Part 1

IN VARIOUS MOODS

Poems And Verses

By Irving Bacheller

Harper & Brothers Publishers New York And London

MCMX

IN VARIOUS MOODS

THE SOWERS

_Written for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of St. Lawrence University_

I know the hills that lift the distant plain,

The college hall--the spirit of its throngs,

The meadows and the waving fields of grain,

Full well I know their colors and their songs.

I know the storied gates where love was told,

The grove where walked the muses and the seers,

The river, dark or touched with light of gold,

Or slow, or swift so like the flowing years.

I know not these who sadly sit them down

And while the night in half-forgotten days;

I know not these who wear the hoary crown

And find a pathos in the merry lays.

Here Memory, with old wisdom on her lips,

A finger points at each familiar name--

Some writ on water, stone or stranded ships,

Some in the music of the trump of fame.

Here oft, I think, beloved voices call

Behind a weathered door 'neath ancient trees.

I hear sad echoes in the empty hall,

The wide world's lyric in the harping breeze.

It sings of them I loved and left of old,

Of my fond hope to bring a worthy prize--

Some well-earned token, better far than gold,

And lay it humbly down before their eyes.

And tell them it were rightly theirs--not mine,

An harvest come of their own word and deed;

I strove with tares that threatened my design

To make the crop as noble as the seed.

So they might see it paid--that life they knew--

A toilsome web and knit of many a skein,

With love's sweet sacrifice all woven through,

And broken threads of hope and joy and pain.

On root-bound acres, pent with rocks and stones,

Their hope of wealth and leisure slowly died.

They gave their strength in toil that racked their bones,

They gave their youth, their beauty, and their pride.

Ere Nature's last defence had been withdrawn

That those they loved might have what they could not--

The power of learning wedded to their brawn

And to the simple virtue there begot.

My college! Once--it was a day of old--

I saw thy panes aglow with sunset fire

And heard the story of thy purpose told

And felt the tide of infinite desire.

In thee I saw the gates of mystery

That led to dream-lit, vast, inviting lands--

Far backward to the bourne of history

And forward to the House not made with hands.

You gave the husbandman a richer yield

Than any that his granary may hold;

You called his children from the shop and field,

Taught them to sow and reap an undredfold.

To sow the seed of truth and hope and peace,

And take the root of error from the sod;

To be of those who make the sure increase,

Forever growing, in the lands of God.

THE NEW WORLD

_Read before the Lambda Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, June 24, 1902_

Idle gods of Old Olympus--Zeus and his immortal clan,

Grown in stature, grace and wisdom, meekly serve the will of man.

Every elemental giant has been trained to seek and raise

Gates of the "impossible" that lead to undiscovered ways.

Man hath come to stranger things than ever bard or prophet saw.

Lo, he sits in judgment on the gods and doth amend their law.

Now reality with wonder-deed of ancient fable teems--

Fact is wrought of golden fancy from the old Homeric dreams.

Zeus, with thought to load the fulmen gathered for his mighty sling,

Hurls across the ocean desert as 'twere ut a pebble-fling;

Titans move the gathered harvests, push the loaded ship and train,

Rushing swiftly 'twixt horizons, shoulder to the hurricane.

Hermes, of the winged sandal, strides from midday into night.

Pallas, with a nobler passion, turns the hero from his fight.

Vulcan melts the sundered mountain into girder, beam and frieze.

Where the mighty wheel is turning hear the groan of Hercules.

Eyes of man, forever reaching where immensity envails,

View the ships of God in full career with light upon their sails.

Read the tonnage, log, and compass--measure each magnetic chain

Fastened to the fiery engine towing in the upper main.

Man hath searched the small infernos, narrow as a needle's eye,

Rent the veil of littleness 'neath which unnumbered dragons lie.

Conquered pain with halted feeling, baned the falling House of Life,

As with breeding rats infested, ravening in bloody strife.

Change hath shorn the distances from little unto mighty things--

Aye, from man to God, from poor to rich, from peasants unto kings.

Justice, keen-eyed, Saxon-hearted, scans the records of the world,

Makes the heartless tyrant tremble when her stem rebuke is hurled.

Thought-ways, reaching under oceans or above the mountain height,

Drain to distant, darkened realms the ceaseless overflow of light.

