Chapter 3

Give over now; forbear. The moonlight steeps In silver silence towered castle-keeps And cottage crofts, where apples bend the bough. Peace guards us round, and many a tired heart sleeps. Let me brush back the shadow from your brow. Give over now.

On such a night, how sweet, how sweet is life, Even to the insect piper with his fife! And must your troubled face still bear the blight Of strength that runs itself to waste in strife? For love's own heart should throb through all the light Of such a night.

The Rattlesnake

Coiled like a clod, his eyes the home of hate, Where rich the harvest bows, he lies in wait, Linking earth's death and music, mate with mate.

Is 't lure, or warning? Those small bells may sing Like Ariel sirens, poised on viewless wing, To lead stark life where mailed death is king;

Else nature's voice, in that cold, earthy thrill, Bids good avoid the venomed fang of ill, And life and death fight equal in her will.

The Prisoner

From pacing, pacing without hope or quest He leaned against his window-bars to rest And smelt the breeze that crept up from the west.

It came with sundown noises from the moors, Of milking time and loud-voiced rural chores, Of lumbering wagons and of closing doors.

He caught a whiff of furrowed upland sweet, And certain scents stole up across the street That told him fireflies winked among the wheat.

Over the dusk hill woke a new moon's light, Shadowed the woods and made the waters white, And watched above the quiet tents of night.

Alas, that the old Mother should not know How ached his heart to be entreated so, Who heard her calling and who could not go!

Sonnet

To-day was but a dead day in my hands. Hour by hour did nothing more than pass, Mere idle winds above the faded grass. And I, as though a captive held in bands, Who, seeing a pageant, wonders much, but stands Apart, saw the sun blaze his course with brass And sink into his fabled sea of glass With glory of farewell to many lands.

Thou knowest, thou who talliest life by days, That I have suffered more than pain of toil, Ah, more than they whose wounds are soothed with oil, And they who see new light on beaten ways! The prisoner I, who grasps his iron bars And stares out into depth on depth of stars!

Folk Song

When merry milkmaids to their cattle call At evenfall And voices range Loud through the gloam from grange to quiet grange,

Wild waif-songs from long distant lands and loves, Like migrant doves, Wake and give wing To passion dust-dumb lips were wont to sing.

The new still holds the old moon in her arms; The ancient charms Of dew and dusk Still lure her nomad odors from the musk,

And, at each day's millennial eclipse, On new men's lips, Some old song starts, Made of the music of millennial hearts,

Whereto one listens as from long ago And learns to know That one day's tears And love and life are as a thousand years',

And that some simple shepherd, singing of His pain and love, May haply find His heart-song speaks the heart of all his kind.

"97": The Fast Mail

Where the rails converge to the station yard She stands one moment, breathing hard,

And then, with a snort and a clang of steel, She settles her strength to the stubborn wheel,

And out, through the tracks that lead astray, Cautiously, slowly she picks her way,

And gathers her muscle and guards her nerve, When she swings her nose to the westward curve,

And takes the grade, which slopes to the sky, With a bound of speed and a conquering cry.

The hazy horizon is all she sees, Nor cares for the meadows, stirred with bees,

Nor the long, straight stretches of silent land, Nor the ploughman, that shades his eye with his hand,

Nor the cots and hamlets that know no more Than a shriek and a flash and a flying roar;

But, bearing her tidings, she trembles and throbs, And laughs in her throat, and quivers and sobs;

And the fire in her heart is a red core of heat, That drives like a passion through forest and street,

Till she sees the ships in their harbor at rest, And sniffs at the trail to the end of her quest.

If I were the driver who handles her reins, Up hill and down hill and over the plains,

To watch the slow mountains give back in the west, To know the new reaches that wait every crest,

To hold, when she swerves, with a confident clutch, And feel how she shivers and springs to the touch,

With the snow on her back and the sun in her face, And nothing but time as a quarry to chase,

I should grip hard my teeth, and look where she led, And brace myself stooping, and give her her head,

And urge her, and soothe her, and serve all her need, And exult in the thunder and thrill of her speed.

