM here to where the louder passions dwell,
J. Green leagues of hilly separation roll:
Trade ends where yon far clover ridges swell."
LANIEE : " The Waving of the Corn"
ILLUSTRATIONS
AUTUMN OAKS Frontispiece
From the painting by George Inness.
FACING PAGE
CORN HUSKING 64
From the painting by Eastman Johnson.
BROAD ACRES ,. . . 110
From the painting by Edward Gay.
DISTANT VIEW OF THE CATSKIIXS ....... 274
From the painting by John W. Casilear.
XIX
COUNTRY FOLK
He Whistled.
WHEN craps wuz burnt to flinders,
An' not a rain in sight,
He opened all the winders
An' whistled in the light
Jest whistled
An' whistled,
Like that 'ud make things bright.
When mortgages wuz growin',
Like weeds by day an' night,
He kep' right on a-hoein'
An' whistled in the light
Jest whistled
An' whistled,
Like that 'ud make things bright.
In sowin' time or reapin',
In wrong as well as right,
When shadders come a-creepin',
He whistled f er the light
3
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Jest whistled
An' whistled,
Like that 'ud make things bright.
Somehow he'd hear bells ringin'
Fer all the night an' day,
An' still the birds kep' singin'
When blue skies turned to gray.
He whistled,
Jest whistled,
The rocky world away.
FRANK L. STANTON.
Farmer John.
HOME from his journey Farmer John
Arrived this morning, safe and sound.
His black coat off, and his old clothes on,
" Now I'm myself ! " says Farmer John ;
And he thinks, " I'll look around."
Up leaps the dog : " Get down, you pup !
Are you so glad you would eat me up ? "
The old cow lows at the gate, to greet him;
The horses prick up their ears, to meet him :
COUNTRY FOLK
" Well, well, old Bay !
Ha, ha, old Gray !
Do you get good feed when I am away?
" You haven't a rib ! " says Farmer John ;
" The cattle are looking round and sleek ;
The colt is going to be a roan,
And a beauty too : how he has grown !
We'll wean the calf next week."
Says Farmer John, " When I've been off,
To call you again about the trough,
And watch you, and pet you, while you drink,
Is a greater comfort than you can think ! "
And he pats old Bay,
And he slaps old Gray ;
" Ah, this is the comfort of going away !
" For, after all," says Farmer John,
" The best of a journey is getting home.
I've seen great sights; but would I give
This spot, and the peaceful life I live,
For all their Paris and Rome?
These hills for the city's stifled air,
And big hotels all bustle and glare,
Land all houses, and roads all stones,
6 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
That deafen your ears and batter your bones ?
Would you, old Bay ?
Would you, old Gray?
That's what one gets by going away !
" There Money is king," says Farmer John ;
" And Fashion is queen ; and it's mighty queer
To see how sometimes, while the man
Is raking and scraping all he can,
The wife spends, every year,
Enough, you would think, for a score of wives,
To keep them in luxury all their lives !
The town is a perfect Babylon
To a quiet chap," says Farmer John.
" You see, old Bay,
You see, old Gray,
I'm wiser than when I went away.
" I've found out this," says Farmer John,
" That happiness is not bought and sold,
And clutched in a life of waste and hurry,
In nights of pleasure and days of worry ;
And wealth isn't all in gold,
Mortgage and stocks and ten per cent.,
But in simple ways, and sweet content,
Few wants, pure hopes, and noble ends,
COUNTRY FOLK
Some land to till, and a few good friends,
Like you, old Bay,
And you, old Gray !
That's what I've learned by going away."
And a happy man is Farmer John,
O, a rich and happy man is he !
He sees the peas and pumpkins growing,
The corn in tassel, the buckwheat blowing,
And fruit on vine and tree ;
The large, kind oxen look their thanks
As he rubs their foreheads and strokes their flanks ;
The doves light round him, and strut and coo.
Says Farmer John, " I'll take you too,
And you, old Bay,
And you, old Gray,
Next time I travel so far away ! "
JOHN T.
The Little Schoolma'am in the Hills.
SHE has no introduction to Fame,
And plain English is all she can speak;
She has no Ph.D. to her name,
And her wages are seven a week !
8 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
But she rises at five in the spring,
And at six when the white blizzard shrills,
And she walks her two miles with a swing,
This little schoolma'am in the hills.
It's a plain little college she runs,
One room and a close little hall,
That smells of farm cookies and buns,
With some finger-prints over the wall.
" Pure Colonial " all the design,
From the rafters of oak to the sills,
And she looks through panes seven by nine,
This little schoolma'am in the hills.
In a monarchy all of her own,
She's a model for many a queen ;
She must govern her world all alone,
For no other may touch her demesne.
The hard-headed boys she must win,
And be patient with passions and ills,
And a silence must weave out of din,
This little schoolma'am in the hills.
And it's air for the hot little lungs,
And it's heat for the cold little feet,
And it's soap for the bad little tongues,
And more, if the hands are kept neat.
COUNTRY FOLK
Or it's, " Patsy Burke threw a big rock,"
Or, " Mamie is sick with the chills,"
But nothing must worry or shock
The little schoolma'am in the hills.
If the tempest or blizzard's afoot,
She must hurry each kid to his home ;
If the torrents and freshets uproot,
She must be as a rock in the foam.
If the thunder-storm overhead sings,
And the air with the cannonade thrills,
You will find the chicks under the wings
Of the little schoolma'am in the hills.
She can use moral suasion when best,
And she also can wield the big stick.
When a tramp thinks to act like a guest,
She can show him the door pretty quick.
She can play, and can sing, and recite ;
She can outrun the school if she wills,
And can make a church social go right,
This little schoolma'am in the hills.
So give me a pass to your ears,
Chief rulers and scribes of the land;
I don't ask to move you to tears,
But I hope you will all understand.
10 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Give this lady full swing in her way,
And tell her to send you the bills;
She is molding the nation to-day,
This little schoolma'am in the hills.
CHARLES H. CRANDAIX.
The Mower in Ohio.
bees in the clover are making honey, and I
JL am making my hay;
The air is fresh, I seem to draw a young man's breath
to-day.
The bees and I are alone in the grass: the air is so
very still
I hear the dam, so loud, that shines beyond the sullen
mill.
Yes, the air is so still that I hear almost the sounds I
cannot hear
That, when no other sound is plain, ring in my empty
ear:
The chime of striking scythes, the fall of the heavy
swaths they sweep
They ring about me, resting, when I waver half asleep ;
COUNTRY FOLK 11
So still, I am not sure if a cloud, low down, unseen
there be,
Or if something brings a rumor home of the cannon
so far from me:
Far away in Virginia, where Joseph and Grant, I
know,
Will tell them what I meant when first I had my mow-
ers go !
Joseph, he is my eldest one, the only boy of my three
Whose shadow can darken my door again, and lighten
my heart for me.
Joseph, he is my eldest how his scythe was striking
ahead !
William was better at shorter heats, but Jo in the long
run led.
William, he was my youngest ; John, between them I
somehow see,
When my eyes are shut, with a little board at his head
in Tennessee.
But William came home one morning early, from Get-
tysburg, last July
(The mowing was over already, although the only
mower was I) :
12 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
William, my captain, came home for good to his
mother; and I'll be bound
We were proud and cried to see the flag that wrapt
his coffin around;
For a company from the town came up ten miles with
music and gun :
It seemed his country claimed him then as well as
his mother her son.
But Joseph is yonder with Grant to-day, a thousand
miles or near,
And only the bees are abroad at work with me in the
clover here.
Was it a murmur of thunder I heard that hummed
again in the air?
Yet, maybe, the cannon are sounding now their On-
ward to Richmond there.
But under the beech by the orchard, at noon, I sat an
hour it would seem
It may be I slept a minute, too, or wavered into a
dream.
For I saw my boys, across the field, by the flashes as
they went,
COUNTRY FOLK 13
Tramping a steady tramp as of old, with the strength
in their arms unspent ;
Tramping a steady tramp, they moved like soldiers
that march to the beat
Of music that seems, a part of themselves, to rise and
fall with their feet ;
Tramping a steady tramp, they came with flashes of
silver that shone,
Every step, from their scythes that rang as if they
needed the stone
(The field is wide, and heavy with grass) and, com-
ing toward me, they beamed
With a shine of light in their faces at once, and
surely I must have dreamed !
For I sat alone in the clover-field, the bees were work-
ing ahead.
There were three in my vision remember, old man ;
and what if Joseph were dead !
But I hope that he and Grant (the flag above them
both, to boot)
Will go into Richmond together, no matter which is
ahead or afoot !
14 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Meantime, alone at the mowing here an old man
somewhat gray
I must stay at home as long as I can, making, myself,
the hay.
And so another round the quail in the orchard whis-
tles blithe ;
But first I'll drink at the spring below, and whet again
my scythe.
JOHN J. PIATT.
The Old Man in the Wood.
r INHERE was an old man who lived in the wood,
-i- As you shall plainly see,
He thought he could do more work in a day
Than his wife could do in three.
" With all my heart," the old woman said,
" And if you will allow,
You shall stay at home to-day,
And I'll go follow the plow.
" And you must milk the tiny cow,
Lest she should go dry ;
COUNTRY FOLK 15
And you must feed the little pigs
That are within the sty.
" And you must watch the speckled hen,
Lest she should go astray;
Not forgetting the spool of yarn
That I spin every day.'*
The old woman took her stick in her hand,
And went to follow the plow;
The old man put the pail on his head
And went to milk the cow.
But Tiny she winced, and Tiny she flinched,
And Tiny she tossed her nose,
And Tiny she gave him a kick on the shin
Till the blood ran down to his toes.
And a " Ho, Tiny ! " and a " Lo, Tiny ! "
And a " Pretty little cow, stand still! "
And " If ever I milk you again," he said,
" It shall be against my will."
And then he went to feed the pigs
That were within the sty;
He knocked his nose against the shed,
And made the blood to fly.
16 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And then he watched the speckled hen,
Lest she should go astray ;
But he quite forgot the spool of yarn
That his wife spun every day.
And when the old woman came home at night,
He said he could plainly see
That his wife could do more work in a day
Than he could do in three.
And then he said how well she plowed
And made the furrows even
Said his wife could do more work in a day
Then he could do in seven.
ANONYMOUS.
The Farmer One Hundred Years Ago.
THE farmer's cradlers rock the field of wheat,
His mowers swing the scythe in naked feet,
And sometimes blundering on a grassy nest
They whirl a whisk and wish all bees " be blest ! "
The green and golden surf around them rolls,
They shed their jackets, but they keep their souls.
Arrayed in tow the brawny threshers come
And eat for three and drink New England rum ;
COUNTRY FOLK 17
The oaken floors their flails alternate beat,
And kernels dance a rattling tune of sleet.
Now comes the seamstress bless her smiling face !
In tall back-comb and linsey gown and grace
And not a bang she long ago gave place
To shapes of iron feet and cabinet-ware
And left forlorn the bantam sewing-chair.
Swung to a pillion on her wedding day,
Her arm around his waist she rode away
And made a log-heap turn a lover's nest
Of all the patents earliest and best.
Great trees that kept the treaty made with Time
An age ago it seems almost a crime
Broke the long twilight as her husband knocked,
And sweeping headlong down to ruin, mocked
With crash of column, coronal, and branch,
The frozen thunder of the avalanche.
They trained a sunflower near the cabin door,
They walked on sunshine round the puncheon floor,
Brigades of corn deployed in green parade
And rounding gold among their ranks betrayed
A pious war, a pumpkin cannonade.
Old-fashioned flowers drew up in double line,
The four-o'clock, the pink, the columbine.
The flax a-field was hardly sown before
Unhetcheled towheads danced upon the floor,
18 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Swarmed up the ladder on their way to bed,
Swarmed down before the morning sky was red,
Swarmed out three miles to meeting and to school,
Set traps for wolves and learned the Golden Rule.
No man could doubt the Children in the Shoe,
Ten pewter spoons and still the number grew.
And these are they who made this wilderness
Turn fair enough for angels to caress,
Who set this heart of empire throbbing forth
Its sterling manhood round the belted earth.
Their fires were half Promethean came from
Heaven ;
No sign of matches had King Pluto given,
And yet how easy, had he only known,
To dip his toothpicks in the Acheron !
They covered embers, though no curfew tolled,
They borrowed embers when their own were cold;
They kept a box with flint and steel and punk,
Boys had the grit and women had the spunk.
Think of Oneida's maid, ye graceful girls to-day,
Who cleared the dooryard of a bear at bay
And swept him out with just an oaken broom.
Salute, ye heroes, give the maiden room!
Think of the Whitestown country girls that drove
Their tandem teams where deer scarce dared to rove,
Drove lumbering turnouts of the classic breed
COUNTRY FOLK 19
Of dear Priscilla's puritanic steed,
Whose Juno-eyes old Homer sang in Greece,
And full of spirit with two horns apiece.
Five miles to meeting, forty miles to mill ;
They backed the grist and traveled with a will
By bridle path and trail and bark canoe
Dim as the twilight, noiseless as the dew.
Then back they came, the bright day turning brown,
And met the swarthy Mohawk coming down,
The forest roaring like the surf of seas,
The starlight tangled in the tops of trees,
Two fox-fire eyes betrayed the whiskered cat,
A flying blot Saint Crispin's bird, the bat,
The tossing firefly's mockery of lamp,
And thought of home and Johnnycake and samp.
A royal breed of tramps the fathers made.
We knight them now with loving accolade!
Right-handed men whichever hand you shook,
Square-stepping men whatever way they took,
Stout-hearted men whatever might betide,
For duty ready till the day they died.
Truth-loving men, their lettered tablets bore
The first grave charge that ever mortal made,
" Here lies," the marbles say, but might have said,
" Here lies the man who never lied before ! "
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.
20 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The Barefoot Boy.
BLESSINGS on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip redder still,
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace;
From my heart I give thee joy,
I was once a barefoot boy!
Prince thou art, the grown-up man
Only is republican.
Let the million-dollared ride!
Barefoot, trudging at his side,
Thou hast more than he can buy,
In the reach of ear and eye,
Outward sunshine, inward joy;
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
O, for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild flowers' time and place,
COUNTRY FOLK
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood ;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the groundnut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans !
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy, -
Blessings on the barefoot boy !
O, for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees,
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides !
Still, as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy !
O, for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread ;
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O'er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
COUNTRY FOLK 23
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch; pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!
Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can !
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat;
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil;
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!
JOHN G. WHITTIEB.
24 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Didn't Bust His Fork.
HE could tell ye what he'd done,
He was eloquent, my son,
In puttin* all his doin's into mighty lively talk.
But I've follered him around,
And, by gosh, I never found
That he ever lifted hard enough to
Bust
His
Fork!
He was always full o' brag
'Bout how he could lift a jag
That would double up a hossfork and make the
hosses balk.
But I never seed no signs
That he ever bent the tines
Or ever bruk the handle of his
Old
Pitch
Fork!
HOLMAN F. DAY.
COUNTRY FOLK 25
An Idle Fellow.
SOME folks, they says I'm lazy
An' fon' o' loafin' 'roun',
Think too much of a daisy
To plow it out the groun' ;
Would ruther loll an' listen
Whar' the dews air drippin' down
An' the rivers sing an' glisten,
Than drive the mules to town.
The folks air right, I reckon ;
Can't nuthin' make me stay
When I see the green trees beckon
From the medders fur away.
When the cattle bells air ringin'
Whar' the grass waves wild and free,
An* the mockin* birds air singin'
Like they're singin' right at me!
The good Lord said the lilies
Didn't toil an' didn't spin,
An' I kinder think His will is
I should take the lilies in !
An' I think the world must need 'em
In the sunshine an' the storm,
For He sends His dews to feed 'em
An' His light to keep 'em warm.
26 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
I wuz born to be a rover,
Fer I love the woods the best,
An' the dewy bed o' clover
Is the sweetes' fer my rest;
An' I'd ruther see above me
A blue sky bendin' down
Whar' the lilies lean an' love me,
Than drive the mules to town!
FRANK L. STANTON.
From "The Song of the Stone Wall.
C
IOME walk with me, and I will tell
What I have read in this scroll of stone ;
I will spell out this writing on hill and meadow.
It is a chronicle wrought by praying workmen,
The forefathers of our nation
Leagues upon leagues of sealed history awaiting an
interpreter.
This is New England's tapestry of stone
Alive with memories that throb and quiver
At the core of the ages
As the prophecies of old at the heart of God's Word.
COUNTRY FOLK 27
With searching feet I walk beside the wall ;
I plunge and stumble over the fallen stones ;
I follow the windings of the wall
Over the heaving hill, down by the meadow brook,
Beyond the scented fields, by the marsh where rushes
grow.
On I trudge through pine woods fragrant and cool
And emerge amid clustered pools and by rolling acres
of rye.
The wall is builded of field stones great and small,
Tumbled about by frost and storm,
Shaped and polished by ice and rain and sun;
Some flattened, grooved, and chiseled
By the inscrutable sculpture of the weather ;
Some with clefts and rough edges harsh to the touch.
Gracious Time has glorified the wall
And covered the historian stones with a mantle of
green.
Sunbeams flit and waver in the rifts,
Vanish and reappear, linger and sleep,
Conquer with radiance the obdurate angles,
Filter between the naked rents and wind-bleached
jags.
I understand the triumph and the truth
Wrought into these walls of rugged stone.
They are a miracle of patient hands,
28 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
They are a victory of suffering, a pean of pain.
All pangs of death, all cries of birth,
Are in the mute, moss-covered stones ;
They are eloquent to my hands.
O beautiful, blind stones, inarticulate and dumb!
In reflective mood by the wall I wander;
The hoary stones have set my heart astir;
My thoughts take shape and move beside me in the
guise
Of the stern men who built the wall in early olden
days.
One by one the melancholy phantoms go stepping
from me,
And I follow them in and out among the stones.
I think of the days long gone,
Flown like birds beyond the ramparts of the world.
*******
The blood of grim ancestors warms the fingers
That trace the letters of their story ;
My pulses beat in unison with pulses that are
stilled ;
The fire of their zeal inspires me
In my struggle with darkness and pain.
These embossed books, unobliterated by the tears
and laughter of Time,
COUNTRY FOLK 29
Are signed with the vital hands of undaunted men.
I love these monoliths, so crudely imprinted
With their stalwart, cleanly, frugal lives.
Beauty was at their feet, and their eyes beheld it;
The earth cried out for labor, and they gave it.
But ever as they saw the budding spring,
Ever as they cleared the stubborn field,
Ever as they piled the heavy stones,
In mystic visions they saw the eternal spring;
They raised their hardened hands above the earth,
And beheld the walls that are not built of stone,
The portals opened by angels whose garments are of
light;
And beyond the radiant walls of living stones
They dreamed vast meadows and hills of fadeless
green.
*******
Hear, O hear! In the historian walls
Rises the beat and tumult of the struggle for free-
dom.
Sacred, blood-stained walls, your peaceful front
Sheltered the fateful fires of Lexington;
Builded to fence green fields and keep the herds at
pasture,
30 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Ye became the frowning breastworks of stern battle;
Lowly boundaries of the freeman's farm,
Ye grew the rampart of a land at war ;
And still ye cross the centuries
Between the age of monarchs and the age
When the farmers in their fields are kings.
*******
Sing, walls, in lightning words that shall cause the
world to vibrate,
Of the democracy to come,
Of the swift, teeming, confident thing !
We are part of it the wonder and the terror and
the glory!
HELEN KELLER.
A Mountain Pastoral.
A COUPLE at a cottage door,
Under the maple-trees ;
A mountain landscape stretched before,
Behind, beside ; and nothing more
The passing traveler sees.
And is there more? The man and maid
Who caught your idle glance
COUNTRY FOLK 31
Love's pretty hide-and-seek had played
Before they stood there in the shade,
Reading their own romance.
And he is young and true and strong ;
And she is young and wise,
All hopes that to fresh hearts belong
Around their humble door-stone throng;
What more had Paradise?
Green are their waiting fields of toil,
With wild flowers blossoming sweet,
The living wealth no thief can spoil,
The boundless treasures of the soil,
Lie poured out at their feet.
Their neighbors? Not far off are they,
Beyond the bright home hill
White Face, and Passaconaway,
And old Chocorua, rising gray,
Dreamy, remote, and still.
The future opens fair and wide
Within the young man's eyes;
The mountains bless the sweet girl-bride;
Life is a dreamland glorified.
What more was Paradise?
LUCY LARCOM.
32 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Driving Home the Cows.
OUT of the clover and blue-eyed grass
He turned them into the river-lane;
One after another he let them pass,
And fastened the meadow bars again.
Under the willows and over the hill
He patiently followed their sober pace;
The merry whistle for once was still,
And something shadowed the sunny face.
Only a boy ! and his father had said
He never would let his youngest go;
Two already were lying dead
Under the feet of the trampling foe.
But after the evening work was done,
And the frogs were loud in the meadow swamp,
Over his shoulder he slung his gun
And stealthily followed the foot-path damp,
Across the clover and through the wheat,
With resolute heart and purpose grim,
Though cold was the dew to the hurrying feet,
And the blind bat's flitting startled him.
COUNTRY FOLK 33
Thrice since then had the lane been white,
And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom;
And now, when the cows came back at night,
The feeble father drove them home.
For news had come to the lonely farm
That three were lying where two had lain ;
And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm
Could never lean on a son's again.
The summer days grew cold and late,
He went for the cows, when the work was done;
But down the lane, as he opened the gate,
He saw them coming, one by one,
Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess,
Shaking their horns in the evening wind ;
Cropping the buttercups of the grass
But who was it following close behind?
Loosely swung in the idle air
The empty sleeve of army blue;
And worn and pale, from the crisping hair
Looked out a face that the father knew.
For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn,
And yield. their dead unto life again;
34 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn
In golden glory at last may wane.
The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes;
For the heart must speak when the lips are dumb,
And under the silent evening skies
Together they followed the cattle home.
KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.
The Hill o' Dreams.
MY grief ! for the days that's by an' done,
When I was a young girl straight an* tall,
Comin' alone at set o' sun,
Up the high hill-road from Cushendall.
I thought the miles no hardship then,
Nor the long road weary to the feet;
For the thrushes sang in the deep green glen,
An' the evenin' air was cool an' sweet.
My head with many a thought was throng,
And many a dream as I never told,
My heart would lift at a wee bird's song,
Or at seem' a whin bush * crowned with gold.
iGorse, or furze: a thorny evergreen shrub with yellow flow-
ers.
COUNTRY FOLK 35
And always I'd look back at the say,
Or the turn o' the road shut out the sight
Of the long waves curlin* into the bay,
An* breakin' in foam where the sands is white.
I was married young on a dacent man,
As many would call a prudent choice,
But he never could hear how the river ran
Singin' a song in a changin' voice;
Nor thought to see on the bay's blue wather
A ship with yellow sails unfurled,
Bearin' away a King's young daughter
Over the brim of the heavin' world.
The way seems weary now to my feet,
An' miles bes many, an' dreams bes few;
The evenin' air's not near so sweet,
The birds don't sing as they used to do,
An' I'm that tired at the top o' the hill,
That I haven't the heart to turn at all,
To watch the curlin' breakers fill
The wee round bay at Cushendall.
HELEN LANYON.
36 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The Milkmaid.
\\ THAT a dainty life the milkmaid leads,
V V When over the flowery meads
She dabbles in the dew
And sings to her cow,
And feels not the pain
Of love or disdain!
She sleeps in the night, though she toils in the day,
And merrily passeth her time away.
THOMAS NABBES.
The Old Man of Verona.
HAPPY is he whose life's full round
Is passed within his farmstead's narrow bound ;
Who in his elder years may view
The selfsame home that as a boy he knew
Who leaning on his staff may stand
And with its point upon the very sand
Where once he crept, may estimate
His lengthy tenure of this one estate.
Fortune upon him has no hold,
With its alarms and tumults manifold;
He does not flit on fickle wings,
COUNTRY FOLK 37
Slaking his thirst at unfamiliar springs.
No merchant he, the shoals who fears,
Nor soldier trembling when the trump he hears,
Nor advocate, versed in the laws,
Who in a noisy court must plead his cause.
Unlettered, of the town hard by
He recks not, but enjoys the open sky.
No consul marks for him the year,
But earth's recurring gifts as they appear;
Fall by its fruits, spring by its flowers
He tells, and by the sun denotes the hours.
Thus, active still and stout of thew,
A hale old man, he lives three ages through.
Others may seek the change that travel gives:
They see more life, but he more truly lives.
CLAUDIAN. (TBANS. BY G. S. B.)
A Georgia Philosopher.
(Scene: Shady end of a water-log.)
SOME folks'd ruther work'n not;
Let 'em do hit.
Work's er job what lasts all life
Can't git th'ough hit
Tell yer die.
38 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Ain' no fun in that, pa says,
An' so says I!
Up at ev'y fo' erclock
In the mornin';
Work's er job what lasts all life
Lasts tell Gabul
Comes er-hornin'.
Ain' no fun in that, pa says,
An' so says I!
No, I ain't had nary bite;
Moon ain' fullin',
Don't care much; when fish is shy
Saves er pow'ful
Sight er pullin'.
Lots er work in cleanin' fish;
Ain' no fun in that, pa says,
An' so says I!
Pa he thinks I'm hoein' corn
Down ther bottom.
Sun too hot ; but flatheads thar
Turned er rotten
Log an' got 'em.
Fishin' ain' no work, pa says,
An' so says I!
COUNTRY FOLK
Ma she kinder takes ter work:
Draws ther water,
Cooks an* sews an* scrubs an' milks,
An' stirs erbout
Lots more'n she oughter
Jes er slave ter work, pa says,
An* so says I!
Pa ? No ; he don't never work ;
Takes his rest.
Rest's ernuther job for life
Don't git th'ough hit
When yer die. (Chuckles.)
Thar's some fun in that, pa says,
An' so says I!
HAEEY STILLWELL EDWARDS.
The Country Schoolmaster.
WHERE yonder humble spire salutes the eye,
Its vane slow-turning in the liquid sky,
Where, in light gambols, healthy striplings sport,
Ambitious learning builds her outer court;
A grave preceptor, there her usher stands,
And rules without a rod her little bands.
40 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Some half -grown sprigs of learning graced his brow ;
Little he knew, though much he wish'd to know ;
Enchanted hung o'er Vergil's honey'd lay,
And smiled to see desipient x Horace play ;
Glean'd scraps of Greek; and, curious, traced afar,
Through Pope's clear glass the bright Mseonian star. 2
Yet oft his students at his wisdom stared,
For many a student to his side repair'd;
Surprised, they heard him Dilworth's knots untie,
And tell what lands beyond the Atlantic lie.
Many his faults; his virtues small and few;
Some little good he did, or strove to do ;
Laborious still, he taught the early mind,
And urged to manners meek and thoughts refined;
Truth he impress'd, and every virtue praised;
While infant eyes in wondering silence gazed;
The worth of time would day by day unfold,
And tell them every hour was made of gold.
TIMOTHY DWIGHT.
Jones's Cotton Planter.
HE ain't of no account at all, jest give up ever 5 -
thing
1 A reminiscence of Horace's expression, "At the fitting time
'tis sweet to trifle (desipere)."
2 Homer.
COUNTRY FOLK 41
Fer what he calls " inventin'," been a-foolin' 'long
sence spring
With a queer kind o' contraption which has turned
that head o' his;
Calls it " Jones's Cotton Planter," but the Lord knows
what it is !
He took it to the city, showed it to the board o'
trade,
An' they thought it was amazin' an' said : " Jones,
your f ortun's made ! "
I know they was a-foolin' him got lots o' imper-
dence !
But he come home highfalutin', an' he hain't knowed
nuthin' sence.
He's built himself a blacksmith shop, an' there he
works away,
With the pesky bellows roarin' like a cyclone night
an' day ;
Ain't reg'lar at his meals no more, man of a fam'ly,
too;
I wish that cotton planter was in Halifax, I do!
It strikes me they've got things enough without his
makin' more,
Unless he fixed up somethin' fer the grass that's at
his door;
4g POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
But the cotton planter's got him, an' the children's
worked to death,
Fer he keeps 'em at the bellows till they're almost out
o' breath.
Sich a blowin', sich a hammerin', sich a sawin'
never stops ;
Can't git him interested in the weather or the crops.
" I'm a-gittin' there! " he'll tell you; " she'll be ready
by the fall;
And Jones's cotton planter'll take the shine from off
'em all!"
He's done fur. No use talkin'; he's a ruint man as
sure
As Betsy, there, is sittin' with her knittin' at the
door;
Alas! fer all the children they'll be down to skin
an' bones,
An' Jones's cotton planter'll be the epitaph o' Jones !
FRANK L. STANTON.
COUNTRY FOLK 43
Ruth.
SHE stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasp'd by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripen'd ; such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veil'd a light
That had else been all too bright.
And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;
Thus she stood amid the stocks, 1
Praising God with sweetest looks :
Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.
THOMAS HOOD.
Shocks of corn of twelve sheaves each.
44. POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The Ox-Tamer.
IN a far-away northern county in the placid pas-
toral region,
Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a
famous tamer of oxen,
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the
four-year-olds to break them,
He will take the wildest steer in the world and break
him and tame him,
He will go fearless without any whip where the young
bullock chafes up and down the yard,
The bullock's head tosses restless high in the air with
raging eyes,
Yet see you ! how soon his rage subsides how soon
this tamer tames him;
See you! on the farms hereabout a hundred oxen
young and old, and he is the man who has tamed
them,
They aJl know him, all are affectionate to him; . . .
How they watch their tamer they wish him near
them how they turn to look after him! . . .
Whom a hundred oxen love there in his life on farms,
In the northern county far, in the placid pastoral
region.
WALT WHITMAN.
COUNTRY FOLK 45
From "The Farmer's Boy."
FLED now the sullen murmurs of the north,
The splendid raiment of the Spring peeps
forth:
Her universal green and the clear sky
Delight still more and more the gazing eye.