In the shortened ways of travel Charity shall seek her goal,

Find the love her burden merits in the commerce of the soul.

Right must rule in earth and heaven, though its coming here be slow;

Gods must grow in grace and wisdom as the mind of man doth grow;

Law and Prophet be forgotten, deities uprise and fall

Till one God, one hope, one rule of life be great enough for all.

FAITH

_Being some words of counsel from an old Yankee to his son Bill when the latter is about to enter college._

Faith, Bill? You remember how ye used to wake an' cry,

An' when I lit a candle how the bugaboos 'u'd fly?

Well, faith is like a father in the dark of every night--

It tells ye not t' be afraid, an' mebbe strikes a light.

Now, don't expect too much o' God, it wouldn't be quite fair

If fer anything ye wanted ye could only swap a prayer;

I'd pray fer yours, an' you fer mine, an' Deacon Henry Hospur,

He wouldn't hev a thing t' do but lay abed an' prosper.

If all things come so easy, Bill, they'd hev but little worth,

An' some one with a gift o' prayer 'u'd mebbe own the earth.

It's the toil ye give t' git a thing--the sweat an' blood an' care--

That makes the kind o' argument that ought to back yer prayer.

Fer the record o' yer doin'--I believe the soul is planned

With some self-workin' register t' tell jest how ye stand.

An' it won't take any cipherin' t' show, that fearful day,

If ye've multiplied yer talents well, er thrown 'em all away.

When yer feet are on the summit, an' the wide horizon clears,

An' ye look back on yer pathway windin' thro' the vale o' tears;

When ye see how much ye've trespassed, an' how fur ye've gone astray,

Ye'll know the way o' Providence ain't apt t' be _your_ way.

God knows as much as can be known, but I don't think it's true.

He knows of all the dangers in the path o' me an' you.

If I shet my eyes an' hurl a stun that kills--the King o' Siam,

The chances are that God 'll be as much surprised as I am.

If ye pray with faith _believin'_, why, ye'll certainly receive,

But that God 'll break His own good law is more 'n I'll believe.

If it grieves Him when a sparrow falls, it's sure as anything,

He'd hev turned the arrow, if He could, that broke the sparrow's wing.

Ye can read old Nature's history that's writ in rocks an' stones,

Ye can see her throbbin' vitals an' her mighty rack o' bones,

But the soul o' her--the livin' God, a little child may know

No lens er rule o' cipherin' can ever hope t' show.

There's a part o' God's creation very handy t' yer view,

All the truth o' life is in it an' remember, Bill, it's _you_.

An' after all yer science ye must look up in yer mind

An' learn its own astronomy the star o' peace t' find.

There's good old Aunt Samanthy Jane that all her journey long

Has led her heart to labor with a reveille of song.

Her folks hev robbed an' left her, but her faith in goodness grows;

She hasn't any larnin', but I tell ye, Bill, _she_ knows!

She's hed her share o' troubles; I remember well the day

We took her t' the poor-house--she was singin' all the way.

Ye needn't be afraid t' come where stormy Jordan flows,

If all the l'arnin' ye can git has taught ye half _she_ knows.

There's a many big departments in this ancient school o' God,

An' ye keep right on a l'arnin' till ye lay beneath the sod,

All the books an' apperaytus, all the wisdom o' the seers

Will be jest a preparation fer the study o' the years.

BALLAD OF THE SABRE CROSS AND 7

A troop of sorrels led by Vic and then a troop of bays,

In the backward ranks of the foaming flanks a double troop of grays;

The horses are galloping muzzle to tail, and back of the waving manes

The troopers sit, their brows all knit, a left hand on the reins.

Their hats are gray, and their shirts of blue have a sabre cross and 7,

And little they know, when the trumpeters blow, they'll halt at the gates of heaven.

Their colors have dipped at the top of a ridge-- how the long line of cavalry waves!--

And over the hills, at a gallop that kills, they are riding to get to their graves.

"I heard the scouts jabber all night," said one; "they peppered my dreams with alarm.

"That old Ree scout had his medicine out an' was tryin' to fix up a charm."

There are miles of tepees just ahead, and the warriors in hollow and vale

Lie low in the grass till the troopers pass and then they creep over the trail.

