Songs, Merry and Sad | Page 4

the street,
And, then, to have died in May!
A thousand roses will blossom red,
A thousand hearts be gay,
For
the summer lingers just ahead
And June is on her way;
The bee
must bestir him to fill his cells,
The moon and the stars will weave
new spells
Of love and the music of marriage bells --
And, oh, to be
dead in May!
Away Down Home
'T will not be long before they hear
The bullbat on the hill,
And in
the valley through the dusk
The pastoral whippoorwill.
A few more
friendly suns will call
The bluets through the loam
And 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