Part 3

That all may know what most must miss

Ah, who so sage that can pretend

To pre-sage of such tale the end?

I press the limit of my page;

So, haply, may this frantic age!

ROSES AND DIAMONDS.

"Little girl, little girl, where have you been?

Gathering roses to give to the queen.

Little girl, little girl, what gave she you?

She gave me a diamond as big as my shoe."

|If the old could share with the young

again,--

If worn could borrow of new,--

If faces could wear their roses again.

And hearts be sweetened with dew,--

If a child might bring the joy of a child,

And give it to us to-day,--

What glory of gem, or what weight of gold

Would we think too precious to pay?

JACK HORNER.

"Little Jack Horner

Sat in a corner

Eating a Christmas Pie:

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said, "What a great boy am I!"

|Ah, the world hath many a Horner,

Who, seated in his corner,

Finds a Christmas Pie provided for his

thumb:

And cries out with exultation,

"When successful exploration

Doth discover the predestinated plum!

Little Jack outgrows his tier,

And becometh John, Esquire;

And he finds a monstrous pasty ready made,

Stuffed with stocks and bonds and bales,

Gold, currencies and sales,

And all the mixed ingredients of Trade.

And again it is his luck

To be just in time to pluck,

By a clever "operation," from the pie

An unexpected." plum";

So he glorifies his thumb,

And says, proudly, "What a mighty man

am I!"

Or perchance, to Science turning,

And with weary labor learning

All the formulas and phrases that oppress

her,--

For the fruit of others' baking

So a fresh diploma taking,

Comes he forth, a full accredited Profes-

sor!

Or he's not too nice to mix

In the dish of politics;

And the dignity of office he puts on;

And he feels as big again

As a dozen nobler men,

While he writes himself the Honorable

John!

Ah, me, for the poor nation!

In her hour of desperation

Her worst foe is that unsparing Horner-

Thumb!

To which War, and Death, and Hate,

Right, Policy, and State,

Are but pies wherefrom his greed may

grasp a plum!

Oh, the work was fair and true,

But't is riddled through and through.

And plundered of its glories everywhere;

And before men's cheated eyes

Doth the robber triumph rise

And magnify itself in all the air.

"Why, if even a good man dies,

And is welcomed to the skies

In the glorious resurrection of the just,

They must ruffle it below

"With some vain and wretched show,

To make each his little mud-pie of the dust!

Shall we hint at Lady-Horners,

Who in their exclusive corners

Think the world is only made of upper-

crust?

Who in the queer mince-pie

That we call Society,

Do their dainty fingers delicately thrust;

Till, if it come to pass,

In the spiced and sugared mass,

One should compass,--do n't they call it

so?--a _catch_,

By the gratulation given

It would seem the very heaven

Had outdone itself in making such a

match!

Or the "Woman-Horner, now,

Who is raising such a row

To prove that Jack's no bigger boy than

Jill;

And that she wo n't sit by

With her little saucer pie,

While he from the Great Pasty picks his

fill.

Jealous-wild to be a sharer

In the fruit she thinks the fairer,

Flings by all for the swift gaining of her

wish;

Not discerning in her blindness,

How a tender Loving-Kindness

Hid the best things in her own rejected

dish!

O, the world keeps Christmas Day

In a queer, perpetual way;

Shouting always, w What a great big boy

am I!"

Yet how many of the crowd

Thus vociferating loud,

And their honors or pretensions lifting

high,

Have really, more than Jack,

With their boldness or their knack,

Had a finger in the _making_ of the Pie?

INTY, MINTY.

"Inty, minty,

Cutey, corn!

Apple-seed,

Apple-thorn!

Wire, brier,

Limber lock;

Seven geese

In a flock,

Sit and sing, by the spring;

O-u-t, out, and in again."

|Inklings and meanings,

"Whispers and hints;

Sprinklings and gleanings,

Shimmers and glints.

That's how the light comes

Down from the sides;

That's how the beauty

Is born to our eyes.

The seed is within,

And the thorn is without:

Nature's sweet secret

Is guarded about.

Yet briers are slender,

Locks are but slight,

To touch of a genius

That searches with light.

White by the fountain

Sit the calm seven;

Unto their joyance

Its music is given.

The world looketh on,

And still wonders in vain,

As they go out and in,

And find pasture again.

DOUBLES AND BUBBLES.

"Hey, rub-a-dub!

Three maids in a tub!

And who do you think was there?

The butcher, the baker,

The candlestick-maker,

And all of them gone to the fair."

|Strong hands are in the washing-tubs;

Gay heads, the labor scorning,

Make holiday between the rubs,

And sport of Monday morning.