Wide o'er the fields, in rising moisture strong,
Shoots up the simple flower, or creeps along
The mellow soil, imbibing fairer hues
Or sweets from frequent showers and evening dews
That summon from their sheds the slumbering
plows,
While health impregnates every breeze that blows.
No wheels support the diving, pointed share;
No groaning ox is doomed to labor there ;
No helpmates teach the docile steed his road
(Alike unknown the plowboy and the goad) :
But unassisted, through each toilsome day,
With smiling brow the plowman cleaves his way,
Draws his fresh parallels, and, widening still,
Treads slow the heavy dale, or climbs the hill.
Strong on the wing his busy followers play,
Where writhing earthworms meet the unwelcome day.
Till all is changed, and hill and level down
Assume a livery of sober brown;
Again disturbed, when Giles with wearying strides
46 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
From ridge to ridge the ponderous harrow guides,
His heels deep sinking, every step he goes,
Till dirt adhesive loads his clouted shoes.
Welcome, green headland! firm beneath his feet:
Welcome, the friendly bank's refreshing seat;
There, warm with toil, his panting horses browse
Their sheltering canopy of pendant boughs;
Till rest delicious chase each transient pain,
And new-born vigor swell in every vein.
Hour after hour, and day to day succeeds,
Till every clod and deep-drawn furrow spreads
To crumbling mold, a level surface clear,
And strewed with corn to crown the rising year ;
And o'er the whole, Giles, once transverse again,
In earth's moist bosom buries up the grain.
The work is done ; no more to man is given ;
The grateful farmer trusts the rest to Heaven.
#******
His simple errand done, he homeward hies;
Another instantly its place supplies.
The clattering dairy-maid, immersed in steam,
Singing and scrubbing midst her milk and cream,
Bawls out, " Go fetch the cows ! " he hears no
more;
For pigs and ducks and turkeys throng the door,
And sitting hens for constant war prepared,
A concert strange to that which late he heard.
COUNTRY FOLK 47
Straight to the meadow then he whistling goes ;
With well-known halloo calls his lazy cows;
Down the rich pasture heedlessly they graze,
Or hear the summons with an idle gaze.
For well they know the cow-yard yields no more
Its tempting fragrance, nor its wintry store.
Reluctance marks their steps, sedate and slow,
The right of conquest all the law they know ;
The strong press on, the weak by turns succeed,
And one superior always takes the lead,
Is ever foremost wheresoe'er they stray,
Allowed precedence, undisputed sway:
With jealous pride her station is maintained,
For many a broil that post of honor gained.
At home, the yard affords a grateful scene,
For spring makes e'en a miry cow-yard clean.
Thence from its chalky bed behold conveyed
The rich manure that drenching winter made,
Which, piled near home, grows green with many a
weed,
A promised nutriment for autumn's seed.
Forth comes the maid, and like the morning smiles ;
The mistress, too, and followed close by Giles.
A friendly tripod forms their humble seat,
With pails bright scoured and delicately sweet.
Where shadowing elms obstruct the morning ray
Begins the work, begins the simple lay;
48 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The full-charged udder yields its willing stream
While Mary sings some lover's amorous dream;
And crouching Giles, beneath a neighboring tree,
Tugs o'er his pail and chants with equal glee;
Whose hat with battered brim, and nap so bare,
From the cow's side purloins a coat of hair,
A mottled ensign of his harmless trade,
An unambitious, peaceable cockade.
As unambitious, too, that cheerful aid
The mistress yields beside her rosy maid;
With joy she views her plenteous reeking store,
And bears a brimmer to the dairy door;
Her cows dismissed, the luscious mead to roam,
Till eve again recall them loaded home.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.
The Farmer's Wife.
BIRD-LIKE she's up at day-dawn's blush,
In summer heats or winter snows
Her veins with healthful blood aflush,
Her breath of balm, her cheek a rose,
In eyes the kindest eyes on earth
Are sparkles of a homely mirth;
Demure, arch humor's ambush in
COUNTRY FOLK 49
The clear curves of her dimpled chin.
Ah ! guileless creature, hale and good,
Ah ! fount of wholesome womanhood,
Far from the world's unhallowed strife !
God's blessing on the Farmer's Wife.
I love to mark her matron charms,
Her fearless steps through household ways,
Her sunburnt hands and buxom arms,
Her waist unbound by torturing stays;
Blithe as a bee, with busy care,
She's here, she's there, she's everywhere;
Long ere the clock has struck for noon
Home chords of toil are all in tune ;
And from each richly bounteous hour
She drains its use, as bees a flower.
Apart from passion's pain and strife,
Peace gently girds the Farmer's Wife!
Homeward (his daily labors done)
The stalwart farmer slowly plods,
From battling, between shade and sun,
With sullen glebe and stubborn sods.
Her welcome on his spirit bowed
Is sunshine flashing on a cloud!
All vanished is the brief eclipse!
Hark! to the sound of wedded lips,
50 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And words of tender warmth that start
From out the husband's grateful heart!
O! well he knows how vain is life,
Unsweetened by the Farmer's Wife.
But lo ! the height of pure delight
Comes with the evening's stainless joys,
When by the hearthstone spaces bright
Blend the glad tones of girls and boys ;
Their voices rise in gleeful swells,
Their laughter rings like elfin bells,
Till with a look 'twixt smile and frown
The mother lays her infant down,
And at her firm, uplifted hand,
There's silence mid the jovial band;
Her signal stills their harmless strife
Love crowns with law the Farmer's Wife!
Ye dames in proud, palatial halls
Of lavish wiles and jeweled dress,
On whom, perchance, no infant calls
(For barren oft your loveliness)
Turn hitherward those languid eyes
And for a moment's space be wise ;
Your sister mid the country dew
Is three times nearer Heaven than you,
And where the palms of Eden stir,
COUNTRY FOLK 51
Dream not that ye shall stand by her,
Though in your false, bewildering life,
Your folly scorned the Farmer's Wife!
PAUL, H. HAYNE.
From "Dorothy: a Country Story."
DOROTHY
DOROTHY goes with her pails to the ancient
well in the courtyard
Daily at gray of morn, daily ere twilight at eve ;
Often and often again she winds at the mighty old
windlass,
Still with her strong red arms landing the bucket
aright :
Then, her beechen yoke press'd down on her broad
square shoulders,
Stately, erect, like a queen, she with her burden
returns :
She with her burden returns to the fields that she
loves, to the cattle
Lowing beside the troughs, welcoming her and her
pails.
Dorothy who is she? She is only a servant-of-all
work;
52 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Servant at White Rose Farm, under the cliff in the
vale:
Under the sandstone cliff, where martins build in the
springtime,
Hard by the green level meads, hard by the streams
of the Yore.
Oh, what a notable lass is our Dolly, the pride of the
dairy !
Stalwart and tall as a man, strong as a heifer to
work:
Built for beauty, indeed, but certainly built for
labor
Witness her muscular arm, witness the grip of her
hand! . . .
DOROTHY'S ROOM
'T was but a poor little room: a farm-servant's loft
in a garret;
One small window and door; never a chimney at
all;
One little stool by the bed, and a remnant of cast-
away carpet;
But on the floor, by the wall, carefully dusted and
bright,
Stood the green-painted box, our Dorothy's closet and
wardrobe,
COUNTRY FOLK 53
Holding her treasures, her all all that she own'd
in the world!
Linen and hosen were there, coarse linen and home-
knitted hosen;
Handkerchiefs bought at the fair, aprons and
smocks not a few;
Kirtles for warmth when afield, and frocks for winter
and summer,
Blue-spotted, lilac, gray; cotton and woolen and
serge ;
All her simple attire, save the clothes she felt most
like herself in
Rough, coarse workaday clothes, fit for a labor-
er's wear. . . .
Dorothy looks on a world free and familiar and
fair:
Looks on the fair farmyard, where the poultry and
cattle she lives with
Bellow and cackle and low music delightful to
hear;
Looks on the fragrant fields, with cloud-shadows fly-
ing above them,
Singing of birds in the air, woodlands and waters
around.
She in those fragrant meads has wrought, every year
of her girlhood;
54 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Over those purple lands she, too, has follow'd the
plow;
And, like a heifer afield, or a lamb that is yean'd in
the meadows,
She, to herself and to us, seems like a part of it
all.
ABTHUR J. MUNBY.
From "The High Tide on the Coast of
Lincolnshire."
4 4/^USHA! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
V/ Ere the early dews were falling,
Farre away I heard her song,
" Cusha! Cusha! " all along;
Where the reedy Lindis floweth,
Floweth, floweth,
From the meads where melick groweth
Faintly came her milking song
"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
" For the dews will soone be falling ;
Leave your meadow-grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
COUNTRY FOLK 55
Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot;
Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;
Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,
From the clovers lift your head ;
Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot,
Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed." . . .
I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
"Cusha! Cusha!" all along
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
Goeth, floweth;
From the meads where melick groweth,
When the water winding down,
Onward floweth to the town.
I shall never see her more
Where the reeds and rushes quiver,
Shiver, quiver;
Stand beside the sobbing river,
Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling
To the sandy, lonesome shore;
I shall never hear her calling,
56 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
" Leave your meadow-grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow ;
Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot;
Quit your pipes of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;
Come uppe, Lightfoot, rise and follow;
Lightfoot, Whitefoot,
From your clovers lift the head;
Come uppe, Jetty, follow, follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed."
JEAN INGELOW.
The Irrigator.
rAS ridin' down a-past his place,
An' then I thinks I'll 'low
To sort o' pass the time o' day
An' speak a friendly "how."
w
He's mussin' 'round there in the mud,
A little dam he's got ;
He 'lows to make a cacti flat
Into a garden-spot.
COUNTRY FOLK 57
I says to him the land's no good,
For farmin' she don't win,
But all he does is slop around,
An' kind o' funny grin.
I says the land's jes s useful f er "
Some cows to raise an' range,
But he jes* grins an' hollers back,
" There's goin' to be a change."
He's mussin* 'round there in the mud,
A little dam he's got;
He 'lows to make a cacti flat
Into a garden-spot.
ROBERT V. CAUB.
The Song of Milo, the Farm-Hand.
fFrora Idyll X.)
4 tS~\ DEMETER, abounding in fruit and ears
V_>/ of the harvest,
Well may this field be worked and yield a crop be-
yond measure !
" Hard, bind hard, ye binders, the sheaves, lest ever
a passer
58 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Say, * These men are poor sticks, and their pay is
cash out of pocket.'
" Toward the north-wind let your swath of grain in
the cutting
Look, or else to the west, for thus the ear will grow
fuller.
" Threshers, threshing the corn, should shun the
slumbers of noonday;
That is the very hour when the chaff flies off from
the wheat-stalk.
" Reapers, begin your toil when the tuft-lark soars
from the meadow:
Cease when he sleeps : besides, in the heat of the day
take your leisure.
" Give me a frog's life, boys ! he needs, to pour out
his tipple,
No cupbearer, not he, for 't is up to his mouth all
around him.
" Better to boil the lentil, you'll find it, niggardly
steward :
Ware lest you cut your hand in making two halves
of a cummin."
THEOCRITUS. (TEANS. BY EDMUND C. STEDMAN.)
COUNTRY FOLK 59
On the Death of a Country Parson.
IF souls departed do the power retain
Unto their earthly seats to come again,
Thy way by moonlight thou wilt never take,
When only gloom and longing are awake;
Nay, when the summer morn breaks on the view
And not a cloudlet shows in all the blue,
When high the harvest rears its golden head
And blooms of many a hue are brightly spread
Then thou, as erst, wilt to the fields repair,
With kindliest greeting for each reaper there.
LTJDWIG UHLAND. (TRANS. BY G. S. B.)
I
Massachusetts Sends Greeting.
MET a man away down East
Who towered amid the eight-rowed corn,
Raccoons could finish at a feast,
And listened for the dinner-horn.
A crow aloft on a hemlock limb
Looked black at what would fall to him.
The bilious earth lay blank beneath,
His angry hoe showed signs of teeth,
So nicked and notched with glance and glint
At bowlder gray and sparkling flint.
60 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
He saw a pumpkin's yellow blow
And touched it with his thoughtful toe,
Prophetic flower of by-and-by,
Forerunner of one pumpkin pie!
"Out West? Jes' so! From Illinoi?
My Jem is there my oldest boy
And John's in Kansas, so is Jane,
She married one Elnathan Payne ;
And mother too she wants to go,
No musket ever scattered so;
And then it allus p'ints one way
Right where them big per-aries lay.
Betwixt them two Death and the West -
They git our youngest, strongest, best.
It's queer the grave-yard keeps a-growin'
As ef nobody dreamed of goin'!
It's there right where them brooms o' trees
Are sweepin* nothin* in the breeze.
A queen-bee in an empty hive
Is all o' mine that's left alive.
I call them dead I never see,
The West or Heaven's all one to me
I wait an' wait God give me grace !
They don't come back from either place.
" Them miles an' miles of level land,
And ev'ry tree brought up by hand,
COUNTRY FOLK 61
The sky shut down around the green
As snug as any soup-tureen.
Poor show for David with his sling
An* not a pebble fit to fling."
So talked the Massachusetts man
And paused for breath and then began :
" I hear you have," the farmer said,
" A creature with a horse's head,
A cricket's body, dragon's wings,
The long hind legs of a kangaroo,
The hungriest of created things
That eats a landskip through an' through;
A boarding-house for bugs may be
The place for you but not for me."
" Alas, old man," I sadly said,
" They are, indeed, most nobly fed ;
You taunt us with no dainty touch,
But had those creatures boarded here
It would have saved us many a fear.
They could not harm you very much,
And then it cannot be denied,
They surely would have starved and died."
" I wouldn't swap the old Bay State,"
The farmer cried with voice elate,
He stood upright in every joint
As any exclamation-point,
62 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And hoe and stone struck instant fire
As if he thus touched off his ire,
" I wouldn't swap the old Bay State,
Its rugged rocks and mountains great,
For land as level as a hone,
All ready fenced and seeded down.
Our grain stands slender in the shock,
The grists are light we send to mill,
But then we gave you Plymouth Rock
Where Freedom's clearin's first begin;
The world takes stock in Bunker Hill,
Where Freedom put the sickle in.
You've Injuns West but we're ahead,
Our Boston Mohawks allus led,
That took a cargo of bohea
An' steeped a drawin' in the sea
An' asked young Liberty to tea !
They snuff at Boston, and they dub
The good old town the Yankee ' Hub.*
What all it means I never knew,
My way at least, it may be true:
I know it's gritty boys go out
Like spokes of wheels to reach the rim,
That binds creation all about
Till West an' East an' South an' North,
You hear their whistle or their hymn
Around the felly of the earth ! "
COUNTRY FOLK 63
The old man heard the dinner-horn
And stumped away among the corn.
The truth had lighted up his face
And lent the furrowed features grace.
He turned and called across the lot,
" There's one thing more I 'most forgot ;
Ef you see Jem or John or Jane,
Jes' tell 'em where you've been to-day;
That I yit walk the narrow lane
Whose end is growin' mighty plain,
And that I send 'em far away
One word from Massachusetts sod,
The blessing of their fathers' God,
And tell 'em too, an Eastern boy
Must make a man in Illinoi."
Such hearty, homely words he spoke,
The chimney wore a plume of smoke,
The wife stood watching at the door,
Good-by, old man, forevermore.
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOE.
The Huskin' Bee.
T I THE huskin' bee wuz over, ez the sun wuz goin'
JL down
In a yaller blaze o' glory jist behind the maples
brown,
64 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The gals wuz gittin' ready 'n the boys wuz standin'
by,
To hitch on whar they wanted to, or know the reason
why.
Of all the gals what set aroun' the pile of corn thet
day,
A-twistin' off the rustlin' husks ez ef 'twas only play,
The peartest one of all the lot 'n they wuz pooty,
too
Wuz Zury Hess, whose laffin' eyes cud look ye through
and through.
Now it happened liUle Zury found a red ear in the
pile,
Afore we finished huskin', 'n ye orter seen her smile,
Fur, o' course, she hed the priverlege, ef she wud only
dare,
To choose the feller she liked best 'n kiss him then 'n
there.
My ! how we puckered up our lips 'n tried to look our
best,
Each feller wished he'd be the one picked out from
all the rest,
Till Zury, arter hangin' back a leetle spell or so,
Got up 'n walked right over to the last one in the row.
COUNTRY FOLK 65
She jist reached down 'n teched her lips onto the ol'
white head
O' Peter Sims, who's eighty year ef he's a day, 'tis
said;
She looked so sweet ol' Peter tho't an angel cum to
say,
As how his harp wuz ready in the land o' tarnal day.
Mad? Wall I should say I was; 'n I tol' her goin'
hum,
As how the way she slighted me hed made me sorter
glum,
'N that I didn't think she'd shake me right afore the
crowd
I wuzn't goin' ter stand it 'n I said so pooty loud.
Then Zury drapped her laffin' eyes 'n whispered to me
low,
" I didn't kiss ye 'fore the crowd 'cause 'cause
I love ye so,
'N I thought ye wudn't mind it ef I kissed ol' Pete
instead,
Because the grave is closin' jist above his pore ol'
head."
*
Wall wimmin's ways is queer, sometimes, and we
don't allus know
66 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Jist what's a-throbbin' in their hearts when they act
thus 'n so
All I know is, that when I bid good night to Zury
Hess,
I loved her more'n ever, 'n I'll never love her less.
T. P. RYDER.
Amyntichus.
DEAR Earth, Amyntichus the aged take
Unto thyself ; mindful how for thy sake
He toiled so much. For, all his life, in thee
He planted seedlings of the olive-tree;
Ofttimes with vine-slips, too, did he adorn
Thy hillsides, and thy valleys fill with corn ;
And, leading streams of water here and there,
Made herbs and fruitage plenteous everywhere.
Round his gray brows, then, do thou softly cling,
And put fortH tender grasses of the spring.
FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. (TRANS. BY
G. S. B.)
COUNTRY TASKS
The Farmer Feedeth All.
MY lord rides through his palace gate,
My lady sweeps along in state;
The sage thinks long on many a thing,
And the maiden muses on marrying;
The minstrel harpeth merrily,
The sailor plows the foaming sea,
The huntsman kills the good red deer,
And the soldier wars without e'en fear.
But fall to each whate'er befall,
The farmer he must feed them all.
Smith hammereth cherry-red the sword,
Priest preacheth pure the Holy Word;
Dame Alice worketh 'broidery well,
Clerk Richard tales of love can tell;
The tap-wife sells her foaming beer,
Dan Fisher fisheth in the mere;
And courtiers ruffle, strut, and shine,
While pages bring the Gascon wine.
But fall to each whate'er befall,
The farmer he must feed them all.
69
70 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
*
Man builds his castles, fair and high,
Wherever river runneth by;
Great cities rise in every land,
Great churches show the builder's hand;
Great arches, monuments, and towers,
Fair palaces and pleasing bowers;
Great work is done, be it here or there,
And well man worketh everywhere.
But work or rest, whate'er befall,
The farmer he must feed them all.
CHARLES G. LELAND.
Why Sammy Left the Farm.
NOPE, I reckon 'tain't no problem why our
Sammy went away:
Farmin' ain't no great inducement for a' active boy
to stay;
There's a pack o' pesky troubles scattered all along
the road,
An' a feller gets roun'-shouldered sorter pickin' up
the load.
Poets sing the " independence of a farmer's life," of
course ;
COUNTRY TASKS 71
But the bulk o' them there poets never drove a balky
horse,
Never tried to cure his habit with some new-discov-
ered rule,
Ner to break the brute from kickin', ner to trade him
fer a mule.
I'd jest like to see a poet come a-strayin' up this
road
Some day when ol' Bill is balkin' an' we're pitchin' off
the load;
He might make me up some meters thet 'u'd start the
cuss ; an' then
He c'u'd try his hand at stanzies thet 'u'd break a
settin' hen,
Somethin' better than a banner of red flannel to her
tail,
Er an ode to stop her scratchin' when ol' stockin'-
feet 'u'd fail.
He might borry inspiration fer a' epic, an' indite
Somethin' better than a hoss-trough to break up a
rooster fight.
He c'u'd write a master sonnet that 'u'd keep the
tramps away;
He might cure the cow of jumpin' with some never-
failin' lay,
72 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Er her tarnal tail from switchin' when it comes to
milkin'-time ;
Er discourage hawks and varmints with some new an*
fatal rhyme.
I would set him to composin' in the " pearly dews of
morn "
Somethin' better than a scarecrow to pertect the early
corn,
Er a goose-yoke fer the medders, er than rings fer
rootin' hogs,
Somethin' hotter than red pepper ez a cure fer suck-
aig dogs.
Mebbe he c'u'd stop a freshet with his stanzies, an'
again,
In the scorchin' drouth of August he might fetch a
soakin' rain;
An' we'd welcome that there poet with a most re-
joicin' shout
If he'd make us up some po'try that 'u'd knock the
chinch-bugs out.
Nope, it ain't no special problem why our Sammy
went away:
Boys thet's seen the things I've spoke of ain't a-
hankerin' to stay;
COUNTRY TASKS 73
An' we're not a-blamin' Sammy, after all is said an'
done,
Fer he got chock-full o' po'try 'fore he got to twenty-
one.
Ner f er takin* it to market to dispose of it, you see ;
An' he's printin' it in papers, which he's sendin'
home to me;
An' when mother sets and reads 'em out, I tell her,
with a laugh,
That I wish he'd write a poem thet 'u'd break our
suckin' calf.
ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE,
Around McDonald's Ranch.
ON Tom McDonald's valley ranch
I hustle out at dawn,
Before the mountains to the west
Have put their glad rags on;
I turn the cattle in to feed,
And turn 'em out to drink,
And chop the women folks some wood,
And pile it quick as wink ;
I feed the horses corn and hay,
74*
And hear 'em stomp and cranch:
It's quite a chore to do the chores
Around McDonald's ranch.
Then after breakfast I hike out
And make the reaper sing
Until " yours truly " feels as large
And pompous as a king;
Or in the long alfalfa-field
I turn the shocks of hay;
Or ride to hunt a bunch of stock
A dozen miles away;
Then there's the spreading orchard trees
I tend 'em bloom and branch:
It's lots of work to do the work
Around McDonald's ranch.
But work and chores are slabs of bread ;
The sandwich filling's fine,
There's Blanche and then that good roast beef
And pumpkin pie for mine ;
On summer evenings there's the porch,
On winter nights the fire,
With apples, popcorn, too, for all
That visit, dwell, or hire.
No wonder, then, the neighbor boys
Flock in to pester Blanche:
COUNTRY TASKS 75
It's quite a watch to watch things up
Around McDonald's ranch.
Now, I'm a rattling chap for work
And chores of every brand;
I feed and weed and sow and mow:
And hoe to beat the band;
But I can see as plain as paint,
With rivals round so thick,
I'd better learn another trade
And learn it lightning quick.
Persuasive talk's the needful trade:
I've got to corner Blanche,
And ask her out and out who's who
Around McDonald's ranch.
EMMA G. CURTIS.
Feedin' the Stock.
HEAR the chorus in that tie-up, runch, ger-
runch, and runch and runch!
There's a row of honest critters ! Does me good
to hear 'em munch.
When the barn is gettin' dusky and the sun's behind
the drifts,
76 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Touchin' last the gable winder where the dancin'
hay-dust sifts,
When the coaxin' from the tie-up kind o' hints it's
five o'clock
Wai, I've got a job that suits me that's the chore
of feedin* stock.
We've got patches down to our house honest
patches, though, and neat,
But we'd rather have the patches than to skinch on
what we eat.
Lots of work, and grub to back ye that's a mighty
wholesome creed.
Critters fust, s'r, that's my motto give the crit-
ters all they need.
And the way we do at our house, marm and me take
what is left,
And wal, we ain't goin' hungry, as you'll notice
by our heft.
Drat the man that's calculatin* when he measures
out his hay,
Groanin' ev'ry time he pitches ary forkful out the
bay;
Drat the man who feeds out ruff-scuff, wood and
wire from the swale,
'Cause he wants to press his herd's-grass, send his
clover off for sale.
COUNTRY TASKS 77
Down to our house we wear patches, but it ain't no-
body's biz
Jest as long as them 'ere critters git the best of hay
there is.
When the cobwebs on the rafters drip with winter's
early dusk
And the rows of critters' noses, damp with breath
as sweet as musk,
Toss and tease me from the tie-up ain't a job that
suits me more
Than the feedin' of the cattle that's the reg'lar
wind-up chore.
When I grain 'em or I meal 'em wal, there's plenty
in the bin,
And I give 'em quaker measure ev'ry time I dip
down in ;
And the hay, wal, now, I've cut it, and I own it and
it's mine,
And I jab that blamed old fork in, till you'd think
I'd bust a tine.
I ain't doin' it for praises no one sees me but the
pup,
And I get his apperbation, 'cause he pounds his
tail, rup, rup!
No, I do it 'cause I want to; 'cause I couldn't sleep
a wink,
78 .POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
If I thought them poor dumb critters lacked for
fodder or for drink.
And to have the scufflin' barnful give a jolly little
blat
When you open up o' mornin's, ah, there's comfort,
friend, in that!
And you've prob'ly sometimes noticed, when his cat-
tle hate a man,
That it's pretty sure his neighbors size him up on
that same plan.
But I'm solid in my tie-up ; when I've finished up that
chore,
I enjoy it standin' list'nin' for a minit at the door.
And the rustle of the fodder and the nuzzlin* in the
meal
And the runchin's of their feedin* make this humble
feller feel
That there ain't no greater comfort than this 'ere
to understand
That a dozen faithful critters owe their comfort to
my hand.
Oh, the dim old barn seems homelike, with its over-
hanging mows,
With its warm and battened tie-up, full of well-fed
sheep and cows.
COUNTRY TASKS 79
Then I shet the door behind me, drop the bar and
drive the pin
And, with Jeff a-waggin' after, lug the foamin' milk-
pails in.
That's the style of things to our house marm and
me we don't pull up
Until ev'ry critter's eatin', from the cattle to the
Then the biskits and the spare-rib and plum pre-
serves taste good,
For we're feelin', me and mother, that we're actin'
'bout's we should.
Like as can be, after supper mother sews another
patch
And she says the duds look trampy, 'cause she ain't
got goods to match.
Fust of all, though, comes the meal-bins and the hay-
mows ; after those
If there's any extry dollars, wal, we'll see about new
clothes.
But to-night, why, bless ye, mother, pull the rug
acrost the door;
Warmth and food and peace and comfort let's
not pester God for more.
HOLMAN F. DAY.
80 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
From "Georgic III."
BUT when glad summer at the west winds' call
Shall send the flocks to woods and pastures free,
Then 'neath the star of dawn on the cool fields
Let browse thy sheep and goats, while morn is young,
And the fresh dew lies hoary on the grass
The dew on tender blade, to cattle dear.
When the fourth hour of day brings parching thirst,
And in the trees cicadas' notes are loud,
Then bid the herd at wells and deep clear pools
Drink the stream running from full oaken troughs.
But in the deep noon heat a shady vale
Seek, if perchance some oak of antique bulk
There spread his giant boughs, or some grove dark
With many a holm-oak's gloom reposeth nigh
In hallowed shadow. Then at set of sun
Once more supply clear streams and drive afield
Thy flock, when eventide cools all the air,
And the moon dewy-moist repairs the lawns
With freshness, while the shores with halcyon notes
Resound, the copses with the goldfinch song.
VEEGIL.
COUNTRY TASKS 81
The Planting of the Apple-Tree.
COME, let us plant the apple-tree.
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade ;
Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots, and there
Sift the dark mold with kindly care,
And press it o'er them tenderly,
As round the sleeping infant's feet
We softly fold the cradle-sheet ;
So plant we the apple-tree.
What plant we in this apple-tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays ;
Boughs where the thrush with crimson breast
Shall haunt, and sing, and hide her nest ;
We plant, upon the sunny lea,
A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,
When we plant the apple-tree.
What plant we in this apple-tree?
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs
To load the May-wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors ;
82 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
A world of blossoms for the bee, /
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple-tree.
What plant we in this apple-tree?
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,
And redden in the August noon,
And drop, when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,
While children come, with cries of glee,
And seek them where the fragrant grass
Betrays their bed to those who pass,
At the foot of the apple-tree.
And when, above this apple-tree,
The winter stars are quivering bright,
And winds go howling through the night,
Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,
Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth,
And guests in prouder homes shall see,
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine
And golden orange of the Line,
The fruit of the apple-tree.
The fruitage of this apple-tree
Winds and our flag of stripe and star
COUNTRY TASKS' 83
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,
Where men shall wonder at the view,
And ask in what fair groves they grew;
And sojourners beyond the sea
Shall think of childhood's careless day
And long, long hours of summer play,
In the shade of the apple-tree.
Each year shall give this apple-tree
A broader flush-of roseate- bloom,
A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,
And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower,
The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.
The years shall come and pass, but we
Shall hear no longer, where we lie,
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh,
In the boughs of the apple-tree.
And time shall waste this apple-tree.
O, when its aged branches throw
Thin shadows on the ground below,
Shall fraud and force and iron will
Oppress the weak and helpless still?
What shall the tasks of mercy be,
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears
Of those who live when length of years
Is wasting this apple-tree?
84 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
"Who planted this old apple-tree?"
The children of that distant day
Thus to some aged man shall say ;
And, gazing on its mossy stem,
The gray-haired man shall answer them:
" A poet of the land was he,
Born in the rude but good old times ;
'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes
On planting the apple-tree."
WILLIAM CULLEN BEYANT.
The Churning Song.
APRON on and dash in hand,
O'er the old churn here I stand,
Cachug !
How the thick cream spurts and flies,
Now on shoes and now in eyes !
Cachug ! Cachug !
Ah ! how soon I tired get !
But the butter lingers yet ;
Cachug !
Aching back and weary arm
Quite rob churning of its charm !
Cachug ! Cachug !
COUNTRY TASKS 85
See the golden specks appear 1
And the churn rings sharp and clear,
Cachink !
Arms, that have to flag begun,
Work on, you will soon be done,
Cachink ! Cachink !
