Chapter 5
A Lesbian first thy glories proved-- In arms and in repose he loved To sweep thy dulcet strings and raise His voice in Love's and Liber's praise; The Muses, too, and him who clings To Mother Venus' apron-strings, And Lycus beautiful, he sung In those old days when you were young.
O shell, that art the ornament Of Phoebus, bringing sweet content To Jove, and soothing troubles all-- Come and requite me, when I call!
HORACE I, 22.
Fuscus, whoso to good inclines-- And is a faultless liver-- Nor moorish spear nor bow need fear, Nor poison-arrowed quiver.
Ay, though through desert wastes he roams, Or scales the rugged mountains, Or rests beside the murmuring tide Of weird Hydaspan fountains!
Lo, on a time, I gayly paced The Sabine confines shady, And sung in glee of Lalage, My own and dearest lady.
And, as I sung, a monster wolf Slunk through the thicket from me--- But for that song, as I strolled along He would have overcome me!
Set me amid those poison mists Which no fair gale dispelleth, Or in the plains where silence reigns And no thing human dwelleth;
Still shall I love my Lalage-- Still sing her tender graces; And, while I sing my theme shall bring Heaven to those desert places!
THE "ARS POETICA" OF HORACE
XXIII.
I love the lyric muse! For when mankind ran wild in groves, Came holy Orpheus with his songs And turned men's hearts from bestial loves, From brutal force and savage wrongs; Came Amphion, too, and on his lyre Made such sweet music all the day That rocks, instinct with warm desire, Pursued him in his glorious way.
I love the lyric muse! Hers was the wisdom that of yore Taught man the rights of fellow-man-- Taught him to worship God the more And to revere love's holy ban; Hers was the hand that jotted down The laws correcting divers wrongs-- And so came honor and renown To bards and to their noble songs.
I love the lyric muse! Old Homer sung unto the lyre, Tyrtaeus, too, in ancient days-- Still, warmed by their immortal fire, How doth our patriot spirit blaze! The oracle, when questioned, sings-- So we our way in life are taught; In verse we soothe the pride of kings, In verse the drama has been wrought.
I love the lyric muse! Be not ashamed, O noble friend, In honest gratitude to pay Thy homage to the gods that send This boon to charm all ill away. With solemn tenderness revere This voiceful glory as a shrine Wherein the quickened heart may hear The counsels of a voice divine!
MARTHY'S YOUNKIT.
The mountain brook sung lonesomelike And loitered on its way Ez if it waited for a child To jine it in its play; The wild flowers of the hillside Bent down their heads to hear The music of the little feet That had, somehow, grown so dear; The magpies, like winged shadders, Wuz a-flutterin' to and fro Among the rocks and holler stumps In the ragged gulch below; The pines 'nd hemlock tosst their boughs (Like they wuz arms) 'nd made Soft, sollum music on the slope Where he had often played. But for these lonesome, sollum voices On the mountain side, There wuz no sound the summer day That Marthy's younkit died.
We called him Marthy's younkit, For Marthy wuz the name Uv her ez wuz his mar, the wife Uv Sorry Tom--the same Ez taught the school-house on the hill Way back in sixty-nine When she married Sorry Tom wich ownt The Gosh-all-Hemlock mine; And Marthy's younkit wuz their first, Wich, bein' how it meant The first on Red Hoss mountain, Wuz trooly a event! The miners sawed off short on work Es soon ez they got word That Dock Devine allowed to Casey What had just occurred; We loaded 'nd whooped around Until we all wuz hoarse, Salutin' the arrival, Wich weighed ten pounds, uv course!
Three years, and sech a pretty child! His mother's counterpart-- Three years, and sech a holt ez he Had got on every heart! A peert and likely little tyke With hair ez red ez gold, A laughin', toddlin' everywhere-- And only three years old! Up yonder, sometimes, to the store, And sometimes down the hill He kited (boys _is_ boys, you know-- You couldn't keep him still!) And there he'd play beside the brook Where purpel wild flowers grew And the mountain pines 'nd hemlocks A kindly shadder threw And sung soft, sollum toons to him, While in the gulch below The magpies, like strange sperrits, Went flutterin' to and fro.