Three maids? That's _your_ arithmetic.

The child that met the poet

Would still to her own counting stick:

"We 're seven; I surely know it!"

The boatman ferried over three

Across the haunted river;

And only guessed it by his fee,

And wondered at the giver.

And Betsey, Jane, and Mary Ann,--

If more your sense discovers?

Well, rub your insight if you can,

And reckon up the lovers!

Count Jane with her stout cleaver knight,

And Betsey with the baker;

And Mary Ann in dreamy light

Beside the candle-maker.

Yet of the six no soul is there,

For all your wakened vision!

In the charmed circle of the Fair

They walk their Fields Elysian!

The work goes on by board and bench,--

Hard tax of human sinning,--

But hearts thro' labor-chinks still wrench

Some joy of their beginning.

In the close limit that confines

Our getting and our giving,

Unless we read between the lines,

What should we do with living?

FUNERAL HOLIDAY.

"Ding, dong, bell,

The cat's in the well!

Who put her in? Little John Green.

Who pulled her out? Great John Stout!"-

|There was never a drama of sorrow

But good folks might be found, I'm afraid,

Who a queer satisfaction could borrow

From the parts of importance they played.

There is war for four years in the nation:

There are havoc and panic abroad:

Comes a tempest; a wild conflagration:

Great souls go up home to their God.

How the tall I's spring thick in the spell-

ing!--

I knew, or I saw, or I said!--

How the small ones turn out to the swelling

Each splendor of final parade!

How many are left, we may wonder,

Heart-mournful for that which befell?

How many would wish back the blunder

"When the Cat has got into the Well!

Nay, more; if with infinite bother

And peril, poor Puss is got out,

Somehow, one boy seems famous as t' other,

John Green is as big as John Stout!

See, now! let me tell you a story

Of something which happened in sooth;

That shows with how fearless a glory

The children and simple speak truth.

Biddy came to her mistress refulgent;

A whole sunrise of smiles on her face;

'With w M'am, could ye be so indulgent

Jist to shpare me the day, if ye plase?

"It 's me cousin that 's dead,--Kate

M'Gawtherin,--

Was married to Barnaby Roach;

An' I 'd want,--but I hates to be both-

erin',--

Three shillings to pay for the coach!"

And so we were minus our dinners;

And all that deplorable day

We fasted, like penitent sinners,

While Biddy the cook was away.

But she came when the sunset was gleam-

ing;

And her story she gleefully told;

Disdaining all dolorous seeming,

In a way that was good to behold.

Each loving and sad recollection

Of the late Mrs. Barnaby Roach

Quite absorbed in the single reflection

That she "wint wid himsel' in the coach!"

"For he thrated me, faith, like a lady,

An' he paid me me fare, an' ahl;

An' he tould me that I, Bridget Brady,

Was the charm of the funeral!"

DISROBED.

"There was a little woman, as I've heard tell,

She went to market her eggs for to sell:

She went to market all on a market day,

And she fell asleep on the king's highway.

"There came a little peddler, his name was Stout;

He cut off her petticoats round about:

He cut off her petticoats up to her knees,

And the poor little woman began for to freeze.

"She began to shiver, and she began to cry,

Lawk-a-mercy on me! sure it is n't I!

But if it be I, as I think it ought to be,

I 've got a little dog at home, and he knows me!"

|I think of a poor, tired Soul,

That has trodden, up and down,

The tradeways of this busy life,

To and from its market town,

Till, traffic and toil all past,

At the silent close of the day,

She lies down, weary and worn, at last,

On the king's highway;--

The highway that brings all home,

Never a one left out;--

And in her sleep doth a Stranger come

Who cuts her garments about.

Cuts the life-tatters away,

All the old rags and the stain;

And leaves the Soul 'twixt her night and

day,

To waken again.

Slowly she wakens, and strange;

Strange and scared she doth seem;

Marvelling at the mystical change

Come over her in her dream.

"Where is my life?" she cries,

"That which I knew me by?

Something is here in an unknown guise:

Can it be I?

"I wonder if anything is:

Or if I am anything:

Did ever a Soul come bare as this

From its earthward marketing?

Let me think down into the past;

Bethink me hard in the cold;

Find me something to stand by fast;

Something to hold!"

She thinks away back to the morning,

To something she loved and knew;

And over her doubt comes dawning

Sense of the dear and true.

"I do n't know if it be I," she sighs;

"But if after all it be,

There 's a little heart at home in the skies,

And he 'll know me!"