Rich flakes cling to lid.and dash;
Hear the thin milk's watery splash !
Calink!
Sweetest music to the ear,
For it says the butter's here!
Calink! Calink!
SILAS DINSMOBE.
When the Cows Come Home.
WITH Mingle, klangle, klingle,
'Way down the dusty dingle,
The cows are coming home;
Now sweet and clear, and faint and low,
The airy tinklings come and go,
Like chimings from some far-off tower,
Or patterings of an April shower
That makes the daisies grow.
Ko-kling, ko-klang, koklinglelingle,
86 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
'Way down the darkening dingle
The cows come slowly home;
And old-time friends, and twilight plays,
And starry nights and sunny days
Come trooping up the misty ways
When the cows come home.
With jingle, jangle, jingle,
Soft sounds that sweetly mingle,
The cows are coming home;
Malvine, and Pearl, and Florimel,
DeKamp, Redrose, and Gretchen Schell,
Queen Bess, and Sylph, and Spangled Sue
Across the fields I hear her loo-oo,
And clang her silver bell.
Go-ling, go-lang, golinglelingle,
With faint, far sounds that mingle,
The cows come slowly home;
And mother-songs of long-gone years,
And baby joys, and childish tears,
And youthful hopes, and youthful fears,
When the cows come home.
With ringle, rangle, ringle,
By twos and threes and single,
The cows are coming home.
Through the violet air we see the town,
COUNTRY TASKS 87
And the summer sun a-slipping down ;
The maple in the hazel glade
Throws down the path a longer shade,
And the hills are growing brown.
To-ring, to-rang, toringleringle,
By threes and fours and single,
The cows come slowly home:
The same sweet sound of wordless psalm,
The same sweet June-day rest and calm,
The same sweet scent of bud and balm,
When the cows come home.
With a tinkle, tankle, tinkle,
Through fern and periwinkle,
The cows are coming home;
A-loitering in the checkered stream,
Where the sun-rays glance and gleam,
Starine, Peachbloom, and Phoebe Phyllis
Stand knee-deep in the creamy lilies,
In a drowsy dream.
To-link, to-link, tolinklelinkle,
O'er banks with buttercups a-twinkle
The cows come slowly home;
And up through memory's deep ravine
Come the brook's old song and its old-time sheen,
And the crescent of the silver queen,
When the cows come home.
88 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
With a klingle, klangle, klingle,
With a loo-oo, and moo-oo, and jingle,
The cows are coming home;
And over there on Merlin hill,
Hear the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill ;
The dewdrops lie on the tangled vines,
And over the poplars Venus shines,
And over the silent mill.
Ko-ling, ko-lang, kolinglelingle,
With a ting-a-ling and jingle,
The cows come slowly home.
Let down the bars ; let in the train
Of long-gone songs, and flowers, and rain ;
For dear old times come back again
When the cows come home.
AGNES E. MITCHELL.
The Apple-Butter Boilin'.
PENNSYLVANIA MOUNTAINS
"1 jl THEN you see the sun a-sinkin',
V Swing the kittle off the groun' ;
All the time the stars is winkin',
Stir the apple-butter roun'.
Don't you let me ketch you blinkin'
Er a-shirkin* from yer turn;
COUNTRY TASKS 89
It 'u'd set yer pap to drinkin'
Ef the apple-butter'd burn!
Watch it when it starts to bubblin',
Stir it till you see the sun.
(Ef you young 'uns don't quit troublin'
You won't git none when it's done.)
No, Jakey, 't ain't yer turn to go to bed;
You got to stir, so jes prop up yer head.
Why, you sleepy little fool,
D' you want to go to school
All the winter 'thout no spreadin' on yer bread?
( Shove thet chunk in with yer toe ;
Don't you see the fire's low?)
S'posin' smoke does blow inter yer eyes ;
Soon you'll see the sun begin to rise ;
Shake yerself an' start to countin'.
'Long the ridge o' Ole Jack's Mountain,
Can't you see thet red'nin' in the skies?
It boils thick an' it'U fly;
Ef it burns you don't you cry !
Hiram, lower the kittle to the groun' ;
'Lize, you git the crocks an' set 'em round'.
It'll take us both to fill 'em,
!An' look out now ! don't you spill 'em,
90 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Ef you want thet dress I promised you from town.
Ther' 's the sun, ther' 's the sun,
An' the apple-butter's done!
You young 'uns, jes you set ez still ez mice.
Git the loaf, 'Lize ; cut 'em each a slice.
( Jakey, can't you quit thet foolin'?)
Scrape the kittle while it's coolin';
Give 'em each a breakfus' spread. This boilin' 's
nice.
I heern tell thet in the city
Ther' 's no boilin's; thet's a pity.
They must be a kind o' dreadin'
A long winter 'thout no spreadin'.
E. B. FlNDLAY.
,* *
The Plow.
A LANDSCAPE IN BERKSHIRE
ABOVE yon somber swell of land
Thou seest the dawn's grave orange hue,
With one pale streak like yellow sand,
And over that a vein of blue.
The air is cold above the woods ;
All silent is the earth and sky,
COUNTRY TASKS 91
Except with his own lonely moods
The blackbird holds a colloquy.
Over the broad hill creeps a beam,
Like hope that gilds a good man's brow,
And now ascends the nostril-steam
Of stalwart horses come to plow.
Ye rigid Plowmen, bear in mind
Your labor is for future hours!
Advance spare not nor look behind :
Plow deep and straight with all your powers.
RICHARD H. HOBNE.
,* fit
Scythe Song.
MOWERS, weary, and brown, and blithe,
What is the word methinks ye know,
Endless over-word that the Scythe
Sings to the blades of the grass below?
Scythes that swing in the grass and clover,
Something, still, they say as they pass ;
What is the word that, over and over,
Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass?
92 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Hush, ah hush, the Scythes are saying,
Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep;
Hush, they say to the grasses swaying,
Hush, they sing to the clover deep !
Hush 'tis the lullaby Time is singing
Hush, and heed not, for all things pass,
Hush, ah hush! and the Scythes are swinging
Over the clover, over the grass !
ANDREW LANG.
From "Life on the Farm."
MILKING TIME
AT the foot of the hill the milk-house stands,
Where the Balm of Gilead spreads his hands,
And the willow trails at each pendent tip
The lazy lash of a golden whip,
And an ice-cold spring with a tinkling sound
Makes a bright-green edge for the dark-green ground.
Cool as a cave is the air within,
Brave are the shelves with the burnished tin
Of the curving shores, and the seas of white
That turn to gold in a single night,
As if the disk of a winter noon
Should take the tint of a new doubloon.
COUNTRY TASKS 93
Burned to a coal is the amber day,
Noon's splendid fire has faded away,
And, lodged on the edge of a world grass-grown,
Like a great live ember, glows the sun ;
When it falls behind the crimson bars
Look out for the sparks of the early stars.
With the clang of her bell a motherly brown
No trace of her lineage handed down
Is leading the long, deliberate line
Of the Devons red and the Durhams fine.
" Co-boss ! " " Co-boss ! " and the caravan
With a dowager swing comes down the lane,
And lowing along from the clover-bed
Troops over the bars with a lumbering tread.
Under the lee of the patient beasts,
On their tripod stools like Pythian priests,
The tow-clad boys and the linsey girls
Make the cows " give down " in milky swirls.
There's a stormy time in the drifted pails,
There's a sea-foam swath in the driving gales,
Then girls and boys with whistle and song,
Two pails apiece, meander along
The winding path in the golden gloom,
And " set " the milk in the twilight room.
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.
94 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
/
The Haymakers.
DOWN on the Merrimac River,
While the autumn grass is green,
Oh, there the jolly hay-men
In their gundalows are seen;
Floating down, as ebbs the current,
And the dawn leads on the day,
With their scythes and rakes all ready,
To gather in the hay.
The good wife, up the river,
Has made the oven hot,
And with plenty of pandowdy J
Has filled her earthen pot.
Their long oars sweep them onward,
As the ripples round them play,
And the jolly hay-men drift along
To make the meadow-hay.
At the bank-side then they moor her,
Where the sluggish waters run,
By the shallow creek's low edges,
Beneath the fervid sun
And all day long the toilers
Mow their swaths, and day by day,
i A kind of bread-and-apple pudding, generally " deep-dish.'
COUNTRY TASKS 95
You can see their scythe-blades flashing
At the cutting of the hay.
When the meadow-birds are flying,
Then down go scythe and rake,
And right and left their scattering shots
The sleeping echoes wake
For silent spreads the broad expanse,
To the sand-hills far away,
And thus they change their work for sport,
At making of the hay.
When the gundalows are loaded '
Gunwales to the water's brim
With their little squaresails set atop,
Up the river how they swim !
At home, beside the fire, by night,
While the children round them play,
What tales the jolly hay-men tell
Of getting in the hay!
GEORGE LUNT.
96 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
From "Every One to His Own Way."
OAK-LEAVES are big as the mouse's ear,
So, farmer, go plant. But the frost
Beware ! the witch o' the year,
See that her palm be crossed.
The bee is abroad, and the ant ;
Spider is busy ; ho, farmer, go plant.
JOHN VANCE CHENEY.
The Sower's Song.
NOW hands to seed-sheet, boys !
We step and we cast; old Time's on wing;
And would ye partake of Harvest's joys,
The corn must be sown in spring.
Fall gently and still, good corn,
Lie warm in thy earthy bed;
And stand so yellow some morn,
For beast and man must be fed.
Old earth is a pleasure to see
In sunshiny cloak of red and green;
The furrow lies fresh, this year will be
As years that are past have been.
COUNTRY TASKS 97
Fall gently and still, good corn,
Lie warm in thy earthy bed,
And stand so yellow some morn,
For beast and man must be fed.
Old earth, receive this corn,
The son of six thousand golden sires;
All these on thy kindly breast were born ;
One more thy poor child requires.
Fall gently and still, good corn,
Lie warm in thy earthy bed;
And stand so yellow some morn,
For beast and man must be fed.
Now steady and sure again,
And measure of stroke and step we keep;
Thus up and down we cast our grain ;
Sow well and you gladly reap.
Fall gently and still, good corn,
Lie warm in thy earthy bed ;
And stand so yellow some morn,
For beast and man must be fed.
THOMAS CARLYLE,
98 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Seed-Time Hymn.
LORD, in thy name thy servants plead,
And thou hast sworn to hear ;
Thine is the harvest, thine the seed,
The fresh and fading year:
Our hope, when autumn winds blew wild,
We trusted, Lord, with thee;
And still, now spring has on us smil'd,
We wait on thy decree.
The former and the latter rain,
The summer sun and air,
The green ear, and the golden grain,
All thine, are ours by prayer.
Thine too by right, and ours by grace,
The wondrous growth unseen,
The hopes that soothe, the fears that brace,
The love that shines serene.
So grant the precious things brought forth
By sun and moon below,
That thee in thy new heaven and earth
We never may forego.
JOHN KEBLE.
COUNTRY TASKS 99
^
Egyptian Farm-Songs. 1
A Reapers' Song
is a good day ! to the land come out:
JL The north wind is out.
The sky works according to our heart:
Let us work, binding firm our heart.
A Song to the Oxen on the Threshing-floor
Thresh for yourselves. Thresh for yourselves.
Thresh for yourselves. Thresh for yourselves.
Straw to eat ; corn for your masters ;
Let not your hearts be weary, your lord is pleased.
Plantation Hoe Song.
HEAH wid my hoe I go
Row on row, row on row
Hoein' my corn:
Five stalks for every hill
i These little songs were chanted by farm-hands in ancient
Egypt, more than 1,500 years before the Christian era. Such
songs are said to be somewhat common in present-day Egypt.
Their only counterpart in modern western life is found in the
" chanteys " sung by deep-sea sailors, who thus mark time at
their work.
100 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
One for de rust to kill,
One for de cutworm's bill,
Three for de barn.
Red-waistcoat robin sings
Up 'mongs' de greenin' things,
Mate on de nest;
My pardner's nestin* too,
Nestin' like humans do
Got lonesome, jest us two,
Same as de rest.
So wid my hoe I go
Row on row, row on row
Proud as a king.
Dry-rot an* gray mildew
Mus' share in all I do ;
But Gord's my pardner, too
Dat's why I sing.
Robin, he " knows it all,"
'Ca'se he can sing an' call
Dat's only half;
Maybe a bird can shirk
Singin' like any clerk,
But only men dat work
Knows how to laugh.
COUNTRY TASKS 101
So wid my hoe I go
Row on row, row on row <
Laughin' along ;
Let robin sing at ease
Whilst I sows corn an' peas;
Gord plants him cherry-trees
Jes for his song.
Whilst his slim mate an' him
Built on de apple-limb,
I sowed my Ian',
Three grains in every hole:
One for de shovin' mole,
One for de devil's toll,
One for to stan*.
RUTH McENERY STUART.
When the Cows Come Home.
1LOVE the beautiful evening
When the sunset clouds are gold;
When the barn-fowls seek a shelter
And the young lambs seek their fold:
When the four-o'-clocks are open,
And the swallows homeward come;
102 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
When the horses cease their labors,
And the cows come home.
When the supper's almost ready,
And Johnny is asleep,
And I beside the cradle
My pleasant vigil keep:
Sitting beside the window
Watching for " Pa " to come,
While the soft bells gently tinkle
As the cows come home.
When the sunset and the twilight
In mingling hues are bent,
I can sit and watch the shadows
With my full heart all content :
And I wish for nothing brighter,
And I long no more to roam
When the twilight's peace comes o'er me,
And the cows come home.
I see their shadows lengthen
As they slowly cross the field,
And I know the food is wholesome
Which their generous udders yield.
More than the tropics' fruitage,
Than marble hall or dome,
COUNTRY TASKS 103
Are the blessings that surround me
When the cows come home.
MARY E. NEALEY.
The Corn-Song.
(From "The Huskers.")
HEAP high the farmer's wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn I
Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine;
We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.
Through vales of grass and meads of flowers
Our plows their furrows made,
While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.
104r POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain,
Beneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.
All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer's noon
Its soft and yellow hair.
And now, with autumn's moonlit eves,
Its harvest-time has come,
We pluck away the frosted leaves,
And bear the treasure home.
There, when the snows about us drift,
And winter winds are cold,
Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,
And knead its meal of gold.
Let vapid idlers loll in silk
Around their costly board;
Give us the bowl of samp and milk,
By homespun beauty poured!
Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth
Sends up its smoky curls,
COUNTRY TASKS 105
Who will not thank the kindly earth,
And bless our farmer girls !
Then shame on all the proud and vain,
Whose folly laughs to scorn
The blessing of our hardy grain,
Our wealth of golden corn!
Let earth withhold her goodly root,
Let mildew blight the rye,
Give to the worm the orchard's fruit,
The wheat-field to the fly ;
But let the good old crop adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for his golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God !
JOHN G. WHITTTER.
From "The Old Barn."
THE FANNING MILL
HANG up the flails by the big barn door !
Bring out the mill of the one-boy power!
Nothing at all but a breeze in a box,
Clumsy and red, it rattles and rocks,
106 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Sieves to be shaken and hopper to feed,
A Chinaman's hat turned upside down,
The grain slips through at a hole in the crown
Out with the chaff and in with speed !
The crank clanks round with a boy's quick will,
The fan flies fast till it fills the mill
With its breezy vanes, as the whirled leaves fly
In an open book when the gust goes by ;
And the jerky jar and the zigzag jolt
Of the shaken sieves, and the jingling bolt,
And the grate of cogs and the axle's clank,
And the rowlock jog of the crazy crank,
And the dusty rush of the gusty chaff,
The worthless wreck of the harvest's raff,
And never a lull, the brisk breeze blows
From the troubled grain its tattered clothes,
Till tumbled and tossed, it downward goes
The rickety route by the rackety stair,
Clean as the sand that the simoom snows,
And drifts at last in a bank so fair
You know you have found the answered prayer!
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.
COUNTRY TASKS 107
The Parson and the Hay.
ON the grave of Parson Williams
The grass is brown and bleached;
It is more than fifty winters
Since he lived and laughed and preached.
But his memory in New England
No winter snows can kill;
Of his goodness and his drollness
Countless legends linger still.
And among those treasured legends
I hold this one as a boon ;
How he got in Deacon Crosby's hay
On a Sunday afternoon.
He was midway in a sermon,
Most orthodox, on grace,
When a sound of distant thunder
Broke the quiet of the place.
Now the meadow of the Crosbys
Lay full within his sight,
As he glanced from out the window
Which stood open on his right.
108 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And the green and fragrant haycocks
By acres there did stand;
Not a meadow like the deacon's
Far or near in all the land.
Quick and loud the claps of thunder
Went a-rolling through the skies,
And the parson saw his deacon
Looking out with anxious eyes.
" Now, my brethren," called the parson,
And he called with might and main,
" We must get in Brother Crosby's hay ;
'Tis our duty now most plain."
And he shut the great red Bible,
And tossed his sermon down :
Not a man could turn more swiftly
Than the parson in that town.
And he ran now to the meadow,
With all his strength and speed ;
And the congregation followed,
All bewildered, in his lead.
With a will they worked and shouted
And cleared the fields apace;
COUNTRY TASKS 109
And the parson led the singing
While the sweat rolled down his face.
And it thundered fiercer, louder,
And the dark grew, east and west ;
But the hay was under cover
And the parson had worked best.
And again in pew and pulpit
All their places took, composed;
And the parson preached his sermon
To " fifteenthly," where it closed.
ANONYMOUS.
From "The Plowman."
CLEAR the brown path to meet his coulter's
gleam !
Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,
With toil's bright dewdrops on his sunburnt brow,
The lord of earth, the hero of the plow !
First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,
110 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod.
Still where he treads the stubborn clods divide,
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide ;
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves,
Mellow and dark the ridgy corn-field cleaves ;
Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train
Slants the long track that scores the level plain ;
Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay,
The patient convoy breaks its destined way;
At every turn the loosening chains resound,
The swinging plowshare circles glistening round,
Till the wide field one billowy waste appears,
And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.
These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings
The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings ;
This is the page whose letters shall be seen
Changed by the sun to words of living green;
This is the scholar whose immortal pen
Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men ;
These are the lines that heaven-commanded Toil
Shows on his deed, the charter of the soil !
O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast
Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest,
How thy sweet features, kind to every clime,
Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of Time !
COUNTRY TASKS HI
We stain thy flowers, they blossom o'er the dead ;
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;
O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn,
Waves the green plumage of thy tasseled corn;
Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain,
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.
Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms
Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms,
Let not our virtues in thy love decay,
And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Corn Harvest.
rilHE fields are filled with a smoky haze.
The golden spears
Of the ripening ears
Peep from the crested and pennoned maize.
All down the rustling rows are rolled
The portly pumpkins, green and gold.
Altogether
'Tis very fine weather,
Just as the almanac foretold.
In early summer the brigand crow
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Made ruthless raids
On the sprouting blades;
The weeds fought long with the farmer's hoe;
And the raccoons and squirrels have had their share
Of all but the good man's toil and care ;
The shy field-mouse
Has filled her house,
And the blackbirds are flocking from no one knows
where.
But now his time has come : hurrah !
To the field, boys ! to-day
Our work will be play.
Let the blackbirds scream, and the mad crows caw,
And the squirrels scold on the wild cherry-limb,
We'll take from the robbers that took from him !
Come along, one and all, boys !
Big boys and small boys,
Long-armed Amos, and Joel, and Jim!
Bring sickles to reap, or blades to strike.
Before they have lost
In the sun and frost
The nourishing juices the cattle like,
Sucker and stalk must be cut from the hill;
Surround them, and bend them, then hit with a will!
COUNTRY TASKS 113
Left standing too long,
They grow woody and strong;
The corn in the stook will ripen still.
Carry your stroke, lads, close to the ground.
Set the stalks upright,
And pack them tight
In pyramids shapely and stately and round.
Give the old lady's skirts a genteel spread;
Slope well the shoulders, so as to shed
The autumn rain
From the unhusked grain,
Then twist a wisp for the queer little head.
There she is, waiting to be embraced!
Reach round her who can?
'T will take a man
And a boy, at least, to clasp her waist !
Was ever a hug like that ? Now draw
Tightly the girdle of good oat-straw!
With the plumpest waist
That ever was laced,
Goes the narrowest nightcap ever you saw.
We bind the corn, and leave it snug,
Or rest in the shade
Of the shocks we have made
114 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
To eat our luncheon, and drink from the jug.
The children come bringing the bands, or play
Hide-and-go-seek in the corn all day,
And now and then race
With a chipmonk, or chase
A scared little field-mouse scampering away.
All day we cut and bind; till at night,
Where a field of corn in
The misty morning
Waved, in the level September light,
All over the shadowy stubble-land,
The stooks, like Indian wigwams, stand.
Compact and secure,
There leave them to cure,
Till the merry husking-time is at hand.
Then the fodder will be to stack or to house,
And the ears to husk.
But now the dusk
Falls soft as the shadows of cool pine-boughs ;
Our good day's work is done; the night
Brings wholesome fatigue and appetite ;
Up comes the balloon
Of the huge red moon,
And home we go, singing gay songs by its light.
JOHN T. TROWB RIDGE.
COUNTRY TASKS 115
Old Winters on the Farm.
I HAVE jest about decided
It 'ud keep a town-boy hoppin'
Fer to work all winter, choppin'
Fer a' old fireplace, like 7 did!
Lawz ! them old times wuz contrairy !
Blame' backbone o' winter, 'peared-like,
Wouldn't break ! and I wuz skeerd-like
Clean on into February!
Nothin' ever made me madder
Than fer Pap to stomp in, layin'
In a' extra f orestick, sayin',
" Groun'-hog's out and seed his shadder ! "
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
Preserving-Time.
ALL over the land there's a savory smell,
You meet it abroad or at home;
The days of your childhood come back for a spell,
No matter how far you may roam
'Tis the scent of preserving the strawberry red,
The pineapple, raspberry, plum;
That the gooseberry, currant, and cherry must shed
When the jelly and marmalade come.
116 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
For the kitchen's a sight in these summery days,
As the kettles all simmer or steam;
The mountains of sugar we view with amaze,
And the fruits are an epicure's dream;
Abroad through the land goes the savory scent
Made by nieces of good Uncle Sam;
And prosperity's balm with th' odor is blent
Of marmalade, jelly, and jam.
ANONYMOUS.
The Plow.
FROM Egypt behind my oxen with their stately
step and slow
Northward and East and West I went to the desert
sand and the snow;
Down through the centuries one by one, turning the
clod to the shower,
Till there's never a land beneath the sun but has blos-
somed behind my power.
I slide through the sodden rice-fields with my grunting
humpbacked steers,
I turned the turf of the Tiber plain in Rome's im-
perial years;
COUNTRY TASKS 117
I was left in the half-drawn furrow when Coriolanus
came
Giving his farm for the Forum's stir to save his na-
tion's name.
Over the seas to the North I went ; white cliffs and a
seaboard blue;
And my path was glad in the English grass as my
stout red Devons drew;
My path was glad in the English grass, for behind
me ripened and curled
The corn that was life to the sailormen that sailed
the ships of the world.
And later I went to the North again and day by day
drew down
A little more of the purple hills to join to my king-
dom brown ;
And the whaups * wheeled out to the moorland, but
the gray gulls stayed with me
Where the Clydesdales drummed a marching-song
with their feathered feet on the lea.
Then the new lands called me Westward ; I found on
the prairies wide
A toil to my stoutest daring and a foe to test my
pride ;
i Curlews.
118 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
But I stooped my strength to the stiff black loam,
and I found my labor sweet
As I loosened the soil that was trampled firm by a
million buffaloes' feet.
Then farther away to the Northward; outward and
outward still
(But idle I crossed the Rockies, for there no plow
may till!)
Till I won to the plains unending, and there on the
edge of the snow
I ribbed them the fenceless wheat-fields, and taught
them to reap and sow.
The sun of the Southland called me; I turned her
the rich brown lines
Where her Parramatta peach-trees grow and her
green Mildura vines ;
I drove her cattle before me, her dust, and her dying
sheep,
I painted her rich plains golden and taught her to
sow and reap.
From Egypt behind my oxen with their stately step
and slow
I have carried your weightiest burden, ye toilers that
reap and sow!
COUNTRY TASKS 119
I am the Ruler, the King, and I hold the world in
fee;
Sword upon sword may ring, but the triumph shall
rest with me!
WILL OGILVIE.
The Mowers.
WHERE mountains round a lonely dale
Our cottage-roof enclose,
Come night or morn, the hissing pail
With yellow cream o'erflows;
And roused at break of day from sleep,
And cheerily trudging hither
A scythe-sweep, and a scythe-sweep,
We mow the grass together.
The fog drawn up the mountain-side
And scattered flake by flake,
The chasm of blue above grows wide,
And richer blue the lake ;
Gay sunlights o'er the hillocks creep,
And join for golden weather
A scythe-sweep, and a scythe-sweep,
We mow the dale together.
120 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The goodwife stirs at five, we know,
The master soon comes round,
And many swaths must lie a-row
Ere breakfast-horn shall sound;
The clover and the florin x deep,
The grass of silver feather
A scythe-sweep, and a scythe-sweep,
We mow the dale together.
The noontide brings its welcome rest
Our toil-wet brows to dry ;
Anew with merry stave and jest
The shrieking hone we ply.
White falls the brook from steep to steep
Among the purple heather
A scythe-sweep, and a scythe-sweep,
We mow the dale together.
For dial, see, our shadows turn ;
Low lies the stately mead;
A scythe, an hour-glass, and an urn
All flesh is grass, we read.
To-morrow's sky may laugh or weep,
To Heaven we leave it, whether
A scythe-sweep, and a scythe-sweep,
We've done our task together.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.
i A kind of meadow grass.
COUNTRY PLEASURES
From "The Biglow Papers."
I COUNTRY-BORN an' bred, know where to
, find
Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind,
An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes,
Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats,
Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl,
Each on 'em's cradle to a baby-pearl,
But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin,
The rebble f rosts'll try to drive 'em in ;
For half our May's so awfully like May n't,
'Twould rile a Shaker or an evrige saint ;
Though I own up I like our back'ard springs
Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things,
An' when you 'mos give up, 'ithout more words
Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds :
Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt,
But when it does git stirred, ther' 's no gin-out !
Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees,
An' settlin' things in windy congresses,
Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned
Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind.
123
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
'Fore long the trees begin to show belief,
The maple crimsons to a coral-reef,
Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers
So plump they look like yaller caterpillars,
Then gray hoss-ches'nuts leetle hands unfold
Softer'n a baby's be at three days old :
Thet's robin redbreast's almanick ; he knows
Thet arter this ther's only blossom-snows;
So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse,
He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house.
Then seems to come a hitch, things lag behind,
Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind,
An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams
Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams,
A leak comes spirtin' thru some pinhole cleft,
Grows stronger, fiercer, tears out right an' left,
Then all the waters bow themselves an' come,
Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam,
Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune
An' gives one leap from April into June :
Then all comes crowdin' in ; afore you think,
Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink;
The catbird in the lay lock-bush is loud;
The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud ;
Red cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it,
An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet ;
COUNTRY PLEASURES 125
The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o' shade
An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' sweet trade ;
In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings
An' for the summer v'y'ge his hammock slings;
All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers
The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers,
Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try
With pins, they'll worry yourn so, boys, bimebye!
But I don't love your cat'logue style, do you?
Ez ef to sell off Natur' by vendoo ;
One word with blood in 't's twice ez good ez two :
'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year,
Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here;
Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings,
Or climbs against the breeze with quiverin' wings,
Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair,
Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
126 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Cuckoo Song.
(Old English.)
SUMER is i-cumen 1 in,
Lhude 2 sing cuccu ;
Groweth sede and bloweth mede,
And springth the w[u]de nu. 3
Sing cuccu, cuccu.
Awe 4 bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth 5 after calve cu 6 ;
Bulluc sterteth, 7 bucke verteth, 8
Murie sing cuccu.
Cuccu, cuccu !
Wei singes thu, cuccu,
Ne swik 9 thu naver 10 nu ;
Sing cuccu, nu.
Sing cuccu, cuccu.
Sing cuccu nu.
ANONYMOUS.
i Coming; 2 loudly; 3 wood now; 4 ewe; Bloweth; 6 CO w;
7 starts; 8 finds shelter among the fern; cease; 10 never.
COUNTRY PLEASURES 127
The Kerry Cow.
IT'S in Connacht or in Munster that yourself might
travel wide,
And be asking all the herds you'd meet along the
countryside,
But you'd never meet a one could show the likes of
her till now,
Where she's grazing in a Leinster field my little
Kerry cow.
If herself went to the cattle fairs she'd put all cows
to shame,
For the finest poets of the land would meet to sing
her fame;
And the young girls would be asking leave to stroke
her satin coat,
They'd be praising and caressing her, and calling
her a dote.
If the King of Spain gets news of her he'll fill his
purse with gold,
And set sail to ask the English King where she is
to be sold;
But the King of Spain may come to me, a crown
upon his brow,
It is he may keep his golden purse and I my
Kerry cow.
128 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The priest maybe will tell her fame to the Holy
Pope of Rome,
And the Cardinals' College send for her to leave her
Irish home;
But it's heart-broke she would be itself to cross the
Irish Sea,
'Twould be best they'd send a blessing to my Kerry
cow and me.
When the Ulster men hear tell of her they'll come
with swords and pikes,
For it's civil war there'll be, no less, if they should
see her likes;
And you'll read it in the paper of the bloody fight
there's been,
An' the Orangemen they're burying in fields of Lein-
ster green.
There are red cows that's contrary, and there's white
cows quare an* wild,
But my Kerry cow is biddable an' gentle as a child.
You might rare up kings and heroes on the lovely
milk she yields,
For she's fit to foster generals to fight our battle-
fields.
In the histories they'll be making they've a right
to put her name,
COUNTRY PLEASURES 129
With the horse of Troy and Oisin's hounds and
other beasts of fame.
And the painters will be painting her beneath the
hawthorn bough,
Where she's grazing on the good green grass my
little Kerry cow.
W. M. LETTS.
The Grapevine Swing.