The trumpets have sounded--the General shouts! He pulls up and turns to the rear;

"We can't go back--they've covered our track-- we've got t' fight 'em here."

He rushes a troop to the point of the ridge, where the valley opens wide,

And Smith deploys a line of the boys to stop the coming tide.

A fire flames up on the skirt of the hills; in every deep ravine

The savages yell, like the fiends of hell, behind a smoky screen.

"Where's Reno?" said Custer. "Why don't he charge? It isn't a time to dally!"

And he waves his hat, this way and that, as he looks across the valley.

There's a wild stampede of horses; every man in the skirmish line

Stands at his post as a howling host rush up the steep incline.

Their rifles answer a deadly fire and they fall with a fighting frown,

Till two by two, in a row of blue, the skirmish line is down.

A trooper stood over his wounded mate. "No use o' yer tryin't' fight,

"Blow out yer brains--you'll suffer hell-pains when ye go to the torture to-night.

"We tackled too much; 'twas a desperate game-- I knowed we never could win it.

"Custer is dead--they're all of 'em dead an' I shall be dead in a minute."

They're all of them down at the top of the ridge; the sabre cross and 7

On many a breast, as it lies at rest, is turned to the smoky heaven.

Three wounded men are up and away; they're running hard for their lives,

While bloody corses of riders and horses are quivering under the knives.

Some troopers watch from a distant hill with hope that never tires;

There's a reeling dance on the river's edge; its echoes fill the night;

In the valley dim its shadows swim on a lengthening pool of light.

The scattered troops of Reno look and listen with bated breath,

While bugle strains on lonely plains are searching the valley of death.

"What's that like tumbled grave-stones on the hilltop there ahead?"

Said the trooper peering through his glass, "My God! sir, it's the dead!

"How white they look! How white they look! they've killed 'em--every one!

"An' they're stripped as bare as babies an' they're rotting in the sun."

And Custer--back of the tumbled line on a slope of the ridge we found him;

And three men deep in a bloody heap, they fell as they rallied 'round him.

The plains lay brown, like a halted sea held firm by the leash of God;

In the rolling waves we dug their graves and left them under the sod.

WHISPERIN' BILL

So ye 're runnin' fer Congress, mister? Le 'me tell ye 'bout my son--

Might make you fellers carefuller down there in Washington--

He clings to his rifle an' uniform--folks call him Whisperin' Bill;

An' I tell ye the war ain't over yit up here on Bowman's Hill.

This dooryard is his battle-field--le's see, he was nigh sixteen

When Sumter fell, an' as likely a boy as ever this world has seen;

An' what with the news o' battles lost, the speeches an' all the noise,

I guess ev'ry farm in the neighborhood lost a part of its crop o' boys.

'T was harvest time when Bill left home; ev'ry stalk in the fields o' rye

Seemed to stan' tiptoe to see him off an' wave him a fond good-bye;

His sweetheart was here with some other gals--the sassy little miss!

An' purtendin' she wanted to whisper 'n his ear, she give him a rousin' kiss.

Oh, he was a han'some feller! an' tender an' brave an' smart,

An' though he was bigger 'n I was, the boy had a woman's heart.

I couldn't control my feelin's, but I tried with all my might,

An' his mother an' me stood a-cryin' till Bill was out o' sight.

His mother she often tol' him, when she knew he was goin' away,

That God would take care o' him, maybe, if he didn't fergit to pray;

An' on the bloodiest battle-fields, when bullets whizzed in the air,

An' Bill was a-fightin' desperit, he used to whisper a prayer.

Oh, his comrades has often tol' me that Bill never flinched a bit

When every second a gap in the ranks tol' where a ball had hit.

An' one night, when the field was covered with the awful harvest o' war,

They found my boy 'mongst the martyrs o' the cause he was fightin' for.

His fingers was clutched in the dewy grass--oh, no, sir, he wasn't dead,

But he lay kind o' helpless an' crazy with a rifleball in his head;

An' he trembled with the battle-fear as he lay there in the dew;

An' he whispered as he tried to rise: "God 'll take care o' you."

An officer wrote an' toL' us how the boy had been hurt in the fight,

But he said the doctors reckoned they could bring him around all right.

An' then we heard from a neighbor, disabled at Malvern Hill,

That he thought in the course of a week or so he'd be comin' home with Bill.

