Part 1

THE WOODS

DOUGLAS MALLOCH

THE WOODS

BY DOUGLAS MALLOCH AUTHOR OF “IN FOREST LAND”

NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

Copyright, 1913, By GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

To MY SON DOUGLAS 1902-1909

CONTENTS

Page

Possession 11

When the Geese Come North 13

Spring Fever 14

March 16

Children of the Spring 17

“Life” 20

The Passenger Pigeons 22

June 24

The Bigger Thing 26

The Chickadee 28

Jim 29

Settin’ in the Sun 35

The Pine-Tree Flag 37

Inspiration 40

To a Caged Bird 44

The Chickamauga Oak 45

Summertime 49

Contrast 51

Rain 53

Down Grade 62

Unknown 65

The Irish 67

The Path 70

The Mystery 73

The Playground 78

The Swamper 81

Ashes 84

Sunrise 86

The Wanderers 88

Sylvia 90

The Imitators 92

The Soul 93

Leisure 97

The Sky Pilot 99

The Call of the Woods 101

Brothers and Sons 103

The Snow Is Here 106

The Letter 110

Success 115

Moonrise 116

My Man an’ Me 117

Back on the Job 120

The Sport 123

The Code 126

Memories 127

To-day 130

You 132

The City 134

THE WOODS

POSSESSION

There’s some of us has this world’s goods, An’ some of us has none-- But all of us has got the woods, An’ all has got the sun. So, settin’ here upon the stoop, This patch o’ pine beside, I never care a single whoop-- Fer I am satisfied.

Now, take the pine on yonder hill: It don’t belong to me; The boss he owns the timber--still, It’s there fer me to see. An’, ’twixt the ownin’ of the same An’ smellin’ of its smell, I’ve got the best of that there game, An’ so I’m feelin’ well.

The boss in town unrolls a map An’ proudly says, “It’s mine.” But he don’t drink no maple sap An’ he don’t smell no pine. The boss in town he figgers lands In quarter-sections red; Lord! I just set with folded hands An’ breathe ’em in instead.

The boss his forest wealth kin read In cent an’ dollar sign; His name is written in the deed-- But all his land is mine. There’s some of us has this world’s goods, An’ some of us has none-- But all of us has got the woods, An’ all has got the sun!

WHEN THE GEESE COME NORTH

Their faint “honk-honk” announces them, The geese when they come flying north; Above the far horizon’s hem From out the south they issue forth.

They weave their figures in the sky, They write their name upon its dome, And, o’er and o’er, we hear them cry Their cry of gladness and of home.

Now lakes shall loose their icy hold Upon the banks, and crocus bloom; The sun shall warm the river’s cold And pierce the Winter’s armored gloom;

The vines upon the oaken tree Shall shake their wavy tresses forth, The grass shall wake, the rill go free-- For, see! The geese are flying north!

SPRING FEVER

Not exactly lazy-- Yet I want to sit In the mornin’ hazy An’ jest dream a bit. Haven’t got ambition Fer a single thing-- Regaler condition Ev’ry bloomin’ Spring.

Want to sleep at noontime (Ought to work instead), But along at moontime Hate to go to bed. Find myself a-stealin’ Fer a sunny spot-- Jest that Springy feelin’, That is what I’ve got.

Like to set a-wishin’ Fer a pipe an’ book, Like to go a-fishin’ In a meadow-brook With some fish deceiver, Underneath a tree-- Jest the old Spring fever, That’s what’s ailing me!

MARCH

In what a travail is our Springtime born!-- ’Mid leaden skies and garmenture of gloom. Wild waves of cloud the drifting stars consume And shipless seas of heaven greet the morn. The forest trees stand sad and tempest-torn, Memorials of Summer’s ended bloom; For unto March, the sister most forlorn, No roses come her pathway to illume. Yet ’tis the month the Winter northward flies With one last trumpeting of savage might. Now stirs the earth of green that underlies This other earth enwrapped in garb of white. And while poor March, grown weary, droops and dies The little Springtime opens wide its eyes.

CHILDREN OF THE SPRING

What means the Spring to you?-- The tree, the bloom, the grass; Wide fields to wander through; A primrose path to pass; Bright sun, and skies of blue;

The songs of singing streams; The rippling riverside Awakening from dreams; Fair-browed and azure-eyed-- Oh, thus the Springtime seems.