T 71 THEN I was a boy on the old plantation,
V V Down by the deep bayou,
The fairest spot of all creation,
Under the arching blue,
When the wind came over the cotton and corn,
To the long slim loop I'd spring,
With brown feet bare, and a hat-brim torn
And swing in the grapevine swing.
Swinging in the grapevine swing,
Laughing where the wild birds sing
I dream and sigh
For the days gone by,
Swinging in the grapevine swing.
130 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Out o'er the water-lilies bonnie and bright,
Back to the moss-grown trees;
I shouted and laughed with a heart as light
As a wild rose tossed by the breeze.
The mocking-bird joined in my reckless glee,
I longed for no angel's wing;
I was just as near heaven as I wanted to be,
Swinging in the grapevine swing.
Swinging in the grapevine swing
Laughing where the wild birds sing
Oh, to be a boy,
With a heart full of joy,
Swinging in the grapevine swing.
I'm weary at morn, I'm weary at night,
I'm fretted and sore of heart;
And care is sowing my locks with white
As I wend through the fevered mart.
I'm tired of the world, with its pride and pomp,
And fame seems a worthless thing;
I'd barter it all for one day's romp,
And a swing in the grapevine swing.
Swinging in the grapevine swing,
Laughing where the wild birds sing
I would I were away
COUNTRY PLEASURES 131
From the world to-day,
Swinging in the grapevine swing.
SAMUEL, M. PECK.
A Rhyme of Tyringham.
DOWN in the meadow and up on the height
The breezes are blowing the willows white.
In the elms and maples the robins call,
And the great black crows sail over all
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
The river winds through the trees and the brake
And the meadow-grass like a shining snake ;
And low in the summer and loud in the spring
The rapids and reaches murmur and sing
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
In the shadowy pools the trout are shy,
So creep to the bank and cast the fly !
What thrills and tremors the tense cords stir
When the trout it strikes with a tug and whir
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley!
At dark of the day the mist spreads white
Like a magic lake in the glimmering light;
132 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Or the winds from the meadows the white mists blow,
And the fireflies glitter, a sky below,
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
And oh, in the windy days of the fall
The maples and elms are scarlet all,
And the world that was green is gold and red,
And with huskings and cider they're late to bed
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley!
Now squirrel and partridge and hawk and hare
And wildcat and woodchuck and fox beware!
The three days' hunt is waxing warm
For the count-up dinner at Riverside Farm
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley.
The meadow-ice will be freezing soon,
And then for a skate by the light of the moon.
So pile the wood on the hearth, my boy!
Winter is coming! I wish you joy
By the light of the hearth and the moon, my boy,
In Tyringham, Tyringham Valley!
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
COUNTRY PLEASURES 133
Harvest Home.
COME, sons of Summer, by whose toil
We are the lords of wine and oil ;
Crowned with the ears of corn, now come
And to the pipe sing " harvest home."
Come forth, my lord, and see the cart
Dressed up with all the country art,
Horses, mares, and frisking fillies
Clad all in linen white as lilies.
The harvest swains and wenches bound
For joy to see the wagon crowned:
About the cart, hear how the rout
Of rural younglings raise the shout;
Pressing before some coming after,
Those with a shout and these with laughter;
Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves,
Some bind their brows with oaken leaves.
ROBERT HERRICK.
The Husking.
(Prom " Mabel Martin.")
I
T was the pleasant harvest-time,
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,
134 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And the old swallow-haunted barns,
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Through which the moted sunlight streams,
And winds blow freshly in, to shake
The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
And the loose hay-mow's scented locks,
Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.
On Esek Harden's oaken floor,
With many an autumn threshing worn,
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.
And thither came young men and maids,
Beneath a moon that, large and low,
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.
They took their places ; some by chance,
And others by a merry voice
Or sweet smile guided to their choice.
How pleasantly the rising moon,
Between the shadow of the mows,
Looked on them through the great elm-boughs 1
COUNTRY PLEASURES 135
On sturdy boyhood, sun-embrowned,
On girlhood with its solid curves
Of healthful strength and painless nerves!
And jests went round, and laughs that made
The house-dog answer with his howl,
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl;
And quaint old songs their fathers sung
In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors,
Ere Norman William trod their shores ;
And tales, whose merry license shook
The fat sides of the Saxon thane,
Forgetful of the hovering Dane,
Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known,
The charms and riddles that beguiled
On Oxus' banks the young world's child,
That primal picture-speech wherein
Have youth and maid the story told,
So new in each, so dateless old,
Recalling pastoral Ruth in her
Who waited, blushing and demure,
The red ear's kiss of forfeiture.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
136 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
De Jingle ob de Bells.
IN spring, when de fields are all kivered wid green,
An' de clover bloom smells in de a'r,
An' de wet in de grass kinder tickles yer feet,
An' de red bugs mek er nigger sw'ar,
Den am de time dat de darkey lubs de mos',
When dey come erlong home 'hind der plows,
In de cool ob de day, when dey hears all erroun'
De jingle ob de bells on de cows.
When de jimpson-weed pops up outen de groun*
An' de dog-fennel runs it er race,
An* when de lightnin'-bug do scatter roun' its sparks,
An' dabs 'em now an' den in yer face,
Den comes de music dat am sweetes' an' bes'
At leasten dat's how dis darkey 'lows,
As softly dar ripples f roo pastures o' green
De ringin' ob de bells on de cows.
When, de bluebird comes wid er straw in its beak
To de hole whar de woodpecker bored,
When red-breasted robin hunts erroun' fer der mud,
When de black swallow swings in de gourd,
Den f om de ole meadows 'way down by de crick,
Or de orchard neaf young apple-boughs,
Steals gently de musical sound dat we lub
De tinkle ob de bells on de cows.
COUNTRY PLEASURES 137
When de sun goes down in er thick clump o' pines,
When de frawg in de swamp 'gins to croak,
An' de whippoorwill jines wid er doleful chune,
While de ole owl hoots in de oak;
On de sof breeze dat comes loaded down wid its
sweets
F'om de meadow whar slick cattle browse,
Dar floats, wid er freshness dat nebber gits ole,
De jingle ob de bells on de cows. \
EDWARD A. OLDHAM.
The Pumpkin.
O GREENLY and fair in the lands of the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon
run,
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all
gold,
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,
While he waited to know that his warning was true,
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.
On the banks of the Xenil, the dark Spanish maiden
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden ;
138 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold
Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of
gold;
Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,
Where crooknecks are coiling and yellow fruit
shines,
And the sun of September melts down on his vines.
Ah ! on Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from
West,
From North and from South come the pilgrim and
guest,
When the gray-haired New-Englander sees round his
board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once
more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled
before,
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin-
pie?
Oh, fruit loved of boyhood ! the old days recalling ;
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts
were falling!
COUNTRY PLEASURES 139
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts
all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her
team!
Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or
better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking than
thine !
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to ex-
press,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine
grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own pumpkin-pie !
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
140 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The Garden of King Alcinoiis.
(From "The Odyssey," Book VII.)
OUTSIDE the courtyard stretched a planted
space
Of orchard, and a fence environed all the place.
There, in full prime, the orchard-trees grew tall,
Sweet fig, pomegranate, apple fruited fair,
Pear and the healthful olive. Each and all
Both summer droughts and chills of winter spare.
All the year round they flourish. Some the air
Of zephyr warms to life, some doth mature,
Apple grows old on apple, pear on pear,
Fig follows fig, vintage doth vintage lure;
Thus the rich revolution doth for age endure.
With well-sunned floor for drying, there is seen
The vineyard. Here the grapes they cull, there
tread.
Here falls the blossom from the clusters green,
There the first blushings by the suns are shed.
Last, flowers forever fadeless, bed by bed;
Two streams : one waters the whole garden fair ;
One through the courtyard, near the house is led,
Whereto with pitcher all the folk repair,
All these the God-sent gifts to King Alcinoiis were.
HOMEE. (TRANS. BY P. S. WOESLEY.)
COUNTRY PLEASURES 141
An Idyl of Harvest-Time.
Q^WIFT cloud, swift light, now dark, now bright,
kJ across the landscape played;
And, spotted as a leopard's side in chasing sun and
shade,
To far dim heights and purple vales the upland
rolled away,
Where the soft, warm haze of summer days on all
the distance lay.
From shorn and hoary harvest-fields to barn and
bristling stack,
The wagon bore its beetling loads, or clattered empty
back;
The leaning oxen clashed their horns and swayed
along the road,
And the old house-dog lolled beside, in the shadow of
the load.
The children played among the sheaves, the hawk
went sailing over,
The yellowbird was on the bough, the bee was on
the clover,
While at my easel by the oak I sketched, and sketched
in vain ;
Could I but group those harvesters, paint sunshine
on the grain!
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
While everywhere, in the golden air, the soul of
beauty swims,
It will not guide my feeble touch, nor light the hand
that limns.
(The load moves on that cloud is gone! I must
keep down the glare
Of sunshine on my stubble-land. Those boys are
my despair!)
My fancies flit away at last, and wander like the
gleams
Of shifting light along the hills, and drift away in
dreams ;
Till, coming round the farmhouse porch and down
the shady lane,
A form is seen, half hid, between the stocks of shaggy
grain.
Beside my easej, at the oak, I wait to see her pass.
'Tis luncheon-time: the harvesters are resting on the
grass.
I watch her coming to the gap, and envy Master
Ben
Who meets her there, and helps to bear her basket to
the men.
In the flushed farmer's welcoming smile, there beams
a father's pride.
COUNTRY PLEASURES 143
More quiet grows, more redly glows, the shy youth
by his side:
In the soft passion of his look, and in her kind,
bright glance,
I learn a little mystery, I read a sweet romance.
With pewter mug, and old brown jug, she laughing
kneels: I hear
The liquid ripple of her lisp, with the gurgle of the
beer.
That native grace, that charming face, those glances
coy and sweet,
Ben, with the basket, grinning near my grouping
is complete!
The picture grows, the landscape flows, and heart
and fancy burn,
The figures start beneath my brush! (So you the
rule may learn:
Let thought be thrilled with sympathy, right touch
and tone to give,
And mix your colors with heart's blood, to make the
canvas live.)
All this was half a year ago: I find the sketch to-
day,
Faulty and crude enough, no doubt, but it wafts my
soul away!
144 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
I tack it to the wall, and lo! despite the winter's
gloom,
It makes a little spot of sun and summer in my
room.
Again the swift cloud-shadow sweeps across the
stocks of rye ;
The cricket trills, the locust shrills, the hawk goes
sailing by;
The yellowbird is on the bough, the bee is on the
thistle,
The quail is near " Ha hoyt ! " I hear his almost
human whistle !
JOHN T. TEOWBEIDGE.
From "The Old Barn."
HUSKING
AH, the buxom girls that helped the boys
The nobler Helens of humbler Troys
As they stripped the husks with rustling fold
From eight-rowed corn as yellow as gold,
By the candle-light in pumpkin bowls,
And the gleams that showed fantastic holes
COUNTRY PLEASURES 145
In the quaint old lantern's tattooed tin,
From the hermit glim set up within;
By the rarer light in girlish eyes
As dark as wells, or as blue as skies.
I hear the laugh when the ear is red,
I see the blush with the forfeit paid,
The cedar cakes with the ancient twist,
The cider cup that the girls have kissed,
And I see the fiddler through the dusk
As he twangs the ghost of " Money Musk ! "
The boys and girls in a double row
Wait face to face till the magic bow
Shall whip the tune from the violin
And the merry pulse of the feet begin.
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.
Our Homestead.
OUR old brown homestead reared its walls
From the wayside dust aloof,
Where the apple-boughs could almost cast
Their fruit upon its roof ;
146 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And the cherry-tree so near it grew
That when awake I've lain
In the lonesome nights, I've heard the limbs
As they creaked against the pane;
And those orchard-trees, oh, those orchard-trees !
I've seen my little brothers rocked
In their tops by the summer breeze.
The sweetbrier, under the window-sill,
Which the early birds made glad,
And the damask rose, by the garden-fence,
Were all the flowers we had.
I've looked at many a flower since then,
Exotics rich and rare,
That to other eyes were lovelier
But not to me so fair;
For those roses bright, oh, those roses bright!
I have twined them in my sister's locks,
That are hid in the dust from sight.
We had a well, a deep old well,
Where the spring was never dry,
And the cool drops down from the mossy stones
Were falling constantly,
And there never was water half so sweet
As the draught which filled my cup,
COUNTRY PLEASURES 147
Drawn up to the curb by the rude old sweep
That my father's hand set up.
And that deep old well, oh, that deep old well!
I remember now the plashing sound
Of the bucket as it fell.
Our homestead had an ample hearth,
Where at night we loved to meet ;
There my mother's voice was always kind,
And her smile was always sweet;
And there I've sat on my father's knee,
And watched his thoughtful brow,
With my childish hand in his raven hair,
That hair is silver now!
But that broad hearth's light, oh, that broad hearth's
light!
And my father's look, and my mother's smile,
They are in my heart to-night!
PHCEBE CAEY.
COUNTRY BLESSINGS
The Country Faith.
HERE in the country's heart
Where the grass is green,
Life is the same sweet life
!As it e'er hath been.
Trust in a God still lives,
And the bell at morn
Floats with a thought of God
O'er the rising corn.
God comes down in the rain,
And the crop grows tall
This is the country faith,
And the best of all !
NOKMAN GALE.
Ode on Solitude.
HAPPY the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
151
152 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
. In winter, fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence which most doth please
With meditation.
Thus let me live unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented, let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
ALEXANDER POPE.
A Country Life.
SWEET country life, to such unknown,
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee.
Thou never plow'st the ocean's foam,
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 153
To seek and bring rough pepper home;
Nor to the eastern Ind dost rove,
To bring from thence the scorched clove ;
Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the west.
No; thy ambition's masterpiece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece;
Or how to pay thy hinds, 1 and clear
All scores, and so to end the year ;
But walk'st about thy own dear grounds,
Not craving others' larger bounds;
For well thou know'st 'tis not th' extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.
When now the cock, the plowman's horn,
Calls for the lily-wristed morn,
Then to thy cornfields thou dost go,
Which, though well soil'd, yet thou dost know
That the best compost for the lands
Is the wise master's feet and hands.
There, at the plow, thou find'st thy team,
With a hind whistling there to them ;
And cheer'st them up by singing how
The kingdom's portion is the plow.
This done, then to th' enamel'd meads
Thou go'st ; and, as thy foot there treads,
Thou seest a present godlike power
i Farm-hands.
154* POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Imprinted in each herb and flower;
And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,
Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.
Here thou behold'st thy large, sleek neat, 1
Unto the dewlaps up in meat;
And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,
The heifer, cow, and ox, draw near,
To make a pleasing pastime there.
These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks
Of sheep, safe from the wolf and fox;
And find'st their bellies there as full
Of short sweet grass, as backs with wool ;
And leav'st them, as they feed and fill,
A shepherd piping on the hill.
For sports, for pageantry, and plays,
Thou hast thy eves and holy-days,
On which the young men and maids meet
To exercise their dancing feet ;
Tripping the comely country round,
With daffodils and daisies crown'd.
Thy wakes, thy quintels, 2 here thou hast,
Thy May-poles, too, with garlands graced;
Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun ale,
Thy shearing feast, which never fail;
Thy harvest-home, thy wassail-bowl,
i Cattle. 2 A kind of tilting game.
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 155
That's tost up after f ox-i'-th'-hole ; 1
Thy mummeries, thy Twelfth-night kings
And queens, and Christmas revelings;
Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit,
And no man pays too dear for it.
To these thou hast thy time to go,
And trace the hare in the treacherous snow :
Thy witty wiles to draw, and get
The lark into the trammel-net ;
Thou hast thy cock-rood, and thy glade,
To take the precious pheasant made !
Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pitfalls, then,
To catch the pilfering birds, not men.
O happy life, if that their good
The husbandmen but understood!
Who all the day themselves do please,
And younglings, with such sports as these;
And, lying down, have nought t' affright
Sweet sleep, that makes more short the night.
ROBERT HERRICK.
i A game.
156 POEMS OF COUNTRY! LIFE
A Harvest Hymn.
God! our heartfelt thanks to Thee!
VJT We feel Thy presence everywhere;
And pray that we may ever be
Thus objects of Thy guardian care.
We sowed ! by Thee our work was seen,
And blessed; and instantly went forth
Thy mandate; and in living green
Soon smiled the fair and fruitful earth.
We toiled ! and Thou didst note our toil,
And gav'st the sunshine and the rain,
Till ripened on the teeming soil
The fragrant grass, and golden grain.
And now, we reap ! and oh, our God !
From this, the earth's unbounded floor,
We send our Song of Thanks abroad,
And pray Thee, bless our hoarded store !
W. D. GALLAGHER.
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 157
In Praise of Country Life.
(Epistles I. 10: To Aristius Fuscus.)
TO Fuscus, our most city-loving friend,
We, lovers of the country, greeting send
We, whom in this most diverse views divide,
Though well-nigh twins in everything beside.
True mental brothers we what one denies
The other questions ; and in selfsame wise
Are we in fancies one, in tastes, in loves,
As any pair of year-long mated doves.
You keep the nest ; I love the country brooks,
The moss-grown rocks, and shady woodland nooks.
And why? Because I live and am a king,
The moment I can far behind me fling
What you extol with rapture to the skies ;
And, like the slave that from the temple flies,
Because on sweet-cakes he is daily fed,
So I, a simple soul, lack simple bread,
With honey'd dainties pall'd and surfeited.,
If it be proper, as it ever was,
To live in consonance with Nature's laws;
Or if we'd seek a spot, whereon to raise
A home to shelter our declining days,
What place so fitting as the country ? Where
Comes nipping winter with a kindlier air?
Where find we breezes balmier to cool
158 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The fiery dog-days, when the sun's at full?
Or where is envious care less apt to creep,
And scare the blessings of heart-easing sleep?
Is floor mosaic, gemm'd with malachite,
One half so fragrant or one half so bright
As the sweet herbage? Or the stream town-fed,
That frets to burst its cerements of lead,
More pure than that which shoots and gleams along,
Murmuring its low and lulling undersong?
Nay, nay, your veriest townsman loves to shade
With sylvan green his stately colonnade ;
And his is deemed the finest house which yields
The finest prospect of the open fields.
Turn Nature, neck-and-shoulders, out of door,
She'll find her way to where she was before ;
And imperceptibly in time subdue
Wealth's sickly fancies, and her tastes untrue.
The man that's wholly skilless to descry
The common purple from the Tyrian dye,
Will take no surer harm, nor one that more
Strikes to his marrow in its inmost core,
Than he who knows not with instinctive sense
To sever truth from falsehood and pretense.
Whoe'er hath wildly wantoned in success,
Him will adversity the more depress.
What's dearly prized we grudgingly forego.
Shun mighty aims ; the lowliest roof may know
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 159
A life that more of heartfelt comfort brings,
Than kings have tasted, or the friends of kings.
Once on a time a stag, at antlers' point,
Expelled a horse he'd worsted, from the joint
.Enjoyment of the pasture both had cropp'd:
Still, when he ventured near it, rudely stopped,
The steed called in man's aid, and took the bit :
Thus backed, he charged the stag, and conquer'd it.
But woe the while ! nor rider, bit, nor rein
Could he shake off, and be himself again.
So he, who, fearing poverty, hath sold
His freedom, better than uncounted gold,
Will bear a master and a master's laws,
And be a slave unto the end, because
He will not learn, what fits him most to know,
How far, discreetly used, small means will go.
Whene'er our mind's at war with our estate,
Like an ill shoe, it trips us if too great ;
Too small, it pinches. Thou art wisely bent
To live, Aristius, with thy lot content;
Nor wilt thou fail to chide in me the itch,
Should it infect me, to be greatly rich ;
For hoarded wealth is either slave or lord,
And should itself be pulled, not pull the cord
These near Vacuna's crumbling fane I've penned,
Blest, save in this, in lacking thee, my friend.
HOEACE. (TRANS. BY SIE THEODORE MARTIN.)
160 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Coridon's Song,
(From " The Compleat Angler.")
OH the sweet contentment
The countryman doth find 1
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lee.
That quiet contemplation
Possesseth all my mind:
Then care away,
And wend along with me.
For courts are full of flattery,
As hath too oft been tried;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lee.
The city full of wantonness,
And both are full of pride:
Then care away,
And wend along with me.
But oh, the honest countryman
Speaks truly from his heart.
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lee.
His pride is in his tillage,
His horses, and his cart:
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 161
Then care away,
And wend along with me.
Our clothing is good sheepskins,
Gray russet for our wives ;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lee.
'Tis warmth and not gay clothing
That doth prolong our lives :
Then care away,
And wend along with me.
The plowman, tho' he labor hard,
Yet on the holy-day,
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lee.
No emperor so merrily
Does pass his time away:
Then care away,
And wend along with me.
To recompense our tillage,
The heavens afford us showers;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lee.
And for our sweet refreshments
The earth affords us bowers :
162 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Then care away,
And wend along with me.
The cuckow and the nightingale
Full merrily do sing,
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lee.
And with their pleasant roundelays
Bid welcome to the spring:
Then care away,
And wend along with me.
This is not half the happiness
The countryman enjoys;
Heigh trolollie lollie loe,
Heigh trolollie lee.
Though others think they have as much,
Yet he that says so lies :
Then come away,
Turn countrymen with me.
IZAAK WALTON.
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 163
Country Peace.
COUNTRY peace, the warbling birds,
Friendly faces and friendly words,
Grassy fields and tranquil streams,
Cloudlands beautiful as dreams,
Singing brooks that wander slow
Where buttercups and daisies grow,
Old barn-roofs where drowsy doves
Sit in the sun and tell their loves,
Robins whistling clear and sweet
Over the acres of swaying wheat,
Children playing among the flowers
And singing away the sunny hours,
Rosy country girls and boys
Filling the day with happy noise,
Old-time garden-walks that seem
Haunts of reverie and dream,
Poets' books to read at ease
Under the bowering apple-trees,
164* POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Memories that wistful go
Back to the golden Long Ago,
Faith that He who rules above
Encompasses this earth with love,
Faith that His mercies never cease :
These are the joys of country peace.
J. RUSSELL HAYS.
Green Things Growing.
OTHE green things growing, the green things
growing,
The faint, sweet smell of the green things growing !
I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,
Just to watch the happy life of my green things
growing.
the fluttering and the pattering of those green
things growing!
How they talk each to each, when none of us are
knowing ;
In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight
Or the dim, dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing.
1 love, I love them so my green things growing !
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 165
And I think that they love me, without false show-
ing;
For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so
much,
With the soft, mute comfort of green things grow-
ing.
And in the rich store of their blossoms glowing
Ten for one I take they're on me bestowing :
Oh, I should like to see, if God's will it may be,
Many, many a summer of my green things growing !
But if I must be gathered for the angel's sowing,
Sleep out of sight awhile, like the green things grow-
ing*
Though dust to dust return, I think I'll scarcely
mourn,
If I may change into green things growing.
DINAH M. CRAIK (Miss MULOCK).
To the Fields.
BE thankful to the fields,
Though summer's sweets lie dead;
It was their fleece that clothed you,
Their green blades brought you bread.
FRANK L. STANTON.
166 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The Song of Peace.
THE grass is green on Bunker Hill,
The waters sweet in Brandywine;
The sword sleeps in the scabbard still,
The farmer keeps his flock and vine ;
Then who would mar the scene to-day
With vaunt of battlefield or fray?
The brave corn lifts in regiments
Ten thousand sabers in the sun;
The ricks replace the battle tents,
The banner-tassels toss and run.
The neighing steed, the bugle's blast,
These be but stories of the past.
The earth has healed her wounded breast,
The cannons plow the field no more;
The heroes rest! Oh, let them rest
In peace along the peaceful shore !
They fought for peace, for peace they fell ;
They sleep in peace, and all is well.
The fields forget the battles fought,
The trenches wave in golden grain;
Shall we neglect the lessons taught,
And tear the wounds agape again?
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 167
Sweet Mother Nature, nurse the land,
And heal her wounds with gentle hand.
Lo ! peace on earth ! Lo ! flock and fold !
Lo ! rich abundance, fat increase,
And valleys clad in sheen of gold !
Oh, rise and sing a song of peace!
For Theseus roams the land no more,
And Janus rests with rusted door.
JOAQUIN MlI/LEB.
Harvest Song.
1LOVE, I love to see
Bright steel gleam through the land ;
'Tis a goodly sight, but it must be
In the reaper's tawny hand.
The helmet and the spear
Are twined with the laurel wreath ;
But the trophy is wet with the orphan's tear ;
And blood-spots rust beneath.
I love to see the field
That is moist with purple stain,
168 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
But not where bullet, sword and shield
Lie strewn with the gory slain.
No, no ; 'tis where the sun
Shoots down his cloudless beams,
Till rich and bursting juice-drops run
On the vineyard earth in streams.
My glowing heart beats high
At the sight of shining gold;
But it is not that which the miser's eye
Delighteth to behold.
A brighter wealth by far
Than the deep mine's yellow vein,
Is seen around in the fair hills crowned
With sheaves of burnished grain.
Look forth, thou thoughtless one,
Whose proud knee never bends ;
Take thou the bread that's daily spread,
But think on Him who sends.
Look forth, ye toiling men,
Though little ye possess,
Be glad that dearth is not on earth
To make that little less.
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 169
Let the song of praise be poured
In gratitude and joy,
By the rich man with his garners stored
And the ragged gleaner-boy.
The feast that Nature gives
Is not for one alone;
'Tis shared by the meanest slave that lives
And the tenant of a throne.
Then glory to the steel
That shines in the reaper's hand,
And thanks to Him who has blest the seed
And crowned the harvest-land.
ELIZA COOK.
From "Lines on Revisiting the Country."
I STAND upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer
sky,
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scoop'd between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.
170 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Here, I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air;
And where the season's milder fervors beat,
And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear
The song of bird, and sound of running stream,
Am come a while to wander and to dream.
Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun ! thou canst not wake,
In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen.
The maize-leaf and the maple-bough but take,
From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green.
The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray,
Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away.
The mountain wind ! most spiritual thing of all
The wide earth knows when, in the sultry time,
He stoops him from his vast, cerulean hall,
He seems the breath of a celestial clime ;
As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow
Health and refreshment on the world below.
WILLIAM CULLEN BEYANT.
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 171
Out in the Fields with God.
THE little cares that fretted me,
I lost them yesterday,
Among the fields, above the sea,
Among the winds at play ;
Among the lowing of the herds,
The rustling of the trees,
Among the singing of the birds,
The humming of the bees.
The foolish fears of what may happen,
I cast them all away
Among the clover-scented grass,
Among the new-mown hay;
Among the rustling of the corn,
Where the drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born,
Out in the fields with God.
ANONYMOUS.
Shepherd's Sabbath Hymn.
"T is the Sabbath Day !
Alone am I, 'mid spaces wide;
One bell rings on, and none beside;
Now that has died away.
I
172 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
I bow a reverent knee;
Uplift mysterious and divine!
Forms all unseen seem knelt with mine,
And many pray with me.
The heavens stretch far away,
So radiant and of hue so clear
Eternity seems urging near.
It is the Sabbath Day!
LUDWIG UHLAND. (TRANS. BY G. S. B.)
From "Wayfaring."
THE dusty courtyard flags and walls
Are like a prison gate of stone,
To every spirit for whose breath
The long sweet hill-winds once have blown.
But waiting in the fields for them
I see the ancient Mother stand,
With the old courage of her smile,
The patience of her sunbrown hand.
They heed her not, until there comes
A breath of sleep upon their eyes,
COUNTRY BLESSINGS 173
A drift of dust upon their face ;
Then in the closing dusk they rise,
And turn them to the empty doors ;
But she within whose hands alone
The days are gathered up as fruit,
Doth habit not in brick and stone.
But where the wild, shy things abide,
Along the woodside and the wheat,
Is her abiding, deep withdrawn;
And there the footing of her feet.
BLISS CARMAN.
COUNTRY FUN
Watching the Crows.
f f /~^1A W, caw! " you don't say so ! " Caw,
V-' caw!" What, once more?
Seems to me I've heard that observation before,
And I wish you would some time begin to talk sense.
Come, I've sat here about long enough on the fence,
And I'd like you to tell me in confidence what
Are your present intentions regarding this lot?
Why don't you do something? or else go away?
" Caw, caw ! " Does that mean that they'll go or
they'll stay?
;While I'm watching to learn what they're up to, I
see
That for similar reasons they're just watching me!
That's right ! Now be brave, and I'll show you some
fun!
Just light within twenty-nine yards of my gun!
I've hunted and hunted you all round the lot,
Now you must come here, if you want to be shot!
'* Caw, caw! " There they go again ! Isn't it
strange
177
178 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
How they always contrive to keep just out of range?
The scamps have been shot at so often, they know
To a rod just how far the old shotgun will throw.
Now I've thought how I'll serve 'em to-morrow: I'll
play
The game old Jack Haskell played with 'em one day.
His snares wouldn't catch 'em, his traps wouldn't
spring,
And, in spite of the very best guns he could bring
/To bear on the subject, the powder he spent,
And the terriblest scarecrows his wits could invent
Loud-clattering windmills and fluttering flags,
'Straw-stuffed old codgers rigged out in his rags,
And looking quite lifelike in tail-coat and cap,
Twine stretched round the cornfield, suggesting a
trap,
Spite of all, and he did all that ever a man did,
They pulled his corn almost before it was planted !
Then he built him an ambush right out in the field,
Where a man could lie down at his ease, quite con-
cealed ;
But though he kept watch in it, day after day,
And the thieves would light on it when he was away,
And tear up the corn all around it, not once
Did a crow, young or old, show himself such a dunce
COUNTRY FUN 179
As to come within hail while the old man was there;
For they are the cunningest fools, I declare!
And, seeing him enter, they reasoned, no doubt,
That he must be in there until he came out!
Then, one morning, says he to young Jack, " Now I
bet
I've got an idee that'll do for 'em yet!