We was that anxious t' see him we'd set up an' talk o' nights

Till the break o' day had dimmed the stars an' put out the Northern Lights;

We waited an' watched fer a month or more, an' the summer was nearly past,

When a letter come one day that said they'd started fer home at last.

I'll never fergit the day Bill come--'twas harvest time again--

An' the air blown over the yeller fields was sweet with the scent o' the grain;

The dooryard was full o' the neighbors, who had come to share our joy,

An' all of us sent up a mighty cheer at the sight o' that soldier boy.

An' all of a sudden somebody said: "My God! don't the boy know his mother?"

An' Bill stood a-whisperin', fearful like, an' a-starin' from one to another;

"Don't be afraid, Bill," says he to himself, as he stood in his coat o' blue,

"Why, God 'll take care o' you, Bill, God 'll take care o' you."

He seemed to be loadin' an' firin' a gun, an' to act like a man who hears

The awful roar o' the battle-field a-soundin' in his ears;

Ten thousan' ghosts o' that bloody day was marchin' through his brain

An' his feet they kind o' picked their way as if they felt the slain.

An' I grabbed his hand, an' says I to Bill, "Don't ye 'member me?

I'm yer father--don't ye know me? How frightened ye seem to be!"

But the boy kep' a-whisperin' to himself, as if 'twas all he knew,

"God'll take o' you, Bill, God'll take care o' you."

He's never known us since that day, nor his sweetheart, an' never will;

Father an' mother an' sweetheart are all the same to Bill.

An' he groans like a wounded soldier, sometimes the whole night through,

An' we smooth his head, an' say: "Yes, Bill, He 'll surely take care o' you."

Ye can stop a war in a minute, but when can ye stop the groans?

Fer ye've broke our hearts an' sapped our blood an' plucked away our bones.

An' ye've filled our souls with bitterness that goes from sire to son,

So ye best be kind o' careful down there in Washington.

THE RED DEW

_Being some small account of the war experience of an East River pilot, whose boat was the Susquehanna, familiarily known as the Susq, and who lost his leg and more at Gettysburg._

At de break o' day I goes t' bed, an' I goes to work at dusk,

Fer ev'ry night dat a boat can run I takes de wheel o' de Susq.

De nights is long in de pilot-house? Well, now d'ye hear me speakin'?

No night is long since de one I spent wid me sta'b'ard side a-leakin'.

I'd gone t' de war an' was all stove in, an' I seen how a little white hand

Can take holt of a great big chump like me an' make him drop his sand.

An' her face! De face o' de Holy Mary warn't any sweeter 'n hern!

If ye like I'll set de wheel o' me mind an' let 'er drift astern.

We'd fit all day till de sun was low an' I t'ought de war was fun,

Till a big ball skun de side o' me face an' smashed de end o' me gun.

Den anodder one kicked me foot off--see? an' I tell ye it done it cunnin',

An' I trun meself in de grass, kerplunk, but me mind kep' on a-runnin'.

Next I knowed I was feelin' o' somebody's face, an' I seen de poor devil was cryin',

An' he tumbled all over me tryin't' r'ise, an' he cussed an' kep' turnin' an' tryin';

"Good Gawd!" sez I, "what's de matter wid you? Shut up yer face an' hark,"

An' s' help me, de odder man's face was mine an' I was alone in de dark.

When I lay wid me back ag'in de world I seen how little I was

An' I knowed, fer de firs' time in me life, how deep an' broad de sky was;

An' me mind kep' a-wanderin' off 'n de night, till it stopped where de Bowery ends,

An' come back a-sighin' an' says t' me dat it couldn't find no friends.

Den I fumbled me breat' till I cert'inly t'ought I never could ketch it ag'in.

If I'd bin a-bawlin' t' git a prize ye bet cher life I'd 'a' win.

If ye're dyin' an' ain't no home in de world an' yer fr'ends is all on de shelf,

An' dere's nobody else t' bawl fer ye--ye're goin' t' bawl fer yerself.

De sun peeped over de hills at last, an' as soon as I seen his rim

De dew in de valley was all afire wid a sort o' a ruby glim.

De blue coats lay in de tumbled grass--some stirrin' but most o' 'em dead--

'Pon me word, de poor devils had bled so much, de dew in de valley were red!