Yet not for such as you She comes with song and voice, ’Tis not for such as you She makes the heart rejoice, She comes with skies of blue.

Spring’s children are the ill-- ’Tis these she comes to cheer; Upon the window-sill, Within the chamber drear, She sits her song to trill.

On narrow cots they lie Within the quiet room, Their sky a square of sky Cut from the inner gloom, From dreary walls and high.

Spring means so much to these, The prisoners abed!-- The perfume of the breeze, The birdsong overhead, The echoed melodies.

The window open wide-- Behold, the Spring is here! No more the countryside Is dim and dark and drear; Now stronger runs the tide.

The pale and patient wife, Her babe upon her breast, Forgets the night, the knife, And sleeps the sleep of rest, Awakening to life.

The old, the very old, Behold in budding Spring Another year unfold-- And life, a tinsel thing, Is turned again to gold.

And e’en the empty cot, Whose Spring has come too late, The one who now is not, The one who could not wait, The Spring has not forgot.

For, see! the Springtime stands Our drooping eyes to raise To fair and shining strands; The Springtime comes and lays A lily in his hands.

“LIFE”

Man, thrust upon the world, awakes from sleep, Knowing not whence he came nor how nor why. His earliest impulse is an infant cry, His final privilege is that to weep.

A combatant although he sought no strife, A guest unwelcome come unwillingly, Given his vision that he may not see, He names this unnamed paradox his life.

He learns to walk the forest and to love Its green and brown, its song and season’s change, Yet will not taste a berry that is strange Or tread a pathway that he knows not of.

Skeptic and doubter of the flow’r and tree, He questions this and that investigates-- Yet drinks the beaker offered by the fates And leaves unsolved the greater mystery.

THE PASSENGER PIGEONS

Where roam ye now, ye nomads of the air, The old-time heralds of our old-time Springs? Once, when we heard the thunder of your wings, We looked upon the world--and Spring was there.

One time your armies swept across the sky, Your feathered millions in a mighty march Filling with life and music all the arch Where now a lonely swallow flutters by.

Where roam ye now, ye nomads of the air? In what far land? What undiscovered place? Ye may have found the refuge of the race That mortals visit but in dream and prayer.

Perhaps in some blest land ye wing your flight, Now undisturbed by murder and by greed, And there await the coming of the freed Who shall emerge, like ye, from earth and night.

JUNE

I knew that you were coming, June, I knew that you were coming! Among the alders by the stream I heard a partridge drumming; I heard a partridge drumming, June, a welcome with his wings, And felt a softness in the air half Summer’s and half Spring’s.

I knew that you were nearing, June, I knew that you were nearing-- I saw it in the bursting buds of roses in the clearing; The roses in the clearing, June, were blushing pink and red, For they had heard upon the hills the echo of your tread.

I knew that you were coming, June, I knew that you were coming, For ev’ry warbler in the wood a song of joy was humming. I know that you are here, June, I know that you are here-- The fairy month, the merry month, the laughter of the year!

THE BIGGER THING

Jest yesterday I watched an ant A-totin’ in the summer sun; I saw him puff an’ pull an’ pant With little burdens, one by one. A wisp of straw acrost his way Once kept him busy fer an hour, An’ ant-miles long he walked that day To git around a bloomin’ flower. The sand he carried grain by grain-- Great boulders thet he had to lift-- An’, with his engineerin’ brain, He sunk his shaft an’ run his drift. An’ then at night a Bigger Thing, To which the Little Thing must kneel, Creation’s self-appointed king, Wiped out the anthill with its heel. O self-made boss of things thet creep An’ walk an’ fly, an’ yet are mute, When I consider how you keep Your kingdom of the bird an’ brute, When I consider how you speak Your will among the smaller folk An’ send your message to the weak In flyin’ lead an’ flamin’ smoke, When I consider how you stalk The quiet wood with evil breath An’ leave behind you, as you walk, A path of pain an’ trail of death, I wonder how ’twould seem to you, The silent people’s lord an’ king, To tremble when you heard it, too-- The comin’ of some Bigger Thing?

THE CHICKADEE

There’s somethin’ ’bout the chickadee Thet’s, somehow, awful cheerin’; Around the shanty door it bums An’ gethers up the crusts an’ crumbs Cook scatters in the clearin’.

It gethers up the crusts an’ crumbs An’ jest as glad it chatters As if it fed on biscuit fine All soaked in milk er dipped in wine An’ served on silver platters.