Go with me down into the corn-lot to-day;
Then, when I'm well placed in the ambush, I'll stay,
While you shoulder your gun and march back to the
barn;
For there's this leetle notion crows never could larn:
They can't count, as I'll show ye ! " And show him
he did!
Young Haskell went home while old Haskell lay hid.
And the crows' education had been so neglected,
They were so poor in figures, they never sus-
pected,
If two had come down, and one only went back,
Then one must remain ! So, no sooner was Jack
Out of sight, than again to the field they came flock-
ing
As thick as three rats in a little boy's stocking.
They darkened the air, and they blackened the
ground ;
180 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
They came in a cloud to the windmill, and drowned
Its loudest clack-clack with a louder caw-caw!
They lit on the tail-coat, and laughed at the straw.
" By time ! " says old Jack, " now I've got ye ! "
Bang! bang!
Blazed his short double-shooter right into the gang!
Then, picking the dead crows up out of the dirt, he
Was pleased to perceive that he'd killed about thirty !
Now that's just the way I'll astonish the rascals !
I'll set up an ambush, like old Mr. Haskell's
" Caw, caw! " You're as knowing a bird as I know ;
But there are things a little too deep for a crow !
Just add one to one now, and what's the amount ?
You're mighty cute creeturs, but, then, you can't
count !
You'll see if I don't get a shot ! Yes, I'll borrow
Another boy somewhere and try ye to-morrow \
JOHN T. TEOWBRIDGE.
Country Sleighing.
A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE
IN January, when down the dairy
The cream and clabber freeze,
When snow-drifts cover the fences over,
COUNTRY FUN 181
We farmers take our ease.
At night we rig the team,
And bring the cutter out ;
Then fill it, fill it, fill it, fill it,
And heap the furs about.
Here friends and cousins dash up by dozens,
And sleighs at least a score;
There John and Molly, behind, are jolly,
Nell rides with me, before.
All down the village street
We range us in a row:
Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle,
And over the crispy snow !
The windows glisten, the old folks listen
To hear the sleigh-bells pass ;
The fields grow whiter, the stars are brighter,
The road is smooth as glass.
Our muffled faces burn,
The clear north-wind grows cold,
The girls all nestle, nestle, nestle,
Each in her lover's hold.
Through bridge and gateway we're shooting straight-
way,
Their tollman was too slow !
182 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
He'll listen after our song and laughter
As over the hill we go.
The girls cry, " Fie ! for shame ! "
Their cheeks and lips are red,
And so with kisses, kisses, kisses,
They take the toll instead.
Still follow, follow ! across the hollow
The tavern fronts the road.
Whoa, now ! all steady ! the host is ready,
He knows the country mode !
The irons are in the fire,
The hissing flip is got;
So pour and sip it, sip it, sip it,
And sip it while 'tis hot.
Push back the tables, and from the stables
Bring Tom, the fiddler, in;
All take your places, and make your graces,
And let the dance begin.
The girls are beating time
To hear the music sound;
Now foot it, foot it, foot it, foot it,
And swing your partners round.
Last couple toward the left! all forward!
Cotillons through, let's wheel:
COUNTRY FUN 183
First tune the fiddle, then down the middle
In old Virginia Reel.
Play Money Musk to close,
Then take the " long chasse,"
While in to supper, supper, supper,
The landlord leads the way.
The bells are ringing, the ostlers bringing
The cutters up anew ;
The beasts are neighing; too long we're staying,
The night is half-way through.
Wrap close the buffalo-robes,
We're all aboard once more ;
Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle,
Away from the tavern door.
So follow, follow, by hill and hollow,
And swiftly homeward glide.
What midnight splendor ! how warm and tender
The maiden by your side !
The sleighs drop far apart,
Her words are soft and low;
Now, if you love her, love her, love her, .
'Tis safe to tell her so.
EDMUND C. STEDMAN.
184 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The Miller and the Maid.
ACROSS the heath and down the hiU,
Aback of patient Dobbin,
The farmer's daughter rides to mill,
And mocks the thrush and robin.
For saddle she's a sack of grain,
She sidewise sits and chirrups;
A finger in old Dobbin's mane
Is good as forty stirrups.
The miller comes a merry blade !
And doffs his hat and greets her:
" What wish you here, my pretty maid? "
" I've brought a sack of wheat, sir."
" And have you gold to give for grist? "
" Not I, we're poor, alack ! sir ;
But take your toll a tenth, I wist
From what is in my sack, sir."
He lifts her lightly from her seat,
And laughs a merry miller !
" I cannot take my toll in wheat,
I must have gold or siller.
COUNTRY FUN 185
" But since you've brought nor coin nor scrip,"
He smiles and fondly eyes her
" I'll ask no toll but from your lip :
One kiss! who'll be the wiser? "
The maiden blushed and bowed her head,
And with her apron fingered,
And pouted out her lips of red
Where countless kisses lingered.
"A single kiss?" (She smiled in glee,
As who would say, " I've caught you.")
" My father said your toll would be
A tenth of what I brought you."
The mill-stream shouted to the sands :
" He kissed the farmer's daughter ! "
But the grim old wheel stretched out its hands
And spanked the saucy water.
F. N. SCOTT.
Shindig in the Country.
SHINDIG in the country,
"Git your places all!"
Nothin' been doin'
Since 'way last fall.
186 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Children on the stairway,
Fiddler on the box,
Caller in the middle,
Yelpin' like a fox.
" Shanghai, git your Banty
Lordy, but you're tall
Swing 'em to their places -^
An' balance All!"
Soon as it is over,
Partners for a waltz!
Half a dozen couples,
Fiddler never halts.
Partners for a shottish,
Time a little fast,
Collars gittin' hottish,
Doubt if they'll last.
Handkerchiefs inside 'em,
Nex' is Ladies' Choice
That's the thing that makes a
Feller's heart rejoice.
" Bluebird in the center 'n*
Seven han's round,
Swing 'em to their places 'n'
Everybody pound 1
COUNTRY FUN 187
Balance to your Honey,
Alaman, I say
Run an' git your Guinny,
An' all Chaw Hay!
Come ahead, my Lady,
That's the proper thing
On to the next, balance
All Cheat or Swing!"
Now the older people,
Have their set alone ;
Show young folks some things
That they've never known.
Gran'pap's carpet slippers
Gratin' as they go,
Gran'ma doesy-doin'
Same as long ago.
Young folk all a-gigglin',
Children snickerin', too;
Gran'pap cuts the pigeon-wing,
Sorry when they're through!
Supper is now ready,
Coffee float a stone,
Ham an' bread an' butter,
Best you've ever known,
188 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Punkin pie and pickles,
Jelly-cake in layers
Nothin' any better'n
Country bill-o'-fares.
Cider- jug a passin',
Kind o' bitey, too
Candy hearts, with somethin'
Like, " I Love You ! "
Now for " Old Dan Tucker,"
Young an' old an' small,
Everybody singin',
Dancin' one an' all.
Gran'pap with a youngin,
Gran'ma with one, too ;
Everybody cuttin' up
Monkey-shinin' you!
Then a waltz an' shottish,
Polka, toe-an'-heel,
One more just to close with
Ole Virginny reel!
Drivin' home a-flyin',
Singin' as they go;
Holler to each other
Hear the roosters crow !
COUNTRY FUN 189
Drivin' past the Parson's,
Wonder what he'll say?
All be out to meetin',
Hear it anyway !
Home at last, an' sleepy,
Puttin' in the rig
Nothin' in the city
Like the Old Shindig!
D. A. ELLSWORTH.
The Plow-Hands' Song.
NIGGER mighty happy w'en he layin' by co'n
Dat sun's a-slantin';
Nigger mighty happy w'en he year de dinner ho'n
Dat sun's a-slantin' ;
En he mo* happy still w'en de night draws on
Dat sun's a-slantin';
Dat sun's a-slantin' des ez sho's you bo'n !
En it's rise up, Primus ! fetch anudder yell :
Dat ole dun cow des a-shakin' up 'er bell,
En de frogs chunin's up 'fo de jew done fell:
Good-night Mr. Killdee! I wish you mighty well!
well!
190 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Mr. Kildee! I wish you mighty "well!
I "wish you mighty well!
De co'n '11 be ready 'g'inst dumplin' day,
Dat sun's a-slantin' ;
But nigger goiter watch, en stick, en stay,
Dat sun's a-slantin' ;
Same ez de bee-martin watchin' un de jay,
Dat's sun's a-slantin';
Dat sun's a-slantin' en a-slippin' away !
Den it's rise up, Primus ! en gin it t' um strong :
De cow's gwine home wid der ding-dang-dong ;
Sling in anudder tech er de ole time song:
Good-night, Mr. WMpperwill! don't stay long!
Mr. Whipperwill! don't stay long!
Don't stay long!
De shadders, dey er creepin' todes de top er de hill,
Dat sun's a-slantin' ;
But night don't 'stroy w'at de day done bun",
Dat sun's a-slantin' ;
'Less de noddin* er de nigger give de ashcake a
chill
Dat sun's a-slantin' ;
Dat sun's a-slantin' en slippin' down still!
Den sing it out, Primus ! des holler en bawl,
En w'ilst we er strippin' deze mules f er de stall,
COUNTRY FUN 191
Let der gals ketch de soun' er de plantashun call:
Oh, it's good-night, ladies! my love unter you all!
Ladies! my love unter you all!
My love unter you all!
JOEL CHANDLER UAIIUIS.
The Highway Cow.
THE hue of her hide was dusky brown,
Her body was lean and her neck was slim,
One horn was turned up and the other turned down,
She was keen of vision and long of limb ;
With a Roman nose and a short stump tail,
And ribs like the hoops on a home-made pail.
Many a mark did her body bear;
She had been a target for all things known ;
On many a scar the dusky hair
Would grow no more where it once had grown;
Many a passionate, parting shot
Had left upon her a lasting spot.
Many and many a well-aimed stone,
Many a brickbat of goodly size,
And many a cudgel swiftly thrown
Had brought the tears to her loving eyes,
192 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Or had bounded off from her bony back
With a noise like the sound of a rifle-crack.
Many a day had she passed in the pound
For helping herself to her neighbor's corn,
Many a cowardly cur and hound
Had been transfixed on her crumpled horn;
Many a teapot and old tin pail
Had the farmer boys tied to her time-worn tail.
Old Deacon Gray was a /pious man,
Though sometimes tempted to be profane,
When many a weary mile he ran
To drive her out of his growing grain.
Sharp were the pranks she used to play
To get her fill and to get away.
She knew when the deacon went to town.
She wisely watched when he went by ;
He never passed her without a frown,
And an evil gleam in each angry eye;
He would crack his whip in a surly way,
And drive along in his " one-horse shay."
Then at his homestead she loved to call,
Lifting his bars with crumpled horn;
COUNTRY FUN 193
Nimbly scaling his garden wall,
Helping herself to his standing corn ;
Eating his cabbages, one by one,
Hurrying home when her work was done.
His human passions were quick to rise,
And striding forth with a savage cry,
With fury blazing from both his eyes
As lightnings flash in a summer sky,
Redder and redder his face would grow,
And after the creature he would go.
Over the garden, round and round,
Breaking his pear and apple trees ;
Tramping his melons into the ground,
Overturning his hives of bees,
Leaving him angry and badly stung,
Wishing the old cow's neck was wrung.
The mosses grew on the garden wall,
The years went by with their work and play,
The boys of the village grew strong and tall,
And the gray-haired farmers passed away
One by one, as the red leaves fall ;
But the highway cow outlived them all.
EUGENE J. HAIX.
POEMS t)F COUNTRY LIFE
The Milkmaid and the Banker.
A MILKMAID with a pretty face,
Who lived at Acton,
Had a black cow, the ugliest in the place,
A crooked-back one,
A beast as dangerous, too, as she was frightful,
Vicious and spiteful;
And so confirmed a truant that she bounded
Over the hedges daily and got pounded:
'Twas in vain to tie her with a tether,
For then both cord and cow eloped together.
Armed with an oaken bough (what folly!
It should have been of thorn, or prickly holly),
Patty one day was driving home the beast,
Which had as usual slipped its anchor,
When on the road she met a certain banker,
Who stopped to give his eyes a feast,
By gazing on her features crimsoned high
By a long cow-chase in July.
" Are you from Acton, pretty lass? " he cried:
" Yes " with a courtesy she replied.
" Why, then, you know the laundress, Sally
Wrench ? *
" Yes, she's my cousin, sir, and next-door neighbor."
" That's lucky I've a message for the wench
Which needs dispatch, and you may save my labor.
COUNTRY FUN 195
Give her this kiss, my dear, and say I sent it:
But, mind, you owe me one I've only lent it."
" She shall know," cried the girl, as she brandished
her bough
" Of the loving intentions you bore me ;
But since you're in haste for the kiss, you'll allow
That you'd better run forward and give it my cow,
For she, at the rate she is scampering now,
Will reach Acton some minutes before me."
HORACE SMITH.
A Smack in School.
A DISTRICT school not far away
'Mid Berkshire Hills, one winter's day,
Was humming with its wonted noise
Of threescore mingled girls and boys ;
Some few upon their tasks intent,
But more on furtive mischief bent,
The while the master's downward look
Was fastened on a copybook;
When suddenly behind his back,
Rose sharp and clear a rouring smack,
As 'twere a battery of bliss
196 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Let off in one tremendous kiss !
"What's that? " the startled master cries;
" That, thir," a little imp replies,
"Wath William Willith, if you pleathe-
I thaw him kith Thuthanna Peathe ! "
With frown to make a statue thrill,
The master thundered, " Hither, Will ! "
Like wretch o'ertaken in his track,
With stolen chattels on his back,
Will hung his head in fear and shame,
And to the awful presence came
A great, green, bashful simpleton,
The butt of all good-natured fun.
With smile suppressed, and birch upraised,
The threatener faltered, " I'm amazed,
That you, my biggest pupil, should
Be guilty of an act so rude!
Before the whole set school to boot
What evil genius put you to 't? "
" 'Twas she herself, sir," sobbed the lad,
" I did not mean to be so bad ;
But when Susanna shook her curls,
And whispered I was 'fraid of girls
And dursn't kiss a baby's doll,
I couldn't stand it, sir, at all,
But up and kissed her on the spot.
I know boo-hoo that I ought not,
COUNTRY FUN 197
But, somehow, from her looks boo-hoo
I thought she kind o' wished me to ! "
WILLIAM P. PALMEB.
Uncle Tascus and the Deed.
U
NCLE Peter Tascus Runnels has been feeble
some of late ;
He has allus been a worker and he sartinly did hate
To confess he couldn't tussle with the spryest any
more,
That he wasn't fit for nothin' but to fub around
an' chore.
When he climbed the stable scaffold t'other day he
had a spell,
Kind o' heart-disease or somethin' an' I heard
he liked to fell.
Guess the prospect sort o' scared him ; so, that ev'nin'
after tea,
After he had smoked a pipeful pretty solemn,
then says he,
" Reckin, son, ye've noticed lately that your dad is
gittin' old,
An' your marm is nigh as feeble ; much as ever
she can scold ! '*
198 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE'
Uncle Tascus said so grinnin' ; for the folks around
here know
That no better-natured woman ever lived than old
Aunt Jo.
" Now, my son," said Uncle Tascus, " you've been
good to me an' marm,
An' you know we allus told ye, ye was sure to have
the farm.
An* we like your wife Lucindy ; there has never been
no touse
As is gen'ly apt to happen with two fam'lys in the
house.
I can't manage as I used to; mother's gittin' pretty
slim,
An' to hold our prop'ty longer is a whim, bub, jest a
whim!
So I'll tell ye what I'm plannin', an' I know that
marm agrees,
We'll sign off an' make it over ; then we'll sort o' take
our ease.
So, hitch up to-morrer mornin' drive us down to
Lawyer True,
Me an' marm will sign the papers, an* we'll deed the
place to you."
Lawyer True looked kind o' doubtful when they told
him what was on.
COUNTRY- FUN 199
" I'll admit," said he, " that no one's got a better
boy than John.
Now don't think I'm interferin' or am prophesyin'
harm,
When I warn ye not to do it; don't ye deed away
your farm.
I have seen so many cases heard 'em tried most
ev'ry term
Where a deed has busted fam'lies, that, I swow, it
makes me squirm
If I'm asked to write a transfer to a relative or son.
Tascus, please excuse my meddlin', but ye hold
it till ye're done."
Uncle Tascus, though, insisted. He was allus rather
sot.
He allowed he'd show the neighbors jest the kind of
son he'd got.
Said he'd show 'em how a Runnels allus stuck by
kith an' kin,
So the lawyer drew the papers an' they started
home agin.
Uncle Tascus held the webbin's he has allus driv'
the hoss
John he chuckled kind o' nervous. Then said he,
" Wai, pa, I'm boss !
Now ye've never got to worry I'm the one to take
the lead,
200 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Things were gettin' kind o' logy guess I'll have to
put on speed.
An' as now I head the fam'ly, an' you're sort of on
the shelf,
Guess I'll " John he took the webbin's " guess
I'd better drive, myself."
Wai, s'r, Uncle Tascus pondered, pondered, pondered
all that day.
An' that evenin' still was pond'rin', as he rocked an'
smoked away.
John he set clus' up t' table, underneath the hangin'
lamp,
Ciph'rin' out that legal paper with its seal an' rev'nue
stamp.
Then he folded it an' chuckled. " That's all right
an' tight," he said,
" Lawyers tie things tighter'n Jehu. Dad, ye'd bet-
ter go to bed.
You an' marm are gettin' feeble ; mustn't have ye up
so late !
I'm the boss " John sort o' te-heed, " so I'll have
to keep ye straight.
'Sides, I'll need ye bright an' early. In the mornin'
hitch the mare,
Take that paper down t' court-house. Have it put
on record there."
COUNTRY FUN 201
Uncle Tascus took the writin', pulled his specs down
on his nose,
Read it over very careful. Then says he, " My son,
I s'poSe
You are jest as good's they make 'em; I hain't got
no fault to find,
You are thrifty, smart, an' stiddy; rather bluff, but
allus kind,
An' I guess you'd prob'ly use us jest as well's ye
really knew,
But I hain't so awful sartin that I'm done an' out an'
through !
Tell ye, son, I've been a-thinkin' since ye took an'
driv' that hoss,
Since ye sort o' throwed your shoulders an al-
lowed that you was boss !
Hate to act so whiffle-minded, but my father used to
say,
' Men would sometimes change opinions ; mules would
stick the same old way.' '
Uncle Tascus tore the paper twice acrost, then calmly
threw
On the fire the shriv'lin' pieces. Poof! They van-
ished up the flue.
" There, bub, run to bed," said Tascus, with his
sweet, old-fashioned smile.
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
" These old hands are sort of shaky, but I guess I'll
drive a while."
HOLMAN F. DAY.
The Feller and the Farmah.
KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
f 'rilHIS heah weatha is a chamah,"
A Sez ther feller teh ther farmah,
" But yeh cawn thar d' yeh mind?
Looks small : don't b'lieve th' meller
El find much thar teh grind."
Sez ther farmah teh ther feller,
" Yas, I planted thet thar kind."
" It's a-gittin' a mite wawmah,"
Sez ther feller teh ther farmah,
" An' yeh cawn thar, sure's yeh bawn,
Is a-lookin' kinder yeller,
Kinder yeller an' fawlahn."
Sez ther farmah teh ther feller,
" Yas, I planted yeller cawn."
COUNTRY FUN 203
" But yeh'll git, as thet cawn b'ahs,
Erbout half a crap er yeller."
'* I don't 'spect no more ; who cahs ? "
Sez ther farmah teh ther feller.
'* Sah, I planted it on shahs."
J. CARTER BEARD.
The Day We Thresh.
fTlHE threshermen's a-comin'! I kin hear the
JL whistle toot!
Gee-whizz, but ain't it jolly fun, with lots o' work to
boot!
An* us boys'll have the biggest time of all the busy
spell,
Jes hangin' roun' the threshin'-'chine, listenin' at 'er
yell.
The big gate's propped wide open, the ditch acrost
is planked;
In struts the noisy traction, her greasy sides all
flanked
With August sunshine's glitter, 'at lights up ev'ry
part,
An* slants plump down the hull concern, clean to the
water-cart.
204- POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The neighbor women all come in to he'p my ma git
dinner,
An' supper, too, ma she's af eard ; she says the hands
all ben er
Moseyin' roun' an' visitin', 'stead o' to their business
hitchin',
While her an* all the women is a-sweatin' in the
kitchen.
The things 'at Christmas fetches, w'y, they couldn't
make a smell
To the grub we have fer threshin' folks the good
things I know well.
Red squince p'esurves, an' chicken pie, an' biled ham
sliced off thin,
Jes makes a feller eat an' eat, an' keeps on shovelin'
in.
My pa he hurries to the barn, an' gits some nice clean
boards,
An' fixes up a table out in the long grape-arbor,
to'ards
That big ole apple-tree, where the birds is keepin'
house,
An' a-quarrelin' an' sassin' as sly as ary mouse.
The girls they spread the table-cloth, an' set the vic-
tuals on,
COUNTRY FUN 205
Fer all their beaus is 'mongst the hands, tall Harry,
Dick, an' Tom;
'At's w'y each girl must have a bush, an' stan' an'
shoo off flies,
All prinked, an' furbelowed, an' frizzed, an' gigglin*
with their eyes.
When men-folks gits through dinner an' the women
all have et,
They set aroun' an' rest a spell, an' gossip some, I
s'pec*,
An' wonder w'y, in threshin'-time, the weather's al'ays
hot.
Nen off they rush to clean things up an' fill the sup-
per-pot.
Sometimes ma mashes lemons the huckster fetched
from town,
An' scoots us off fer water to rench the sugar down.
Nen she joggles it roun' an' roun' an' pours it in a
jug,
An' ties fast to the corn-cob cork a bright new pewter
mug.
The pup an* me, an' Lige, an' Bud, with ole Shed at
our heels,
Take an' carries it, right off, to the men out in the
fiel's,
206 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Who gits mighty dry a-pitchin' big wagginfuls o'
wheat,
An' jes that quick they grab the jug, to he'p cool off
the heat.
We got to hurry right straight back to run some
pullits down,
'At ma wants ketched fer supper, fried in gravy nice
and brown.
Nen us boys plays like we's soldiers, an' whip ole
Spain a spell,
An' wonder when the women-folks will ring the sup-
per-bell.
'Bout five o'clock the men comes in, the grain all
stored away;
They talk, an' wash, an' comb their hair an' primp
up that a-way ;
An' argufy on politicks say Cuby's too blamed
hot;
Can swelter 'nough right here at home, when thresh-
in', like as not.
Nen stop to eat their suppers an' plug a water-
melon,
Swap ole jokes, an' give a guess how next year's
crops is sellin'.
An' while the tired-out women-folks must wash the
dishes up,
COUNTRY FUN 207
The men jes loll roun* on the grass, an' pester my
bull-pup.
An' when the moon-man lights his lantern an' hangs
it in the sky,
It makes black shadders on our grass, an' lighten-
bugs jes fly.
Nen men-folks stretch, an' 'low they best go home an'
do the chores,
Git up the cows, an' feed the pigs, an' shet the big
barn doors.
Jes ole men does ('at's married folks), 'cause young
men they mus' wait,
An' hang aroun' an' whittle, an' fergit to shet our
gate,
A-waitin' fer them giggly girls, who acts like they
don't know
'At they's purty as a peach, an' goin' to ketch a
beau.
Nen the empty waggins goes a-clatterin' 'crost the
bridge,
An' wakin' up the echoes 'at's a-hidin' in the ridge,
Where the frogs is all a-jawin' at the screech-owl out
o' sight.
Nen we hear the men a-singin', far away, " Good
night, good night ! "
ADELIA P. BRANHAM.
208 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Winter's Comin'I
WINTER'S comin' In fer shore
Blusterin' eroun' ;
Mollie, san' the cabin floor
Take the fiddle down.
Short on cotton, who's to blame?
We'll be dancin' jest the same!
Boys air comin' down the road
Jest to dance with you.
Apples? What a rosy load!
Jugs o' cider, too!
Corn crap failed us, who's to blame?
We'll be dancin' j est the same !
Never cry fer what we've missed
Let the fire burn steady.
All the gals air to be kissed,
An' the boys air ready !
All craps poorly, who's to blame ?
We kin dance, dear, jist the same!
FRANK L. STANTON.
COUNTRY FUN 809
The Red Ear.
ALL scattered 'round the old barn floor,
Was shining corn, like yellow ore;
And 'round the crispy yellow shock,
The sturdy men and maidens flock.
They tear the heart from yellow shield,
And tell the jokes of harvest field.
The merry laugh of maidens fair
Rings out upon the autumn air.
The bashful swains cast sheepish eyes,
And catch love's telegraphed replies,
And knots are tied in subtile way,
That won't be loosed for many a day.
At last a lover grown more bold,
Some nonsense to his sweetheart told;
I do not know, but think 'twas this,
That he would like to have a kiss.
She flushed as red as roses fair,
Half trembling in the sweet June air,
And as he teasingly drew near,
He caught a smart box on the ear.
210 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The merry laugh the rafters shook,
But he the blow good-natured took,
And then he said : " The j oke is well,
But I think I can better tell.
" I claim that you have sealed your fate,
And can no more my right debate,
'Tis known to all both far and near,
I get a kiss for this red ear."
The verdict did his point sustain,
And there are those who yet maintain,
That still are mixed with wedded bliss
Sometimes red ears, sometimes a kiss.
CHARLES B. MOBRELL.
The Agricultural Editor's Poem.
1 WOULD flee from the city's rule and law,
From its fashion and form cut loose,
And go where the strawberry grows on its straw,
And the gooseberry grows on its goose;
Where the catnip tree is climbed by the cat,
As she crouches for her prey
The guileless and unsuspecting rat,
On the rattan bush at play.
COUNTRY FUN
I will watch at ease the saffron cow
And the cowlet in their glee,
As they leap in joy from bough to bough,
On the top of the cowslip tree;
Where the musical partridge drums on his drum,
And the woodchuck chucks his wood,
And the dog devours the dogwood plum
In the primitive solitude.
Oh, let me drink from the moss-grown pump
That was hewn from the pumpkin tree,
Eat mush and milk from a rural stump
(From form and fashion free)
New gathered mush from the mushroom vine,
And milk from the milkweed sweet,
With luscious pineapple from the pine
Such food as the gods might eat!
And then to the whitewashed dairy I'll turn,
Where the dairymaid hastening hies,
Her ruddy and golden red butter to churn
From the milk of her butterflies;
And I'll rise at morn with the early bird,
To the fragrant farmyard pass,
When the farmer turns his beautiful herd
Of grasshoppers out to grass.
SAM WALTER Foss.
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Phebe and Ichabod.
ALLUS was rowin' it, early and late,
Niff against this one an' niff against that !
With a voice like a whistle, too big for her weight,
That was the make-up of Aunt Phebe Pratt.
She'd give it to Ichabod, hot-pitch-and-tar,
Yappin' as soon as he came to the house ;
Allus was hankerin' after a jar,
Allus was ready to kick up a touse.
But Ichabod he was as calm as a lamb,
Never talked back to her, no, s'r, not he
Reckin that some men would rip out a damn,
But he was the mildest that ever ye see.
He'd set an' he'd whistle an' whistle away,
Waitin' all patient ontil she got through;
She'd scream, " Drat ye, answer ! " but Ick he would
say,
" Mother, ye're talkin' a plenty for two.
Who-o-o, who-o-o,
Who-o-o, who-o-o !
Nothin' to say, mother ! List'nun to you."
Phebe is dead an' has gone to her rest ;
Ichabod lives in the house all alone;
Ick isn't lonesome because, so 'tis guessed,
He still hears the echoes of Aunt Phebe's tone.
COUNTRY FUN 213
'Tis reckoned his ears were so used to the clack,
He somehow er ruther still thinks she is there ; .
Kind of imagines that Phebe is back,
An' still is a-goin' it, whoopity-tear 1
Or p'raps she has 'ranged it by long-distance line,
From her latest location, Above or Below,
To keep up her reg'lar old yappin' an' whine,
For fear the old man will at last have a show.
For he sets there an' whistles an' whistles away,
Whenever there's nothin' in 'special to do ;
An' once in a while he'll look up an' he'll say,
" Mother, ye're talkin' a plenty for two.
Who-o-o, who-o-o,
Who-o-o, who-o-o !
Nothin' to say, mother I List'nun to you."
HOLM AN F. DAY.
The Scarecrow.
IT was a regular scarecrow man,
Made on the old and well-known plan
A cross of sticks in a garb forlorn,
That stood on guard in that field of corn.
And, indeed, it made the old farmer smile
As he put it up and whistled the while ;
214 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
It would look to the crows so very ferocious,
So .truly astounding and atrocious,
That it tickled his fancy to think how they
Would catch a glimpse and flutter away.
Well, two black crows sat off on a tree,
And the young crow said to the old one, " See !
Now what is that frightful thing out there?
It's enough any honest crow to scare ! "
But the old crow chuckled and then looked wise,
Shook in his feathers and winked his eyes ;
Something tickled him, but if 'twas a joke
His voice didn't show it a bit when he spoke,
As, looking down at the younger crow,
He said: " What is it? Ah! don't you know?
" Why, that, as we wise ones all suppose,
Is the special patron saint of the crows !
We watch for his coming every year
To tell when the Feast of the Corn is here.
See how he stands with his arms stretched out!
He is calling the crows from all about!
Such a kind invitation is most alluring
So very cordial and reassuring!
I think we had better accept don't you? "
And down to the field of corn they flew.
WALLACE E. MATHER.
COUNTRY SCENES
A Snake Fence,
SOFTENED by time and storm to smoky-gray,
Broidered with mosses, sage, and malachite,
Its airy course it zigzags out of sight
In the green vines that fringe the dusty way.
Beneath the rails the happy crickets play
Their wild extempores with keen delight,
And pausing on it in his whirring flight,
The partridge gaily drums at close of day.
In billowy balm the clover round it nods,
And at its feet the milkweed's waving free,
Where dragonflies dart o'er the wayside rill
And where the asters vie with goldenrods,
The Indian corn a rustling symphony
Murmurs responsive to the wind's sweet will.