JACK AND JILL.

"Jack and Jill

Went up the hill,

To draw a pail of water:

Jack fell down

And broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after."

|Jack and Jill went up the hill,

When the world was young, together.

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

In Eden ways and weather.

She to seek out blessed springs,

He to bear the burden:

Nature their sole choice of things,

Love their only guerdon.

That was all the simple creatures knew.

Jack and Jill come down the hill,

In the world's fall years, together.

Jack and Jill come down the hill,

And there is stormy weather.

'T is all about the _pail_, you see;

The sweet springs are behind them:

Empty-handed seemeth she

Who only helped to find them.

Jill would like to swing a bucket, too.

O'er the hillside coming down,

Eagerly and proudly,

Sparkling trophies to the town

To bear, she clamors loudly.

But, in face of all the town,

Challenging its laughter,

Many a Jack comes tumbling down.

Shall the Jills come after?

_Is_ that what the women want to do?

Listen! When on heights of life

Hidden pools He planted,

God to Adam and his wife

Wise division granted.

Gave his son the pitcher broad

For wealth and weight of water;

But the quick divining-rod

Confided to his daughter.

Ah, if men and women only knew!

CASUS BELLI.

Impromptu, July, 1870.

"The sow came in with the saddle;

The little pig rocked the cradle;

The dish jumped up on the table

To see the pot swallow the ladle;

The spit that stood behind the door

Threw the pudding-stick on the floor.

"Odsplut!" said the gridiron,

Can't you agree?

I'm the head constable,

Bring 'em to me.'"

|Spain came in with an empty throne;

The little prince rocked his German cradle

"No, no," he said;

And he shook his head;

"I am well content to be let alone."

All the dishes on pantry-ledge

And shelf, and table, were up on edge,

To see how the Pot,

Simmering hot,

Would foam at the dip of the threatening

ladle.

Nothing befell for a minute or so,

(Nobody chose to be first, you know),

Till the royal spit, with an angry frown,

Threw a little pudding-stick down.

"Odsplut!" shouts Emperor Gridiron,

Hissing for a broil,

"Those folks that stand behind the door

Are getting up a coil!

I 've red Fire panting at my feet;

I thought how things would be!

I?m creation's constable,

Bring the world to me!"

THE DAYS THAT ARE LONG.

"I'll sing you a song

Of the days that are long;

Of the woodcock and the sparrow;

Of the little dog

That burnt his tail,

And he shall be whipt to-morrow."

|That is the song the world sings

Of the long bright days:

That is the way she evens things,

Portions, and pays.

The dog that let his tail burn,

Proving one pain,

Shall be whipt next day, that he may learn

Wisdom again.

That is the song the world sings

To sin and sorrow:

Over her limit her hard lash flings

Into God's morrow.

Measures His dear divine grace

In compass narrow:

Counts for nothing the infinite days;

Forgets the sparrow.

The world sings only a half song;

Leaves our hearts sore:

Heaven, in the time that is tender and long,

Will sing us more.

THREESCORE AND TEN.

"How many miles to Babylon?

Threescore and ten.

Can I get there by candle-light?

Yes, and back again."

|How many miles of the weary way?

Threescore miles and ten.

Where shall I be at the end of the day?

Yon shall be back again.

You shall prove it all in the lifelong round;

The joy, and the pain and the sinning;

And at candle-light your soul shall be found

Back--at its new beginning.

Down in his grave the old man lies;

In from the earthward wild,

At the open door of Paradise

Enters a little child.

TWO LITTLE BLACKBIRDS.

"Two little blackbirds sat upon a stone;

One flew away, and then there was one;

The other flew after and then there was none;

So the poor stone was left all alone."

One of these little birds back again flew;

The other came after, and then there were two;

Says one to the other, pray, how do you do?

Very well, thank you, and, pray, how are you?

|A stone is the barest fact:

But living and wonderful things

Gather to earthly occasion and act

With folded or parting wings.

Birds of the air are they,--

Our knowledge, our thought, our love,--

And the ethers in which they win their way

Are breaths of the heaven above.

Some place and point of the hour,--

The same little fact for two,--

Who knoweth the lasting wonder and power

It holdeth for me and you;

Away in the long-past years,

With trifle of merest chance,

Keeping, through losing, and blinding, and

tears,

The key of its circumstance?

I, left to the narrowed earth,--

You into the great heaven gone,--

And things of our sharing,--our work, our

mirth,--

So lonely to brood upon!

