Songs, Merry and Sad Part 2

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 see The tulips, glorying in the cas.e.m.e.nt sun, Or, other days, the drizzled raindrops run

Down the damp walls, but follow only me, Would that Pygmalion's G.o.ddess might be won To change this lifeless image into thee!

Jesse Covington

If I have had some merry times In roaming up and down the earth, Have made some happy-hearted rhymes And had my br.i.m.m.i.n.g share of mirth, And if this song should live in fame When my brief day is dead and gone, Let it recall with mine the name Of old man Jesse Covington.

Let it recall his waggish heart-- Yeke-hey, yeke-hey, hey-diddle-diddle-- When, while the fire-logs fell apart, He s.n.a.t.c.hed the bow across his fiddle, And looked on, with his eyes half shut, Which meant his soul was wild with fun, At our mad capers through the hut Of old man Jesse Covington.

For all the thrilling tales he told, For all the tunes the fiddle knew, For all the glorious nights of old We boys and he have rollicked through, For laughter all unknown to wealth That roared responsive to a pun, A hale, ripe age and ruddy health To old man Jesse Covington!

An Idyl

Upon a gnarly, knotty limb That fought the current's crest, Where shocks of reeds peeped o'er the brim, Wild wasps had glued their nest.

And in a sprawling cypress' grot, Sheltered and safe from flood, Dirt-daubers each had chosen a spot To shape his house of mud.

In a warm crevice of the bark A basking scorpion clung, With bright blue tail and red-rimmed eyes And yellow, twinkling tongue.

A lunging trout flashed in the sun, To do some petty slaughter, And set the spiders all a-run On little stilts of water.

Toward noon upon the swamp there stole A deep, cathedral hush, Save where, from sun-splocht bough and bole, Sweet thrush replied to thrush.

An angler came to cast his fly Beneath a baffling tree.

I smiled, when I had caught his eye, And he smiled back at me.

When stretched beside a shady elm I watched the dozy heat, Nature was moving in her realm, For I could hear her feet.

Home Songs

The little loves and sorrows are my song: The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires, Where memory broods by winter's evening fires O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong; The little cares and carols that belong To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres, And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.

If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep, And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes; Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies, More worth than legions in the dust of strife, Time, looking back at last, should count my life.

M. W. Ransom

(Died October 8, 1904)

For him, who in a hundred battles stood Scorning the cannon's mouth, Grimy with flame and red with foeman's blood, For thy sweet sake, O South;

Who, wise as brave, yielded his conquered sword At a vain war's surcease, And spoke, thy champion still, the statesman's word In the calm halls of peace;

Who pressed the ruddy wine to thy faint lips, Where thy torn body lay, And saw afar time's white in-sailing s.h.i.+ps Bringing a happier day:

Oh, mourn for him, dear land that gave him birth!

Bow low thy sorrowing head!

Let thy seared leaves fall silent on the earth Whereunder he lies dead!

In field and hall, in valor and in grace, In wisdom's livery, Gentle and brave, he moved with knightly pace, A worthy son of thee!

Protest

Oh, I am weary, weary, weary Of Pan and oaten quills And little songs that, from the dictionary, Learn lore of streams and hills, Of studied laughter, mocking what is merry, And calculated thrills!

Are we grown old and past the time of singing?

Is ardor quenched in art Till art is but a formal figure, bringing A money-measured heart, Procrustean cut, and, with old echoes, ringing Its bells about the mart?

The race moves on, and leaves no wildernesses Where rugged voices cry; It reads its prayer, and with set phrase it blesses The souls of men who die, And step by even step its rank progresses, An army marshalled by.

If it be better so, that Babel noises, Losing all course and ken, And grief that wails and gladness that rejoices Should never wake again To shock a world of modulated voices And mediocre men,

Then he is blest who wears the painted feather And may not turn about To dusks when muses romped the dewy heather In unrestricted rout And dawns when, if the stars had sung together, The sons of G.o.d would shout!

Oblivion