RICHARD K. MUNKITTEICK.
The Country Church.
BOUT the chapel door, in easy groups,
A 1
The rustic people wait. Some trim the switch,
While some prognosticate of harvest full,
217
218 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Or shake the dubious head, with arguments
Based on the winter's frequent snow and thaw,
The heavy rains, and sudden frosts severe.
Some, happily but few, deal scandal out,
With looks askance pointing their victim. These
Are the rank tares in every field of grain
These are the nettles stinging unaware
The briars which wound and trip unheeding feet -
The noxious vines, growing in every grove!
Their touch is deadly, and their passing breath
Poison most venomous ! Such I have known
As who has not ? and suffered by the contact.
Of these the husbandman takes certain note,
And in the proper season disinters
Their baneful roots ; and, to the sun exposed,
The killing light of truth, leaves them to pine
And perish in the noonday!
'Gainst a tree,
With strong arms folded o'er a giant chest,
Stands Barton, to the neighborhood chief smith ;
His coat, unused to aught save Sunday wear,
Grown too oppressive by the morning walk,
Hangs on the drooping branch: so stands he oft
Beside the open door, what time the share
Is whitening at the roaring bellows' mouth.
COUNTRY SCENES 219
There, too, the wheelwright he, the magistrate
In small communities a man of mark
Stands with the smith, and holds such argument
As the unlettered but observing can ;
Their theme some knot of scripture hard to solve.
And 'gainst the neighboring bars two others fan,
Less fit the sacred hour, discussion hot
Of politics; a topic which, inflamed,
Knows no propriety of time or place.
There Oakes, the cooper, with rough brawny hand,
Descants at large, and, with a noisy ardor,
Rattles around his theme as round a cask ;
While Hanson, heavy-browed, with shoulders bent,
Bent with great lifting of huge stones for he
A mason and famed builder is replies
With tongue as sharp and dexterous as his trowel,
And sentences which like his hammer fall,
Bringing the flinty fire at every blow !
But soon the approaching parson ends in peace
The wordy combat, and all turn within.
Awhile rough shoes, some with discordant creak,
And voices clearing for the psalm, disturb
The sacred quiet, till, at last, the veil
Of silence wavers, settles, falls ; and then
The hymn is given, and all arise and sing.
220 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Then follows prayer, which from the pastor's heart
Flows unpretending, with few words devout
Of humble thanks and askings; not with lungs
Stentorian, assaulting heaven's high wall,
Compelling grace by virtue of a siege!
This done, with loving care he scans his flock,
And opes the sacred volume at the text.
Wide is his brow, and full of honest thought--
Love his vocation, truth is all his stock.
With these he strives to guide, and not perplex
With words sublime and empty, ringing oft
Most musically hollow. All his facts
Are simple, broad, sufficient for a world !
He knows them well, teaching but what he knows.
He never strides through metaphysic mists,
Or takes false greatness because seen through fogs,
Nor leads 'mid brambles of thick argument
Till all admire the wit which brings them through ;
Nor e'er essays, in sermon or in prayer,
To share the hearer's thought ; nor strives to make
The smallest of his congregation lose
One glimpse of heaven, to cast it on the priest.
Such simple course, in these ambitious times,
Were worthy imitation ; in these days,
When brazen tinsel bears the palm from worth,
COUNTRY SCENES
And trick and pertness take the sacred desk;
Or some coarse thunderer, arm'd with doctrines new
Aims at our faith a blow to fell an ox
Swinging his sledge, regardless where it strikes,
Or what demolishes well pleased to win
By either blows or noise 1 A modern seer,
Crying destruction ! and, to prove it true,
Walking abroad, for demolition arm'd,
And boldly leveling where he can not build !
The service done, the congregation rise,
And with a freshness glowing in their hearts,
And quiet strength, the benison of prayer,
And wholesome admonition, hence depart.
Some, loth to go, within the graveyard loiter,
Walking among the mounds, or on the tombs,
Hanging, like pictured grief beneath a willow,
Bathing the inscriptions with their tears ; or here,
Finding the earliest violet, like a drop
Of Heaven's anointing blue upon the dead,
Bless it with mournful pleasure ; or perchance,
With careful hands, recall the wandering vine,
And teach it where to creep, and where to bear
Its future epitaph of flowers. And there,
Each with a separate grief, and some with tears,
Ponder the sculptured lines of consolation.
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
222 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
December.
WHEN the feud of hot and cold
Leaves the autumn woodlands bare;
When the year is getting old,
And flowers are dead, and keen the air \
When the crow has new concern,
And early sounds his raucous note;
And where the late witch-hazels burn
The squirrel from a chuckling throat
Tells that one larder's space is filled,
And tilts upon a towering tree;
And, valiant, quick, and keenly thrilled,
Upstarts the tiny chickadee ;
When the sun's still shortening arc
Too soon night's shadows dun and gray
Brings on, and fields are drear and dark,
And summer birds have flown away,
I feel the year's slow-beating heart,
The sky's chill prophecy I know;
And welcome the consummate art
Which weaves this spotless shroud of snow !
JOEL BENTON.
COUNTRY SCENES 223
The Dead Ox.
(From Georgic III.)
LO ! smoking in the stubborn plow, the ox
Falls, from his lip foam gushing crimson-
stained,
And sobs his life out. Sad of face the plowman
Moves, disentangling from his comrade's corpse
The lone survivor: and its work half done,
Abandoned in the furrow stands the plow.
Not shadiest forest-depths, not softest lawns,
May move him now: not river amber-pure,
That tumbles o'er the cragstones to the plain.
Powerless the broad sides, glazed the rayless eye,
And low and lower sinks the ponderous neck.
What thank hath he for all the toil he toiled,
The heavy-clodded land in man's behoof
Upturning? Yet the grape of Italy,
The stored-up feast, hath wrought no harm to him:
Green leaf and taintless grass are all their fare ;
The clear rill or the travel-freshened stream
Their cup: nor one care mars their honest sleep.
VERGIL. (TRANS. BY C. S. CALVERLEY.)
224. POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Mother's Posies.
KIND o' purty, don't yuh think?
Green an' red an' yeller
Bloomin' in th' winder there
Sort o' makes a feller
Think 't summer's back agin,
Even though he knows his
Eyes V on'y caught th' shine
There uv mother's posies.
In th' ol' tomater cans
An' th' pots an' boxes,
There they bloom as big as life
Pinks an' hollyhockses.
Creepin' things an' vi'lets, too,
Purty colors showin',
Peekin' through th' winder-pane
Out whar it's a-snowin'.
There's a grea' big fuzie there
Weth some ferns aside it,
An' a primrose with some moss
Tryin' fer tuh hide it,
An' geraniums an' sich
Cluttered all together,
Bloomin' there like sixty an'
Laughin' at th' weather.
COUNTRY SCENES 225
Pots o' green an' pots o' red
Make up lights an' shadders,
Weth th' ivy an' th' vines
Climbin' up th' ladders
Whut I whittled out m'self
Jest f er them to grow on
An* the'r' banterin' th' snow
An' th' wind a-blowin'.
.Yes, sirree, it's purty an'
Soothin' like, an' cheerin'
To set here on days like this
An' see mother clearin'
Out th' dead leaves an' sich things
From th' vines an' phloxes
In th' ol' tomater cans
An' th' pots an' boxes.
CARL SMITH.
The Old Farm-Gate.
rilHE old farm-gate hangs sagging down
1- On rusty hinges, bent and brown ;
Its latch is gone, and here and there
It shows rude traces of repair.
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The old farm-gate has seen each year
The blossoms bloom and disappear ;
The bright green leaves of spring unfold,
And turn to autumn's red and gold.
The children have upon it clung,
And in and out with rapture swung,
When their young hearts were good and pure -
When hope was fair and faith was sure.
Beside that gate have lovers true
Told the old story always new ;
Have made their vows, have dreamed of bliss,
And sealed each promise with a kiss.
The old farm-gate has opened wide
To welcome home the new-made bride,
When lilacs bloomed, and locusts fair
With their sweet fragrance filled the air.
The gate, with rusty weight and chain,
Has closed upon the solemn train
That bore her lifeless form away
Upon a dreary autumn day.
The lichens gray and mosses green
Upon its rotting posts are seen ;
COUNTRY SCENES 227
Initials, carved with youthful skill
Long years ago, are on it still.
Yet dear to me above all things,
By reason of the thought it brings,
Is that old gate, now sagging down
On rusty hinges, bent and brown.
EUGENE J. HALL.
Where Life is Real.
IT stands like a patriarch, old and gray,
The wide old barn in its roomy yard.
It has heard the frolicsome children play ;
They sang their songs and wandered away,
They dream of it yet with fond regard.
Rough was the fence of the yard when new,
But itching sides have smoothed and worn,
Where the gamboling steers their fights renew,
Whence tufts of hair of varying hue,
To distant nests are deftly borne.
The autumn's stack of the beaten straw,
On narrowing base unsteadily stands,
228 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
For the tunneling cows, at hunger's law,
Aided by horns and a tireless jaw,
Fulfill the thrifty farmer's plan.
In the rare spring days it was good to hear,
The song of the hens and the roosters' crow,
The cheep of the chickens, low and clear,
The cluck of the mother brooding near,
The robin's song with his breast aglow.
Close by the wall is a burrowing mole ;
He has raised a ridge and builded a mound.
The mare calls low to her whinneying foal,
A lazy rat peeps out of his hole
And dreams of the snow-white eggs he found.
The cattle have strayed to the river's side,
The yard broods on in drowsy sleep,
The old strong doors are swinging wide.
How cool and quiet it seems inside,
And the busy swallows skim and cheep
In and out through the diamond cleft,
Far above in the gable wide,
With a reckless wing that is quick and deft
As the flash of an eye from right to left,
To the nest of clay on the rafter's side.
COUNTRY SCENES 229
And now that the days are hot and long,
And the city writhes in heat and pain,
I hear the children's laugh and song,
The smell of the hay comes sweet and strong
It is good to go back to the farm again.
CAELETON J. GEEENLEAF.
A NEW ENGLAND PASTORAL WRITTEN IN THE STYLE
OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY
I.
IN this fair land when man and art were rude,
And healthful labor charmed his solitude,
In Freedom's prime, ere commerce had supplied
Those precious stores now brought from o'er the
tide,
Pleased with the simple comforts Heaven had sent,
There lived a gentle matron named Content.
A cottage in a trailing woodbine dressed
Was her abode, which honest toil had blessed.
No costly superfluities were there
To raise new wants or magnify her care;
No foreign dainties at her board increased
230 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The thankful pleasures of her frugal feast.
She kept a wooden latch upon her door,
And met her friends upon a sanded floor.
Oft, as we passed, the breezes would reveal
The busy murmurs of her spinning-wheel.
The early birds that sang upon the spray
Awaked her to the duties of the day,
And often, when she went to bed at night,
The moon and stars supplied her only light.
Her fashions had not traveled o'er the sea,
For she had early learned frugality.
In honest worth, and charms that cannot fade,
She was a pattern for each rustic maid.
II.
Placed on a gentle slope her cottage stood,
Sequestered sweetly from the winds and flood,
And o'er its roof an old ancestral tree
In summer spread its leafy canopy.
Down on its slender boughs aerial guest
The golden hangbird wove its pensile nest.
There sang the birds their earliest morning lays,
And charmed anew the daylight's parting rays.
Full many a May-queen on the lawn was crowned
Beneath its spreading branches, with a round
Of merry games, while shouts arose to pay
The children's welcome to the hosts of May.
COUNTRY SCENES 231
III.
Around her homestead, neat and unenclosed,
Her cattle cropped the herbage, and reposed,
And every object wore a cheerful plight,
As if designed to bless the traveler's sight:
The corded wood laid up beside the fence ;
The bee-hive, type of care and diligence;
The rustic well with cross-pole mounted high;
The trough beneath a fountain never dry;
The shining cup that near the fountain glowed
For the wayfarer thirsting on the road ;
The adjoining fields replete at harvest-time
With fairest products of a northern clime.
Here toil and care united to dispense
The calm delights of peace and competence;
And neither wealth of towns nor pride of state
Brought half the joys that entered at her gate. . . .
V.
No living thing was prompted to beware
The lurking fowler or the secret snare.
The squirrel sped by native frolic drove
Its playful comrades through the hickory grove,
And children watched them as they seemed to sail
From tree to tree, half borne upon the gale ;
And oft they paused to hear the pheasant's call
232 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
To guide her little brood along the wall.
The timid wild-flowers wandering from the moor
Among her garden pets remained secure,
And not a daisy blossomed on the soil
But spoke of peace and well-rewarded toil.
The traveler, pausing, turned to view again
The box of daisies at her window-pane,
And tidy cat as half asleep she cast
Her purblind, drooping eyes on all who passed.
Some simple object ever charming drew
The curious eye, and never tired the view. . . .
VIII.
Here the tired workmen lingered with the dews,
To tell their daily fare and learn the news ;
To greet the matron with some friendly word,
Or bear some trifle from her gracious board.
No loving kindness did she fail to lend
To help a stranger or to serve a friend.
Not tears alone she spared for those who grieved;
By words she comforted, by deeds relieved;
For no vain show her savings she misspent,
Or cramped her alms for costly ornament. . . ,.,
XV.
She made her garden her dispensary.
To all who came, its healing gifts were free;
COUNTRY SCENES 233
With generous heart, ne'er tired of doing good,
She planted freely for her neighborhood;
And her white shelves with fragrant herbs were stored
In many a neat-bound sheaf for winter's hoard.
Unskilled in learned practice, still she knew
The cordial properties of balm and rue;
Could healing drops dispense without a fee,
And from each herb prepare a remedy.
Some " blessed herbs," both curative and rare,
She scattered wide to gather and to spare.
Here were sweet thyme and spicy wintergreen;
Here camomile for sickness or the spleen;
Sage to preserve a failing memory,
And balm that bids the morbid spirits flee ;
Poppies to hasten sleep, or soften pain,
And basil to restore the wearied brain.
XVII.
When the cicada's twilight song was heard,
And shy and silent was the early bird ;
When meads were hot and upland plains were brown,
And golden eyebrights glistened on the down ;
Though vernal flowers o'erspread the fields no more,
All Nature's harvest offered her its store.
O'er the gray rocks the bramble wove its net,
And spangled them with shining fruits of jet;
In native hedgerows, berries bright and red,
234 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And vines with purple clusters overhead,
Made glad her sight, and offered without price
The bounteous stores of this wild paradise. . . .
XXI.
happy seat of joys unknown to those
Whom avarice robs of conscience and repose!
The home of Peace, known ever to reside
Where frugal hands and honest hearts abide!
1 turn with pleasant thoughts, in fond review
Of all the friendships and the sports I rue,
To these dear scenes that young affection loves,
Where memory still with pious fancy roves:
The paths through secret ways, the nooks we trod
Which early tears have made a hallowed sod;
The groves where oft we roamed in thoughtful mood,
And many a phantom born of love pursued;
Sat on a mound beneath a shadowing pine,
And dreamed of beauty till it seemed divine. . . .
WILSON FLAGG.
The Wind-Swept Wheat.
FAINT, faint and clear,
Faint as the music that in dreams we hear
Shaking the curtain-fold of sleep,
' COUNTRY SCENES 235
That shuts away
The world's hoarse voice, the sights and sounds of
day,
Her sorry joys, her phantoms false and fleet,
So softly, softly stirs
The wind's low murmur in the rippled wheat.
From west to east
TKe warm breath blows, the slender heads droop low
As if in prayer;
Again, more lightly tossed in merry play,
They bend and bow and sway
With measured beat,
But never rest, through shadow and through sun
Goes on the tender rustle of the wheat.
Dreams more than sleep
Fall on the listening heart and lull its care ;
Dead years send back
Some treasured, unforgotten tune.
Ah, long ago,
When sun and sky were sweet,
In happy noon,
We stood breast-high, mid waves of ripened grain,
And heard the wind make music in the wheat.
Not for to-day
Not for this hour alone the melody
236 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
So soft and ceaseless thrills the dreamer's ear:
Of all that was and is, of all that yet shall be,
It holds a part.
Love, sorrow, longing, pain,
The restlessness that yearns,
The thirst that burns,
That bliss that like a fountain overflows,
The deep repose,
Good that we might have known, but shall not know,
The hope God took, the joy He made complete,
Life's chords all answer from the wind-swept wheat!
MARY A. DE VERB (" MADELINE BRIDGES ").
Stone Walls.
ALONG the country roadside, stone on stone,
Past waving grain-field, and near broken stile,
The walls stretch onward, an uneven pile,
With rankling vines and lichen overgrown:
So stand they sentinel. Unchanged, alone,
They're left to watch the seasons' passing slow:
The summer's sunlight or the winter's snow,
The spring-time's birdling, or the autumn's moan.
Who placed the stone now gray with many years ?
And did the rough hands tire, the sore hearts ache,
COUNTRY SCENES 237
The eyes grow dim with all their weight of tears?
Or did the work seem light for some dear sake?
Those lives are over. All their hopes and fears
Are lost like shadows in the morning-break.
JULIE M. LIPPMANN.
October in Tennessee.
FAR, far away, beyond a hazy height,
The turquoise skies are hung in dreamy
sleep ;
Below, the fields of cotton, fleecy-white,
Are spreading like a mighty flock of sheep.
Now, like Aladdin of the days of old,
October robes the weeds in purple gowns ;
He sprinkles all the sterile fields with gold,
And all the rustic trees wear royal crowns.
The straggling fences all are interlaced
With pink and purple morning-glory blooms ;
The starry asters glorify the waste,
While grasses stand on guard with pikes and
plumes.
238
Yet still amid the splendor of decay
The chill winds call for blossoms that are dead,
The cricket chirps for sunshine passed away,
The lovely summer songsters that have fled.
And lonesome in a haunt of withered vines,
Amid the flutter of her withered leaves,
Pale Summer for her perished kingdom pines,
And all the glories of her golden sheaves.
In vain October wooes her to remain
Within the palace of his scarlet bowers,
Entreats her to forget her heart-break pain,
And weep no more above her faded flowers.
At last November, like a conqueror, comes
To storm the golden city of his foe ;
We hear his rude winds like the roll of drums,
Bringing their desolation and their woe.
The sunset, like a vast vermilion flood,
Splashes its giant glowing waves on high,
The forest flames with blazes red as blood,
A conflagration sweeping to the sky.
Then all the treasures of that brilliant state
Are gathered in a mighty funeral pyre ;
COUNTRY SCENES 239
October, like a king resigned to fate,
Dies in his forests with their sunset fire.
WALTER MALONE.
From " Life on the Farm."
NIGHT
NOW all clucked home to their feather beds
Are the velvety chicks of the downy heads,
In the old Dutch style with the beds above,
All under the wings of a hovering love,
And a few chinked in, as plump as wrens,
Around the edge of the ruffled hens.
With nose in the grass the dog keeps guard,
With long-drawn breaths in the old farmyard
The cattle stand on the scattered straw,
And cease the swing of the under jaw.
The cat's eyes shine in the currant bush,
Dews in the grass and stars in the hush,
And over the marsh the lightning-bug
Is swinging his lamp to the bull-frog's chug,
And the slender chaps in the greenish tights,
240 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
That jingle and trill the sleigh-bells nights.
The shapes with the padded feet prowl round
And the crescent moon has run aground,
And the inky beetles blot the night
And have blundered out the candle-light,
And everywhere the pillows fair
Are printed with heads of tumbled hair.
Time walks the house with a clock-tick tread ;
Without and within the farm's abed.
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOE.
From "Nightfall: a Picture."
LOW burns the summer afternoon;
A mellow luster lights the scene;
And from its smiling beauty soon
The purpling shade will chase the sheen.
The old, quaint homestead's windows blaze;
The cedars long black pictures show ;
And broadly slopes one path of rays
Within the barn, and makes it glow. . . .
The sun salutes the lowest west
With gorgeous tints around it drawn;
COUNTRY SCENES 241
A beacon on the mountain's breast,
A crescent, shred, a star and gone.
The landscape now prepares for night ;
A gauzy mist slow settles round;
Eve shows her hues in every sight,
And blends her voice with every sound.
The sheep stream rippling down the dell,
Their smooth, sharp faces pointed straight;
The pacing kine, with tinkling bell,
Come grazing through the pasture gate.
The ducks are grouped, and talk in fits;
One yawns with stretch of leg and wing;
One rears and fans, then, settling, sits ;
One at a moth makes awkward spring. . . .
The fire-flies freckle every spot
With fickle light that gleams and dies;
The bat, a wavering, soundless blot,
The cat, a pair of prowling eyes.
Still the sweet, fragrant dark o'erflows
The deepening air and darkening ground,
By its rich scent I trace the rose,
The viewless beetle by its sound.
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The cricket scrapes its rib-like bars ;
The tree-toad purrs in whirring tone;
And now the heavens are set with stars,
And night and quiet reign alone.
ALFEED B. STB.EET.
From "Among the Hills."
ALONG the roadside, like the flowers of gold
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod,
And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers
Hang motionless upon their upright staves.
The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind,
Wing-weary with its long flight from the south,
Unfelt ; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf
With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams,
Confesses it. The locust by the wall
Stabs the noon silence with his sharp alarm.
A single hay-cart down the dusty road
Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep
On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill,
Huddled along the stone wall's shady side,
The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still
Defied the dog-star. Through the open door
COUNTRY SCENES 243
A drowsy smell of flowers gray heliotrope,
And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette
Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends
To the pervading symphony of peace. . . .
I call to mind those banded vales
Of shadow and of shining,
Through which, my hostess at my side,
I drove in day's declining.
We held our sideling way above
The river's whitening shallows,
By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns
Swept through and through by swallows ;
By maple orchards, belts of pine
And larches climbing darkly
The mountain slopes, and, over all,
The great peaks rising starkly.
You should have seen that long hill-range
With gaps of brightness riven,
How through each pass and hollow streamed
The purpling lights of heaven,
Rivers of gold-mist flowing down
From far celestial fountains,
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The great sun flaming through the rifts
Beyond the wall of mountains !
We paused at last where home-bound cows
Brought down the pasture's treasure,
And in the barn the rhythmic flails
Beat out a harvest measure.
We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge,
The crow his tree-mates calling;
The shadows lengthening down the slopes
About our feet were falling.
And through them smote the level sun
In broken lines of splendor,
Touched the gray rocks and made the green
Of the shorn grass more tender.
The maples bending o'er the gate,
Their arch of leaves just tinted
With yellow warmth, the golden glow
Of coming autumn hinted.
Keen white between the farmhouse showed,
And smiled on porch and trellis
The fair democracy of flowers
That equals cot and palace.
COUNTRY SCENES 245,
And weaving garlands for her dog,
'Twixt chidings and caresses,
A human flower of childhood shook
The sunshine from her tresses.
On either hand we saw the signs
Of fancy and of shrewdness,
Where taste had wound its arms of vines
Round thrift's uncomely rudeness.
The sun-brown farmer in his frock
Shook hands, and called to Mary ;
Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came,
White-aproned from her dairy.
Her air, her smile, her motions, told
Of womanly completeness ;
A music as of household songs
Was in her voice of sweetness.
Not fair alone in curve and line,
But something more and better,
The secret charm eluding art,
Its spirit, not its letter ;
An inborn grace that nothing lacked
Of culture or appliance
246 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The warmth of genial courtesy,
The calm of self-reliance.
Before her queenly womanhood
How dared our hostess utter
The paltry errand of her need
To buy her fresh-churned butter? . . .
JOHN G. WHITTIEE.
Winter Days.
NOW comes the graybeard of the north:
The forests bare their rugged breasts
To every wind that wanders forth,
And, in their arms, the lonely nests
That housed the birdlings months ago
Are egged with flakes of drifted snow.
No more the robin pipes his lay
To greet the flushed advance of morn ;
He sings in valleys far away ;
His heart is with the south to-day;
He cannot shrill among the corn :
For all the hay and corn are down
And garnered; and the withered leaf,
COUNTRY SCENES 247
Against the branches bare and brown,
Rattles ; and all the days are brief.
An icy hand is on the land;
The cloudy sky is sad and gray ;
But through the misty sorrow streams
A heavenly and golden ray.
And on the brook that cuts the plain
A diamond wonder is aglow,
Fairer than that which, long ago,
De Rohan * staked a name to gain.
HENHY ABBEY.
The Orchard.
O PLEASANT orchard, emerald leaves
And shining fruit the summer weaves
Into a jewel of design
Finer than man will e'er refine ;
But not until the springtime shows
Her beauty in the lovely blows
Of pear and apple, peach and cherry,
To prove the world at last is merry.
JOHN J. HOLDEN.
i The reference is to the Cardinal de Rohan and the Affair
of the Diamond Necklace, well-known in French history.
248 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
From "Evangeline.
IRMLY builded with rafters of oak, the house
J. of the farmer
Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea; and
a shady
Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreath-
ing around it.
Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath;
and a footpath
Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the
meadow.
Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a
penthouse,
Such as the traveler sees in regions remote by the
roadside,
Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of
Mary.
Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well
with its moss-grown
Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for
the horses.
Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were
the barns and the farmyard.
There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique
plows and the harrows ;
COUNTRY SCENES 249
There were the folds for the sheep ; and there, in his
feathered seraglio,
Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with
the selfsame
Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent
Peter.
Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a
village. In each one
Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch, and a
staircase,
Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous
corn-loft,
There, too, the dove-cot stood, with its meek and
innocent inmates
Murmuring ever of love; while above in the variant
breezes
Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of
mutation.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
The Old Rail Fence.
THE old rail fence with aimless angles
Curved round the scented fields of old ;
And wild, blown vines in quaintest tangles
Bloomed there in purple and in gold.
250 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And winds went over, cool and sweet,
With rivery ripples in the wheat.
The white road to the river knew it
The river running wild and fleet;
A cabin path went winding to it,
With light prints of a boy's bare feet,
And cattle in the woods at morn
Roamed by and nipped the bending corn.
In corners cool the plowman rested
When rang the welcome bells of noon ;
And there the thrush and partridge nested
And sang the mocking birds of June.
And winds were sweet with muscadines,
And blooms were on the melon vines.
There twilight paused in rosy dreaming,
And o'er the riot of the rills
When starlight on the world was streaming
Rose the love-song of whippoorwills,
And with the music and the stars
Love met his sweetheart at the bars.
There, with the evening shadows falling,
In cabin door a woman stands ;
And far and sweet her voice is calling,
And children heed her beckoning hands.
COUNTRY SCENES 251
There, for the weary ones that roam,
Twinkle the dreamy lights of Home.
The corn still waves and vines are clinging ;
The larks are hid in bending grain ;
The birds sing, as my heart is singing,
Where, lonely in the woodland rain,
The old rail fence its service o'er
Curves round the blossoming fields no more.
Yet, there I halt my horse, and sighing,
Above the old rail fence I lean.
The snows upon life's pathway lying
Have left one living glimpse of green !
And still, through change of time and art,
The old rail fence runs round my heart.
FRANK L. STANTON.
The Old Farm Barn.
maples look down with bright eyes in their
JL leaves,
The clear drops drip from the swallow-built eaves,
The pond is all dimples from shore to shore,
And the miller smiles back from his place in the door.
252 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Slow mist from the mountain comes drifting down,
The houses show fainter afar in the town,
The gust sweeps up, dies away again,
Then loud and fast the rap-tap of the rain.
Old Nancy looks soberly out from her stall,
The drowsy cows do they chew at all?
The old farm barn is so dusk and still
The spiders sleep on the window-sill.
JOHN VANCE CHENEY.
From "Snow-Bound."
SO all night long the storm roared on
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature's geometric signs,
In starry flake and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own. . . .
A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted : " Boys, a path ! "
Well pleased (for when did farmer boy
COUNTRY SCENES 253
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew ;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp's supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse thrust his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The cock his lusty greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked ;
The horned patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.
All day the gusty north wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before ;
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary -voiced elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown;
To have an almost human tone.
As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveler, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
COUNTRY SCENES 255
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back,
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty fore-stick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam
Until the old rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom. . . .
Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ;
256 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
An August Afternoon on the Farm.
IN stifling mows the men became oppressed,
And hastened forth hard breathing and
o'ercome ;
The hatching hen stood panting in her nest,
The sick earth swooned in languor and was dumb.
The dust-dull'd crickets lay in heedless ease
Of trampling hoofs along the beaten drives,
And from the fields the home-returning bees,
Limp-wing'd and tired, lit short before their hives.
The drooping dog moped aimlessly around ;
Lop'd down, got up, snapt at the gnats ; in pits
Knee deep, the tethered horses stamped the ground,
And switched at bot-flies dabbing yellow nits.
COUNTRY SCENES 257
With heads held prone the sheep in huddles stood
Through fear of gads the lambs, too, ceased to
romp;
The cows were wise to seek the covert wood,
Or belly-deep stand hidden in the swamp.
So dragged the day, but when the dusk grew deep,
The stagnant heat increased; we lit no light,
But sat out-doors, too faint and sick for sleep ;
Such was the stupor of that August night.
J. P. IRVINE.
The Grainstack.
OF faded antique gold it stands
Abrupt in the green field,
Its rounded roof by willing hands
Thatched with its own rough yield,
Like some quaint hut in tropic lands.
Near by a flock of sheep appear
Like a soft fallen cloud;
Their moving bells with tinkle clear,
Now murmuring, now loud,
Ring evening chimes of rest and cheer.
258 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
No pensive maid their shepherdess,
But an old peasant dame
Of broad expanse, whose full round dress
Above her ankles came,
A sturdy freedom to express.
Beside the grainstack sits she down
Her faithful guard to keep,
While the wise dog, with seeming frown,
Shepherds the foolish sheep
That without cause run up and down.
The grainstack hears the old dame's prayer
As she goes slowly home ;
And later, when the moonlight rare
Silvers its golden dome,
Shelters low words that lovers dare.
At last, when darkness hides from sight
The grainstack's ghostly mound,
It hears the field-mice, and the flight
Of owls, and every sound
Of little creatures who delight
In the dim mystery of night.
