Songs, Merry and Sad Part 3

Green moss will creep Along the shady graves where we shall sleep.

Each year will bring Another brood of birds to nest and sing.

At dawn will go New ploughmen to the fields we used to know.

Night will call home The hunter from the hills we loved to roam.

She will not ask, The milkmaid, singing softly at her task,

Nor will she care To know if I were brave or you were fair.

No one will think What chalice life had offered us to drink,

When from our clay The sun comes back to kiss the snow away.

Now!

Her brown hair knew no royal crest, No gems nor jeweled charms, No roses her bright cheek caressed, No lilies kissed her arms.

In simple, modest womanhood Clad, as was meet, in white, The fairest flower of all, she stood Amid the softest light.

It had been worth a perilous quest To see the court she drew,-- My rose, my gem, my royal crest, My lily moist with dew; Worth heaven, when, with farewells from each The gay throng let us be, To see her turn at last and reach Her white hands out to me.

Tommy Smith

When summer's languor drugs my veins And fills with sleep the droning times, Like sluggish dreams among my brains, There runs the drollest sort of rhymes, Idle as clouds that stray through heaven And vague as if they were a myth, But in these rhymes is always given A health for old Bluebritches Smith.

Among my thoughts of what is good In olden times and distant lands, Is that do-nothing neighborhood Where the old cider-hogshead stands To welcome with its br.i.m.m.i.n.g gourd The canny crowd of kin and kith Who meet about the bibulous board Of old Bluebritches Tommy Smith.

In years to come, when stealthy change Hath stolen the cider-press away And the gnarled orchards of the grange Have fallen before a slow decay, Were I so cunning, I would carve From some time-scorning monolith A sculpture that should well preserve The fame of old Bluebritches Smith.

Before Bedtime

The cat sleeps in a chimney jam With ashes in her fur, An' Tige, from on the yuther side, He keeps his eye on her.

The jar o' curds is on the hearth, An' I'm the one to turn it.

I'll crawl in bed an' go to sleep When maw begins to churn it.

Paw bends to read his almanax An' study out the weather, An' bud has got a gourd o' grease To ile his harness leather.

Sis looks an' looks into the fire, Half-squintin' through her lashes, An' I jis watch my tater where It shoots smoke through the ashes.

"If I Could Glimpse Him"

When in the Scorpion circles low The sun with fainter, dreamier light, And at a far-off hint of snow The giddy swallows take to flight, And droning insects sadly know That cooler falls the autumn night;

When airs breathe drowsily and sweet, Charming the woods to colors gay, And distant pastures send the bleat Of hungry lambs at break of day, Old Hermes' wings grow on my feet, And, good-by, home! I'm called away!

There on the hills should I behold, Sitting upon an old gray stone That humps its back up through the mold, And piping in a monotone, Pan, as he sat in days of old, My joy would bid surprise begone!

Dear Pan! 'Tis he that calls me out; He, lying in some hazel copse, Where lazily he turns about And munches each nut as it drops, Well pleased to see me swamped in doubt At sound of his much-changing stops.

If I could glimpse him by the vine Where purple fox-grapes hang their store, I'd tell him, in his leafy shrine, How poets say he lives no more.

He'd laugh, and pluck a muscadine, And fall to piping, as of yore!

Attraction

He who wills life wills its condition sweet, Having made love its mother, joy its quest, That its perpetual sequence might not rest On reason's dictum, cold and too discreet;

For reason moves with cautious, careful feet, Debating whether life or death were best, And why pale pain, not ruddy mirth, is guest In many a heart which life hath set to beat.

But I will cast my fate with love, and trust Her honeyed heart that guides the pollened bee And sets the happy wing-seeds fluttering free;

And I will bless the law which saith, Thou must!

And, wet with sea or shod with weary dust, Will follow back and back and back to thee!

Love's Fas.h.i.+on