My share of life is crusts an’ crumbs I find somehow er other; An’ how I wish thet I could be Like you are, Mr. Chickadee, My cheerful little brother!

JIM

If you go to the lake An’ you follow the road As it turns to the west Of the mill Till you come to a stake A surveyor has throwed Like a knife in the breast Of the hill, An’ you follow the track Till you come to a blaze By the side of the same In a limb, You will light on the shack, In the timber a ways, Of a party whose name It is Jim. In a day that is flown, ’Mid the great an’ the grand, In a time when his hair Wasn’t gray, He was commonly known By a fancier brand In a city back there, So they say. But it’s Jim, only Jim, Is the name thet he gives, When you happen to bring Up the same; It is plenty fer him In the woods where he lives, Fer the man is the thing, Not the name. By the gleam of his eye Thet is steady an’ clear, By the way he will look At you square, You will know thet they lie Who would make it appear He was maybe a crook Over there. In the church I have stood-- Heard of preachin’ a lot Thet I never could much Understand; An’ yet never the good From a sermon I got Thet I got from a clutch Of his hand. I have half an idee Thet, if back you could turn To the start of the trail Fer a spell, Thet a woman you’d see, Thet a lot you would learn-- Thet the regaler tale It would tell Of a fellah too fond, Of a woman too weak, Of another who came To her door-- Then an endless beyond, Lips thet never must speak, An’ a man but a name Evermore. If you go to the town An’ you follow the street, By the glitter an’ glow Of the light, To a mansion of brown Where the music is sweet An’ the lute whispers low To the night, In the dark of a room At the end of a hall, Where the visions of old Flutter in, There she sets in the gloom, She, the Cause of it all, In the midst of her gold An’ her sin. If you go to the lake An’ you follow the road As it turns to the west Of the mill Till you come to a stake A surveyor has throwed Like a knife in the breast Of the hill, An’ you follow the track Till you come to a blaze By the side of the same In a limb, You will light on the shack, In the timber a ways, Of a party whose name It is Jim.

SETTIN’ IN THE SUN

I reckon the party who sets on a throne Has a perfectly miser’ble time; There always is someone a-pickin’ a bone With a king or a monarch sublime. Some calculate maybe that bein’ a king Is a job that is gen’ally fun-- Well, well, it may be, But the best thing, to me, Is jest settin’ right here in the sun.

I reckon the party who sets in the chair, In the President’s chair, an’ all that, Must tote on his person consider’ble care An’ a passel of woe in his hat. Some calculate maybe it’s fun to be boss Or even for office to run-- Well, that may be so, But the best thing I know Is jest settin’ right here in the sun.

I reckon the party who sets up on high He may wish for a moment that’s calm. It’s awful to set there an’ find by-an’-by That you’ve done gone an’ set on a bomb. I calculate, if they should blow up a king, In spite of the good he has done, Nary king he will be; But me, as for me, I’ll be settin’ right here in the sun.

THE PINE-TREE FLAG

Our woodsbred northern women (There were no weaklings there: Maine, Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, their glory share; They were New England women, as brave as they were fair)--

Our woodsbred northern women (They sent their sires and sons, The husbands of their bosoms, their well-beloved ones, To dare the foeman’s anger and to face the foeman’s guns)--

Our woodsbred northern women (whose men went forth to war) Wove ’mid the woods a banner their bairns and brothers bore, Wove ’mid the woods a banner to carry on before.

Our woodsbred northern women wove not in red or gold; There were no stripes of crimson, no constellations bold; It was a simpler pattern their aspirations told.

Our woodsbred northern women a simpler flag disclose; Upon the snowy linen like their New England snows, By women’s hands embroidered, a single pine-tree rose.

Our woodsbred northern women knew naught of warlike things, The bloody skill of soldiers, the heavy pomp of kings; They knew no better music than that the pine-tree sings.

Our woodsbred northern women (There were no weaklings there) Wove not a blood-red banner for sire and son to bear-- But northern snow, and pine-tree, and purity, and pray’r.

Our woodsbred northern women (whose men went forth to war) Sent them not forth in passion to fight on sea and shore But with a holy purpose gave up the sons they bore.

Our woodsbred northern women, no more against the skies Your strange, unwarlike banner in cause or conflict flies; But we see your souls courageous in your children’s children’s eyes.