Emblem of generous fruitf ulness !
Of labor eloquent,
COUNTRY SCENES 259
What happiness or hid distress
Into your making went?
So work in self-forgetfulness
All men, their fellow men to bless.
LOUISE MOEGAN SILL.
A Country Road.
YELLOW with dust it sleeps in noonday's glare,
Yellow with dust it stretches far away ;
On the mossed wall the chipmunks frisk and play,
Where golden daisies broider all the air.
Now nature seems to dream 'mid fragrance rare,
For summer silence holds unbroken sway,
Till round the bend a creaking wain of hay
Comes lumbering down the drowsy thoroughfare;
Then all is still again. The orchard trees
Are motionless as the distant purple hills
On which the shadows of the white clouds rest,
When suddenly the white-flecked clover seas
All joyous tremble, while the bobolink trills
His wildest melodies with sweet unrest.
RlCHAKD K. MUNKITTRICK.
260 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
"The Farmer Sat in His Easy Chair."
rilHE farmer sat in his easy chair,
A Smoking his pipe of clay,
While his hale old wife with busy care
Was clearing the dinner away ;
A sweet little girl with fine blue eyes
On her grandfather's knee was catching flies.
The old man laid his hand on her head,
With a tear on his wrinkled face ;
He thought how often her mother, dead,
Had sat in the self -same place:
As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye
" Don't smoke," said the child ; " how it makes you
cry ! "
The house-dog lay stretch'd out on the floor
Where the shade after noon used to steal;
The busy old wife by the open door
Was turning the spinning-wheel;
And the old brass clock on the manteltree
Had plodded along to almost three:
Still the farmer sat in his easy chair,
While close to his heaving breast
The moisten'd brow and the cheek so fair
Of his sweet grandchild were press'd;
COUNTRY SCENES 261
His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay
Fast asleep were they both, that summer day.
CHARLES G. EASTMAN.
When Icicles Hang by the Wall.
(From " Love's Labor Lost," Act V.)
WHEN icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit !
To-who ! a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel 1 the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit !
i Moderate the heat of the contents by gently stirring.
262 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
To-who ! a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
The Old Mill.
BESIDE the stream the grist-mill stands,
With bending roof and leaning wall ;
So old, that when the winds are wild,
The miller trembles lest it fall:
And yet it baffles wind and rain,
Our brave old mill, and will again.
Its dam is steep, and hung with weeds:
The gates are up, the waters pour,
And tread the old wheel's slippery round,
The lowest step forever o'er.
Methinks they fume, and chafe with ire,
Because they cannot climb it higher.
From morn to night in Autumn time,
When harvests fill the neighboring plains,
Up to the mill the farmers drive,
And back anon with loaded wains :
And when the children come from school
They stop and watch its foamy pool.
COUNTRY SCENES 263
The mill inside is small and dark ;
But peeping in the open door
You see the miller flitting round,
The dusty bags along the floor,
The whirling shaft, the clattering spout,
And the yellow meal a-pouring out !
All day the meal is floating there,
Rising and falling in the breeze ;
And when the sunlight strikes its mist
It glitters like a swarm of bees:
Or like the cloud of smoke and light
Above a blacksmith's forge at night.
I love our pleasant, quaint old mill,
It still recalls my boyish prime;
'Tis changed since then, and so am I,
We both have known the touch of time :
The mill is crumbling in decay,
And I my hair is early gray.
I stand beside the stream of life,
And watch the current sweep along:
And when the flood-gates of my heart
Are raised, it turns the wheel of song:
But scant, as yet, the harvest brought
From out the golden fields of Thought.
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
264 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The Storm.
THE sound of thunder rolled down the threatening
arch of sky,
Echoed from hill to hill till the valley rang with
the roar,
And a few great drops of rain on a sudden gust
swept by,
To fall like a bullet spent on the highway's dusty
floor.
Then a mighty wind arose and blew from the sunset
land,
Blew till the tall trees bent like the slender blades
of grain,
Wildly their tangled boughs were tossed by the
tempest's hand
That smote the cowering fields with the dashing
drifts of rain.
But the wrath of the storm king died, and silence
came like a boon,
The far horizon glowed with the gold-edged ame-
, thyst bars ;
And up the seas of the night came sailing the mysti-
cal moon,
COUNTRY SCENES 265
Her sapphire pathway strewn with the blossoming
silver stars.
CLINTON SCOLLARD.
Heat.
FROM plains that reel to southward, dim,
The road runs by me white and bare ;
Up the steep hill it seems to swim
Beyond, and melt into the glare.
Upward half-way, or it may be
Nearer the summit, slowly steals
A hay-cart, moving dustily
With idly clacking wheels.
By his cart's side the wagoner
Is slouching slowly at his ease,
Half -hidden in the windless blur
Of white dust puffing to his knees.
This wagon on the height above,
From sky to sky on either hand,
Is the sole thing that seems to move
In all the heat-held land.
Beyond me in the fields the sun
Soaks in the grass and hath his will;
266 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
I count the marguerites one by one ;
Even the buttercups are still.
On the brook yonder not a breath
Disturbs the spider or the midge.
The water-bugs draw close beneath
The cool gloom of the bridge.
Where the far elm-tree shadows flood
Dark patches in the burning grass,
The cows, each with her peaceful cud,
Lie waiting for the heat to pass.
From somewhere on the slope near by
Into the pale depth of the noon
A wandering thrush slides leisurely
His thin, revolving tune.
In intervals of dreams I hear
The cricket from the droughty ground;
The grasshoppers spin into mine ear
A small innumerable sound.
I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze;
The burning sky-line blinds my sight;
The woods far off are blue with haze ;
The hills are drenched in light.
And yet to me not this or that
Is always sharp or always sweet;
COUNTRY SCENES 267
In the sloped shadow of my hat
I lean at rest, and drain the heat;
Nay more, I think some blessed power
Hath brought me wandering idly here:
In the full furnace of this hour
My thoughts grow keen and clear.
ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN.
At Husking Time.
AT husking time the tassel fades
To brown above the yellow blades
Whose rustling sheath enswathes the corn
That bursts its chrysalis in scorn
Longer to lie in prison shades.
Among the merry lads and maids
The creaking ox-cart slowly wades
'Twixt stalks and stubble, stacked and torn
At husking time.
The prying pilot crow persuades
The flock to join in thieving raids;
The sly raccoon with craft inborn
His portion steals, from plenty's horn
268 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
His pouch the saucy chipmunk lades
At husking time.
E. PAULINE JOHNSON.
*
A Dakota Wheat-Field.
LIKE liquid gold the wheat-field lies,
A marvel of yellow and russet and green,
That ripples and runs, that floats and flies,
With the subtle shadows, the change, the sheen,
Such as play in the golden hair of a girl,
A ripple of amber, a flare
Of light sweeping after, a curl
In the hollows like swirling feet
Of fairy waltzers, the colors run
To the western sun
Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.
Broad as the fleckless soaring sky,
Mysterious, fair as the moon-led sea,
The vast plain flames on the dazzled eye
Under the fierce sun's alchemy.
The slow hawk stoops
To his prey in the deeps;
COUNTRY SCENES 269
The sunflower droops
To the lazy wave; the wind sleeps.
Then all in dazzling links and loops,
A riot of shadow and shine,
A glory of olive and amber and wine,
To the westering sun the colors run
Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.
glorious land ! My Western land,
Outspreading beneath the setting sun !
Once more amid your swells I stand,
And cross your sod-lands dry and dun,
1 hear the jocund calls of men
Who sweep amid the ripened grain
With swift, stern reapers, once again.
The evening splendor floods the plain,
The crickets' chime
Makes pauseless rhyme,
And toward the sun
The splendid colors romp and run
Before the wind's feet
In the wheat!
HAMLIN GARLAND.
G
270 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
From "The Scholar Gypsy."
O, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill ;
Go, Shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes :
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats,
Nor the cropp'd grasses shoot another head.
But when the fields are still,
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd
green ;
Come, Shepherd, and again renew the quest.
Here, where the reaper was at work of late,
In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse,
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to
use;
Here will I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne ;
With distant cries of reapers in the corn
All the live murmur of a summer's day.
Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field,
And here till sun-down, Shepherd, will I be.
COUNTRY SCENES 271
Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep
And round green roots and yellow stalks I see
Pale blue convolvulus in tendrils creep:
And air-swept lindens yield
Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed show-
ers
Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
And bower me from the August sun with
shade ;
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The Old House Dreams.
RINGED with my crumbling fences, gaunt, for-
saken,
Far from the busy ways,
Wrapped in a tangled web of briar and braken,
I dream away the days.
Stripped to the sunlight, bare from sill to rafter,
Only a shell I seem,
Home but for lizards, void of song or laughter;
And yet I hold my dream.
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Where are my darlings who were born and played
here?
Alas ! they all are flown !
Age had not claimed me if but one had stayed here
I had held fast my own.
You bonny lads, you daughters sweet and comely,
Led by your dreams to roam,
Ye give no thought now to the rambling, homely,
Dun house ye once called home.
Yet when between the sodden, broken timbers
Drips the moon's radiance thin,
My little dream-child wanders through the chambers,
1 Playing awhile unseen.
A while I yet may feel his light feet leaving
Soft impress on my stair,
Deep in the night's heart I may hear his breathing,
And know that he is there.
Till the great chimney, naked to the weather,
Alone points to the sky,
We shall go down these last long years together,
The little child and I.
Of all my loves the passing years bereft me,
Sundered them from my side,
This one alone I keep, the babe that's left me,
The little boy that died.
EMMA B. MILES.
COUNTRY SCENES 273
Midsummer in the Catskills.
THE strident hum of sickle-bar,
Lake giant insect heard afar,
Is on the air again;
I see the mower where he rides
Above the level grassy tides
That flood the meadow plain.
The barns are fragrant with new hay,
Through open doors the swallows play
On wayward, glancing wing;
The bobolinks are on the oats,
And gorging stills the jocund throats
That made the meadows ring.
The cradlers twain, with right good will,
Leave golden lines across the hill
Beneath the midday sun.
The cattle dream 'neath leafy tent,
Or chew the cud of sweet content
Knee-deep in pond or run.
July is on her burning throne,
And binds the land with torrid zone,
That hastes the ripening grain;
While sleepers swelter in the night,
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The lusty corn is gaining might
And darkening on the plain.
The butterflies sip nectar sweet
Where gummy milkweeds offer treat
Or catnip bids them stay.
On banded wing grasshoppers poise,
With hovering flight and shuffling noise,
Above the dusty way.
The thistle-bird, midsummer's pet,
In billowy flight on wings of jet,
Is circling near his mate.
The silent waxwing's pointed crest
Is seen above her orchard nest,
Where cherries linger late.
The dome of day o'erbrims with sound
From humming wings on errands bound
Above the sleeping fields;
The linden's bloom faint scents the breeze,
And, sole and blessed 'mid forest trees,
A honeyed harvest yields.
Poised and full is summer's tide,
Brimming all the horizon wide,
In varied verdure dressed;
COUNTRY SCENES 275
Its viewless currents surge and beat
In airy billows at my feet
Here on the mountain's crest.
Through pearly depths I see the farms,
Where sweating forms and bronzed arms
Reap in the land's increase;
In ripe repose the forests stand,
And veiled heights on every hand
Swim in a sea of peace.
JOHN BUEROTJGHS.
The Farm at Dusk.
WHEN milking time is done, and over all
This quiet Canadian inland forest-home
And wide rough pasture-lots the shadows come,
And dews, with peace and twilight voices, fall,
From moss-cooled watering-trough to foddered stall
The tired plow-horses turn, the barnyard loam
Soft to their feet, and in the sky's pale dome
Like resonant chords the swooping night- j ars call.
Then, while the crickets pipe, and frogs are shrill
About the slow brook's edge, the pasture bars
Down clatter, and the cattle wander through,
276 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Vague, pallid shapes amid the thickets, till
Above the wet gray wilds emerge the stars,
And through the dusk the farmstead fades from
view.
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS.
Farm- Yard Song.
OVER the hill the farm-boy goes,
His shadow lengthens along the land,
A giant staff in a giant hand ;
In a poplar-tree, above the spring,
The katydid begins to sing;
The early dews are falling;
Into the stone-heap darts the mink;
The swallows skim the river's brink ;
And home to the woodland fly the crows,
When over the hill the farm-boy goes,
Cheerily calling
" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! co' ! "
Farther, farther over the hill,
Faintly calling, calling still
" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! "
Into the yard the farmer goes,
With grateful heart, at the close of day ;
COUNTRY SCENES 277
Harness and chain are hung away;
In the wagon-shed stand yoke and plow;
The straw's in the stack, the hay in the mow,
The cooling dews are falling;
The friendly sheep his welcome bleat,
The pigs come grunting to his feet,
The whinnying mare her master knows,
When into the yard the farmer goes,
His cattle calling
" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! co' ! "
While still the cowboy, far away,
Goes seeking those that have gone astray
" Co', boss ! co', boss I co' ! co' 1 "
Now to her task the milkmaid goes.
The cattle come crowding through the gate,
Lowing, pushing, little and great;
About the trough, by the farmyard pump,
The frolicsome yearlings frisk and jump,
While the pleasant dews are falling;
The new-milch heifer is quick and shy,
But the old cow waits with tranquil eye ;
And the white stream into the bright pail flows,
When to her task the milkmaid goes,
Soothingly calling
" So, boss ! so, boss ! so ! so ! so ! "
The cheerful milkmaid takes her stool,
278 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And sits and milks in the twilight cool,
Saying, " So ! so, boss 1 so ! so ! "
To supper at last the farmer goes.
The apples are pared, the paper read,
The stories are told, then all to bed.
Without, the crickets' ceaseless song
Makes shrill the silence all night long;
The heavy dews are falling.
The housewife's hand has turned the lock ;
Drowsily ticks the kitchen clock ;
The household sinks to deep repose;
But still in sleep the farm-boy goes
Singing, calling
" Co', boss ! co', boss ! co' ! co' ! co' ! "
And oft the milkmaid, in her dreams,
Drums in the pail with the flashing streams,
Murmuring, " So, boss ! so ! "
JOHN T. TROWBEIDGE.
Indian Summer.
AT last the toil-encumbered days are over,
And airs of noon are mellow as the morn ;
The blooms arc brown upon the seeding clover,
And brown the silks that plume the ripening corn..
COUNTRY SCENES 279
All sounds are hushed of reaping and of mowing ;
The winds are low; the waters lie uncurled;
Nor thistle-down nor gossamer is flowing,
So lull'd in languid indolence the world.
And mute the farms along the purple valley,
The full barns muffled to the beams with sheaves ;
You hear no more the noisy rout and rally
Amongst the tenant-masons of the eaves.
A single quail, upstarting from the stubble,
Darts whirring past and quick alighting down
Is lost, as breaks and disappears a bubble,
Amid the covert of the leafy brown.
The upland glades are flecked afar in dapples
By flocks of lambs a-gambol from the fold ;
The orchards bend beneath the weight of apples,
And groves are bright in crimson and in gold.
But hark ! I hear the pheasant's muffled drumming ;
The water murmur from a distant dell ;
A drowsy bee in mazy tangles humming;
The far, faint tinkling tenor of a bell.
And now from yonder beech-trunk sheer and sterile,
The rat-tat-tat of the woodpecker's bill ;
280 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The sharp staccato barking of a squirrel,
A dropping nut, and all again is still.
J. P. IRVINE.
The Snow-Storm.
ANNOUNCED by all the trumpets of the sky
Arrives the snow, and driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopp'd, the courier's feet
Delay'd, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fire-place, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north-wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnish'd with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
COUNTRY SCENES 281
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs, and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are number'd, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonish'd Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
RALPH WALDO EMEESON.
at #
From "Winter."
THE SNOW-STOEM
THE keener tempests rise : and, fuming dun
From all the livid east, or piercing north,
Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb
A vapory deluge lies, to snow congealed.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;
And the sky saddens with the gathering storm.
Through the hushed air the. whitening shower de-
scends,
At first thin wavering ; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
282 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Put on their winter robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid and chill,
Is one white, dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of Heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The red-breast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats ; then brisk alights
On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,
And pecks and starts, and wonders where he is:
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs
COUNTRY SCENES 283
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kinde
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair ; then, sad-dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.
Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind:
Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens
With food at will ; lodge them below the storm
And watch them strict : for from the bellowing east
In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing
Sweeps up the burthen of whole wintry plains
At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks,
Hid in the hollow of two neighboring hills,
The billowy tempest whelms ; till upward urged,
The valley to a shining mountain swells,
Tipped with a wreath high curling in the sky.
As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce
All winter drives along the darkened air,
In his own loose-revolving fields the swain
Disastered stands ; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain:
Nor finds the river, nor the forest hid
Beneath the formless wild ; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray ;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
284 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of
home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigor forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul !
What black despair, what horror, fills his heart,
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feigned
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and blest abode of man;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of covered pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
Smoothed up with snow ; and, what is land, unknown,
What water of the still unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps ; and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mixed with the tender anguish nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him the officious wife prepares
COUNTRY SCENES 285
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly winter seizes ; shuts up sense ;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffened corpse,
Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
JAMES THOMSON.
Morrice Water.
ALONG the shallows of the river
That flows by Hemlock Mountain's side,
There is a street of elms and gardens,
With flower-de-luce and London-pride;
All green and blue and white reflected
Within the still and dreaming tide.
When from the castellated steeple
The bell's melodious long refrain,
Full early on* a Sabbath morning,
Is heard across the windy plain,
286 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Along that street the flowered waistcoat
And polonaise appear again.
In the Town Hall, at springtime parties,
To many a quaint and charming tune,
They play "Where art thou? " and "King
William";
And still beneath the autumn moon
Lead forth to " Money Musk " their partners,
And dance the reel and rigadoon.
And when the graybeards fill the tavern
With talk of camp, and sword, and gun,
They mingle Shiloh and Stone River
With Concord, and with Lexington;
Until through yesterdays forever
The Morrice Water seems to run.
SARAH N. CLEGHOEN.
From "The Task."
HOW oft upon yon eminence our pace
Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While admiration, feeding at the eye,
COUNTRY SCENES 287
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned
The distant plow slow-moving, and beside
His laboring team, that swerved not from the track,
The sturdy swain diminished to a boy !
Here Ouse, slow-winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
Delighted. There, fast-rooted in their bank,
Stand, never overlooked, our favorite elms,
That screen the herdsman's solitary hut;
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream,
That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,
The sloping land recedes into the clouds ;
Displaying, on its varied side, the grace
Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening ear,
Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote.
Scenes must be beautiful which, daily viewed,
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years.
Praise justly due to those that I describe.
WILLIAM COWPEE.
288 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The Veteran.
REGARDFUL of the labors he has borne,
Alcon has spared the aged ox, outworn
With years and service in the furrow. He
Amid luxuriant grasses wanders free,
And loudly with his lows rejoices now
O'er his emancipation from the plow.
ADDJEUS. (TEANS. BY G. S. B.)
Corn-Fields.
WHEN on the breath of autumn breeze,
From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating like an idle thought
The fair white thistle-down,
O then what joy to walk at will
Upon the golden harvest-hill!
What joy in dreamy ease to lie
Amid a field new shorn,
And see all round on sun-lit slopes
The piled-up stacks of corn ;
And send the fancy wandering o'er
All pleasant harvest-fields of yore.
289
I feel the day I see the field,
The quivering of the leaves,
And good old Jacob and his house
Binding the yellow sheaves;
And at this very hour I seem
To be with Joseph in his dream.
I see the fields of Bethlehem,
And reapers many a one,
Bending unto their sickles' stroke
And Boaz looking on;
And Ruth, the Moabite so fair,
Among the gleaners stooping there.
Again I see a little child,
His mother's sole delight,
God's living gift unto
The kind, good Shunamite;
To mortal pangs I see him yield,
And the lad bear him from the field.
The sun-bathed quiet of the hills,
The fields of Galilee,
That eighteen hundred years ago
Were full of corn, I see;
And the dear Saviour takes his wayj
'Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath day.
290 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
O golden fields of bending corn,
How beautiful they seem!
The reaper-folk, the piled-up sheaves,
To me are like a dream.
The sunshine and the very air
Seem of old time, and take me there.
MAKY HOWITT.
Selections.
rilHE big doors of the country barn stand open
JL and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-
drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown, gray and green
intertinged,
The armfuls are pack'd to the sagging mow.
I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and
timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of
wisps.
COUNTRY SCENES 291
A FARM PICTURE
THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful
country barn,
A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding,
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.
I SEE where the Mother of all,
With full-spanning eye gazes forth, dwells long,
And counts the varied gathering of the products.
Busy the far, the sunlit panorama,
Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,
Cotton and rice of the South and Louisianian cana,
Open unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and tim-
othy,
Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and
swine,
And many a stately river flowing and many a jocund
brook,
And healthy uplands with herby-perfumed breezes,
And the good green grass, that delicate miracle, the
ever-recurring grass.
Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest,
Over the fields of the West those crawling monsters,
292 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving imple-
ments;
Beholdest moving in every direction imbued as with
life the revolving hay-rakes,
The steam-power reaping-machines and the horse-
power machines,
The engines, threshers of grain and cleaners of grain,
well separating the straw, the nimble work of
the patent pitchfork,
Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin,
and the rice-cleanser.
AS I WATCHED THE PLOWMAN PLOWING
AS I watched the plowman plowing,
Or the sower sowing in the fields, or the har-
vester harvesting,
I saw there, too, O life and death, your analogies ;
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest ac-
cording.)
OXEN THAT EATTLE THE YOKE AND CHAIN
OXEN that rattle the yoke and chain, or halt in
the leafy shade!
What is that you express in your eyes ?
COUNTRY SCENES 293
It seems to me more than all the print I have read
in my life.
My tread scares the wood-drake and the wood-duck,
on my distant and day-long ramble ;
They rise together they slowly circle around.
I believe in those wing'd purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within
me,
And consider green and violet, and the tufted crown,
intentional ;
And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she
is not something else;
And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut,
yet trills pretty well to me ;
And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out
of me.
WALT WHITMAN.
The Sheep and the Lambs.
ALL in the April evening,
April airs were abroad,
The sheep with their little lambs
Passed me by on the road.
294 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The sheep with their little lambs
Passed me by on the road;
All in the April evening
I thought of the Lamb of God.
The lambs were weary, and crying
With a weak, human cry.
I thought of the Lamb of God
Going meekly to die.
Up in the blue, blue mountains
Dewy pastures are sweet,
Rest for the little bodies,
Rest for the little feet,
But for the Lamb of God,
Up on the hilltop green,
Only a cross of shame
Two stark crosses between.
All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad,
I saw the sheep with their lambs,
And thought of the Lamb of God.
KATHARINE TYNAN.
COUNTRY SCENES 295
A Song of Early Autumn.
WHEN late in summer the streams run yellow,
Burst the bridges and spread into bays ;
When berries are black and peaches are mellow,
And hills are hidden by rainy haze ;
When the goldenrod is golden still,
But the heart of the sunflower is darker and sadder ;
When the corn is in stacks on the slope of the hill,
And slides o'er the path the striped adder.
When butterflies flutter from clover to thicket,
Or wave their wings on the drooping leaf ;
When the breeze comes shrill with the call of the
cricket,
Grasshopper's rasp, and rustle of sheaf.
When high in the field the fern-leaves wrinkle,
And brown is the grass where the mowers have
mown;
When low in the meadow the cow-bells tinkle,
And small brooks crinkle o'er stock and stone.
When heavy and hollow the robin's whistle
And shadows are deep in the heat of noon ;
When the air is white with the down o' the thistle,
And the sky is red with the harvest moon;
296 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Oh, then be chary, young Robert and Mary,
Nor time let slip, not a moment wait!
If the fiddle would play it must stop its tuning,
And they who would wed must be done with their
mooning ;
Let the churn rattle, see well to the cattle,
And pile the wood by the barn-yard gate !
RICHARD WATSON GILDEB.
In the Cool of the Evening.
IN the cool of the evening, when the low sweet
whispers waken,
When the laborers turn them homeward, and the
weary have their will,
When the censers of the roses o'er the forest aisles
are shaken,
Is it but the wind that cometh o'er the far green
hill?
For they say 'tis but the sunset winds that wander
thro' the heather,
Rustle all the meadow-grass and bend the dewy
fern;
COUNTRY SCENES '297
They say 'tis but the winds that bow the reeds in
prayer together,
And fill the shaken pools with fire along the shad-
owy burn.
In the beauty of the twilight, in the Garden that He
loveth,
They have veiled His lovely vesture with the dark-
ness of a name !
Thro* His Garden, thro' His Garden, it is but the
wind that moveth,
No more! But O the miracle, the miracle is the
same.
In the cool of the evening, when the sky is an old
story,
Slowly dying, but remembered, ay, and loved with
passion still . . .
Hush! . . . the fringes of His garment, in the
fading golden glory
Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far green
hill.
ALFRED NOTES.
298 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
In the Great Pastures.
Our cattle also shall go with us.
-Exodus x. 26.
WHEN the grave twilight moves toward the
west,
And the horizons of the plain are blurred,
I watch, on gradual slope and foot-hill crest,
The dark line of the herd.
And something primal through my being thrills,
For that line met the night when life began !
And cattle gathered from a thousand hills
Have kept the trail with man,
Till their calm eyes his greater Iliads hold;
The wonder-look, the dumb reproof and pain,
Have followed him since Abram's herds of old
Darkened the Asian plain.
MEREDITH NICHOLSON.
The Return of the Natives.
rTlHE dream came true, oft dreamed at home ;
JL We crossed the fabled leagues of foam,
Sailed down the Rhine, beheld the Danube,
And climbed the seven heights of Rome.
COUNTRY SCENES 299
(But now, across the well-known plain,
Hush, beating heart! we trace again
The misty reach of Winding River!
The cowslip fields of Westward Lane!)
We saw the fortress of the Czar,
The Kaiser's armies plumed for war,
The princes of the Church in pageant,
And mighty dreadnoughts sailing far.
(But look! Beyond that daisied hill
Where cattle roam and graze their fill,
Beneath an arch of elms and maples,
The village troop rides out to drill.)
We crossed the plain of Marathon,
The field of Tours we looked upon,
And trod the blood-'riched Belgian valley
Where Bonaparte met Wellington.
(Yet here, uncovered in the sun
We halt beside a rusty gun
Our village pride, the priceless trophy
Our fathers from the Redcoats won.)
SAIIAH N. CLEGHOEN.
300 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
From "The Cotton Boll."
WHILE I recline
At ease beneath
This immemorial pine,
Small sphere !
(By dusky fingers brought this morning here
And shown with boastful smiles),
I turn thy cloven sheath,
Through which the soft white fibers peer,
That, with their gossamer bands,
Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands,
And slowly, thread by thread,
Draw forth the folded strands,
Than which the trembling line,
By whose frail help yon startled spider fled
Down the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed,
Is scarce more fine ;
And as the tangled skein
Unravels in my hands,
Betwixt me and the noonday light
A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles
The landscape broadens on my sight,
As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell
Like that which, in the ocean shell,
With mystic sound
Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round,
COUNTRY SCENES 301
And turns some city lane
Into the restless main,
With all his capes and isles !
Yonder bird,
Which floats, as if at rest,
In those blue tracts above the thunder, where
No vapors cloud the stainless air,
And never sound is heard,
Unless at such rare time
When, from the City of the Blest,
Rings down some golden chime,
Sees not from his high place
So vast a cirque of summer space
As widens round me in one mighty field,
Which, rimmed by seas and sands,
Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams
Of gray Atlantic dawns ;
And, broad as realms made up of many lands,
Is lost afar
Behind the crimson hills and purple lawns
Of sunset, among plains which roll their streams
Against the Evening Star!
Andlo!
To the remotest point of sight,
Although I gaze upon no waste of snow,
The endless field is white;
302 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And the whole landscape glows,
For many a shining league away,
With such accumulated light
As polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day !
Nor lack there (for the vision grows,
And the small charm within my hands
More potent even than the fabled one,
Which oped whatever golden mystery
Lay hid in fairy wood or magic vale,
The curious ointment of the Arabian tale
Beyond all mortal sense
Doth stretch my sight's horizon, and I see,
Beneath its simple influence,
As if, with Uriel's crown,
I stood in some great temple of the sun,
And looked, as Uriel, down!)
Nor lack there pastures rich and fields all green
With all the common gifts of God.
For temperate airs and torrid sheen
Weave Edens of the sod;
Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold
Broad rivers wind their devious ways ;
A hundred isles in their embraces fold
A hundred luminous bays ;
And through yon purple haze
Vast mountains lift their plumed peaks cloud-
crowned ;
COUNTRY SCENES 303
And, save where up their sides the plowman creeps,
An unhewn forest girds them grandly round,
In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps !
Ye Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze
Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth !
Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays
Above it, as to light a favorite hearth 1
Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the West
See nothing brighter than its humblest flowers!
And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast
Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers !
Bear witness with me in my song of praise,
And tell the world that, since the world began,
No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays,
Or given a home to man. . . .
HENRY TIMROD.
The Town of Hay.
THE town of Hay is far away,
The town of Hay is far ;
Between its hills of green and gray
Its winding meadows are.
Within the quiet town of Hay
Is many a quiet glen,
304 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And there by many a shaded way
Are homes of quiet men:
And there are many hearts alway
That turn with longing, night and day,
Back to the town of Hay.
Within that good old town of Hay
There was no pride of birth,
And no man there pursued his way
A stranger in the earth ;
And none were high and none were low,
Of golden hair or gray,
And each would grieve at other's woe
Down in the town of Hay ;
And many a world-scorned soul to-day
'Mid crowded thousands far away
Weeps for the town of Hay.
A road leads from the town of Hay
Forth to a world of din,
And winds and wanders far away,
And many walked therein;
Far in the crowds of toil and stress
Their restless footsteps stray,
Their souls have lost the quietness
Of that old town of Hay ;
But in some respite of the fray,
COUNTRY SCENES 305
In transient dreams they float away,
Back to the town of Hay.