Sundown

Hills, wrapped in gray, standing along the west; Clouds, dimly lighted, gathering slowly; The star of peace at watch above the crest-- Oh, holy, holy, holy!

We know, O Lord, so little what is best; Wingless, we move so lowly; But in thy calm all-knowledge let us rest-- Oh, holy, holy, holy!

At Sea

When the dim, tall sails of the ships were in motion, Ghostly, and slow, and silent-shod, We gazed where the dusk fled over the ocean, A great gray hush, like the shadow of God.

The sky dome cut with its compass in sunder A circle of sea from the darkened land,-- A circle of tremulous waste and wonder, O'er which one groped with a childish hand.

The true stars came to their stations in heaven, The false stars shivered deep down in the sea, And the white crests went like monsters, driven By winds that never would let them be,

And there, where the elements mingled and muttered, We stood, each man with a lone dumb heart, Full of the vastness that never was uttered By symbol of words or by echo of art.

L'envoi

God willed, who never needed speech, "Let all things be:" And, lo, the starry firmament And land and sea And his first thought of life that lives In you and me.

His circle of eternity We see in part; Our spirits are his breath, our hearts Beat from his heart; Hence we have played as little gods And called it art.

Lacking his power, we shared his dream Of perfect things; Between the tents of hope and sweet Rememberings Have sat in ashes, but our souls Went forth on wings.

Where life fell short of some desire In you and me, Feeling for beauty which our eyes Could never see, Behold, from out the void we willed That it should be,

And sometimes dreamed our lisping songs Of humanhood Might voice his silent harmony Of waste and wood, And he, beholding his and ours, Might find it good.

[End of original text.]

Notes:

John Charles McNeill was born in Scotland County, near Laurinburg, North Carolina, on 26 July 1874, and died on 17 October 1907 (when he was 33 years old). He only produced this one volume before he died, though he planned a second, which was published posthumously. "Songs, Merry and Sad", first published in Charlotte in 1906, went through at least five printings over more than 60 years. (This text is taken from the very first edition.)

Both of McNeill's grandfathers came from Scotland.

McNeill attended Wake Forest College, where he received both his Bachelor's and Master's degrees. In 1899-1900 he taught English at Mercer University.

Some of his poems were published nationally as early as 1901. More of his poems were published by `The Charlotte Observer' starting in 1903, and in 1904 he joined its staff.

This etext was created by entering the text (manually) twice, once from the first printing (1906) and once from the second printing (no date), and comparing the two. There were some slight differences in the two printings.

A portrait of John Charles McNeill faces the title page (p. 3) in the second printing, but is absent in the first.

The first printing gives the publisher as Stone & Barringer Co. and gives the date as 1906. The second printing gives the publisher as Stone Publishing Co., and gives no date. Both were printed in Charlotte, N.C.

One error was corrected (the second printing also corrected this error):

(p. 73) [ A holy presence hovers round here there, ] changed to: [ A holy presence hovers round her there, ]

The second printing also changed the title of the poem [ To Melvin Gardner: Suicide ], on p. 19, to [ To Melvin Gardner: ]--in the text, but not in the table of Contents. This may have been done in deference to the family--attitudes on suicide were once quite different than now--but as it has been quite some time, and the original title gives more meaning to the poem, it has been retained.

The Title of the poem [ Now! ] did not have the exclamation point in the table of Contents. It has been added to match the text. The Title of the poem [ "97": The Fast Mail ] appeared as such in the text, but as ["97:" The Fast Mail ] in the Contents. The latter was changed to match the text.

In the original, the book's title does not separate the Contents from the first poem. It has been placed there as a sort of divider.

In two places ASCII fails to provide enough characters for a correct rendering. They are the words Provencal (the c with a cedilla) and mailed (the e with an acute accent, to indicate that the word is to be said with two syllables). These occur in "Reminiscence" and "The Rattlesnake".

End of Project Gutenberg's Songs, Merry and Sad, by John Charles McNeill