INSPIRATION

A poet sang of human things, Of gorgeous queens and mighty kings, And gems that glisten; He praised the brassy front of show, The ruby’s fire and diamond’s glow, Yet none would listen.

He wove him many labored rimes Of ended days and coming times, Of deeds that stirred him; He wrote of pomp and circumstance, The flap of flag, the light of lance, But no one heard him.

And thus he learned to know the pain Of him who sings but sings in vain To ears averted, Like one who wakes his sweetest tone To unresponsive walls of stone In halls deserted.

When all the merry melodies He sang his fellow men to please Brought none to hear him, He turned from splendor and from pelf To sing a measure for himself, A song to cheer him.

He wrote a song of long ago-- A vale where yellow lilies grow Beside a river, A path that leads the weary feet Where meadowland and waters meet And rushes quiver.

He wrote a song of childhood days, Of pleasant shade and wooded ways And summer quiet-- A bridge that spanned a gushing rill, A humble cot upon a hill, With roses by it.

’Twas not the creature of his art, This song upwelling from his heart In moments lonely; With memory his eyes grew dim, For then his own soul sang to him, The poet only.

But other mortals heard his tale Of woodland path and verdant vale To heaven winging, And men who scorned his song before Sought out the poet’s open door To hear him singing.

Thus came to him his mistress Fame, Clad in her aureole of flame And smile supernal; No more a fleeting vision now, She placed upon the singer’s brow The kiss eternal.

And then the poet, fool and sage, Turned gently from his written page, While bravos thundered, And, when he saw the listening throng Of those who once had spurned his song, He greatly wondered.

TO A CAGED BIRD

Voice of the forest, tongue by which it speaks The throbbing gladness of its vernal time, No more, no more, your rising pinion seeks The heights sublime.

Voice of the forest, once your gay wings beat Against the mountain diademed with stars; Now do men bid you sing a song as sweet To prison bars.

Only a singer that they, passing, heard And then desired, like book and pipe and bowl-- Knowing nor caring when they cage a bird They cage a soul.

THE CHICKAMAUGA OAK

September came with harvest sun, The alchemist of old, Across the fields of green to run And turn them into gold. But here was neither corn nor grain, Nor need of alchemist, For verdant vale and upland plain No busy plow had kissed.

The men who once had turned the sod And scattered here the seed O’er other hills and valleys trod To serve their dearest creed. A hotter sun shone overhead, The cannon’s sulphur breath; They sowed the seed whose bloom is red And final fruit is death.

Here stood the Chickamauga oak That cool September morn And from its night of sleep awoke To hear the blare of horn, To hear the tramp of marching feet, The steady clank of steel, The hoofbeats of the horses fleet And rumble of the wheel.

Around it broke the crimson gale, Up rose the clouds of war; Down poured the slanted sheets of hail On Chickamauga’s shore. Red lightning flashed from barking gun While cannon thundered by, And son and sire and sire and son Exchanged their battle cry.

Above them neutral still it stood, The Chickamauga oak, Nor questioned whose the purpose good And whose the wrongful stroke; And, when the line of battle passed Where broke the storm anew, Impartially its shade it cast On fallen gray and blue.

The battle long is ended now, The fife and drum are still; Again the men of Georgia plow The fertile field and hill. Again the bright September sun Turns waving grain to gold And still the crystal waters run As in the days of old.

Still stands the Chickamauga oak-- But now beneath its shade Lie those who parried stroke and stroke And wielded blade and blade. For north and south, for blue and gray, Impartially it grieves, And lays on both their graves to-day The cerement of its leaves.

SUMMERTIME

The leaves upon the alders clapped their hands, their little hands-- An errant breeze had teased them into laughter. A ray of sun went dancing o’er the lands, the fertile lands, The perfume of a rose came running after. The waters of the river caught their smile, their cheery smile, And rippled joy to ev’ry merry comer. A robin fluttered softly to the stile, the shady stile, And raised his head to sing a song of Summer.

A dainty maid came tripping o’er the grass, the springing grass, The alder touched her gently on the shoulder. The zephyr kissed the tresses of the lass, the little lass, The saucy ray of sun was even bolder. The waters came to meet her, lapped her feet, her tiny feet, The roses threw their perfume all around her. ’Twas then I knew the Summertime, the Summertime complete-- ’Tis Summertime forever since I found her!

CONTRAST