Country Sentiment | Page 8

past belief,?Lurking unforgotten,?Unrestrainable endless grief?From breasts long rotten.
A song? What laughter or what song?Can this house remember??Do flowers and butterflies belong?To a blind December?
NEGLECTFUL EDWARD.
Nancy
"Edward back from the Indian Sea,?What have you brought for Nancy?"
Edward
"A rope of pearls and a gold earring,?And a bird of the East that will not sing.?A carven tooth, a box with a key--"
Nancy
"God be praised you are back," says she,?"Have you nothing more for your Nancy?"
Edward
"Long as I sailed the Indian Sea?I gathered all for your fancy:?Toys and silk and jewels I bring,?And a bird of the East that will not sing:?What more can you want, dear girl, from me?"
Nancy
"God be praised you are back," said she,?"Have you nothing better for Nancy?"
Edward
"Safe and home from the Indian Sea,?And nothing to take your fancy?"
Nancy
"You can keep your pearls and your gold earring,?And your bird of the East that will not sing,?But, Ned, have you nothing more for me?Than heathenish gew-gaw toys?" says she,?"Have you nothing better for Nancy?"
THE WELL-DRESSED CHILDREN.
Here's flowery taffeta for Mary's new gown:?Here's black velvet, all the rage, for Dick's birthday coat. Pearly buttons for you, Mary, all the way down,?Lace ruffles, Dick, for you; you'll be a man of note.
Mary, here I've bought you a green gingham shade?And a silk purse brocaded with roses gold and blue,?You'll learn to hold them proudly like colours on parade.?No banker's wife in all the town half so grand as you.
I've bought for young Diccon a long walking-stick,?Yellow gloves, well tanned, at Woodstock village made.?I'll teach you to flourish 'em and show your name is DICK,?Strutting by your sister's side with the same parade.
On Sunday to church you go, each with a book of prayer:?Then up the street and down the aisles, everywhere you'll see Of all the honours paid around, how small is Virtue's share. How large the share of Vulgar Pride in peacock finery.
THUNDER AT NIGHT.
Restless and hot two children lay?Plagued with uneasy dreams,?Each wandered lonely through false day?A twilight torn with screams.
True to the bed-time story, Ben?Pursued his wounded bear,?Ann dreamed of chattering monkey men,?Of snakes twined in her hair...
Now high aloft above the town?The thick clouds gather and break,?A flash, a roar, and rain drives down:?Aghast the young things wake.
Trembling for what their terror was,?Surprised by instant doom,?With lightning in the looking glass,?Thunder that rocks the room.
The monkeys' paws patter again,?Snakes hiss and flash their eyes:?The bear roars out in hideous pain:?Ann prays: her brother cries.
They cannot guess, could not be told?How soon comes careless day,?With birds and dandelion gold,?Wet grass, cool scents of May.
TO E.M.--A BALLAD OF NURSERY RHYME.
Strawberries that in gardens grow?Are plump and juicy fine,?But sweeter far as wise men know?Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,?Sugar or spice or cream,?Has the wild berry plucked in June?Beside the trickling stream.
One such to melt at the tongue's root,?Confounding taste with scent,?Beats a full peck of garden fruit:?Which points my argument.
May sudden justice overtake?And snap the froward pen,?That old and palsied poets shake?Against the minds of men.
Blasphemers trusting to hold caught?In far-flung webs of ink,?The utmost ends of human thought?Till nothing's left to think.
But may the gift of heavenly peace?And glory for all time?Keep the boy Tom who tending geese?First made the nursery rhyme.
By the brookside one August day,?Using the sun for clock,?Tom whiled the languid hours away?Beside his scattering flock.
Carving with a sharp pointed stone?On a broad slab of slate?The famous lives of Jumping Joan,?Dan Fox and Greedy Kate.
Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds,?Spain, Scotland, Babylon,?That sister Kate might learn the words?To tell to toddling John.
But Kate who could not stay content?To learn her lesson pat?New beauty to the rough lines lent?By changing this or that.
And she herself set fresh things down?In corners of her slate,?Of lambs and lanes and London town.?God's blessing fall on Kate!
The baby loved the simple sound,?With jolly glee he shook,?And soon the lines grew smooth and round?Like pebbles in Tom's brook.
From mouth to mouth told and retold?By children sprawled at ease,?Before the fire in winter's cold,?in June, beneath tall trees.
Till though long lost are stone and slate,?Though the brook no more runs,?And dead long time are Tom, John, Kate,?Their sons and their sons' sons.
Yet as when Time with stealthy tread?Lays the rich garden waste?The woodland berry ripe and red?Fails not in scent or taste,
So these same rhymes shall still be told?To children yet unborn,?While false philosophy growing old?Fades and is killed by scorn.
JANE.
As Jane walked out below the hill,?She saw an old man standing still,?His eyes in tranced sorrow bound?On the broad stretch of barren ground.
His limbs were knarled like aged trees,?His thin beard wrapt about his knees,?His visage broad and parchment white,?Aglint with pale reflected light.
He seemed a creature fall'n afar?From some dim planet or faint star.?Jane scanned him very close, and soon?Cried, "'Tis the old man from the