Green Fields and Running Brooks | Page 5

wove a dream,?All bespangled with the gleam?Of the glancing wings of swallows?Dipping ripples in a stream,?That, like a tide of wine,?Wound through lands of shade and shine?Where purple grapes hung bursting on the vine.
And where orchard-boughs were bent?Till their tawny fruitage blent?With the golden wake that marked the?Way the happy reapers went;?Where the dawn died into noon?As the May-mists into June,?And the dusk fell like a sweet face in a swoon.
Of the South I dreamed: And there?Came a vision clear and fair?As the marvelous enchantments?Of the mirage of the air;?And I saw the bayou-trees,?With their lavish draperies,?Hang heavy o'er the moon-washed cypress-knees.
Peering from lush fens of rice,?I beheld the Negro's eyes,?Lit with that old superstition?Death itself can not disguise;?And I saw the palm tree nod?Like an oriental god,?And the cotton froth and bubble from the pod,
And I dreamed that North and South,?With a sigh of dew and drouth,?Blew each unto the other?The salute of lip and mouth;?And I wakened, awed and thrilled--?Every doubting murmur stilled?In the silence of the dream I found fulfilled.
THE IRON HORSE.
No song is mine of Arab steed--?My courser is of nobler blood,?And cleaner limb and fleeter speed,?And greater strength and hardihood?Than ever cantered wild and free?Across the plains of Araby.
Go search the level desert-land?From Sana on to Samarcand--?Wherever Persian prince has been?Or Dervish, Sheik or Bedouin,?And I defy you there to point?Me out a steed the half so fine--?From tip of ear to pastern-joint--?As this old iron horse of mine.
You do not know what beauty is--?You do not know what gentleness?His answer is to my caress!--?Why, look upon this gait of his,--?A touch upon his iron rein--?He moves with such a stately grace?The sunlight on his burnished mane?Is barely shaken in its place;?And at touch he changes pace,?And, gliding backward, stops again.
And talk of mettle--Ah! my friend,?Such passion smoulders in his breast?That when awakened it will send?A thrill of rapture wilder than?Ere palpitated heart of man?When flaming at its mightiest.?And there's a fierceness in his ire--?A maddened majesty that leaps?Along his veins in blood of fire,?Until the path his vision sweeps?Spins out behind him like a thread?Unraveled from the reel of time,?As, wheeling on his course sublime,?The earth revolves beneath his tread.
Then stretch away, my gallant steed!?Thy mission is a noble one:?You bear the father to the son,?And sweet relief to bitter need;?You bear the stranger to his friends;?You bear the pilgrim to the shrine,?And back again the prayer he sends?That God will prosper me and mine,--?The star that on thy forehead gleams?Has blossomed in our brightest dreams.?Then speed thee on thy glorious race!?The mother waits thy ringing pace;?The father leans an anxious ear?The thunder of thy hoofs to hear;?The lover listens, far away,?To catch thy keen exultant neigh;?And, where thy breathings roll and rise,?The husband strains his eager eyes,?And laugh of wife and baby-glee?Ring out to greet and welcome thee.?Then stretch away! and when at last?The master's hand shall gently check?Thy mighty speed, and hold thee fast,?The world will pat thee on the neck.
HIS MOTHER'S WAY
Tomps 'ud allus haf to say?Somepin' 'bout "his mother's way."--?He lived hard-like--never jined?Any church of any kind.--?"It was Mother's way," says he,?"To be good enough fer me?And her too,--and certinly?Lord has heerd her pray!"?Propped up on his dyin' bed,--?"Shore as Heaven's overhead,?I'm a-goin' there," he said---?"It was Mother's way."
JAP MILLER.
Jap Miller down at Martinsville's the blamedest feller yit! When he starts in a-talkin' other folks is apt to quit!-- 'Pears like that mouth o' his'n wuz n't made fer nuthin' else But jes' to argify 'em down and gether in their pelts:?He'll talk you down on tariff; er he'll talk you down on tax, And prove the pore man pays 'em all--and them's about the fac's!-- Religen, law, er politics, prize-fightin', er base-ball-- Jes' tetch Jap up a little and he'll post you 'bout 'em all.
And the comicalist feller ever tilted back a cheer?And tuck a chaw tobacker kind o' like he did n't keer.--?There's where the feller's strength lays,--he's so
common-like and plain,--?They haint no dude about old Jap, you bet you--nary grain! They 'lected him to Council and it never turned his head, And did n't make no differunce what anybody said,--?He didn't dress no finer, ner rag out in fancy clothes;?But his voice in Council-meetin's is a turrer to his foes.
He's fer the pore man ever' time! And in the last campaign He stumped old Morgan County, through the sunshine and the rain, And helt the banner up'ards from a-trailin' in the dust,?And cut loose on monopolies and cuss'd and cuss'd and cuss'd! He'd tell some funny story ever' now and then, you know,?Tel, blame it! it wuz better 'n a jack-o'-lantern show!?And I'd go furder, yit, to-day, to hear old Jap norate?Than any high-toned orator 'at ever stumped the State!
W'y, that-air blame Jap Miller, with his keen