Chapter 3

When morning-time is bright with sun And keen with wind, and both confuse The dancing, glancing eyes of one With tears that ooze and ooze-- And nose-tips weep as well as they, The Spring is coming round this way.

When suddenly some shadow-bird Goes wavering beneath the gaze, And through the hedge the moan is heard Of kine that fain would graze In grasses new, I smile and say, The Spring is coming round this way.

When knotted horse-tails are untied, And teamsters whistle here and there. And clumsy mitts are laid aside And choppers' hands are bare, And chips are thick where children play, The Spring is coming round this way.

When through the twigs the farmer tramps, And troughs are chunked beneath the trees, And fragrant hints of sugar-camps Astray in every breeze,-- When early March seems middle May, The Spring is coming round this way.

When coughs are changed to laughs, and when Our frowns melt into smiles of glee, And all our blood thaws out again In streams of ecstasy, And poets wreak their roundelay, The Spring is coming round this way.

A TALE OF THE AIRLY DAYS

Oh! tell me a tale of the airly days-- Of the times as they ust to be; "Piller of Fi-er" and "Shakespeare's Plays" Is a' most too deep fer me! I want plane facts, and I want plane words, Of the good old-fashioned ways, When speech run free as the songs of birds 'Way back in the airly days.

Tell me a tale of the timber-lands-- Of the old-time pioneers; Somepin' a pore man understands With his feelins's well as ears. Tell of the old log house,--about The loft, and the puncheon flore-- The old fi-er-place, with the crane swung out, And the latch-string thrugh the door.

Tell of the things jest as they was-- They don't need no excuse!-- Don't tech 'em up like the poets does, Tel theyr all too fine fer use!-- Say they was 'leven in the fambily-- Two beds, and the chist, below, And the trundle-beds that each helt three, And the clock and the old bureau.

Then blow the horn at the old back-door Tel the echoes all halloo, And the childern gethers home onc't more, Jest as they ust to do: Blow fer Pap tel he hears and comes, With Tomps and Elias, too, A-marchin' home, with the fife and drums And the old Red White and Blue!

Blow and blow tel the sound draps low As the moan of the whipperwill, And wake up Mother, and Ruth and Jo, All sleepin' at Bethel Hill: Blow and call tel the faces all Shine out in the back-log's blaze, And the shadders dance on the old hewed wall As they did in the airly days.

OLD MAN'S NURSERY RHYME

I

In the jolly winters Of the long-ago, It was not so cold as now-- O! No! No! Then, as I remember, Snowballs to eat Were as good as apples now. And every bit as sweet!

II

In the jolly winters Of the dead-and-gone, Bub was warm as summer, With his red mitts on,-- Just in his little waist- And-pants all together, Who ever hear him growl About cold weather?

III

In the jolly winters Of the long-ago-- Was it HALF so cold as now? O! No! No! Who caught his death o' cold, Making prints of men Flat-backed in snow that now's Twice as cold again?

IV

In the jolly winters Of the dead-and-gone, Startin' out rabbit-huntin'-- Early as the dawn,-- Who ever froze his fingers, Ears, heels, or toes,-- Or'd 'a' cared if he had? Nobody knows!

V

Nights by the kitchen-stove, Shellin' white and red Corn in the skillet, and Sleepin' four abed! Ah! the jolly winters Of the long-ago! We were not as old as now-- O! No! No!

JUNE

O queenly month of indolent repose! I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume, As in thy downy lap of clover-bloom I nestle like a drowsy child and doze The lazy hours away. The zephyr throws The shifting shuttle of the Summer's loom And weaves a damask-work of gleam and gloom Before thy listless feet. The lily blows A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade; And, wheeling into ranks, with plume and spear, Thy harvest-armies gather on parade; While, faint and far away, yet pure and clear, A voice calls out of alien lands of shade:-- All hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year!

THE TREE-TOAD

"'S cur'ous-like," said the tree-toad, "I've twittered fer rain all day; And I got up soon, And hollered tel noon-- But the sun, hit blazed away, Tell I jest clumb down in a crawfish-hole, Weary at hart, and sick at soul!

"Dozed away fer an hour, And I tackled the thing agin: And I sung, and sung, Tel I knowed my lung Was jest about give in; And THEN, thinks I, ef hit don't rain NOW, They's nothin' in singin', anyhow!

"Onc't in a while some farmer Would come a-drivin' past; And he'd hear my cry, And stop and sigh-- Tel I jest laid back, at last, And I hollered rain tel I thought my th'oat Would bust wide open at ever' note!

"But I FETCHED her!--O _I_ FETCHED her!-- 'Cause a little while ago, As I kindo' set, With one eye shet, And a-singin' soft and low, A voice drapped down on my fevered brain, A-sayin',--'EF YOU'LL JEST HUSH I'LL RAIN!'"

