Pike County Ballads | Page 5

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 is breaking?On the great pale Arch of the Star,?And back o'er the town shall fly,?While the joy-bells wild are ringing,?To crown the Glory springing?From the Column of July!
THE SPHINX OF THE TUILERIES.
Out of the Latin Quarter?I came to the lofty door?Where the two marble Sphinxes guard?The Pavillon de Flore.?Two Cockneys stood by the gate, and one?Observed, as they turned to go,?"No wonder He likes that sort of thing, -?He's a Sphinx himself, you know."
I thought as I walked where the garden glowed?In the sunset's level fire,?Of the Charlatan whom the Frenchmen loathe?And the Cockneys all admire.?They call him a Sphinx,--it