Pike County Ballads | Page 5

the Golyers
Got so drunk that a fresh-biled owl

Would 'a' looked 'longside o' them two young men,
Like a sober
temperance fowl.
Four months alone I walked the chalk,
I thought my heart would
break;
And all them boys a-slappin my back
And axin', "What'll
you take?"
I never slep' without dreamin' dreams
Of Burbin, Peach,
or Rye,
But I chawed at my niggerhead and swore
I'd rake that pool
or die.
At last--the Fo'th--I humped myself
Through chores and breakfast
soon,
Then scooted down to Taggart's store -
For the pledge was off
at noon;
And all the boys was gethered thar,
And each man hilt his
glass -
Watchin' me and the clock quite solemn-like
Fur to see the
last minute pass.
The clock struck twelve! I raised the jug
And took one lovin' pull -
I
was holler clar from skull to boots.
It seemed I couldn't git full.
But
I was roused by a fiendish laugh
That might have raised the dead -

Them ornary sneaks had sot the clock
A half an hour ahead!
"All right!" I squawked. "You've got me,
Jest order your drinks agin,

And we'll paddle up to the Deacon's
And scoop the ante in."
But
when we got to Kedge's,
What a sight was that we saw!

The
Deacon and Parson Skeeters
In the tail of a game of Draw.
They had shook 'em the heft of the mornin',
The Parson's luck was

fa'r,
And he raked, the minute we got thar,
The last of our pool on a
pa'r.
So toddle along with your pledge, Squire,
I 'low it's all very
fine,
But ez fur myself, I thank ye,
I'll not take any in mine.
WANDERLIEDER.
SUNRISE IN THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.
(PARIS,
AUGUST 1865.)
I stand at the break of day
In the Champs Elysees.
The tremulous
shafts of dawning,
As they shoot o'er the Tuileries early,
Strike
Luxor's cold grey spire,
And wild in the light of the morning
With
their marble manes on fire,
Ramp the white Horses of Marly.
But the Place of Concord lies
Dead hushed 'neath the ashy skies.

And the Cities sit in council
With sleep in their wide stone eyes.
I
see the mystic plain
Where the army of spectres slain
In the
Emperor's life-long war
March on with unsounding tread
To
trumpets whose voice is dead.
Their spectral chief still leads them, -

The ghostly flash of his sword
Like a comet through mist shines
far, -
And the noiseless host is poured,
For the gendarme never
heeds them,
Up the long dim road where thundered
The army of
Italy onward
Through the great pale Arch of the Star!
The spectre army fades
Far up the glimmering hill,
But, vaguely
lingering still,
A group of shuddering shades
Infects the pallid air,

Growing dimmer as day invades
The hush of the dusky square.

There is one that seems a King,
As if the ghost of a Crown
Still
shadowed his jail-bleached hair;

I can hear the guillotine ring,
As
its regicide note rang there,
When he laid his tired life down
And
grew brave in his last despair.
And a woman frail and fair
Who
weeps at leaving a world
Of love and revel and sin
In the vast
Unknown to be hurled;
(For life was wicked and sweet
With kings
at her small white feet!)
And one, every inch a Queen,
In life and in

death a Queen,
Whose blood baptized the place,
In the days of
madness and fear, -
Her shade has never a peer
In majesty and
grace.
Murdered and murderers swarm;
Slayers that slew and were slain,

Till the drenched place smoked with the rain
That poured in a torrent
warm, -
Till red as the Riders of Edom
Were splashed the white
garments of Freedom
With the wash of the horrible storm!
And Liberty's hands were not clean
In the day of her pride unchained,

Her royal hands were stained
With the life of a King and Queen;

And darker than that with the blood
Of the nameless brave and good

Whose blood in witness clings
More damning than Queens' and
Kings'.
Has she not paid it dearly?
Chained, watching her chosen nation

Grinding late and early
In the mills of usurpation?
Have not her
holy tears,
Flowing through shameful years,
Washed the stains
from her tortured hands?
We thought so when God's fresh breeze,

Blowing over the sleeping lands,
In 'Forty-Eight waked the world,

And the Burgher-King was hurled
From that palace behind the trees.
As Freedom with eyes aglow
Smiled glad through her childbirth pain,

How was the mother to know
That her woe and travail were vain?

A smirking servant smiled
When she gave him her child to keep;

Did she know he would strangle the child
As it lay in his arms
asleep?
Liberty's cruellest shame!
She is stunned and speechless yet,
In her
grief and bloody sweat
Shall we make her trust her blame?
The
treasure of 'Forty-Eight
A lurking jail-bird stole,
She can but watch
and wait
As the swift sure seasons roll.
And when in God's good hour
Comes the time of the brave and true,


Freedom again shall rise
With a blaze in her awful eyes
That
shall wither this robber-power
As the sun now dries the dew.
This
Place shall roar with the voice
Of the glad triumphant people,
And
the heavens be gay with the chimes
Ringing with jubilant noise

From every clamorous steeple
The coming of better times.
And the
dawn of Freedom waking
Shall fling its splendours far
Like the day
which now