Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse | Page 4

of music float, And the
quiet and the firelight and the sweetly solemn tunes Bear me, dreaming,
back to boyhood and its Sunday afternoons:
When we gathered in the parlor, in the parlor stiff and grand, Where the
haircloth chairs and sofas stood arrayed, a gloomy band, Where each
queer oil portrait watched us with a countenance of wood, And the
shells upon the what-not in a dustless splendor stood.
Then the quaint old parlor organ with the quaver in its tongue, Seemed
to tremble in its fervor as the sacred songs were sung, As we sang the
homely anthems, sang the glad revival hymns
Of the glory of the
story and the light no sorrow dims.
While the dusk grew ever deeper and the evening settled down, And the
lamp-lit windows twinkled in the drowsy little town, Old and young we
sang the chorus and the echoes told it o'er In the dear familiar voices,
hushed or scattered evermore.
From the window of the chapel faint and low the music dies, And the
picture in the firelight fades before my tear-dimmed eyes, But my
wistful fancy, listening, hears the night-wind hum the tunes That we
sang there in the parlor on those Sunday afternoons.

[Illustration]
THE OLD DAGUERREOTYPES
Up in the attic I found them, locked in the cedar chest,
Where the
flowered gowns lie folded, which once were brave as the best; And like
the queer old jackets and the waistcoats gay with stripes, They tell of a
worn-out fashion--these old daguerreotypes.
Quaint little folding

cases fastened with tiny hook,
Seemingly made to tempt one to lift up
the latch and look;
Linings of purple velvet, odd little frames of gold,

Circling the faded faces brought from the days of old.
Grandpa and grandma, taken ever so long ago,
Grandma's bonnet a
marvel, grandpa's collar a show,
Mother, a tiny toddler, with rings on
her baby hands
Painted--lest none should notice--in glittering, gilded
bands.
Aunts and uncles and cousins, a starchy and stiff array,
Lovers and
brides, then blooming,--now so wrinkled and gray: Out through the
misty glasses they gaze at me, sitting here Opening the quaint old cases
with a smile that is half a tear.
I will smile no more, little pictures, for heartless it was, in truth, To
drag to the cruel daylight these ghosts of a vanished youth; Go back to
your cedar chamber, your gowns and your lavender, And dream, 'mid
their bygone graces, of the wonderful days that were.

THE BEST SPARE ROOM
I remember, when a youngster, all the happy hours I spent
When to
visit Uncle Hiram in the country oft I went;
And the pleasant
recollection still in memory has a charm
Of my boyish romps and
rambles round the dear old-fashioned farm. But at night all joyous
fancies from my youthful bosom crept, For I knew they'd surely put me
where the "comp'ny" always slept, And my spirit sank within me, as
upon it fell the gloom
And the vast and lonely grandeur of the best
spare room.
Ah, the weary waste of pillow where I laid my lonely head!
Sinking,
like a shipwrecked sailor, in a patchwork sea of bed, While the
moonlight through the casement cast a grim and ghastly glare O'er the
stiff and stately presence of each dismal haircloth chair; And it touched
the mantel's splendor, where the wax fruit used to be, And the alabaster

image Uncle Josh brought home from sea;
While the breeze that
shook the curtains spread a musty, faint perfume And a subtle scent of
camphor through the best spare room.
Round the walls were hung the pictures of the dear ones passed away,
"Uncle Si and A'nt Lurany," taken on their wedding day;
Cousin Ruth,
who died at twenty, in the corner had a place
Near the wreath from
Eben's coffin, dipped in wax and in a case; Grandpa Wilkins, done in
color by some artist of the town,
Ears askew and somewhat
cross-eyed, but with fixed and awful frown, Seeming somehow to be
waiting to enjoy the dreadful doom
Of the frightened little sleeper in
the best spare room.
Every rustle of the corn-husks in the mattress underneath
Was to me a
ghostly whisper muttered through a phantom's teeth, And the mice
behind the wainscot, as they scampered round about, Filled my soul
with speechless horror when I'd put the candle out. So I'm deeply
sympathetic when some story I have read
Of a victim buried living by
his friends who thought him dead; And I think I know his feelings in
the cold and silent tomb, For I've slept at Uncle Hiram's in the best
spare room.

THE OLD CARRYALL
It's alone in the dark of the old wagon-shed,
Where the spider-webs
swing from the beams overhead,
And the sun, siftin' in through the
dirt and the mold
Of the winder's dim pane, specks it over with gold.

Its curtains are