Green Fields and Running Brooks | Page 7

the failing fire . . .?You are restless:--I presume?There's a dampness in the room.--?Much of warmth our nature begs,?With rheumatics in our legs! . . .
Humph! the legs we used to fling?Limber-jointed in the dance,?When we heard the fiddle ring?Up the curtain of Romance,?And in crowded public halls?Played with hearts like jugglers'-balls.--?Feats of mountebanks, depend!--?Tom Van Arden, my old friend.
Tom Van Arden, my old friend,?Pardon, then, this theme of mine:?While the fire-light leaps to lend?Higher color to the wine,--?I propose a health to those?Who have homes, and home's repose,?Wife- and child-love without end!?. . . Tom Van Arden, my old friend.
JUST TO BE GOOD.
Just to be good--
This is enough--enough!?O we who find sin's billows wild and rough,?Do we not feel how more than any gold?Would be the blameless life we led of old?While yet our lips knew but a mother's kiss?
Ah! though we miss?All else but this,?To be good is enough!
It is enough--
Enough--just to be good!?To lift our hearts where they are understood;?To let the thirst for worldly power and place?Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face?With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
Ah! though we miss?All else but this,?To be good is enough!
HOME AT NIGHT.
When chirping crickets fainter cry,?And pale stars blossom in the sky,?And twilight's gloom has dimmed the bloom?And blurred the butterfly:
When locust-blossoms fleck the walk,?And up the tiger-lily stalk?The glow-worm crawls and clings and falls?And glimmers down the garden-walls:
When buzzing things, with double wings?Of crisp and raspish flutterings,?Go whizzing by so very nigh?One thinks of fangs and stings:--
O then, within, is stilled the din?Of crib she rocks the baby in,?And heart and gate and latch's weight?Are lifted--and the lips of Kate.
THE HOOSIER FOLK-CHILD.
The Hoosier Folk-Child--all unsung--?Unlettered all of mind and tongue;?Unmastered, unmolested--made?Most wholly frank and unafraid:?Untaught of any school--unvexed?Of law or creed--all unperplexed--?Unsermoned, aye, and undefiled,?An all imperfect-perfect child--?A type which (Heaven forgive us!) you?And I do tardy honor to,?And so, profane the sanctities?Of our most sacred memories.?Who, growing thus from boy to man,?That dares not be American??Go, Pride, with prudent underbuzz--?Go whistle! as the Folk-Child does.
The Hoosier Folk-Child's world is not?Much wider than the stable-lot?Between the house and highway fence?That bounds the home his father rents.?His playmates mostly are the ducks?And chickens, and the boy that "shucks?Corn by the shock," and talks of town,?And whether eggs are "up" or "down,"?And prophesies in boastful tone?Of "owning horses of his own,"?And "being his own man," and "when?He gets to be, what he'll do then."--?Takes out his jack-knife dreamily?And makes the Folk-Child two or three?Crude corn-stalk figures,--a wee span?Of horses and a little man.
The Hoosier Folk-Child's eyes are wise?And wide and round as Brownies' eyes:?The smile they wear is ever blent?With all-expectant wonderment,--?On homeliest things they bend a look?As rapt as o'er a picture-book,?And seem to ask, whate'er befall,?The happy reason of it all:--?Why grass is all so glad a green,?And leaves--and what their lispings mean;--?Why buds grow on the boughs, and why?They burst in blossom by and by--?As though the orchard in the breeze?Had shook and popped its popcorn-trees,?To lure and whet, as well they might,?Some seven-league giant's appetite!
The Hoosier Folk-Child's chubby face?Has scant refinement, caste or grace,--?From crown to chin, and cheek to cheek,?It bears the grimy water-streak?Of rinsings such as some long rain?Might drool across the window-pane?Wherethrough he peers, with troubled frown,?As some lorn team drives by for town.?His brow is elfed with wispish hair,?With tangles in it here and there,?As though the warlocks snarled it so?At midmirk when the moon sagged low,?And boughs did toss and skreek and shake,?And children moaned themselves awake,?With fingers clutched, and starting sight?Blind as the blackness of the night!
The Hoosier Folk-Child!--Rich is he?In all the wealth of poverty!?He owns nor title nor estate,?Nor speech but half articulate,--?He owns nor princely robe nor crown;--?Yet, draped in patched and faded brown,?He owns the bird-songs of the hills--?The laughter of the April rills;?And his are all the diamonds set.?In Morning's dewy coronet,--?And his the Dusk's first minted stars?That twinkle through the pasture-bars,?And litter all the skies at night?With glittering scraps of silver light;--?The rainbow's bar, from rim to rim,?In beaten gold, belongs to him.
JACK THE GIANT KILLER.
Bad Boy's Version.
Tell you a story--an' it's a fac':--?Wunst wuz a little boy, name wuz Jack,?An' he had sword an' buckle an' strap?Maked of gold, an' a "'visibul cap;"?An' he killed Gi'nts 'at et whole cows--?Th' horns an' all--an' pigs an' sows!?But Jack, his golding sword wuz, oh!?So awful sharp 'at he could go?An' cut th' ole Gi'nts clean in two?Fore 'ey knowed what he wuz goin' to do!?An' one ole Gi'nt, he had four?Heads, and name wuz "Bumblebore"--?An' he wuz feered o' Jack--'cause he,?Jack, he killed six--five--ten--three,?An' all o' th' uther ole Gi'nts but him:?An' thay wuz a place Jack haf to swim?'Fore he could git t' ole "Bumblebore"--?Nen thay was "griffuns" at