Songs, Merry and Sad | Page 3

John Charles McNeill
return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO? The Project gratefully accepts contributions in
money, time, scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts,
royalty free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution you
can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association /
Carnegie-Mellon University".

*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light ([email protected]
, formerly
[email protected]
, etc.). To assure a high quality text, the
original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.
Songs, Merry and Sad
by John Charles McNeill
[American (North Carolina) poet. 1874-1907.]
To
JOSEPH P. CALDWELL
("The Old Man")
Contents
The Bride
"Oh, Ask Me Not"
Isabel
To ------
To Melvin
Gardner: Suicide
Away Down Home
For Jane's Birthday
A Secret

The Old Bad Woman
Valentine
A Photograph
Jesse Covington

An Idyl
Home Songs
M. W. Ransom
Protest
Oblivion
Now!

Tommy Smith
Before Bedtime
"If I Could Glimpse Him"

Attraction
Love's Fashion
Alcestis
Reminiscence
Sonnet

Lines
An Easter Hymn
A Christmas Hymn
When I Go Home

Odessa
Trifles
Sunburnt Boys
Gray Days
An Invalid
A Caged
Mocking-Bird
Dawn
Harvest
Two Pictures
October
The Old
Clock
Tear Stains
A Prayer
She Being Young

Paul Jones
The
Drudge
The Wife
Vision
September
Barefooted
Pardon Time

The Rattlesnake
The Prisoner
Sonnet
Folk Song
"97": The
Fast Mail
Sundown
At Sea
L'envoi
Songs, Merry and Sad
The Bride
The little white bride is left alone
With him, her lord; the guests have

gone;
The festal hall is dim.
No jesting now, nor answering mirth.
The
hush of sleep falls on the earth
And leaves her here with him.
Why should there be, O little white bride,
When the world has left
you by his side,
A tear to brim your eyes?
Some old love-face that comes again,

Some old love-moment sweet with pain
Of passionate memories?
Does your heart yearn back with last regret
For the maiden meads of
mignonette
And the fairy-haunted wood,
That you had not withheld from love,

A little while, the freedom of
Your happy maidenhood?
Or is it but a nameless fear,
A wordless joy, that calls the tear
In dumb appeal to rise,
When, looking on him where he stands,

You yield up all into his hands,
Pleading into his eyes?
For days that laugh or nights that weep
You two strike oars across the
deep
With life's tide at the brim;
And all time's beauty, all love's grace

Beams, little bride, upon your face
Here, looking up at him.

"Oh, Ask Me Not"
Love, should I set my heart upon a crown,
Squander my years, and
gain it,
What recompense of pleasure could I own?
For youth's red
drops would stain it.
Much have I thought on what our lives may mean,
And what their
best endeavor,
Seeing we may not come again to glean,
But, losing,
lose forever.
Seeing how zealots, making choice of pain,
From home and country
parted,
Have thought it life to leave their fellows slain,
Their
women broken-hearted;
How teasing truth a thousand faces claims,
As in a broken mirror,

And what a father died for in the flames
His own son scorns as error;
How even they whose hearts were sweet with song
Must quaff
oblivion's potion,
And, soon or late, their sails be lost along
The
all-surrounding ocean:
Oh, ask me not the haven of our ships,
Nor what flag floats above
you!
I hold you close, I kiss your sweet, sweet lips,
And love you,
love you, love you!
Isabel
When first I stood before you,
Isabel,
I stood there to adore you,
In your spell;
For all that grace composes,
And all that beauty
knows is
Your face above the roses,
Isabel.
You knew the charm of flowers,

Isabel,
Which, like incarnate hours,
Rose and fell
At your bosom, glowed and gloried,
White and pale
and pink and florid,
And you touched them with your forehead,
Isabel.
Amid the jest and laughter,
Isabel,
I saw you, and thereafter,
Ill or well,
There was nothing else worth seeing,
Worth following
or fleeing,
And no reason else for being,
Isabel.
To ------
Some time, far hence, when Autumn sheds
Her frost upon your hair,

And you together sit at dusk,
May I come to you there?
And
lightly will our hearts turn back
To this, then distant, day
When,
while the world was clad in flowers,
You two were wed in May.
When we shall sit about your board
Three old friends met again,

Joy will be with us, but not much
Of jest and laughter then;
For
Autumn's large content and calm,
Like heaven's own smile, will bless

The harvest of your happy lives
With store of happiness.
May you, who, flankt about with flowers,
Will plight your faith
to-day,
Hold, evermore enthroned, the love
Which you have
crowned in May;
And Time will sleep upon his scythe,
The
swallow rest his wing,
Seeing that you at autumntide
Still clasp the
hands of spring.
To Melvin Gardner: Suicide

A flight of doves, with wanton wings,
Flash white against the sky.

In the leafy copse an oriole sings,
And a robin sings hard by.
Sun
and shadow are out on the hills;
The swallow has followed the
daffodils;
In leaf and blade, life throbs and thrills
Through the wild,
warm heart of May.
To have seen the sun come back, to have seen
Children again at play,

To have heard the thrush where the woods are green
Welcome the
new-born day,
To have felt the soft grass cool to the feet,
To have
smelt earth's incense, heavenly sweet,
To have shared the laughter
along
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 13
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.