A SONG OF LONG AGO

A song of Long Ago: Sing it lightly--sing it low-- Sing it softly--like the lisping of the lips we used to know When our baby-laughter spilled From the glad hearts ever filled With music blithe as robin ever trilled!

Let the fragrant summer breeze, And the leaves of locust-trees, And the apple-buds and blossoms, and the wings of honey-bees, All palpitate with glee, Till the happy harmony Brings back each childish joy to you and me.

Let the eyes of fancy turn Where the tumbled pippins burn Like embers in the orchard's lap of tangled grass and fern,-- There let the old path wind In and out and on behind The cider-press that chuckles as we grind.

Blend in the song the moan Of the dove that grieves alone, And the wild whir of the locust, and the bumble's drowsy drone; And the low of cows that call Through the pasture-bars when all The landscape fades away at evenfall.

Then, far away and clear, Through the dusky atmosphere, Let the wailing of the killdee be the only sound we hear: O sad and sweet and low As the memory may know Is the glad-pathetic song of Long Ago!

OLD WINTERS ON THE FARM

I have jest about decided It 'ud keep a town-boy hoppin' Fer to work all winter, choppin' Fer a' old fireplace, like I did! Lawz! them old times wuz contrairy!-- Blame' backbone o' winter, 'peared-like WOULDN'T break!--and I wuz skeered-like Clean on into FEB'UARY! Nothin' ever made me madder Than fer Pap to stomp in, layin' In a' extra forestick, say'in', "Groun'-hog's out and seed his shadder!"

ROMANCIN'

I' b'en a-kindo' "musin'," as the feller says, and I'm About o' the conclusion that they hain't no better time, When you come to cipher on it, than the times we ust to know When we swore our first "dog-gone-it" sorto' solum-like and low!

You git my idy, do you?--LITTLE tads, you understand-- Jest a-wishin' thue and thue you that you on'y wuz a MAN.-- Yit here I am, this minit, even sixty, to a day, And fergittin' all that's in it, wishm' jest the other way!

I hain't no hand to lectur' on the times, er dimonstrate Whare the trouble is, er hector and domineer with Fate,-- But when I git so flurried, and so pestered-like and blue, And so rail owdacious worried, let me tell you what I do!--

I jest gee-haw the hosses, and onhook the swingle-tree, Whare the hazel-bushes tosses down theyr shadders over me; And I draw my plug o' navy, and I climb the fence, and set Jest a-thinkin' here, i gravy' tel my eyes is wringin'-wet!

Tho' I still kin see the trouble o' the PRESUNT, I kin see-- Kindo' like my sight wuz double-all the things that UST to be; And the flutter o' the robin and the teeter o' the wren Sets the willer-branches bobbin' "howdy-do" thum Now to Then!

The deadnin' and the thicket's jest a-bilin' full of June, From the rattle o' the cricket, to the yallar-hammer's tune; And the catbird in the bottom, and the sapsuck on the snag, Seems ef they can't-od-rot 'em!-jest do nothin' else but brag!

They's music in the twitter of the bluebird and the jay, And that sassy little critter jest a-peckin' all the day; They's music in the "flicker," and they's music in the thrush, And they's music in the snicker o' the chipmunk in the brush!

They's music all around me!--And I go back, in a dream Sweeter yit than ever found me fast asleep,--and in the stream That list to split the medder whare the dandylions growed, I stand knee-deep, and redder than the sunset down the road.

Then's when I' b'en a-fishin'!--And they's other fellers, too, With theyr hick'ry-poles a-swishin' out behind 'em; and a few Little "shiners" on our stringers, with theyr tails tip-- toein' bloom, As we dance 'em in our fingers all the happy jurney home.

I kin see us, true to Natur', thum the time we started out, With a biscuit and a 'tater in our little "roundabout"!-- I kin see our lines a-tanglin', and our elbows in a jam, And our naked legs a-danglin' thum the apern o' the dam.

I kin see the honeysuckle climbin' up around the mill, And kin hear the worter chuckle, and the wheel a-growl- in' still; And thum the bank below it I kin steal the old canoe, And jest git in and row it like the miller ust to do.

W'y, I git my fancy focussed on the past so mortul plane I kin even smell the locus'-blossoms bloomin' in the lane; And I hear the cow-bells clinkin' sweeter tunes 'n "Money-musk"' Fer the lightnin' bugs a-blinkin' and a-dancin' in the dusk.

And when I've kep' on "musin'," as the feller says, tel I'm Firm-fixed in the conclusion that they haint no better time, When you come to cipher on it, than the old times,--I de-clare I kin wake and say "dog-gone-it'" jest as soft as any prayer!

End of Project Gutenberg's Riley Farm-Rhymes, by James Whitcomb Riley