Riley Farm-Rhymes | Page 9

and dust,?And fences by the margin draw
Along the frosty crust?Their graphic silhouettes, I say,?The Spring is coming round this way.
When morning-time is bright with sun?And keen with wind, and both confuse?The dancing, glancing eyes of one
With tears that ooze and ooze--?And nose-tips weep as well as they,?The Spring is coming round this way.
When suddenly some shadow-bird?Goes wavering beneath the gaze,?And through the hedge the moan is heard
Of kine that fain would graze?In grasses new, I smile and say,?The Spring is coming round this way.
When knotted horse-tails are untied,?And teamsters whistle here and there.?And clumsy mitts are laid aside
And choppers' hands are bare,?And chips are thick where children play,?The Spring is coming round this way.
When through the twigs the farmer tramps,?And troughs are chunked beneath the trees,?And fragrant hints of sugar-camps
Astray in every breeze,--?When early March seems middle May,?The Spring is coming round this way.
When coughs are changed to laughs, and when?Our frowns melt into smiles of glee,?And all our blood thaws out again
In streams of ecstasy,?And poets wreak their roundelay,?The Spring is coming round this way.
A TALE OF THE AIRLY DAYS
Oh! tell me a tale of the airly days--?Of the times as they ust to be;?"Piller of Fi-er" and "Shakespeare's Plays"?Is a' most too deep fer me!?I want plane facts, and I want plane words,?Of the good old-fashioned ways,?When speech run free as the songs of birds?'Way back in the airly days.
Tell me a tale of the timber-lands--?Of the old-time pioneers;?Somepin' a pore man understands?With his feelins's well as ears.?Tell of the old log house,--about?The loft, and the puncheon flore--?The old fi-er-place, with the crane swung out,?And the latch-string thrugh the door.
Tell of the things jest as they was--?They don't need no excuse!--?Don't tech 'em up like the poets does,?Tel theyr all too fine fer use!--?Say they was 'leven in the fambily--?Two beds, and the chist, below,?And the trundle-beds that each helt three,?And the clock and the old bureau.
Then blow the horn at the old back-door?Tel the echoes all halloo,?And the childern gethers home onc't more,?Jest as they ust to do:?Blow fer Pap tel he hears and comes,?With Tomps and Elias, too,?A-marchin' home, with the fife and drums?And the old Red White and Blue!
Blow and blow tel the sound draps low?As the moan of the whipperwill,?And wake up Mother, and Ruth and Jo,?All sleepin' at Bethel Hill:?Blow and call tel the faces all?Shine out in the back-log's blaze,?And the shadders dance on the old hewed wall?As they did in the airly days.
OLD MAN'S NURSERY RHYME
I
In the jolly winters?Of the long-ago,?It was not so cold as now--?O! No! No!?Then, as I remember,?Snowballs to eat?Were as good as apples now.?And every bit as sweet!
II
In the jolly winters?Of the dead-and-gone,?Bub was warm as summer,?With his red mitts on,--?Just in his little waistAnd?-pants all together,?Who ever hear him growl?About cold weather?
III
In the jolly winters?Of the long-ago--?Was it HALF so cold as now??O! No! No!?Who caught his death o' cold,?Making prints of men?Flat-backed in snow that now's?Twice as cold again?
IV
In the jolly winters?Of the dead-and-gone,?Startin' out rabbit-huntin'--?Early as the dawn,--?Who ever froze his fingers,?Ears, heels, or toes,--?Or'd 'a' cared if he had??Nobody knows!
V
Nights by the kitchen-stove,?Shellin' white and red?Corn in the skillet, and?Sleepin' four abed!?Ah! the jolly winters?Of the long-ago!?We were not as old as now--?O! No! No!
JUNE
O queenly month of indolent repose!
I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume,?As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom?I nestle like a drowsy child and doze?The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws?The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom?And weaves a damask-work of gleam and gloom?Before thy listless feet. The lily blows?A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade;?And, wheeling into ranks, with plume and spear,?Thy harvest-armies gather on parade;?While, faint and far away, yet pure and clear,?A voice calls out of alien lands of shade:--?All hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year!
THE TREE-TOAD
"'S cur'ous-like," said the tree-toad,?"I've twittered fer rain all day;?And I got up soon,?And hollered tel noon--?But the sun, hit blazed away,?Tell I jest clumb down in a crawfish-hole,?Weary at hart, and sick at soul!
"Dozed away fer an hour,?And I tackled the thing agin:?And I sung, and sung,?Tel I knowed my lung?Was jest about give in;?And THEN, thinks I, ef hit don't rain NOW,?They's nothin' in singin', anyhow!
"Onc't in a while some farmer?Would come a-drivin' past;?And he'd hear my cry,?And stop and sigh--?Tel I jest laid back, at last,?And I hollered rain tel I thought my th'oat?Would bust wide open at ever' note!
"But I FETCHED her!--O _I_ FETCHED her!--?'Cause a little while ago,?As I kindo' set,?With one eye shet,?And a-singin' soft and low,?A voice drapped down on my fevered brain,?A-sayin',--'EF YOU'LL JEST HUSH I'LL RAIN!'"
A SONG OF LONG AGO
A song of Long Ago:?Sing it lightly--sing it low--?Sing it softly--like the lisping of the lips we?used to know?When our baby-laughter spilled?From the glad hearts ever filled?With music