Works

A Voice From the Interior of Old Hoop-Pole Township


Friend of my earliest youth,
Can't you arrange to come down
And visit a fellow out here in the woods -
Out of the dust of the town?...

AFTER HIS LONG SILENCE

Dear old friend of us all in need
Who know the worth of a friend indeed,
How rejoiced are we all to learn
Of your glad return.

We who have missed your voice so long -...

Tinkle on, O sweet guitar,
Let the dancing fingers
Loiter where the low notes are
Blended with the singer's:
Let the midnight pour the moon's
Mellow wine of glory
Down upon him through the tune's...

The bookman he's a humming-bird -
His feasts are honey-fine, -
(With hi! hilloo!
And clover-dew
And roses lush and rare!)
Hiss roses are the phrase and word
Of olden tomes divine;...

I'm one o' these cur'ous kind o' chaps
You think you know when you don't, perhaps!
I hain't no fool - ner I don't p'tend
To be so smart I could rickommend
Myself fer a CONGERSSMAN my friend! -...

I.

Tugg Martin's tough. - No doubt o' that!
And down there at
The town he come from word's bin sent
Advisin' this-here Settle-ment
To kindo' humor Tugg, and not
To git him hot -...

Ho! the old Snow-Man
That Noey Bixler made!
He looked as fierce and sassy
As a soldier on parade! -
'Cause Noey, when he made him,
While we all wuz gone, you see,
He made him, jist a-purpose,...

Marcellus, won't you tell us -
Truly tell us, if you can, -
What will you be, Marcellus,
When you get to be a man?

You turn, with never answer
But to the band that plays. -...

Up and down old Brandywine,
In the days 'at's past and gone -
With a dad-burn hook-and line
And a saplin' pole - swawn!
I've had more fun, to the square
Inch, than ever ANYwhere!...

Wait for the morning: - It will come, indeed,
As surely as the night hath given need.
The yearning eyes, at last, will strain their sight
No more unanswered by the morning light;...

Lawzy! don't I rickollect
That-'air old swing in the lane!
Right and proper, I expect,
Old times can't come back again;
But I want to state, ef they
Could come back, and I could say...

"Want to be whur mother is! Want to be whur mother is!"
Jeemses Rivers! won't some one ever shet that howl o' his?
That-air yellin' drives me wild!
Cain't none of ye stop the child?...

And you're the poet of this concern?
I've seed your name in print
A dozen times, but I'll be dern
I'd 'a' never 'a' took the hint
O' the size you are - fer I'd pictured you
A kind of a tallish man -...

We are not always glad when we smile:
Though we wear a fair face and are gay,
And the world we deceive
May not ever believe
We could laugh in a happier way. -
Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,...

"Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief."


We must believe -
Being from birth endowed with love and trust -
Born unto loving; - and how simply just...

We must get home! How could we stray like this? -
So far from home, we know not where it is, -
Only in some fair, apple-blossomy place
Of children's faces - and the mother's face -...

"Rain and rain! And rain and rain!"
Yesterday we muttered
Grimly as the grim refrain
That the thunders uttered:
All the heavens under cloud -
All the sunshine sleeping;
All the grasses limply bowed...

"Rain and rain! and rain and rain!"
Yesterday we muttered
Grimly as the grim refrain
That the thunders uttered:
All the heavens under cloud -
All the sunshine sleeping;
All the grasses limply bowed...

It hain't no use to grumble and complane;
It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice. -
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
W'y, rain's my choice.

Men ginerly, to all intents -...

Wintertime, er Summertime,
Of late years I notice I'm,
Kindo'-like, more subjec' to
What the weather is. Now, you
Folks 'at lives in town, I s'pose,
Thinks its bully when it snows;...