Three years, and then the fever come; It wuzn't right, you know, With all us _old_ ones in the camp, For that little child to go! It's right the old should die, but that A harmless little child Should miss the joy uv life 'nd love-- _That_ can't be reconciled! That's what we thought that summer day, And that is what we said Ez we looked upon the piteous face Uv Marthy's younkit dead; But for his mother sobbin' The house wuz very still, And Sorry Tom wuz lookin' through The winder down the hill To the patch beneath the hemlocks Where his darlin' used to play, And the mountain brook sung lonesomelike And loitered on its way.
A preacher come from Roarin' Forks To comfort 'em 'nd pray, And all the camp wuz present At the obsequies next day, A female teacher staged it twenty miles To sing a hymn, And we jined her in the chorus-- Big, husky men 'nd grim Sung "Jesus, Lover uv my Soul," And then the preacher prayed And preacht a sermon on the death Uv that fair blossom laid Among them other flow'rs he loved-- Which sermon set sech weight On sinners bein' always heelt Against the future state That, though it had been fash'nable To swear a perfect streak, There warnt no swearin' in the camp For pretty nigh a week!
Last thing uv all, six strappin' men Took up the little load And bore it tenderly along The windin' rocky road To where the coroner had dug A grave beside the brook-- In sight uv Marthy's winder, where The same could set and look And wonder if his cradle in That green patch long 'nd wide Wuz ez soothin' ez the cradle that Wuz empty at her side; And wonder of the mournful songs The pines wuz singin' then Wuz ez tender ez the lullabies She'd never sing again; And if the bosom uv the earth In which he lay at rest Wuz half ez lovin' 'nd ez warm Ez wuz his mother's breast.
The camp is gone, but Red Hoss mountain Rears its kindly head And looks down sort uv tenderly, Upon its cherished dead; And I reckon that, through all the years That little boy wich died Sleeps sweetly 'nd contentedly Upon the mountain-side; That the wild flowers of the summer time Bend down their heads to hear The footfall uv a little friend they Know not slumbers near; That the magpies on the sollum rocks Strange flutterin' shadders make. And the pines 'nd hemlocks wonder that The sleeper doesn't wake; That the mountain brook sings lonesomelike And loiters on its way Ez if it waited f'r a child To jine it in its play.
ABU MIDJAN.
"When Father Time swings round his scythe, Intomb me 'neath the bounteous vine, So that its juices, red and blithe, May cheer these thirsty bones of mine.
"Elsewise with tears and bated breath Should I survey the life to be. But oh! How should I hail the death That brings that vinous grace to me!"
So sung the dauntless Saracen, Whereat the Prophet-Chief ordains That, curst of Allah, loathed of men, The faithless one shall die in chains.
But one vile Christian slave that lay A prisoner near that prisoner saith; "God willing, I will plant some day A vine where thou liest in death."
Lo, over Abu Midjan's grave With purpling fruit a vine-tree grows; Where rots the martyred Christian slave Allah, and only Allah, knows!
THE DYING YEAR.
The year has been a tedious one-- A weary round of toil and sorrow, And, since it now at last is gone, We say farewell and hail the morrow.
Yet o'er the wreck which time has wrought A sweet, consoling ray is shimmered-- The one but compensating thought That literary life has glimmered.
Struggling with hunger and with cold The world contemptuously beheld 'er; The little thing was one year old-- But who'd have cared had she been elder?
DEAD ROSES.
He placed a rose in my nut-brown hair-- A deep red rose with a fragrant heart And said: "We'll set this day apart, So sunny, so wondrous fair."
His face was full of a happy light, His voice was tender and low and sweet, The daisies and the violets grew at our feet-- Alas, for the coming of night!
The rose is black and withered and dead! 'Tis hid in a tiny box away; The nut-brown hair is turning to gray, And the light of the day is fled!
The light of the beautiful day is fled, Hush'd is the voice so sweet and low-- And I--ah, me! I loved him so-- And the daisies grow over his head!