Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse | Page 3

he thinks it's all included in his work.

He is rigger, rower, swimmer, sailor, doctor, undertaker,
And he's
good at every one of 'em the same:
And he risks his life fer others in
the quicksand and the breaker, And a thousand wives and mothers bless
his name.
He's an angel dressed in oilskins, he's a saint in a
"sou'wester", He's as plucky as they make, or ever can;
He's a hero
born and bred, but it hasn't swelled his head,
And he's jest the U.S.
Gov'ment's hired man.

"THE EVENIN' HYMN"
When the hot summer daylight is dyin',
And the mist through the
valley has rolled,
And the soft velvet clouds ter the west'ard
Are
purple with trimmings of gold,--
Then, down in the medder-grass,
dusky,
The crickets chirp out from each nook,
And the frogs with
their voices so husky
Jine in from the marsh and the brook.
The chorus grows louder and deeper,
An owl sends a hoot from the
hill,
The leaves on the elm-trees are rustling
A whippoorwill calls
by the mill.
Where swamp honeysuckles are bloomin'
The breeze
scatters sweets on the night,
Like incense the evenin' perfumin',

With fireflies fer candles alight.
And the noise of the frogs and the crickets
And the birds and the
breeze are ter me
Lots better than high-toned supraners,
Although
they don't get to "high C";
And the church, with its grand painted
skylight,
Seems cramped and forbiddin' and grim
'Side of my old
front porch in the twilight
When God's choir sings its "Evenin'
Hymn."

THE MEADOW ROAD
Just a simple little picture of a sunny country road
Leading down

beside the ocean's pebbly shore,
Where a pair of patient oxen slowly
drag their heavy load,
And a barefoot urchin trudges on before:
Yet
I'm dreaming o'er it, smiling, and my thoughts are far away 'Mid the
glorious summer sunshine long ago,
And once more a happy, careless
boy, in memory I stray
Down a little country road I used to know.
I hear the voice of "Father" as he drives the lumbering steers, And the
pigeons coo and flutter on the shed,
While all the simple, homelike
sounds come whispering to my ears, And the cloudless sky of June is
overhead;
And again the yoke is creaking as the oxen swing and sway,

The old cart rattles loudly as it jars,
Then we pass beneath the elm
trees where the robin's song is gay, And go out beyond the garden
through the bars;
Down the lane, behind the orchard where the wild rose blushes sweet,
Through the pasture, past the spring beside the brook
Where the
clover blossoms press their dewy kisses on my feet And the
honeysuckle scents each shady nook;
By the meadow and the bushes,
where the blackbirds build their nests, Up the hill, beneath the shadow
of the pine,
Till the breath of Ocean meets us, dancing o'er his
sparkling crests, And our faces feel the tingling of the brine.
And my heart leaps gayly upward, like the foam upon the sea, As I
watch the breakers tumbling with a roar,
And the ships that dot the
azure seem to wave a hail to me, And to beckon to a wondrous, far-off
shore.

Just a simple little picture, yet its charm is o'er me still, And again my
boyish spirit seems to glow,
And once more a barefoot urchin am I
wandering at will
Down that little country road I used to know.

[Illustration]

THE BULLFROG SERENADE
When the toil of day is over
And the dew is on the clover,
And the
night-hawk whirls in circles overhead;
When the cow-bells melt and
mingle
In a softened, silver jingle,
And the old hen calls the
chickens in to bed;
When the marshy meadows glimmer
With a
misty, purple shimmer,
And the twilight flush is changing into shade;

When the firefly lamps are burning
And the dusk to dark is
turning,--
Then the bullfrogs chant their evening serenade:
"Deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep!
Better go 'round!_
Better go '_round!_ Better go '_round,"
First the little chaps begin it,
Raise their high-pitched voices in it,

And the shrill soprano piping sets the pace;
Then the others join the
singing
Till the echoes soon are ringing
With the big green-coated
leader's double-bass.
All the lilies are a-quiver,
And the grasses by
the river
Feel the mighty chorus shaking every blade,
While the
dewy rushes glisten
As they bend their heads to listen
To the
bullfrogs' summer evening serenade:
"Deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep!
Better go 'round!_
Better go '_round!_ Better go '_round!"
And the melody they're tuning
Has the sweet and sleepy crooning

That the mother hums the baby at her breast,
Till the world forgets its
sorrow
And the cares that haunt the morrow,
And is sinking,
hushed and happy, to its rest
Sometimes bubbling o'er with gladness,

Sometimes soft and fall of sadness,
Through my dreaming rings
the music they have played,
And my memory's dearest treasures

Have been fitted to the measures
Of the bullfrogs' summer evening
serenade:
"Deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep, deep-deep!
Better go 'round!_
Better go '_round!_ Better go '_round!"

SUNDAY AFTERNOONS
From the window of the chapel softly sounds an organ's note, Through
the wintry Sabbath gloaming drifting shreds