Country Sentiment | Page 4

tall, glum fellow, velvet cloaked, with a shirt of mail,?Two eyes like flame.
All the furies of fate circled round the man,?Maddening his heart,?There was old murder done before play began,?Ay, the ghost took part.
There were grave-diggers delving, they brought up bones,?And with rage and grief?All the players shouted in full, kingly tones,?Grand, passing belief.
Oh, there were ladies there radiant like day,?And changing scenes:?Great sounding words were tossed about like hay?By kings and queens.
How the plot turned about I watched in vain,?Though for grief I cried,?As one and all they faded, poisoned or slain,?In great agony died.
Father, you'll drive me forth never to return,?Doubting me your son--
Father
So I shall, John
John
--but that glory for which I burn?Shall be soon begun.
I shall wear great boots, shall strut and shout,?Keep my locks curled.?The fame of my name shall go ringing about?Over half the world.
Father
Horror that your Prince found, John may you find,?Ever and again?Dying before the house in such torture of mind?As you need not feign.
While they clap and stamp at your nightly fate,?They shall never know?The curse that drags at you, until Hell's gate.?You have heard me. Go!
SONG: ONE HARD LOOK.
Small gnats that fly?In hot July?And lodge in sleeping ears,?Can rouse therein?A trumpet's din?With Day-of-Judgement fears.
Small mice at night?Can wake more fright?Than lions at midday.?An urchin small?Torments us all?Who tread his prickly way.
A straw will crack?The camel's back,?To die we need but sip,?So little sand?As fills the hand?Can stop a steaming ship.
One smile relieves?A heart that grieves?Though deadly sad it be,?And one hard look?Can close the book?That lovers love to see--
TRUE JOHNNY.
Johnny, sweetheart, can you be true?To all those famous vows you've made,?Will you love me as I love you?Until we both in earth are laid??Or shall the old wives nod and say?His love was only for a day:?The mood goes by,?His fancies fly,?And Mary's left to sigh.
Mary, alas, you've hit the truth,?And I with grief can but admit?Hot-blooded haste controls my youth,?My idle fancies veer and flit?From flower to flower, from tree to tree,?And when the moment catches me,?Oh, love goes by?Away I fly?And leave my girl to sigh.
Could you but now foretell the day,?Johnny, when this sad thing must be,?When light and gay you'll turn away?And laugh and break the heart in me??For like a nut for true love's sake?My empty heart shall crack and break,?When fancies fly?And love goes by?And Mary's left to die.
When the sun turns against the clock,?When Avon waters upward flow,?When eggs are laid by barn-door cock,?When dusty hens do strut and crow,?When up is down, when left is right,?Oh, then I'll break the troth I plight,?With careless eye?Away I'll fly?And Mary here shall die.
THE VOICE OF BEAUTY DROWNED.
Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!?The other birds woke all around,?Rising with toot and howl they stirred?Their plumage, broke the trembling sound,?They craned their necks, they fluttered wings,?"While we are silent no one sings,?And while we sing you hush your throat,?Or tune your melody to our note."
Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!?The screams and hootings rose again:?They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred?Their noisy plumage; small but plain?The lonely hidden singer made?A well of grief within the glade.?"Whist, silly fool, be off," they shout,?"Or we'll come pluck your feathers out."
Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!?Slight and small the lovely cry?Came trickling down, but no one heard.?Parrot and cuckoo, crow, magpie?Jarred horrid notes and the jangling jay?Ripped the fine threads of song away,?For why should peeping chick aspire?To challenge their loud woodland choir?
Cried it so sweet that unseen bird??Lovelier could no music be,?Clearer than water, soft as curd,?Fresh as the blossomed cherry tree.?How sang the others all around??Piercing and harsh, a maddening sound,?With Pretty Poll, tuwit-tu-woo,?Peewit, caw caw, cuckoo-cuckoo.
THE GOD CALLED POETRY.
Now I begin to know at last,?These nights when I sit down to rhyme,?The form and measure of that vast?God we call Poetry, he who stoops?And leaps me through his paper hoops?A little higher every time.
Tempts me to think I'll grow a proper?Singing cricket or grass-hopper?Making prodigious jumps in air?While shaken crowds about me stare?Aghast, and I sing, growing bolder?To fly up on my master's shoulder?Rustling the thick strands of his hair.
He is older than the seas,?Older than the plains and hills,?And older than the light that spills?From the sun's hot wheel on these.?He wakes the gale that tears your trees,?He sings to you from window sills.
At you he roars, or he will coo,?He shouts and screams when hell is hot,?Riding on the shell and shot.?He smites you down, he succours you,?And where you seek him, he is not.
To-day I see he has two heads?Like Janus--calm, benignant, this;?That, grim and scowling: his beard spreads?From chin to chin" this god has power?Immeasurable at every hour:?He first taught lovers how to kiss,?He brings down sunshine after shower,?Thunder and hate are his also,?He is YES and he is NO.
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