Songs, Merry and Sad | Page 4

star the lanes with buttercups
Away down home.
"Knee-deep!" from reedy places?Will sing the river frogs.?The terrapins will sun themselves?On all the jutting logs.?The angler's cautious oar will leave?A trail of drifting foam?Along the shady currents
Away down home.
The mocking-bird will feel again?The glory of his wings,?And wanton through the balmy air?And sunshine while he sings,?With a new cadence in his call,?The glint-wing'd crow will roam?From field to newly-furrowed field
Away down home.
When dogwood blossoms mingle?With the maple's modest red,?And sweet arbutus wakes at last?From out her winter's bed,?'T would not seem strange at all to meet?A dryad or a gnome,?Or Pan or Psyche in the woods
Away down home.
Then come with me, thou weary heart!?Forget thy brooding ills,?Since God has come to walk among?His valleys and his hills!?The mart will never miss thee,?Nor the scholar's dusty tome,?And the Mother waits to bless thee,
Away down home.
For Jane's Birthday
If fate had held a careless knife?And clipped one line that drew,?Of all the myriad lines of life,?From Eden up to you;?If, in the wars and wastes of time,?One sire had met the sword,?One mother died before her prime?Or wed some other lord;
Or had some other age been blest,?Long past or yet to be,?And you had been the world's sweet guest?Before or after me:?I wonder how this rose would seem,?Or yonder hillside cot;?For, dear, I cannot even dream?A world where you are not!
Thus heaven forfends that I shall drink?The gall that might have been,?If aught had broken a single link?Along the lists of men;?And heaven forgives me, whom it loves,?For feigning such distress:?My heart is happiest when it proves?Its depth of happiness.
Enough to see you where you are,?Radiant with maiden mirth!?To bless whatever blessed star?Presided o'er your birth,?That, on this immemorial morn,?When heaven was bending low,?The gods were kind and you were born?Twenty sweet years ago!
A Secret
A little baby went to sleep?One night in his white bed,?And the moon came by to take a peep?At the little baby head.
A wind, as wandering winds will do,?Brought to the baby there?Sweet smells from some quaint flower that grew?Out on some hill somewhere.
And wind and flower and pale moonbeam?About the baby's bed?Stirred and woke the funniest dream?In the little sleepy head.
He thought he was all sorts of things?From a lion to a cat;?Sometimes he thought he flew on wings,?Or fell and fell, so that
When morning broke he was right glad?But much surprised to see?Himself a soft, pink little lad?Just like he used to be.
I would not give this story fame?If there were room to doubt it,?But when he learned to talk, he came?And told me all about it.
The Old Bad Woman
The Old Bad Woman was coming along,?Busily humming a sort of song.
You could barely see, below her bonnet,?Her chin where her long nose rested on it.
One tooth thrust out on her lower lip,?And she held one hand upon her hip.
Then we went to thinking mighty fast,?For we knew our time had come at last.
For what we had done and didn't do?The Old Bad Woman would put us through.
If you cried enough to fill your hat,?She wouldn't care; she was used to that.
Of the jam we had eaten, she would know;?How we ran barefooted in the snow;
How we cried when they made us take our bath;?How we tied the grass across the path;
How we bound together the cat and cur --?We couldn't deny these things to her.
She pulled her nose up off her chin?And blinked at us with an awful grin.
And we almost died, becaze and because?Her bony fingers looked like claws.
When she came on up to where we were,?How could we be polite to her?
You needn't guess how she put us through.?If you are bad, she'll visit you.
And when she leaves and hobbles off?You'll think that she has done enough;
For the Old Bad Woman will and can?Be just as bad as the Old Bad Man!
Valentine
This is the time for birds to mate;
To-day the dove?Will mark the ancient amorous date
With moans of love;?The crow will change his call to prate
His hopes thereof.
The starling will display the red
That lights his wings;?The wren will know the sweet things said
By him who swings?And ducks and dips his crested head
And sings and sings.
They are obedient to their blood,
Nor ask a sign,?Save buoyant air and swelling bud,
At hands divine,?But choose, each in the barren wood,
His valentine.
In caution's maze they never wait
Until they die;?They flock the season's open gate
Ere time steals by.?Love, shall we see and imitate,
You, love, and I?
A Photograph
When in this room I turn in pondering pace?And find thine eyes upon me where I stand,?Led on, as by Enemo's silken strand,?I come and gaze and gaze upon thy face.
Framed round by silence, poised on pearl-white grace?Of curving throat, too sweet for beaded band,?It seems as if some wizard's magic wand?Had wrought thee for the love of all the race.
Dear face, that will not turn about to