Yet ever, when thought recurs,

With hardly a reckoning why,

To some old, small memory, straightway stirs

That sound of wings in the sky;

And like birds to a resting-place,--

No longer one, but the two,--

Alight the remembrances, face to face,

Alive between me and you;

And heaven grows real and dear,

And earth widens up to heaven;

And all that had vanished, and stayed so

near,

In one marvellous glimpse is given.

For memory is return:

Ourselves are what we have been:

And what we have been together, we learn

Our life doth continue in.

Spread, then, the angel wings!

I lose you not as you go;

Since heart finds heart in the uttermost

things

Two thoughts may revisit so!

TAFFY.

'Taffy was a Welshman,

Taffy was a thief;

Taffy came to my house

And stole a piece of beef:

I went to Taffy's house,

Taffy was n't at home;

Taffy came to my house

And stole a marrow bone:

I went to Taffy's house,

Taffy was in bed;

I took the marrow bone,

And beat about his head."

|Old Time came unto my house of clay,

And pilfered its pride of flesh away:

I knocked at the doors of the years in vain

To ask for its goodliness again.

Old Time came unto me yet once more,

For crueller theft than he thieved before;

Stealing the very marrow and bone

That the strength of my life was builded on.

Old Time! At last thou shalt lie in thy bed,

And thy years and days be buried and

dead;

And the strength of the life to come shall

be

In the great revenge I will have of thee!

MARGERY DAW.

"See, saw! Margery Daw

Sold her bed, and lay upon straw;

Sold her straw, and lay upon dirt;

Was n't she a good-for-naught?"

|O Margery Daw! Mistress Margery Daw!

Not yours the sole lapse that the world ever

saw!

In precisely such willful gradation

I fear me religion and morals and law

Go down, step by step, to the dirt through

the straw,

In the church and the mart and the nation.

A yielding of that, and a dropping of this,--

("With straw fresh and plenty, pray what

is amiss?

The bed may be wider and cleaner;" )

Ah, that's as you make it, and shake it,

you 'll find;

And with slumber forgetful, and luxury

blind,

What you rest in grows meaner and

meaner.

"In righteousness walking," the Scripture

verse goes,--

"They rest in their beds," and find blessed

repose;

And the beautiful contrary diction

Is neither Isaiah's mistake, nor a word

At random declared, to be scoffingly heard,

But a truth in the freedom of fiction.

O Margery Daw! Mistress Margery Daw!

It shall always be gospel, what always was

law:

Some bed-making none may dispense

with,--

In dust of the earth, or in heart of the

heaven,--

And to soul of mankind shall no Sabbath be

given

Save that it lies down and contents with.

TROUBLED WITH RATS.

"Pretty John Watts,

We are troubled with rats;

Will you drive them out of the house?

There are mice, too, in plenty,"

Who feast in the pantry;

But let them stay,

And nibble away;

What harm in a little brown mouse?"

|A curious puzzle haunts

The brain of the commentator,

Whether John Watts, perchance,

Be preacher or legislator.

We 're troubled with rats, we cry:

And who shall drive out the vermin?

Let senate and pulpit try:

Urge edict, and scourge with sermon.

They steal, they riot, they slay:

They are noisy, they are noisome:

Mice in the pantry, you say?

Ah, those little things are toysome!

They only nibble, you see;

They only frolic and scamper:

What harm can it possibly be

A little brown mouse to pamper?

They 're not of the race, John Watts!

From them we need no protection;

They will never develop to rats,

By survival or selection.

And yet, John Watts! John Watts!

Whether in closet or highway,

I doubt me that mice and rats

_Are_ akin, in some sort of sly way;

And as long as the world sins on,

That the odds will be but a quibble

Between the deeds that are done

By brutes that devour--or nibble!

"Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree;

Up went the pussy-cat, down came he:

Down came the pussy-cat, away Robin ran;

Says little Robin Redbreast, catch me if you can!

Little Robin Redbreast hopped upon a spade;

Pussy-cat jumped after him, and then he was afraid;

Little Robin chirped and sung, and what did pussy say?

Pussy said, Me-ow! Me-ow! and Robin flew away."

|Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree,

Heartsome and glad;

The cheer of life, in the green of life, what-

ever so blithe may be?

Fol de roi, de rol, lad!

Up went the pussy-cat, and down came

he,--

Woe befall for the claws, lad!

The care of life, and the fear of life, it

creepeth so stealthily,--

So threatsome and sad!

And woe befall for the claws, lad!

Down came the pussy-cat, away Robin

ran,

In his scarlet clad;

There may be a day for running away, for

redcoated bird or man.

Fol de roi, de rol, lad!