Old men are in that town of Hay,
Amid its quiet trees,
Who dream of strong sons far away
Upon the stormy seas;
Old mothers, when the twilight dew
The woodbine leaves have pearled,
Dream of their boys who wander through
The wideness of the world:
And tears fall in the twilight gray,
And prayers go up at close of day
In that old town of Hay.
A hillside in the town of Hay
Is slanting toward the sun,
And gathered 'neath its headstones gray
Are sleepers, one by one ;
And there are tears in distant lands,
And grief too deep for tears,
And farewells waved from phantom hands
Across the gulf of years :
And when they place that headstone gray, %
It crushes hearts so far away
From that old town of Hay.
SAM WALTER Foss.
From "Exile."
O LONDON holds the hearts of men,
And London's paved with gold ;
But ah, to hear the lark again,
And see the buds unfold ! . . .
London stole my youth away,
The while she gave me bread ;
She killed my soul from day to day,
And gave me gold instead.
But in the twilight cold and gray,
Above the City's voice,
1 hear the mowers mow the hay,
I hear the birds rejoice.
J. A. MIDDLETON.
Asleep in Union Square.
'E dreamed he took the road again,
Up Bald Fowl Mountain's back,
Between the cobbles, Fox and Hen,
And through the Hollow black,
309
H
310 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Where the loud floods of Roaring Ben
Came down the Peaktown track.
In dreams he walked the Peaktown street,
And heard the floods of Ben
The slow and shallow river meet
Below the saphouse glen,
Whence faint his mother's bugle sweet
Called home his father's men.
SAEAH N. CLEGHORN.
The Milking of the Cow.
milk pail used to versify a mild and mellow
A meter,
When I used to milk old Brindle in the yard,
And the shining milk was sweeter unto me and little
Peter
Than oriental perfumes of frankincense and nard.
The sunset flung its banners from the gilded hills
about us,
And the odors o* the evening seemed to drop from
every bough,
There was peace and glad contentment both within us
and without us,
At the sweet mellifluous milking of the cow.
COUNTRY TIES 311
And wandering, like a memory from the silent past's
abysm,
I smell the grateful odors of the fragrant evening
breeze,
And I bend to catch the chrism of the twilight's glad
baptism,
And the outstretched benediction of the trees.
The glory of the summer night, the magic of the
mountains,
And the tinklings of the twilight on the farm are
with me now,
But through all the mingling music still I hear those
falling fountains,
The sweet mellifluous milking of the cow.
Still I hear the joyful rhythm of that titillating
tinkle,
And I smell the grateful odors of the placid, per-
fumed night,
Odors blown from glens a-sprinkle with wild-rose and
periwinkle,
And from lakes where lazy lilies loll in languor for
the light.
Through the valley of the Long Years that is glim-
mering behind me
I peer adown the vista that connects the then and
now,
POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
With a youth's audacious unconcern a careless boy I
find me,
At the sweet mellifluous milking of the cow.
SAM WALTER Foss.
Old Pictures.
OLD pictures, faded long, to-night
Come out revealed by memory's gleam ;
And years of checkered dark and light
Vanish behind me like a dream.
I see the cottage, brown and low,
The rustic porch, the roof -tree's shade,
And all the place where long ago
A group of happy children played.
I see the brother, bravest, best,
The prompt to act, the bold to speak ;
The baby, dear and honored guest !
The timid sister, shy and meek.
I see her loving face who oft
Watched, that their slumbers might be sweet;
And his whose dear hand made so soft
The path for all their tender feet.
COUNTRY TIES 313
I see, far off, the woods whose screen
Bounded the little world we knew;
And near, in fairy rings of green,
The grass that round the door-stones grew.
I watch at morn the oxen come,
And bow their meek necks to the yoke^
Or stand at noontide, patient, dumb,
In the great shadow of the oak.
The barn with crowded mows of hay,
And roof upheld by golden sheaves ;
Its rows of doves, at close of day,
Cooing together on the eaves.
I see, above the garden-beds,
The bee at work with laden wing;
The dandelions' yellow heads
Crowding about the orchard spring ;
The little, sweet-voiced, homely thrush;
The field-lark, with her speckled breast ;
The finches m the currant-bush;
And where the bluebirds hid their nest.
I see the comely apple-trees,
In spring, a-blush with blossoms sweet;
314 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Or, bending with the autumn breeze,
Shake down their ripe fruits at our feet.
I see, when hurtling through the air
The arrows of the winter fly,
And all the frozen earth lies bare,
A group about the hearth draw nigh,
Of little ones that never tire
Of stories told and told again ;
I see the pictures in the fire,
The firelight pictures in the pane.
I almost feel the stir and buzz
Of day ; the evening's holy calm ;
Yea, all that made me what I was,
And helped to make me what I am.
Then lo! it dies, as died our youth;
And things so strange about me seem,
I know not what should be the truth,
Nor whether I would wake or dream.
I have not found to-day so vain,
Nor yesterday so fair and good,
That I would have my life again,
And live it over if I could.
COUNTRY TIES 315
Not every hope for me has proved
A house on weak foundation built;
I have not seen the feet I loved
Caught in the awful snares of guilt.
But when I see the paths so hard
Kept soft and smooth in days gone by;
The lives that years have made or marred,
Out of my loneliness I cry :
Oh, for the friends that made so bright
The days, alas ! too soon to wane !
Oh, but to be one hour to-night
Set in their midst, a child again !
PHOEBE CART.
Griggsby's Station.
PAP'S got his pattent-right, and rich as all crea-
tion;
But where's the peace and comfort that we all had
before ?
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore !
316 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The likes of us a-livin' here! It's jest a mortal pity
To see us in this great big house, with cyarpets on
the stairs,
And the pump right in the kitchen ! and the city ! city !
city!
And nothin' but the city all around us ever'wheres !
Climb clean above the roof and look from the steeple,
And never see a robin, nor a beech or ellum tree !
And right here in ear-shot of at least a thousan'
people,
And none that neighbors with us or we want to go
and see!
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station
Back where the latch-string's a-hangin' from the
door,
And ever' neighbor round the place is dear as a rela-
tion
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore !
I want to see the Wiggenses, the whole kit-and-bilin',
A-drivin' up from Shallor Ford to stay the Sunday
through ;
And I want to see 'em hitchin' at their son-in-law's
and pilin*
Out there at 'Lizy Ellen's like they ust to do !
COUNTRY TIES 317
I want to see the piece-quilts the Jones girls is makin' ;
And I want to pester Laury 'bout their freckled
hired hand,
And joke her 'bout the widower she come purt' nigh
a-takin',
Till her Pap got his pension 'lowed in time to save
his land.
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station
Back where they's nothin' aggervatin' any more,
Shet away safe in the woods around the old location
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore !
I want to see Marindy and he'p her with her sewin',
And hear her talk so lovin' of her man that's dead
and gone,
And stand up with Emanuel to show me how he's
growin',
And smile as I have saw her 'fore she put her
mournin' on.
And I want to see the Samples, on the old lower
eighty,
Where John, our oldest boy, he was tuk and burried
for
His own sake and Katy's, and I want to cry with
Katy
As she reads all his letters over, writ from The War.
318 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
What's in all this grand life and high situation,
And nary pink nor hollyhawk a-bloomin' at the
door ?
Le's go a-visitin' back to Griggsby's Station
Back where we ust to be so happy and so pore !
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
Mother West.
r INHERE is a mother, legend runs,
JL Of mothers quite the best,
Who boasts ten million sturdy sons
'Twixt plain and mountain crest ;
She gives of wealth in goodly store,
She gives abounding health and, more,
She opens wide Contentment's door
Her name is Mother West.
Beneath the blazing stars, low-swung,
Where eagles make their nest,
Her hardy boys to crags have clung
And faced death with a jest;
And on the cattle-dotted plain,
Where ranch lights now gleam through the rain,
Right cheerily her sons have lain
And died for Mother West.
COUNTRY TIES 319
For she a mystic spell has laid
Upon the human breast;
To break her bonds men have essayed,
But well they stand the test ;
For every pulsing heart she claims,
And every mind, with all its aims,
Once yielding to her sunset flames
Belongs to Mother West.
O thou, whose bounties never fail,
We are thy children blest;
To foreign shores we may set sail,
Our pilot strange unrest;
But still thy nestlings turn to thee
Thy hills, thy plains, thy mystery
And, at the last, from oversea
Come home to Mother West.
ARTHUR CHAPMAN.
De Bell of St. Michel.
GO 'way, go 'way, don't ring no more, ole bell of
Saint Michel,
For if you do, I can't stay here, you know dat very
well,
320 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
No matter how I close ma ear, I can't shut out de
soun',
It rise so high 'bove all de noise of dis beeg Yankee
town.
An' w'en it ring, I t'ink I feel de cool, cool summer
breeze
Dat's blow across Lac Peezagonk, an' play among de
trees,
Dey're makin' hay, I know mese'f, can smell de pleas-
ant smell.
O ! how I wish I could be dere to-day on Saint Michel !
It's fonny t'ing, for me I'm sure, dat's travel ev'ry-
w'ere,
How moche I t'ink of long ago w'en I be leevin' dere ;
I can't 'splain dat at all, at all, mebbe it's naturel,
But I can't help it w'en I hear de bell of Saint Michel.
Dere's plaintee t'ing I don't forget, but I remember
bes'
De spot I fin* wan day on June de small san'piper's
nes',
An' dat hole on de reever w'ere I ketch de beeg, beeg
trout
Was very nearly pull me in before I pull heem out.
COUNTRY TIES 321
An' leetle Elodie Leclaire, I wonner if she still
Leev jus* sam' place she use to leev on 'noder side
de hill,
But s'pose she marry Joe Barbeau, dat's alway
hangin' roun'
Since I am lef ole Saint Michel for work on Yankee
town.
Ah! dere she go, ding dong, ding dong, it's back,
encore again
An' ole chanson come on ma head of " a la claire fon-
taine,"
I'm not surprise it soun' so sweet, more sweeter I can
tell
For wit' de song also I hear de bell of Saint Michel.
It's very strange about dat bell, go ding dong all de
w'ile
For when I'm small gar9on at school, can't hear it
half a mile ;
But seems more farder I get off from Church of Saint
Michel,
De more I see de ole village an' louder soun' de bell.
O ! all de monee dat I mak' w'en I be travel roun'
Can't kip me long away from home on dis beeg Yankee
town.
322 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
I t'ink I'll settle down again on Parish Saint Michel,
An' leeve an' die more satisfy so long I hear dat bell.
WILLIAM HENRY DEUMMOND.
From "The Clang of the Yankee Reaper.
clang of the Yankee reaper,
JL On Salisbury Plain!
A music grander deeper
Than many a nobler strain.
Across that British prairie
I tramped, one summer day :
The breeze was free and merry
White lamb-clouds were at play;
With fleecy wealth was teeming
The shepherd's paddock fold;
And ripened grain stood gleaming
Like lakes of melted gold ;
Far x>ff were grimly looming
Stonehenge's mystery-piles ;
Beneath the feet were blooming
A floweret's modest smiles; . . .
COUNTRY TIES 323
And never the sea's wide reaches
Seemed half the fathoms o'er,
Or the West-land's shining beaches
So far away before,
When richer, sweeter, deeper
Than a distant music strain,
Came the clang of the Yankee reaper
On Salisbury Plain !
WILL CARLETON.
Thinkin' Back.
I'VE been thinkin' back of late,
S'prisin' ! And I'm here to state
I'm suspicious it's a sign
Of age, maybe, er decline
Of my faculties, and yit
I'm not feeliri* old a bit
Any more than sixty-four
Ain't no young man any more !
Thinkin' back's a thing 'at grows
On a feller, I suppose
Older 'at he gits, i jack,
324 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
More he keeps a-thinkin' back !
Old as old men git to be,
Er as middle-aged as me,
Folks'll find us, eye and mind
Fixed on what we've left behind
Rehabilitatin'-like
Them old times we used to hike
Out barefooted fer the crick,
'Long 'bout Apr'l first to pick
Out some " warmest " place to go
In a-swimmin' Ooh! my oh!
Wonder now we hadn't died !
Grate horseradish on my hide
Jes' a-thvnkin' how cold then
That-'ere worter must 'a' ben !
Thinkin* back W'y, goodness me !
I kin call their names and see
Every little tad I played
With, er fought, er was afraid
Of, and so made him the best
Friend I had of all the rest !
Thinkin' back, I even hear
Them a-callin', high and clear,
Up the crick-banks, where they seem
Still hid in there like a dream
And me still a-pantin' on
COUNTRY TIES 325
The green pathway they have gone !
Still they hide, by bend er ford
Still they hide But, thank the Lord
(Thinkin' back, as I have said)
I hear laughin' on ahead !
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
On the Banks of the Tennessee.
I SIT by the open window
And look to the hills away,
Over beautiful undulations
That glow with the flowers of May
And as the lights and the shadows
With the passing moments change,
Comes many a scene of beauty
Within my vision's range
But there is not one among them
That is half so dear to me,
As an old log-cabin I think of
On the banks of the Tennessee.
Now up from the rolling meadows,
And down from the hill-tops now,
Fresh breezes steal in at my window,
And sweetly fan my brow
326 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
And the sounds that they gather and bring me,
From rivulet, and meadow, and hill,
Come in with a touching cadence,
And my throbbing bosom fill
But the dearest thoughts thus wakened,
And in tears brought back to me,
Cluster round that old log-cabin
On the banks of the Tennessee.
To many a fond remembrance
My thoughts are backward cast,
As I sit by the open window
And recall the faded past
For all along the windings
Of the ever-moving years,
Lie wrecks of hope and of purpose
That I now behold through tears
And of all of them, the saddest
That is thus brought back to me,
Makes holy that old log-cabin
On the banks of the Tennessee.
Glad voices now greet me daily,
Sweet faces I oft behold,
Yet I sit by the open window,
And dream of the times of old
COUNTRY TIES 327
Of a voice that on earth is silent,
Of a face that is seen no more,
Of a spirit that faltered not ever
In the struggle of days now o'er
And a beautiful grave comes pictured
Forever and ever to me,
From a knoll near that old log-cabin
On the banks of the Tennessee.
W. D. GALLAGHER.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and
wattles made ;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-
bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes
dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of morning to where the
cricket sings ;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple
glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
328 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the
shore ;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements
gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
WILLIAM B. YEATS.
The Call.
THE unforgotten voices call at twilight,
In the gray dawning, in the quiet night hours :
Voices of mountains and of waters falling,
Voices of wood-doves in the tender valleys,
Voices of flowery meadows, golden cornfields
Yea, all the lonely bog-lands have their voices.
Voices of church-bells over the green country,
Memories of home, of youth. O unforgotten !
When all the world's asleep the voices call me,
Come home, acushla, home! Why did you leave us?
The little voices hurt my heart to weeping;
There are small fingers plucking at my heart-strings.
Let me alone, be still, I will not hear you !
Why would I come to find the old places lonely?
COUNTRY TIES 329
They are all gone, the loving, the true-hearted ;
Beautiful country of the dead, I come not.
Why would I meet the cold eyes of the stranger?
All the nests of my heart are cold and empty.
I will not come for all your soft compelling,
Little fingers plucking me by the heart-strings,
In the gray dawning, in the quiet night hours.
Because the dead, the darling dead, return not,
And all the nests of my heart are cold and lonely.
They will not give me peace at dawn and twilight.
KATHARINE TYNAN.
Old Folks at Home.
WAY down upon de Swanee Ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber,
Dere's wha de old folks stay.
All up and down de whole creation
Sadly I roam,
Still longing for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.
All de world am sad and dreary,
Eberywhere I roam ;
330 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home !
All round de little farm I wandered
When I was young,
Den many happy days I squandered,
Many de songs I sung.
When I was playing wid my brudder
Happy was I ;
Oh, take me to my kind old mudder !
Dere let me live and die.
One little hut among de bushes,
One dat I love,
Still sadly to my memory rushes,
No matter where I rove.
When will I see de bees a-humming
All round de comb?
When will I hear de banjo tumming,
Down in my good old home?
All de world am sad and dreary,
Eberywhere I roam ;
Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home !
STEPHEN C. FOSTER.
COUNTRY TIES 331
The Old Village Choir.
I HAVE fancied sometimes the Bethel-bent beam
That trembled to earth in the Patriarch's dream,
Was a ladder of song in that wilderness rest
From the pillow of stone to the blue of the Blest,
And the angels descending to dwell with us here,
" Old Hundred " and " Corinth " and " China " and
" Hear."
All the hearts are not dead nor under the sod
That those breaths can blow open to Heaven and God.
Ah, " Silver Street " flows by a bright shining road,
Oh, not to the hymns that in harmony flowed,
But the sweet human psalms of the old-fashioned
choir,
To the girl that sang alto, the girl that sang air.
" Let us sing to God's praise ! " the minister said :
All the psalm-books at once fluttered open at " York,"
Sunned their long dotted wings in the words that he
read,
While the leader leaped into the tune just ahead,
And politely picked up the key-note with a fork,
And the vicious old viol went growling along
At the heels of the girls in the rear of the song.
332 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
Oh, I need not a wing ; bid no genii come
With a wonderful web from Arabian loom,
To bear me again up the river of Time,
When the world was in rhythm and life was its rhyme,
And the stream of the years flowed so noiseless and
narrow
That across it there floated the song of a sparrow ;
For a sprig of green caraway carries me there,
To the old village church and the old village choir,
Where clear of the floor my feet slowly swung.
And timed the sweet pulse of the praise that they sung,
Till the glory aslant from the afternoon sun
Seemed the rafters of gold in God's temple begun !
You may smile at the nasals of old Deacon Brown
Who followed by scent till he ran the tune down,
And dear sister Green, with more goodness than grace,
Rose and fell on the tunes as she stood in her place,
And where " Coronation " exultantly flows,
Tried to reach the high notes on the tips of her toes !
To the land of the leal they have gone with their song,
Where the choir and the chorus together belong.
Oh ! be lifted, ye gates ! Let me hear them again,
Blessed song ! Blessed singers ! forever Amen.
BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.
COUNTRY TIES 333
In School-Days.
STILL sits the school-house by the road,
A ragged beggar sunning ;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry vines are running.
Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife's carved initial;
The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!
Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.
It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
When all the school were leaving.
334 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
For near her stood the little boy
Her childish favor singled:
His cap pulled low upon a face
Where pride and sharne were mingled.
Pushing with restless feet the snow
To right and left, he lingered ;
As restlessly her tiny hands
The blue-checked apron fingered.
He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt
The soft hand's light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.
" I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,
Because," the brown eyes lower fell,
" Because, you see, I love you ! "
Still memory to a gray-haired man
That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
How few who pass above him
COUNTRY TIES 335
Lament their triumph and his loss,
Like her, because they love him.
JOHN G. WHITTLES.
A Haunting Memory.
WILD rockets blew along the lane ;
The tall white gentians too were there ;
The mullein stalks were brave again;
Of blossoms was the bramble bare ;
Toward the pasture bars below
The cows went by me tinkling slow.
Straight through the sunset flew a thrush
And sang the only song he knew,
Perched on a ripening elder bush;
(Oh, but to give his song its due!)
Sang it, and ceased, and left it there
To haunt bush, blade, and golden air.
What can I liken it unto?
My words were wrought for grosser stuff;
To give that lonely tune its due,
Never a word is sweet enough ;
A thing to think on when 'twas past,
As is the first rose or the last.
336 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The lad, driving his cows along,
Strode whistling through the windy grass ;
The little pool the shrubs among
Lay like a bit of yellow glass ;
A window in the farm-house old,
Turned westward, was of glaring gold.
I have forgotten days and days,
And much well worth the holding fast :
Yet not the look of these green ways ;
The bramble with its bloom long past ;
The tinkling cows; the scent; the brush;
Still on the elder sings that thrush.
LIZETTE W. REESE.
at at
An Order for a Picture.
OH, good painter, tell me true,
Has your hand the cunning to draw
Shapes of things that you never saw?
Aye? Well, here is an order for you.
Woods and cornfields, a little brown,
The picture must not be overbright,
Yet all in the golden and gracious light
COUNTRY TIES 337
Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down.
Alway and alway, night and morn,
Woods upon woods, with fields of corn
Lying between them, not quite sere,
And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom,
When the wind can hardly find breathing-room
Under their tassels, cattle near,
Biting shorter the short green grass,
And a hedge of sumach and sassafras,
With bluebirds twittering all around,
(Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!)
These, and the house where I was born,
Low and little, and black and old,
With children, many as it can hold,
All at the windows, open wide,
Heads and shoulders clear outside,
And fair young faces all ablush:
Perhaps you may have seen, some day,
Roses crowding the self-same way,
Out of a wilding, wayside bush.
Listen closer. When you have done
With woods and cornfields and grazing herds,
A lady, the loveliest ever the sun
Looked down upon you must paint for me:
Oh, if I only could make you see
The clear blue eyes, the tender smile,
338 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace,
The woman's soul, and the angel's face
That are beaming on me all the while,
I need not speak these foolish words :
Yet one word tells you all I would say,
She is my mother: you will agree
That all the rest may be thrown away.
Two little urchins at her knee
You must paint, sir ; one like me,
The other with a clearer brow,
And the light of his adventurous eyes
Flashing with boldest enterprise :
At ten years old he went to sea,
God knoweth if he be living now,
He sailed in the good ship " Commodore,"
Nobody ever crossed her track
To bring us news, and she never came back.
Ah, it is twenty long years and more
Since that old shi-p went out of the bay
With my great-hearted brother on her deck
I watched him till he shrank to a speck,
And his face was toward me all the way.
Bright his hair was, a golden brown,
The time we stood at our mother's knee:
That beauteous head, if it did go down,
Carried sunshine into the sea !
COUNTRY TIES 339
Out in the fields one summer night
We were together, half afraid
Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade
Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,
Loitering till after the low little light
Of the candle shone through the open door,
And over the hay-stack's pointed top,
All of a tremble and ready to drop,
The first half -hour, the great yellow star,
That we, with staring, ignorant eyes,
Had often and often watched to see
Propped and held in its place in the skies
By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree,
Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,
Dead at the top, just one branch full
Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool,
From which it tenderly shook the dew
Over our heads, when we came to play
In its hand-breadth of shadow, day after .day-
Afraid to go home, sir ; for one of us bore
A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,
Not so big as a straw of wheat:
The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat,
But cried and cried, till we held her bill,
So slim and shining, to keep her still.
340 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
At last we stood at our mother's knee.
Do you think, sir, if you try,
You can paint the look of a lie?
If you can, pray have the grace
To put it solely in the face
Of the urchin that is likest me:
I think 'twas solely mine, indeed:
But that's no matter, paint it so :
The eyes of our mother (take good heed)
Looking not on the nestful of eggs,
Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs,
But straight through our faces down to our lies,
And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise!
I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as
though
A sharp blade struck through it.
You, sir, know
That you on the canvas are to repeat
Things that are fairest, things most sweet,
Wood and cornfields and mulberry-tree,
The mother, the lads, with their bird, at her knee :
But, oh, that look of reproachful woe!
High as the heavens your name I'll shout,
If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.
ALICE CAEY.
COUNTRY TIES 341
My Playmates.
THE wind comes whispering to me of the country
green and cool
Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy
pool;
It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the
hill,
And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's
morning trill ;
So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to
know
Where the sassafras and snakeroot and checkerberries
grow.
What has become of Ezra Marsh, who lived on
Baker's hill?
And what's become of Noble Pratt, whose father
kept the mill?
And what's become of Lizzie Crum and Anastasia
Snell,
And of Roxie Root, who 'tended school in Boston for
a spell?
They were the boys and they the girls who shared my
youthful play
They do not answer to my call ! My playmates
where are they?
342 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
What has become of Levi and his little brother Joe,
Who lived next door to where we lived some forty
year ago?
I'd like to see the Newton boys and Quincy Adams
Brown,
And Hepsy Hall and Ella Cowles, who spelled the
whole school down !
And Gracie Smith, the Cutler boys, Leander Snow,
and all
Who I am sure would answer could they only hear
my call!
I'd like to see Bill Warner and the Conkey boys again
And talk about the times we used to wish that we
were men !
And one I shall not name her could I see her
gentle face
And hear her girlish treble in this distant, lonely
place !
The flowers and hopes of springtime they perished
long ago,
And the garden where they blossomed is white with
winter snow.
O cottage 'neath the maples, have you seen those girls
and boys
COUNTRY TIES 343
That but a little while ago made, oh! such pleasant
noise ?
trees, and hills, and brooks, and lanes, and meadows,
do you know
Where I shall find my little friends of forty years
ago?
You see I'm old and weary, and I've traveled long
and far;
1 am looking for my playmates I wonder where
they are !
EUGENE FIELD.
Up Berkshire Way.
SEEMS ter me it's dreadful long
Since I saw them shinin' hills !
Suthin's pullin' at my heart
Till my old eyes brims and fills.
When I dream about 'em nights,
Care and sorrer pass away ;
Nothin' but old saounds an' sights
Useter be up Berkshire way.
There's the old house on the hill,
Set araoun' with apple-trees ;
344
There's Lake Garfield shinin' still,
Just a-flutterin' in the breeze.
Seems ez ef I couldn't wait
Tell the winter's passed away,
Longin' so to see the folks
'Mongst the hills up Berkshire way !
Never wuz sech astrachans
Sech ez made the old trees red ;
Never wuz sech skies ez laughed
Through the green leaves overhead.
Ain't no place in all the airth
Cuddles in my heart ter stay
Like thet little humly taown
'Mongst the hills up Berkshire way.
F. E. PBATT.
The Prisoner.
HE was bound, he said, looking with weary eyes
into my face,
Bound to the hot city street, and the need of toil,
Bound by the close red bricks, and the blue brazen sky,
And the length of the days was long, in the noisy
teeming place.
COUNTRY TIES 345
He came from a different land, he said, where a dim
green sea
Broke with low thunder on a cool and misty shore,
And the wet smell of earth and of soft fragrant
bloom
Came fresh on the wild sweet wind, on the west wind
salt-dashed and free.
It is far to the northern sea, he said, and I may not
roam
Though the breath of the noisome streets wakes in my
heart
A fierce desire to see once more, before I die,
That moist green land, where the wild west wind blows
cool that land of home.
ANONYMOUS.
From "The House on the Hill."
FROM the weather-worn house on the brow of the
hill
We are dwelling afar, in our manhood, to-day ;
But we see the old gables and hollyhocks still,
As they looked long ago, ere we wandered away ;
We can see the tall well-sweep that stands by the door,
And the sunshine that gleams on the old oaken floor.
346 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
We can hear the low hum of the hard-working bees
At their toil in our father's old orchard, once more,
In the broad, trembling tops of the bright-blooming
trees,
As they busily gather their sweet winter store;
And the murmuring brook, the delightful old horn,
And the cawing black crows that are pulling the corn.
We can hear the sharp creak of the farm-gate again,
And the loud, cackling hens in the gray barn
near by,
With its broad sagging floor and its scaffolds of grain,
And its rafters that once seemed to reach to the
sky;
We behold the great beams, and the bottomless bay
Where the farm-boys once joyfully jumped on the
hay. . . .
We behold the bleak hillsides still bristling with rocks,
Where the mountain streams murmured with mu-
sical sound,
Where we hunted and fished, where we chased the red
fox,
With lazy old house-dog or loud-baying hound ;
And the cold, cheerless woods we delighted to tramp
For the shy, whirring partridge, in snow to our
knees,
COUNTRY TIES 347
Where, with neck-yoke and pails, in the old sugar-
camp,
We gathered the sap from the tall maple-trees ;
And the fields where our plows danced a furious jig,
While we wearily followed the furrow all day,
Where we stumbled and bounded o'er bowlders so big
That it took twenty oxen to draw them away ;
Where we sowed, where we hoed, where we cradled and
mowed,
Where we scattered the swaths that were heavy
with dew,
Where we tumbled, we pitched, and behind the tall
load
The broken old bull-rake reluctantly drew.
How we grasped the old " sheepskin " with feelings
of scorn
As we straddled the back of the old sorrel mare,
And rode up and down through the green rows of
corn,
Like a pin on a clothes-line that sways in the air.
We can hear our stern fathers reproving us still,
As the careless old creature " comes down on a hill."
We are far from the home of our boyhood to-day,
In the battle of life we are struggling alone ;
The weather-worn farm-house has gone to decay,
The chimney has fallen, its swallows have flown,
348 POEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE
But Fancy yet brings, on her bright golden wings,
Her beautiful pictures again from the past,
And Memory fondly and tenderly clings
To pleasures and pastimes too lovely to last. . . .
Farewell to the friends of our bright boyhood days,
To the beautiful vales once delightful to roam,
To the fathers, the mothers, now gone from our gaze,
From the weather-worn house to their heavenly
home,
Where they wait, where they watch, and will welcome
us still,
As they waited and watched in the house on the hilL
EUGENE J. HALL.
Two Pictures.
AN old farm-house with meadows wide
And sweet with clover on each side ;
A bright-eyed boy, who looks from out
The door with woodbine wreathed about,
And wishes his one thought all day :
" Oh, if I could but fly away
From this dull .spot, the world to see,
How happy, happy, happy,
How happy I should be ! "
COUNTRY TIES 349
Amid the city's constant din,
A man who round the world has been,
Who, 'mid the tumult and the throng,
Is thinking, thinking, all day long:
" Oh, could I only tread once more
The field-path to the farm-house door,
The old green meadow could I see,
How happy, happy, happy,
How happy I should be ! "
ANNIE DOUGLAS ROBINSON (" MAHIAN DOUGLAS").
Farewell to the Farm.
/SAID farewell unto our pensive stream
And the old farmstead wrapt in autumn's dream,
Farewell unto the village and the mill
And dark mill-race that winds below the hUl,
Farewell unto the cattle feeding slow
Where hoary willows stand in silent row,
Farewell to kindly neighbors, and farewell
To these old fields I long have loved so well,
Farewell, each haunt among these hill-sides dear,
God grant I come to you another year!
J. RUSSELL HAYES.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
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