Green Fields and Running Brooks | Page 5

tell you after while!" And as I turned
and looked around, some one riz up and leant And put his arms round
Mother's neck, and laughed in low content.
"It's me," he says--"your fool-boy John, come back to shake your hand;
Set down with you, and talk with you, and make you understand How
dearer yit than all the world is this old home that we Will spend
Thanksgivin' in fer life--jest Mother, you and me!"

Nobody on the old farm here but Mother, me and John,
Except of
course the extry he'p, when harvest-time comes on; And then, I want to
say to you, we need sich he'p about, As you'd admit, ef you could see
the way the crops turns out!
NORTH AND SOUTH.
Of the North I 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