Says little Robin Redbreast, Catch me if

you can!

Two merry legs to the four, lad!

A quick, bold pair, that scampers fair, is

part of the saving plan,

And a match for the pad

Aprowl on the pitiless four, lad!

Little Robin Redbreast hopped upon a

spade;

This is n't so bad!

All of leafy green, and for joy, I ween, the

world was never made.

Fol de roi, de rol, lad!

Pussy-cat jumped after him, and then he

was afraid;

Ah, what's the use of all, lad?

There 's death in our work, there's fear to

lurk in the places where we played.

What help 's to be had?

And what is the use of all, lad?

Little Robin chirped and sung, the same

brave roundelay;

There's room to be glad!

There's always a light behind the night;

there's never a will but a way;

Fol de roi, de rol, lad!

Little Robin chirped and sung, and what did

pussy say?

Creeping, and stretching the claws, lad?

Pussy said, O-w! P-shaw i Me-ow! for

Robin was off and away.

There's wings to be had!

And fol de rol for the claws, lad!

"When I was a bachelor, I lived by myself,

And all the bread and cheese I got I put upon a shelf.

The rats and the mice, they made such a strife,

I was forced to go to London to get me a wife.

The streets were so broad, and the lanes were so nar-

row

I was forced to bring my wife home in a wheelbarrow.

The wheelbarrow broke, and my wife had a fall,

Down came wheelbarrow, wife, and all."

|Of course it did. Whatever could you pos-

sibly expect, sir?

You chose a quite peculiar style to cherish

and protect, sir!

Your resource in emergency commands my

admiration,

But I wonder was it want--or excess--of

calculation,

That the wheelbarrow broke?

The one-wheeled way gave out, you say?

Indeed, I should have guessed so,

From the very frank preamble of your pre-

cious manifesto!

When all the bread and cheese you got you

shut up in your closet,

Driving such single-blessed team, what

strange amazement was it

That your wheelbarrow broke?

You were managing quite finely till the rats

and mice got at it,

And forced you to the slow resolve, how-

e'er you might combat it

With other prompting, that a wife must be

your choice of crosses

In a world of moth and rust and thieves,

and all provoking losses?

Yes,--the wheelbarrow broke.

When the scramble and the screed began,

you fain would share your trouble,

But in no other sense, it seems, arrange for

going double;

The generous thoroughfares of life were too

wide for your barrow,

And the single footpath in the lane you

plodded was too narrow

For a couple in a yoke.

The old plan was a careful one; but it could

never carry

New needs; you should have thought of

that before you thought to marry;

And still you strove to push it through,

with many a frown and grumble,

Till the poor little wife and all had got a

dreadful tumble,

When the wheelbarrow broke.

Broke midway in the struggle: a providen-

tial mystery:

The usual meek accounting for of such mis-

handled history:

As if it were the method of the wisdom and

the glory

To run the earth on one wheel,--and each

small earthly story,--

Till the wheelbarrow broke!

Ah, friend! of God's mechanics you mistake

the grand solution;

On no weak, single centre runs the perfect

revolution;

But one circuit round the sun,--one self-

circling for the planet,--

And one divine consent of both,--so first

the power began it,

And creation was bespoke.

Be sure you must in everything waste hope

and love and labor,

Moving cheaply by yourself,--nowise

greatly with your neighbor.

Cease, then, with such ill-balance in the

ways of life to wraxle,

And put an equal-turning wheel on each

end of your axle,

Since your wheelbarrow 's broke!

THE FOOTPATH WAY.

"Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,

And merrily jump the stile, O!

A merry heart goes all the day,

Your sad one tires in a mile, O!"

|Who goes to-day by the footpath way,

When with ocean leagues the steamships

play,

And under mountains and over plains

Runs the level thunder of the trains?

Who goes to-day by the footpath way,

When the very babies despise great A,

And swallow, with supercilious smiles,

Whole sentences, like young crocodiles?

Who goes to-day by the footpath way,

Waiting for good things until he can pay,

When with mortgage and loan and instal-

ment plan,

Life is let furnished to every man?

Who goes to-day by the footpath way,

When Moses made awful mistakes, they

say,

And the story of all that began and is

Never happened according to Genesis?

Who goes to-day by the footpath way,

Alone and straitened, with care and de-

lay,

When the world, grown wiser by grace of

God,

Rolls assured toward heaven on the cause-

way broad? .

When things are thus since they must be so,

And nobody stands by himself, you know,

And none may jog onward, and none may

fall

But by force that prevails in the general?

And what are the odds of tear or smile,