An' what d'ye t'ink? de nex' t'ing I knowed, a lady had holt o' me hand,

An' smoothed de frills all out o' me face an' brushed off de dew an' de sand.

No lady had ever mammied me an' I were scairt so I dassent say boo,

I warn't in no shape t' help meself an' I didn't know what she'd do.

An' me heart was a-t'umpin' ag'in me ribs, an' me lettin' on I was dead!

Till she put down her cheek so close to me mug dat I had t' move me head.

An' she lifted me head wid her sof' white hands an' I don't know all she done;

I was blubberin' so dat I couldn't see, but I knowed I were havin' fun.

I lay wid me head 'n de lady's lap while de doctors cut an' sawed,

An' dey hurted me so dat me eyes was sot, but I never cussed er jawed.

An' she patted me cheek an' spoke so sof' dat I didn't move a peg,

An' I t'ought if dey'd let me lay dere awhile dey could saw off de odder leg.

Fer de loss o' me leg, t'ree times a year, I gets me little wad,

But dere ain't any pension fer losin' yer heart unless it comes from Gawd.

If anythin' busts ye there, me boy, I t'ink ye'll be apt t' find

Ye'll either drop out o' de game o' life, er else go lame in yer mind.

I never c'u'd know de reason why, till de lady helt me head,

Dat a man 'll go broke fer de woman he loves er mebbe fight till he's dead.

When I t'inks dat I never had no friends an' what am I livin' fer?

I fergits dat I'm holdin' de wheel o' de Susq, an' I sets an' t'inks o' her.

An' I t'inks how gentle she spoke t' me, an' I t'inks o' her sof', white hand,

An' de feel o' her fingers on me face when she brushed off de dew an' de sand.

An' I set a-t'inkin' an' turnin' me wheel, sometimes de whole night t'rough,

An' de good Gawd knows I'd a giv' me life, if she'd only 'a' loved me too.

THE BABY CORPS

_Being some account of the little cadets of the Virginia Military Institute, who stood the examination of war at New Market, Va. May 15, 1864, in the front line of the Confederate forces, where more than three hundred answered to their names and all were perfect._

We were only a lot of little boys--they called us a baby corps--

At the Institute in Lexington in the winter of '64;

And the New Year brought to the stricken South no end of the war in sight,

But we thought we could whip the North in a week if they'd only let us fight.

One night when the boys were all abed we heard the long roll beat,

And quickly the walls of the building shook with the tread of hurrying feet;

And when the battalion stood in line we heard the welcome warning:

"Breckinridge needs the help o' the corps; be ready to march in the morning."

And many a boastful tale was told, through the lingering hours of night,

And the teller fenced with airy foes and showed how heroes fight.

And notes of love were written with many a fevered sigh,

That breathed the solemn sacrifice of those about to die.

Some sat in nature's uniform patching their suits of gray,

And some stood squinting across their guns in a darkly suggestive way.

The battalion was off on the Staunton pike as soon as the sun had risen,

And we turned and cheered for the Institute, but yesterday a prison.

At Staunton the soldiers chaffed us, and the girls of the city schools

Giggled and flirted around the corps till we felt like a lot of fools;

They threw us kisses and tiny drums and a volley of baby rattles,

'Til we thought that the fire of ridicule was worse than the fire of battles.

We made our escape in the early dawn, and, camping the second night,

Were well on our way to the seat of war, with Harrisonburg in sight;

And the troopers who met us, riding fast from the thick of the army hives,

Said: "Sigel has come with an awful force, and ye'll have to fight fer yer lives."

But we wanted to fight, and the peril of war never weakened our young desires,

And the third day out we camped at dusk in sight of the picket fires;

Our thoughts, wing-weary with homeward flight, went astray in the gloomy skies,

And our hearts were beating a reveille whenever we closed our eyes.

"Hark! what's that? The sentry call?" (A galloping horseman comes.)

"Hey, boys! Get up! There's something wrong! Don't ye hear 'em a-thumpin' the drums?"

Said the captain, who sat in the light of the fire tying his muddy shoes:

"We must toe the line of the Yankees soon, an' we haven't much time to lose.

"Hats off!" And we all stood silent while the captain raised his hand

And prayed, imploring the God of war to favor his little band.

His voice went out in a whisper at last, and then without further remark